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 ?^o 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 IF I owe any apology to my readers for publishing 
 this series of unconnected papers and essays, I must 
 be content to plead the request of many friends, and 
 frequent applications from strangers, to have such a 
 collection made. For, although much of what is now 
 printed with my name originally appeared anony- 
 mously, and under the shelter of editorial responsi- 
 bility, its authorship has been pretty generally known, 
 and never disavowed. This is not uncommon in re- 
 views ; and yet there is a convenience in the advan- 
 tages of such a position ; for it enables the writer to 
 speak with a confidence, and sometimes with a bold- 
 ness, from which he would shrink, if he spoke in his 
 own person, and not as the representative of certain 
 principles, embodied in a collective responsibility. 
 
 The greater part, in fact, of the essays now pre- 
 sented to the public, have appeared as papers in the 
 Dublin Review ; and they preserve in this collection 
 their primitive form. This has been done, not merely 
 to escape the trouble of changing the plural into the 
 singular number, but because I feel that the plural 
 preserves a modesty of tone, and a reserve of opinion, 
 which was originally intended, and would be lost by 
 any change of forms. For, as I have intimated, the 
 Dublin Review is the exponent of a system of views, 
 to which, rather than to individual speculations, each 
 contributor's writings should be referred.
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 It was in 1836 that the idea of commencing a Catho- 
 lic quarterly was first conceived by the late learned and 
 excellent Mr. Quin, who applied to the illustrious 
 O'Connell and myself to join in the undertaking. I 
 was in England only for a short time, and saw the 
 difficulty of connecting myself with an enterprise so 
 far removed from my permanent residence in Rome. 
 Still, I saw the importance of such an organ of Catholic 
 principles and sentiments, and gladly consented to 
 become a member of this littlfc association. The first 
 number appeared in May, 1836, before I left this 
 country. The two gentlemen with whom I was asso- 
 ciated were laymen : the one living in the very 
 whirlpool of existing politics, the other a man of 
 letters, with a prospect, I believe, of receiving an im- 
 portant foreign employment from Government ; both 
 were sincerely attached to their faith and Church. 
 I considered myself as associated to represent the 
 theological and religious elements in the journal, and 
 to secure to its pages soundness of doctrine. It was 
 understood to be a condition of this association, that 
 no extreme political views should be introduced into 
 the Review ; and this condition has, in most trying 
 times, been faithfully observed. 
 
 A few years of separation virtually, and afterwards 
 death most really, sundered this bond; and I find 
 myself the only survivor of those who began an un- 
 dertaking that has grown to some magnitude looking 
 back through thirty-three volumes, or sixty-seven 
 numbers, of a periodical work, undertaken for a great 
 purpose, and having to account for my share of re- 
 sponsibility in it, and answer whether I have remained 
 faithful to its first principles, and steady to its object. 
 
 While obeying the suggestions of others, by pre- 
 paring the present publication, I have had ample
 
 PREFACE. Vil 
 
 opportunity of examining this question ; and I trust 
 I may be indulged if I make such observations upon 
 it as may throw light upon the collection of papers 
 here reprinted. 
 
 The moment when I was invited to join in this new 
 review appeared to me most critical and interesting. 
 Three years before, had begun to manifest themselves 
 the germs of that wonderful movement which, origi- 
 nating at Oxford, was destined to pervade and agitate 
 the Anglican Establishment, till it should give up 
 many of its most loving and gifted sons to the Catholic 
 Church; peculiar circumstances, allusion to which 
 will be found in a note in vol. ii. pp. 93 and 102, had 
 made me at Rome previously acquainted with the rise 
 and progress of this great religious revolution ; and I 
 had been surprised, on visiting England in 1835, to 
 find how little attention it had yet excited among 
 Catholics, though many Tracts for the Times had 
 already appeared, and Dr. Whateley had sung out to 
 their writers, " Tendimus in Latium." It was, indeed, 
 impossible for any one to foresee what might be the 
 final results of so new and strange a commotion in the 
 hitherto stagnant element of the State-religion. Even 
 now, after twenty years, and notwithstanding the 
 many great consequences which have already issued 
 from it, its activity is not exhausted. The impulse 
 given by the first Tract still urges on the body which 
 it struck ; and it will roll forward for a long time to 
 come, while fragments detach themselves, and run 
 before it, towards the goal which we pray it may all 
 attain. But even in that first bud of the rising 
 power, it was impossible for a calm and hopeful 
 eye not to see new signs in the religious firmament, 
 which it became a duty to observe, unless one 
 wished to incur the Divine reproach, addressed to
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 those who note not the providential warnings and 
 friendly omens of the spiritual heavens. Por Catho- 
 lics to have overlooked all this, and allowed the 
 wonderful phenomenon to pass by, not turned to any 
 useful purpose, but gazed at, till it died out, would 
 have been more than stupidity, it would have been 
 wickedness. To watch its progress, to observe its phases, 
 to influence, if possible, its direction, to move it gently 
 towards complete attainment of its unconscious aims ; 
 and, moreover, to protest against its errors, to warn 
 against its dangers, to provide arguments against its 
 new modes of attack, and to keep lifted up the mask 
 of beauty under which it had, in sincerity, covered the 
 ghastly and soul-less features of Protestantism ; these 
 were the duties which the new E/eview undertook to 
 perform, or which, in no small degree, it was expressly 
 created to discharge. And the necessity of attending 
 to these new duties formed the strongest inducement 
 to myself to undertake its theological direction. 
 
 At the same time, Catholics had begun to recover 
 from that first torpor, which benumbs, for a time, the 
 limbs just freed from fetters. Signs of a more active 
 circulation had shown themselves : communities were 
 springing up ; schools were beginning to be multi- 
 plied ; new missions were opened ; churches, upon a 
 scale of size and of embellishment previously unknown, 
 were contemplated or begun; and the people were 
 evidently manifesting more interest in our religion, 
 and a more fair disposition to hear and judge it 
 justly. It seemed the favourable moment to strike 
 another chord, and stir up a spirit yet slumbering, but 
 ready to awake. The Catholic religion as she is in 
 the fulness of her growth, with the grandeur of her 
 ritual, the beauty of her devotions, the variety of her 
 institutions, required to be made more known to
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 many who had never seen her other than she had 
 been reduced, by three hundred years of barbarous 
 persecution. 
 
 Nothing could so adequately seize on these two 
 great objects, and securely promote them, as a quarterly 
 periodical. The length of articles which it would 
 admit would give it power to discuss any topic in 
 sufficient extent, beyond that of a newspaper or maga- 
 zine ; while it would be able to return again and again 
 to the same subject, follow its course and developments, 
 keep it before the public mind, and work out its applica- 
 tions advantages which a work, once written and 
 complete, could not possibly possess. 
 
 Por any one feeling a deep interest in promoting 
 these two purposes, holding it for a matter of duty to 
 devote himself, if in his power, to their success ; and 
 conscious that earnestness, hopefulness, and much 
 consideration of their details, and some experience in 
 them, gave him some advantage, for any one so feeling 
 to have refused participation in the proposed work, 
 from fear of presumption, would have been a weakness, 
 almost a baseness. It was therefore with a strong 
 desire, and a sincere determination, to make the 
 Dublin Heview the organ and the promoter of Ca- 
 tholic progress, within and without; it was with a 
 conscientious resolution that its theology should 
 belong to the present day, that is, should treat of 
 living questions, and existing controversies, should 
 grapple with real antagonists, \vrestle with tangible 
 errors, that I agreed to turn from studies long pur- 
 sued, and ardently cherished, to the anxious care 
 and desultory occupation involved in the direction 
 of such a publication. Works not only long contem- 
 plated, but for which materials had been gathered with 
 diligence, were given up at this period, in consequence
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 of time and attention being more required for passing 
 events and current literature. 
 
 At the same time, it was necessary to mingle with 
 these pursuits others of a less severe character, though 
 generally of a religious tendency. Our religion is 
 attacked in every possible way in books of travel, in 
 works on history, in fictitious stories. To such assaults 
 it was necessary to pay attention ; in a style, however, 
 more proportioned to the matter and character of the 
 writers reviewed. 
 
 According, therefore, to this triple distribution of 
 subjects, this collection has been formed. The first 
 volume contains papers chiefly supposing Catholic 
 readers. It begins with scriptural essays, to complete 
 a series, whereof it has been found necessary to add 
 one, in an appendix to the third volume, from a later 
 number of the Review, than those which have fur- 
 nished materials for the present work. It closes with 
 papers intended to bring out the beauties of the 
 Catholic ritual, of Catholic practices, and of Catholic 
 devotions. 
 
 The second volume, with the exception of its last 
 article, is exclusively occupied with the High-church 
 question, or what used to be called, the Oxford con- 
 troversy. In the very first number of the Review 
 appeared the first paper on this subject ; and this was 
 kept steadily in view through the succeeding volumes, 
 till it might be said to be fairly closed. But on this 
 subject I will take the liberty of saying a few words 
 in a special preface to that volume. 
 
 Finally, the third volume is made up of papers and 
 essays of a more miscellaneous character historical, 
 artistical, archaeological, and controversial. Less unity 
 of purpose or continuity of thought will naturally be 
 here expected. And if, in this republication, a con-
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 siderable number of former writings have been omitted, 
 it has been chiefly because they have lost an interest 
 which passing circumstances gave them, or they were 
 deemed even less worthy than what has been selected, 
 to be snatched from their repose in the volumes of the 
 Review. For I feel it a duty, rather than a satis- 
 faction, to say, that on looking over this collection of 
 papers, stretching over a period of seventeen years, 
 covering that critical period of life which comprises 
 the maturity of youthful vigour, and the commence- 
 ment of intellectual decline, the age of bold thoughts, 
 and that of cautious emendations, I have not found 
 an opinion or a feeling that I have ceased to enter- 
 tain. What was but hope may have ripened into 
 fulfilment but I see no reason to regret that I 
 hoped : what was implored may have since been 
 granted but I have no cause to grieve that I en- 
 treated : what was a suggestion may have grown into 
 a reality but I cannot be sorry that the suggestion 
 was made. Things and persons and circumstances 
 may have changed much, so that one cannot, and 
 must not, feel now as then : but it is a consolation to 
 have still the conviction that one did feel right then, 
 because those feelings were the necessary germs of 
 what we know to be right now. 
 
 To express this, I have said is a duty : and this 
 may require some explanation. I will give it, on the 
 Oxford question in my second preface : I must give it 
 briefly here, on the other portions of this collection. 
 Were it hinted that such consistency of sentiment was 
 to be attributed to firmness of character, or depth of 
 previous reflection, or early maturity of judgment, in 
 the writer, it would be merely a boast, as misplaced, 
 as it would be false. Only a principle could stand the 
 test of so many years ; and in religious ideas only one
 
 Xll PllEFACE. 
 
 principle can remain unchangeable. It is to render 
 homage to this truth that I consider it a duty. Look- 
 ing back over this long term of years, remembering 
 how one fixed determination formed my whole stock 
 of principles for theory and practice, and seeing how 
 faithfully it has supplied the want of much learning, 
 the absence of brilliant gifts, the dearth of popular 
 topics, and deficiency in popular arts, I have surely a 
 right to prize it above all these advantages, and con- 
 sider it as a part of that heavenly wisdom which God 
 refuses to none in his Church. And this was the 
 determination to keep strictly under her guidance, to 
 prize her orthodox teaching beyond all seductive 
 theories, all brilliant paradoxes, all palliating expla- 
 nations ; to love Catholic truth, simple and unmodified 
 as found at its centre, as practised by artless believers ; 
 to look there for purity of doctrine and accuracy of 
 observance, where God has left the richest deposit for 
 the future resurrection, in the ashes of His Apostles. 
 This unbounded devotion to Christ's one Church, this 
 undeviating adherence to her supreme Ruler, has been 
 the chart and compass by which I have endeavoured 
 to sail; and, while I humbly trust that not a word 
 will be found in these volumes discordant with her 
 teaching, her maxims, her desires, her thoughts, I 
 submit to her correction all that is here written, and 
 beg every obscurity or dubiousness to be interpreted on 
 this principle. 
 
 To this one elementary principle, which a child may 
 have as easily as a man, I exclusively attribute any 
 good results which may have flowed from these essays ; 
 I cannot indeed, without ingratitude, reject the con- 
 solations received from effects attributed to them ; for 
 I fear that my readers will wonder sometimes at 
 finding wants mentioned now so well supplied, and
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 feelings suggested long become so familiar, that the 
 very memory of our deficiencies has faded away. 
 More than half a generation has passed by since those 
 passages were written, which now describe an un- 
 known state of things. And if their words had some 
 influence in producing the change, their power lay in 
 this .alone, that they were sincere, cordial, and affec- 
 tionate descriptions of realities often witnessed by the 
 writer, deeply admired, and tenderly loved ; they were 
 words of truth and of charity, which ever bear with 
 them their own evidences and convictions, straight to 
 the minds of all. 
 
 That the many imperfections of so miscellaneous a 
 collection may be elaborately investigated and severely 
 handled, I am fully prepared to expect. I have long 
 ceased to anticipate fair dealing from those who look 
 upon me as an enemy, and think it their duty to treat 
 me as such. Custom, however, inures us to this ; and 
 I trust that I shall have patience to bear it to the 
 end. And nothing helps one more to this than a 
 consciousness that no bitterness of thought, or personal 
 rancour, or desire to wound, has guided one's own 
 pen or intentions. Should any words of mine suggest 
 a different impression, I shall sincerely regret it. 
 
 With these words of peace, I take leave of my 
 courteous reader ; wishing him, from above, all grace 
 and blessing, as I bid him to implore for me all 
 mercy and forgiveness. 
 
 EASTER, MDCCCLIII.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Two LETTERS ON SOME PARTS OF THE CONTROVERSY CON- 
 CERNING THE GENUINENESS OF 1 JOHN v. 7 (with Plate) 1 
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE 71 
 
 THE PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 101 
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 165 
 
 LETTERS TO JOHN POYNDER, ESQ., UPON HIS WORK ENTITLED 
 
 " POPERY IN ALLIANCE WITH HEATHENISM" 245 
 
 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE IN SOUTH AMERICA 299 
 
 A PAPER ON ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION 337 
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE 357 
 
 ON PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS 375 
 
 ON NATIONAL HOLYDAYS 431 
 
 ESSAY ON THE MINOR KITES AND OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Parti 469 
 
 ESSAY ON THE MINOR RITES AND OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Part II 507 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY 537 
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT . 575
 
 N 
 
 Hj 
 
 1 
 
 Fd i 
 
 C=3 
 
 ^/ 
 
 r
 
 TWO LETTERS 
 
 ON 
 
 SOME PARTS OF THE CONTROVERSY 
 
 CONCERNING THE GENUINENESS OF 
 
 1 JOHN v. 7. 
 
 " And there are Three who give testimony in Heaven ; the Father, the 
 Word, and the Holy Ghost ; and these Three are One." 
 
 CONTAINING ALSO 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRST LATIN VERSION 
 OF SCRIPTURE, COMMONLY CALLED 
 
 "THE ITALA."
 
 THE two following letters were first published in the 
 " Catholic Magazine," in 1832-3. They were repub- 
 lished in Borne in 1835, with some additions. The 
 author was led into the discussion which they contain, 
 by a correspondence in which he had been engaged 
 with the late Dr. Burgess, bishop of St. David's, re- 
 specting MSS. which contain 1 John v. 7. 
 
 The discussion of the country of the first Latin ver- 
 sion of Scripture, though incidental to the original 
 inquiry, may be said to become the primary subject of 
 these letters. These letters suppose the reader to be 
 acquainted with the outline of the controversy upon 
 the text in question. Its genuineness was impugned 
 in the last century by English and German critics ; 
 and these essays pretend to nothing more than the 
 collection of additional evidence in its favour, from the 
 authority of Latin MSS. This will account for the 
 abrupt rush, at once, into the subject ; and for the 
 absence of any popular explanations of terms. In 
 fact, they were intended more to be materials for 
 scholars to consider, than finished dissertations on the 
 controversies, and, with few verbal changes, they are 
 left in the same form.
 
 TWO LETTERS 
 
 ON 
 
 1 JOHN v. 7, 
 
 COMMONLY CALLED THE THREE WITNESSES. 
 
 LETTER THE PIKST. 
 
 To the Editor of the " Catholic Magazine" 
 
 DEAR SIR, A periodical like yours is the most 
 appropriate channel of information upon such points 
 of sacred literature as, from their partial and detached 
 nature, may not deserve a separate publication. Hence 
 I shall make no apology to you, or your readers, for 
 transmitting to you a few remarks upon some parts 
 of the important controversy regarding the celebrated 
 verse, 1 John v. 7 : though they will be rather thrown 
 together in the form of loose notes, than arranged as 
 a complete dissertation. Indeed, I foresee, at the 
 outset, that my letters will be extremely desultory, 
 and that I shall probably be led to give my humble 
 opinion upon several points, not immediately connected 
 with the principal object of my inquiries. 
 
 Perhaps the strongest portion of the evidence in 
 favour of this long-controverted passage consists in 
 the authority of Latin testimonies, the Vulgate, and 
 the Latin ^Fathers. The adversaries of the verse have 
 been compelled to acknowledge that the majority of 
 Latin manuscripts contain it; but have, in reply,
 
 6 TWO LETTERS 
 
 contended that it is wanting in the most ancient. 
 Dr. Person insists upon this argument in the following 
 terms : "To which side shall we give credit, to age or 
 to numbers ? On the one side, the witnesses are 
 grave, elderly persons, who lived nearer the time when 
 the fact happened which they assert, and they are all 
 consistent in their testimony, while the other party, 
 vastly superior in numbers, yet lived too late to be 
 competently acquainted with the cause." 8 And what 
 is the respective antiquity attributed by this learned 
 writer to each class of testimonies ? Erom his obser- 
 vations upon the two Harleian MSS., he seems to 
 consider the verse as not existing in any Latin manu- 
 script anterior to the tenth century : for he says : 
 " In the Harleian catalogue, No. 7,551 contains three 
 copies of the first Epistle of St. John. The first copy 
 seems to be of the tenth century, {he second of the 
 ninth, and both omit the heavenly witnesses. " b On 
 the other hand, the oldest manuscript which he men- 
 tions, as wanting the verse, is the celebrated Lec- 
 tionary published by Mabillon, held to be about 1,200 
 years old, or of the seventh century. "With the dates 
 thus fixed by Porson, the sentiments of Griesbach 
 appear to coincide. These are his words : " Codices 
 Latini ante sseculum nonum scripti versum septimum 
 plane non habent a prima manu . . . Invenitur in 
 nonnullis saBculo decimo exaratis; fortasse etiam (a 
 prima manu) in uno et altero ssec. nono scripto, 
 siquidem de eorum setate recte judicarunt, qui eos 
 tractaverunt." d 
 
 Mr. Home, in treating this subject, commits a sin- 
 
 a Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, in answer to his .defence of 
 the three heavenly witnesses. Lond. 1790, p. 154. 
 b Page 152. c Page 153. 
 
 d Nov. Testam. ed. Lond. 1818, vol. ii. p. 640.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 7 
 
 gular oversight, easily accounted for in a compiler 
 not always careful to reconcile together the jarring 
 passages he has collected from different writers. He 
 says : " The passage does not appear in any (Latin) 
 manuscripts written before the tenth century" After 
 a few lines, in the same page and paragraph, he pro- 
 ceeds to say : " After the eighth century, the insertion 
 becomes general. Por manuscripts written after that 
 period have generally, though not always, the passage 
 in the body of the text." 6 The Latin manuscripts of 
 the period intervening between these two dates, or 
 written in the ninth century, must be exceedingly 
 curious documents. Do they contain or omit the 
 verse? If they contain it, his first assertion is 
 incorrect ; if they omit it, his second. 
 
 It is obviously a matter of the greatest importance 
 that all accessible evidence upon this important ques- 
 tion should be laid before the public, and my principal 
 object in now addressing you is to communicate 
 observations upon two Latin manuscripts, of a date 
 anterior to any hitherto attributed to those containing 
 the verse, by the opposers of its genuineness ; which, 
 however, will be shown to contain it. 
 
 The first document to which I beg to call the atten- 
 tion of critics is a beautiful manuscript of the Vulgate, 
 preserved in the venerable Benedictine monastery of 
 La Cava, situated between Naples and Salerno. The 
 archives of this ancient house contain upwards of 
 30,000 parchment rolls, commencing at a very early 
 period ; the library also possesses several valuable 
 manuscripts. One of these is the Vulgate alluded to ; 
 and when visiting that part of Italy some years ago, 
 I turned aside to the monastery, chiefly for the pur- 
 
 e Introduction to the critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy 
 Scriptures. 6th ed. Lond. 1828, vol. iv. p. 468.
 
 8 TWO LETTERS 
 
 pose of inspecting it. I have, however, found still 
 more favourable opportunity to study its text; for 
 the indefatigable librarian of the Vatican, Monsignor 
 Mai, f considered this MS. of sufficient value to deserve 
 an exact transcription. This was ordered by Pope 
 Leo XII., and in the course of last summer (1831), 
 the last sheets were deposited in the Vatican Library 
 by Father Hossi, the archivist of La Cava. It will be 
 difficult, at a distance, to estimate the accuracy and 
 trouble with which this transcript has been effected. 
 It contains the Old and New Testaments, copied line 
 for line and word for word, with an exact imitation of 
 its painted and ornamental parts. Besides making 
 two such exact copies of the manuscript, the indus- 
 trious archivist has, in two years, classified the entire 
 archives, and drawn up, in eleven columns, a descriptive 
 catalogue of 9,000 documents. 
 
 The inspection made of the original manuscript was 
 too hurried to authorize me to draw any conclusions 
 regarding the antiquity to which it may aspire. It is 
 written on a beautiful vellum, in large quarto ; each 
 page, like the celebrated Vatican MS. (1209), contains 
 three columns. There is no division between the words 
 except by an occasional point. The character is exceed- 
 ingly minute ; the initial letters of paragraphs are some- 
 what larger and stand out of the lines ; the marginal 
 notes are written so small as to require a good lens in 
 order to decipher them. A very detailed description has, 
 however, been published of our manuscript by the Abbe 
 Rozan, who has carefully collected all those character- 
 istics which can have any weight in deciding its age. g 
 The following is the result of his investigation. 
 
 f Now Cardinal. 
 
 g Lettre a M. le Bibliothccaire de la Bibliotheque du Eoi a 
 Naples. 1822.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 9 
 
 Of the thirty-one characteristics noticed by him, 
 thirteen are mentioned in the Traite de Diplomatique 
 as decisive of very high antiquity ; five as designating 
 a period anterior to the ninth century ; three as indi- 
 cative of at least the eighth ; four as decisive of the 
 seventh at- latest ; and four as characteristic of the 
 sixth. The two remaining ones are too vague to be 
 of any use. h It is true that the Abbe* E/ozan himself 
 suggests some difficulties in the way of attributing an 
 excessive antiquity to this manuscript, grounded prin- 
 cipally upon the small size and minuscular form of 
 some of the letters. But he solves these objections by 
 citing examples of similar letters in manuscripts of the 
 fifth century ; and it is with extreme surprise that his 
 readers find him concluding that this MS. is only one 
 thousand years old. This conclusion seems, from his 
 expressions, to proceed, not so much from his pre- 
 mises, as from his fear to be thought extravagant in 
 his praise. 1 Indeed, it may not be out of place to re- 
 mark, that many mistakes may be committed through 
 the idea, too prevalent since the promulgation of the 
 Maurist diplomatic canons, that majuscular letters 
 exclusively were prevalent in the early centuries. 
 Some more current character must have -been in ordi- 
 nary use ; and a strong evidence of this is to be found 
 in a most valuable manuscript of St. Hilary, preserved 
 in the Archivium of the Chapter of St. Peter's ; at the 
 end of which is a note, in a character as connected and 
 rapid as any modern could be supposed to write, to 
 the following effect : " Contuli in nomine Domini Jesu 
 Christ! apud Kasulis constitutus, anno quartodecimo 
 Transamundi regis." j This note was therefore written 
 
 h Pp. 136144. j Page 148. 
 
 J A fac-simile of the MS. of St. Hilary and of this valuable inscrip- 
 tion may be seen in Monsignor Mai's Symmachus. Home, 1823.
 
 10 TWO LETTERS 
 
 in the year 509, and consequently the manuscript, 
 whose recensor added it, must still be more ancient. 
 Now the forms of the letters in this valuable manuscript 
 resemble much those of the La Cava manuscript ; and 
 upon the strength of this similarity the learned and 
 experienced Monsignor Mai has no hesitation in con- 
 sidering the latter as of the seventh century at latest : 
 it may be even more ancient. The antiquity of this 
 document is still further confirmed by the peculiarities 
 of its text, which, however, is that of St. Jerome. 
 
 I will now proceed to give the portion of the first 
 Epistle of St. John, which contains the verse of the 
 three Heavenly Witnesses, commencing at the fourth 
 verse of the fifth chapter, and preserving the exact 
 order and orthography of the words, and its marginal 
 annotations : 
 
 Quoniam homne quod natum est ex deo vincit mundum 
 dicat^reaturam Fides nra. Q,uis est autem qui vincit mundum nisi 
 
 qui credit quia* Ihs filius dei est. hie est qui venit 
 
 * Si veritas quo P er a( l uam et sanguinem et spm Ihs xps 
 
 modo creatura quum jt non in aqua solum sed in aqua et sanguine et spu. 
 
 creatura vera es _ _ 
 
 se possit. denique Spiritus* est qui testificatur. qam Ihs est veritas. 
 
 r^Stw ge uod Q uia tres sunt < l ui testimonium dant in terra. 
 veritas sit. Spiritus et aqua et sanguis : et hii tres hunum sunt. 
 
 in xpo Ihu. Et tres sunt qui testimonium dicunt 
 
 * Audiat hoc arius in caelo. Pater, verbum. et sps. et* hii tres hunum 
 
 sunt. Si testimonium hominum accipimus etc. 
 
 A few simple observations will close the account of 
 this interesting document. 
 
 1. In the fourth verse we have a very remarkable 
 example of the power of that " all-devouring monster 
 omoioteleuton" as I think Person somewhere face- 
 tiously calls it. To less experienced readers, it may 
 be necessary to mention, that, in sacred as in profane
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 11 
 
 criticism, one of the most fertile sources of omission in 
 manuscripts is a similarity of words occurring near to 
 one another. The transcriber's eye is taken from his 
 original at the first passage, and upon returning to it, 
 catches by mistake the same word lower down, and 
 thus the whole intermediate portion is omitted in the 
 transcript. This similarity of termination constitutes 
 what is technically called an omoioteleuton. It is 
 generally supposed, by the writers in defence of our 
 verse, that it has been lost in Greek manuscripts by a 
 mistake of this sort, in consequence of the passage 
 immediately preceding it ending with the same words. 
 Now, as has just been remarked, our manuscript, in 
 the two first lines above transcribed, affords us an 
 interesting illustration of the facility of such a mis- 
 take. Before Fides nostra are omitted the words, 
 et hac est victoria qua vincit mundum ; doubtless 
 because the preceding clause ended likewise with 
 vincit mundum, so that the copyist's eye was misled. 
 How easily might a similar mistake have been com- 
 mitted at the seventh verse ! 
 
 2. In this manuscript, the eighth verse comes before 
 the seventh ; and Griesbach has, in fact, remarked, 
 that this is the case in the most ancient manu- 
 scripts. "Antiquiores fere anteponunt comma octa- 
 vum septimo." k 
 
 3. The dogmatical use made of this text in the mar- 
 gin is likewise worthy of very particular attention. 
 The very earnest manner in which every argument for 
 the Divinity of Christ seems urged by the writer of the 
 notes, would almost lead us to suppose that they were 
 written during the Arian controversy. The energetic 
 and pithy annotation, audiat hoc Arius et ceteri, 
 
 k Ubi sup.
 
 12 TWO LETTERS 
 
 demonstrates better than the longest commentary 
 could have done, the force which the writer attributed 
 to our verse, and the total absence from his mind of 
 any doubt of its genuineness. The second note may 
 appear a little obscure, from the omission of the 
 second member of an antithesis. It says that a 
 creature might indeed be said to be true, but could not 
 with propriety be called the truth. 
 
 To conclude, we have here a Latin manuscript which 
 contains the verse, anterior by at least three centuries 
 to the age allowed by its adversaries for its admission 
 into the text : and the document shows, at the same 
 time, the dogmatical use made of the passage. 
 
 The second authority to which I wish to call the 
 attention of critics is of still greater interest; it is 
 that, not merely of a scriptural manuscript, but of an 
 ancient author, quoting it for the express purpose of 
 demonstrating the Trinity. 
 
 In the library of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, is 
 preserved a manuscript containing two ecclesiastical 
 treatises. The second is the work of St. Cyprian 
 ad Quirimim. The first bears no title at the com- 
 mencement, by the original transcriber ; but its ter- 
 mination is as follows : Explicit liber testimonlorum. 
 It was this circumstance which probably led to a much 
 later hand's prefixing the title, De Testimoniis Sorip- 
 turarum Augustini contra Donatistas et Ydola. But 
 from the account which St. Augustine himself gives us 
 of the work written by him under that title, this is not 
 the one. In his Retractationes, he speaks of his book, 
 Probationum et Testimoniorum adversus Donatistas (as 
 confuting those heretics) ; sive de JEJcclesiasticis, sive 
 de Publicis Gestis, sive de Scripturis Canonicis. 1 There 
 can be no doubt that this is the same work as his dili- 
 1 Retract. 1. ii. cap. 27, torn. i. p. 51, ed. Maur.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 13 
 
 gent biographer Posidius denotes by the title of De 
 Testimoniis Scripturarum, contra supra script os, et 
 Idola. Now, our work is altogether composed of 
 scriptural quotations only, and is in no way directed 
 to a confutation of the Donatists. 
 
 An earlier hand had before given a much more pro- 
 bable title to the treatise, having written on the first 
 page, Libri de Speculo. This leads us into an interest- 
 ing discussion, of great importance towards the object 
 of our researches; have we here the real work of 
 St. Augustine, entitled Speculum, or is this title alto- 
 gether supposititious ? I will be as impartial as possi- 
 ble in conducting the inquiry. My order will be as 
 follows : First, I will give an account of the work as 
 it exists in our manuscript ; secondly, I will state the 
 arguments against its being the work of St. Augustine ; 
 thirdly, I will propose the arguments which seem to 
 suppose him its author. I will afterwards proceed to 
 examine the degree of authority which, in any hypo- 
 thesis, this document possesses towards proving the 
 genuineness of our verse. 
 
 1. The work which we are considering consists of 
 upwards of one hundred heads, including the most 
 important points of Christian belief and practice. 
 Upon each of these subjects all the texts of the Old 
 and New Testaments are given, without a single 
 remark or illustration. In the main, the work is 
 nearly the same as was published under the title of 
 St. Augustine's Speculum, by Jerome Vignier. n But 
 it differs in one most important particular, that the 
 text used in our manuscript is not the version of 
 St. Jerome in the Old, nor his correction in the New 
 
 m Indical. opusculor. Ib. torn. x. p. 284. 
 
 n S. Aur. Augustini Operum omnium Supplem. Par. 1655, torn. i. 
 p. 517.
 
 14 TWO LETTERS 
 
 Testament, but the old Vulgate found in the quota- 
 tions of the Fathers, and collected in the great works 
 of Nobilius, Bianchini, and Sabbatier. It in fact sup- 
 plies many lacuna in the latter invaluable work, and 
 is therefore a precious addition to our stores of sacred 
 criticism. Indeed, the active and intelligent librarian 
 of Santa Croce is preparing the entire work for publi- 
 cation, chiefly with a view to amending and improving 
 our text of the ancient Vulgate. 
 
 The manuscript itself is a quarto on vellum : the 
 character is uncial and square, resembling in form and 
 size the Latin of the Codex Bezse or Cambridge MS. 
 of the New Testament. It is, on the whole, beauti- 
 fully written, and one must be cautious not to judge 
 of it from the specimen given by Bianchini, p whose 
 fac-similes, from not being traced, will be often found 
 incorrect. 4 There can be no danger in attributing it 
 to the sixth or seventh century. A fac- simile of it is 
 prefixed to this essay. 
 
 To come now to the most important point ; this work 
 quotes the text of the Heavenly Witnesses, as a 
 dogmatical proof of the Trinity. In the second 
 chapter, which is entitled, De Distinctione Personarum, 
 fol. 19, ver. we have the following passage : Item Jb- 
 
 I regret to say that the death of this promising Cistercian 
 religious has, for the present, interrupted this undertaking. 
 
 P Evangelior. Quadrup. Komae, 1748, torn. ii. fol. 595, pi. 2, No. 2. 
 
 1 This is the case with most of the old fac-similes, which were only- 
 drawn by the eye. The specimen of the Codex Vatic, made by 
 Zacagni for Grabe, and published by Home, does the greatest injus- 
 tice to that beautifully written MS., which bears a much closer resem- 
 blance to the Bankesian Homer, published in the first number of the 
 Museum Philologicum. Having mentioned this valuable relic of 
 antiquity, I may take the opportunity to state, that in the Vatican 
 collection of papyri, exists a very small fragment of the Iliad, which 
 I would almost venture to say, formed originally part of the same 
 manuscript as Mr. Bankes's.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 15 
 
 hannis in aepistula . . . Item illic Tres sunt qui testi- 
 monium dicunt in caelo Pater? Verbum et Spiritus. et 
 hii tres unum sunt. I need hardly point out to my 
 readers the coincidence between this manuscript and 
 the one above quoted, in the use of the word dicunt 
 instead of dant. It is the reading of Idatius Clarus, 
 the oldest ecclesiastical writer who quotes this portion 
 of the text. 3 
 
 2. Is the more ancient title attributed to this work 
 in our manuscript correct, and have we here the 
 genuine Speculum of St. Augustine ? It must be a 
 matter of the greatest interest, in the history of this 
 text, to ascertain whether it is quoted by this great 
 luminary of the Church ; and we will commence by 
 the arguments which appear to be against his being 
 the author of this treatise. Two perfectly distinct 
 works have been published under the title of St. Au- 
 gustine's Speculum. The first was the one already 
 mentioned as edited by Vignier, to which our treatise 
 bears a close resemblance. This was rejected as spu- 
 rious by the Maurists, who substituted for it another 
 work of a totally different form. 1 It consists merely 
 of select texts of Scripture, in the order of the sacred 
 Books, beginning with Exodus, but reduced to no 
 heads or distinct subjects. But it has one decided 
 advantage over the other work, and consequently over 
 ours, that it has a preface, which ours has not. Po- 
 sidius informs us that the Speculum had a preface 
 prefixed to it. I will give his words at length, as I 
 
 r This word was first written, by mistake, PAETEE, but a stroke 
 was afterwards drawn through, the first E by the transcriber himself. 
 
 8 This name was assumed by Vigilius Tapsensis. Op. ed. Chifflet, 
 p. 306. St. Eucherius is more ancient ; but his text is open to much 
 controversy. 
 
 1 Op. torn. iii. p. i. p. 681.
 
 16 TWO LETTERS 
 
 may have occasion to refer to them more than once. 
 " Quique prodesse omnibus volens, et valentibus multa 
 librorum legere et non valentibus, ex utroque divino 
 Testamento, Vetere et Novo, praemissa praefatione, 
 praecepta divina seu vetita ad vitae regulam pertinentia 
 excerpsit, atque ex his unum codicem fecit ; ut qui 
 vellet legeret, et in eo vel quam obediens Deo inobe- 
 diensve esset agnosceret, et hoc opus voluit Speculum 
 appellari." u St. Augustine's Speculum had therefore 
 prefixed to it a preface ; and if the preface given in the 
 Benedictine edition be genuine, then is the entire work 
 genuine also. For the preface concludes with these 
 words : " Ab ipsa igitur lege quae data est per Moysen, 
 divinorum praeceptorum, qualia nos comrn emoraturos 
 esse promisimus, aggrediamur exordium." The Bene- 
 dictine editors give another reason for rejecting Vig- 
 nier's Speculum and preferring their own; that a 
 work in which the scriptural authorities are reduced 
 to certain heads, seems rather intended to instruct the 
 mind than to form a code of morals. Prom this 
 opinion I think most will dissent. It is much easier 
 to inspect the scriptural standard upon any point of 
 morality and reduce our conduct to it, by having all 
 that is written upon the subject brought together, 
 than by seeking out the various passages bearing on it 
 that lie dispersed through the sacred volume, mingled 
 with other and heterogeneous materials. Such are the 
 only arguments whereby the Benedictine editors sup- 
 port the preference they give to their text. The only 
 one which possesses any strength is the circumstance 
 of the preface, mentioned by Posidius. 
 
 3. In favour of the genuineness of the S. Croce text, 
 we may draw a very strong argument from the fact, 
 that its quotations are all taken from the old Latin 
 11 Vita Aug. ubi sup. p. 277.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 17 
 
 version, and not from St. Jerome's. It is well known 
 that St. Augustine was peculiarly adverse to the design 
 formed by his friend, of translating the Scripture from 
 the Hebrew, and that he never approved of his version. 
 " I would indeed rather," thus he writes to him, " that 
 you would translate the canonical Scriptures as they 
 are authorized by the version of the Seventy. For it 
 would be a hard case if your version come to be 
 adopted in many churehes ; since the Latin and Greek 
 churches would thus be placed at variance." 7 " I desire 
 to have your version from the Septuagint, that those 
 who decry your useful labours may at length under- 
 stand, that my reason for not wishing your translation 
 from the Hebrew to be read in churches is, the fear 
 that, by producing something new, at variance with 
 the Septuagint, one may cause great scandal and dis- 
 turbance among the faithful, whose ears and hearts 
 are accustomed to that version ; which moreover has 
 been approved by the Apostles. " w In fact, he gives 
 an instance of much scandal having been actually 
 caused by the attempt to introduce the new version 
 into a neighbouring church. " When a certain brother 
 bishop endeavoured to make use of your version in 
 the church over which he presides, a passage in Jonas 
 attracted notice, which you have rendered in a manner 
 totally at variance with what had been long familiar 
 to the senses and memories of all, and consecrated by 
 the use of successive ages. Such a tumult arose 
 among the people, especially from the reasoning of 
 the Greeks, who warmly pressed a charge of falsifica- 
 tion against you, that the bishop (for it happened in a 
 city) was obliged to appeal to the testimony of the 
 Jews. . . . What was the consequence ? Why, that 
 
 v Ep. Ixxi. (ol. x.) Op. torn. ii. p. 160. 
 w Ep. Ixxxiii. (ol. xix.) ib. p. 203. 
 i
 
 18 TWO LETTERS 
 
 after considerable danger, rather than be abandoned 
 by his flock, he was compelled to reprobate your ren- 
 dering as false." x With such manifest proof of St. 
 Augustine's attachment to the old version, of his con- 
 viction how imprudent, not to say profane, it was, to 
 attempt the introduction of the new, of his conscien- 
 tious persuasion that the testimony of antiquity, the 
 authority of the apostles, the unity of the Church were 
 all compromised by its adoption, in possession too of 
 the fact that in not one of his undisputed writings 
 does he ever quote from any but the old, we cannot 
 for an instant hesitate to conclude, that the Speculum 
 published by the Benedictines, and consisting entirely 
 of quotations from the version of St. Jerome, can- 
 not, as it stands, be the genuine production of St. 
 Augustine. 
 
 The learned editors have indeed attempted to re- 
 move this difficulty, by supposing that our Father 
 afterwards overcame his prejudices against the new 
 version, and may have used it, especially in a work 
 intended for the use of the people. They appeal to 
 his quoting this translation in some of his later works, 
 particularly in the fourth book of Christian Doctrine, 
 which he composed towards the close of his life. 
 To this I would reply first, that his writing especially 
 for the people would be rather an additional reason 
 for preferring the old version. Even in Rome, the 
 ancient version was used by St. Leo in the fifth century, 
 and even in the sixth, St. Gregory used either, indiffer- 
 ently, thus clearly showing the moment of transition 
 from one to the other. Secondly, an inspection of the 
 passage alluded to by the Maurists will be sufficient to 
 convince any reader, that St. Augustine deemed an 
 explanation necessary, if on one extraordinary occasion 
 
 * Ib. p. 161.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 19 
 
 he made use of the new version : and even that he did 
 not suppose all his readers necessarily acquainted with 
 the translation made by "the priest Jerome, a man 
 skilled in the two languages." 7 
 
 There is still, it is but fair to remark, one way of 
 removing the difficulty, by supposing that a later hand 
 altered the text and remodelled the work upon the 
 version of St. Jerome. We must acknowledge that 
 this might easily have been done : and the existence 
 of two types of our Speculum, the one with the old, 
 and the other, in Vignier's edition, with the new text, 
 proves that persons were found who thought it worth 
 their while to undertake the task. Still, when applied 
 to the Benedictine text, this is only an unsupported 
 hypothesis. We have no proof of their book having 
 ever existed in any but its modern form, and as such 
 it could not possibly be the work of St. Augustine ; of 
 the other, we have positive proof that it did consist 
 originally of the text used by that Eather. 
 
 There is another argument for the genuineness of 
 our copy, which has been noticed by the scholar en- 
 gaged in preparing it for publication. He informs me 
 that he has noticed a very marked resemblance be- 
 tween the titles of some of the sections and St. Au- 
 gustine's mystical interpretation of the corresponding 
 passages. It would not be difficult to give a few 
 instances, as I have also noted some ; but it will be 
 more fair and satisfactory to leave in his hands the 
 full development of this important argument. 
 
 Before proceeding further in this essay, we encounter 
 a serious difficulty, involving a long and delicate in- 
 vestigation. It may be objected, with great semblance 
 of truth ; does .not the very existence of the verse of 
 the Three Witnesses, in this work, prove it spurious ? 
 y De Doct. Christ, lib. iv. c. 7, torn. iii. pa. i. p. 71. 
 c2
 
 20 TWO LETTERS 
 
 Is it credible that St. Augustine should here quote 
 this verse in proof of the Trinity, and yet totally 
 pass it over in his Commentary upon St. John's Epistle, 
 and in his works upon the Trinity, where the series of 
 the text, or the expediency of his argument, impera- 
 tively called upon him to notice it ? To reconcile this 
 apparent contradiction, hecom.es a part of my task ; and 
 let not my reader be startled if we appear to retire to 
 a great distance the better to effect our object ; for the 
 artificer must often attach to a very distant point the 
 threads upon which he will gradually raise a compact 
 and durable texture. 
 
 Let us assume it to be known to our readers, that 
 St. Augustine is the only ancient writer who mentions 
 any Latin text of the Scriptures under the title of the 
 Itala. His words are : "In ipsis autem interpreta- 
 tionibus Itala ceteris prseferatur; nam est verborum 
 tenacior, cum perspicuitate sententise." z This passage 
 has given rise to one of the most difficult problems in 
 sacred criticism ; and it is to the solution of this pro- 
 blem that I propose to address myself. This will be 
 immediately necessary to remove the difficulty just 
 raised. But at the same time, it will be, I trust, useful 
 and important for clearing the entire controversy of 
 the Three Witnesses from some important difficulties, 
 for ^plaining some striking anomalies in the evidences 
 in its favour, and preparing the way for additional 
 proof. Independently of these motives, and of my 
 having at the outset given the reader fair notice of 
 discursive intentions, the hope of loosing a serious and 
 complicated knot in biblical literature will be perhaps 
 a sufficient apology for a long digression. 
 
 Two hypotheses have been built upon the passage 
 just quoted. The first is, that there existed in the 
 z Ib. lib. ii. c. 15, p. 27.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 21 
 
 early Western Church one authentic version called 
 " The Itala," which St. Augustine here preferred to 
 all others. This hypothesis has heen almost univer- 
 sally received. Acting upon its supposed certainty, 
 Flaminius Nobilius, Bianchini, and Sahhatier, have 
 laboured to reconstruct this version indifferently from 
 the quotations of all the Fathers, without regard to 
 country ; and most biblical and theological writers 
 have attributed to it an undoubted existence, under 
 the name of the Vetus Itala. This appellation may 
 be considered as almost irrevocably sanctioned. 
 
 The second hypothesis is partly grounded upon 
 another passage of St. Augustine, where he speaks of a 
 multiplicity of Latin versions being in existence. This 
 passage will be given and discussed just now. The advo- 
 cates of this system, generally attributed to Mosheim, a 
 but started many years before by Dr. Whitby, b suppose 
 the Itala to be only one of the many translations in 
 ordinary use, which our Father, for reasons now 
 impenetrable, happened to prefer. 
 
 The difficulties of these two hypotheses are so 
 obvious, that some bolder critics have abandoned 
 both,, and instead of attempting to explain the text 
 of St. Augustine, have attempted its emendation. 
 Bentley proposed to change Itala into ilia, and nam 
 into qua ; Ernesti, no mea& name in these pursuits, 
 warmly supported his conjecture; but Casley, with 
 some countenance of a single manuscript, ventured to 
 correct them in their turn. This attempt to alter the 
 text of the passage may be now considered destitute of 
 supporters. 
 
 a Comment, de Eebus Christian, ante Constant. Helmest. 1753, 
 p. 225. 
 
 b Observat, Philolog. Crit. cum Prsef. Havercamp. Lugd. Bat. 
 1733, p. 84.
 
 22 
 
 I have said that both the hypotheses above quoted, 
 are attended with insurmountable difficulties. 
 
 1. As to the first, if " Itala" were the name of a 
 version universally adopted in the Western Church, is 
 it possible that this name never should have been re- 
 corded in all antiquity, save only in this single passage 
 of St. Augustine ? Is it credible that St. Jerome, St. 
 Gregory, St. Isidore, Cassiodorus, Alcuin, and others, 
 who have written concerning the old version, should 
 never have given its name ? That no manuscript con- 
 taining the ancient text should be found to bear the 
 title ? All will acknowledge that this difficulty can- 
 not be satisfactorily removed. 
 
 2. And with regard to the second, it may be said 
 almost to rest upon the sole authority of one very 
 equivocal passage which shall be presently discussed. 
 The collection of various readings made from the 
 [Fathers by several writers, for the express purpose of 
 supporting this hypothesis, is far from doing so. The 
 [Fathers indeed often differ from one another in their 
 quotations, in a manner to explain which defies all the 
 ingenuity of conjecture. But then, it not unfrequently 
 happens that one Father in quoting the same passage 
 upon different occasions, differs from himself as widely 
 as he does from the rest ; are we therefore to suppose 
 that he was in the habit of using distinct versions 
 upon these various occasions ? In fact, there are just as 
 glaring anomalies of this sort to be found in the Greek 
 Fathers ; and Christian Bened. Michaelis, in his cele- 
 brated controversy with Bengel, has produced as extra- 
 ordinary instances of unaccountable discrepancy in 
 their various readings, as can be cited from Latin 
 writers. 6 Yet no one has ever suspected that they 
 
 c Tractatio Critica de Variis Lectionibus N. T. caute colligendis et 
 dijudicandis. Halle, 1749, p. 20.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 23 
 
 had so many independent texts or versions. On the 
 other hand, though numerous examples of such 
 marked diversity may be collected, though it may 
 baffle all critical ingenuity to reconcile the occasional 
 variety of readings adduced to prove a multiplicity of 
 versions, even by recurring to supposed quotation 
 from memory, or accommodation, or forgetfulness, 
 yet I am convinced that a rapid examination of the 
 quotations of the Latin Fathers in general, would 
 satisfy any critic of common experience and discern- 
 ment, that their agreement in many extraordinary 
 readings can spring only from the use of an identical 
 version, however altered by ordinary causes. But 
 what seems to place this beyond any doubt, is the tone 
 and style which pervade the scriptural quotations of 
 the Fathers. The general rudeness of the phrase, the 
 repeated recurrence of words not in use among classi- 
 cal writers, the consistent degree of approximation to 
 the original, preserved throughout, in short, the uni- 
 form moulding of the features of their text, shows that 
 in all it is the same type, the offspring of one country, 
 almost of one man. And if there was in the Church 
 the liberty of translating, inferred by some writers 
 from St. Augustine's text, and the custom of using 
 such various translations, deduced by them from the 
 various readings of the Fathers, can we suppose that 
 the more elegant writers and accomplished scholars 
 would have invariably selected, from such a variety, a 
 rude and unpolished version ? Or are we to suppose 
 that the privilege of making a new version was en- 
 tirely reserved to less skilful pens ? Again, if such a 
 multiplicity of versions were in use, and at the same 
 time, as we have seen from St. Augustine, the intro- 
 duction of a new word shocked and scandalized the 
 hearers, how could a bishop or priest of one diocese
 
 24 TWO LETTERS 
 
 have preached or instructed in another without mis- 
 chief or confusion ? But these arguments will be 
 much strengthened in my second letter. 
 
 But does the text of St. Augustine authorize the 
 conclusions drawn from it by so many able writers, 
 even in our own times ? These are his words : " Qui 
 enim Scripturas ex Hebrsea lingua in Grsecam ver- 
 terunt, numerari possunt : Latini autem interpretes 
 nullo modo. Ut enim cuique, primis fidei temporibus, 
 in manus venit codex Grsecus, et aliquantulum facul- 
 tatis sibi utriusque linguae habere videbatur, ausus est 
 interpretari." d At first sight, the words interpretari 
 and verterunt seem clearly to express an actual trans- 
 lation. But we must be cautious in pressing such 
 words too much. Among the ancients they are often 
 used in a less rigorous sense, to signify nothing more than 
 a correction or recension of a version already existing. 
 I have shown this on another occasion, as far as re- 
 gards Greek and Syriac writers; 6 nor will it be dim- 
 cult to prove as much regarding St. Augustine. For 
 instance, he thus writes to St. Jerome : " Proinde non 
 parvas Deo gratias agimus de opere tuo, quod Evan- 
 gelium ex Grseco interpretatus es" 1 The expression 
 here is precisely the same as occurs in the passage 
 above quoted. Yet it is certain that St. Jerome never 
 translated the New Testament, but only emended it. 
 Eor his words are : " N. Testamentum Greece fidei red- 
 didi auctoritati." g And it is certain that he understands 
 St. Augustine's phrase, interpretatus es, only in this 
 limited sense ; for his reply to it is as follows : " Et 
 
 d De Doct. Christ, ubi sup. c. xi. p. 25. 
 e Horse Syriacae. Eome, 1828, p. 94. 
 f Epist. Ixxi. ut sup. p. 161. 
 
 8 De Viris illustribus, cap. cxxxv. torn. ii. p. 941, ed. Vallars. ; ep. 
 ad Lucin. Ixxi. (ol. 28) torn. i. p. 432-
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 25 
 
 si me in emendatione Novi Testament! suscipis." h 
 Indeed, St. Augustine himself explains the phrase on 
 another occasion. He thus writes to his friend : " Ego 
 sane te niallem Graecas potius canonicas nobis inter' 
 pretari Scripturas, quse LXX interpretum auctoritate 
 perhibentur." Then, after a few lines, he thus explains 
 himself: "Ac per hoc plurimum profueris, si earn 
 Graecam Scripturam quam LXX operati sunt, Latince 
 veritati reddideris." 1 The word verier e hardly pre- 
 sents any greater difficulty. St. Jerome, in his letter 
 to Sunnias and Eretela, says, " Ea autem" (the ver- 
 sion of the LXX) " quse habetur in Hexaplis, et quam 
 nos vertimus"* Yet in other places he assures us that 
 he only emended the existing version : " Septuaginta 
 interpretes . . . quos ante annos plurimos, diligentis- 
 sime emendatos mese Iingua3 studiosis dedi." k " Sep- 
 tuaginta interpretum editionem et te habere non 
 dubito, et ante annos plurimos diligentissime emen- 
 datatn studiosis tradidi." 1 
 
 Thus it appears, that the great, and only historical, 
 argument for the multiplicity of versions in the Church, 
 proves no more necessarily than a variety of recensions 
 or corrections of the text. Hence the Itala need not 
 be considered as the name of some specific version, in 
 contradistinction to other translations. And we have 
 seen that it cannot be considered as the name of the 
 one received version. In addition to these arguments, 
 the analogy of other churches suggests that only one 
 version was used in the "Western, subject to numerous 
 modifications fro'm accident or design, but remaining, 
 everywhere, in substance the same. The great ten- 
 
 h In Op. S. Aug. ep. Ixxv. torn. ii. p. 178. > Ib. p. 160. 
 
 1 Ad Sunniam et Fretel. ep. cvi. torn. i. p. 637. 
 k Adv. Kusin. lib. ii. torn. ii. p. 518. 
 1 Ep. ad Lucin. ubi sup.
 
 26 TWO LETTERS 
 
 dency of these alterations would necessarily be to pro- 
 duce certain great varieties naturally determined by 
 greater geographical divisions, or circumscribed by the 
 limits of different ecclesiastical jurisdictions. These 
 varieties are well known in biblical criticism, under 
 the name of families or recensions. In the East, the 
 Greek text will occur to the reader as a full illustra- 
 tion of this remark ; the Syriac version has followed 
 the same law, and the Catholics, Nestorians, and 
 Jacobites, have their respective texts of the Peshito. 
 Not only the Scripture, but any other work frequently 
 transcribed, will naturally present the same pheno- 
 menon. Thus M. Gence, in his critical edition of the 
 " Imitation of Christ," has clearly pointed out [Flemish, 
 French, and Italian recensions, of which the manu- 
 scripts of the Abbey of Moeck, of the Chartreuse of 
 Villeneuve, and of Arona, may be considered as the 
 types, and which embrace numbers of MSS. agreeing 
 essentially among themselves, but exhibiting a line 
 of critical, as well as geographical, circumscription. 111 
 
 Such, then, would be the case with the Latin ver- 
 sion, and the texts of Gaul, Italy, and Africa, would 
 naturally present distinct traits, characteristic of re- 
 censions ; and these traits would be more clearly dis- 
 cernible to those who possessed not merely fragments, 
 but entire texts. For we may doubt whether even 
 Griesbach or Scholz would have discovered the Greek 
 recensions, however marked, had they been left to 
 work merely on the dismembered quotations of the 
 Fathers. 
 
 Now, from both historical and critical evidence, it 
 appears perfectly clear, that in the passage about the 
 
 m De Imit. Christi, lib. iv. ad pervetustum exemplar, nee non ad 
 codd. complurea ex diversa regione, variis nunc primum lectionibua 
 subjunctis, recensiti. Par. 1826.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 27 
 
 Itala, St. Augustine meant nothing more than to 
 specify the preference he gave to the text in Italian 
 codices; in other words, that the term Itala is not 
 an appellative, but a mere relative term, adopted by 
 him because living in Africa. 
 
 1. When an individual, whether from accident or 
 choice, has himself adopted a certain text or edition, 
 he will naturally continue its use and give it the pre- 
 ference. Erom the history of St. Augustine, it is 
 morally certain that the copy or copies of Scripture 
 which he used must have been Italian. He informs 
 us, that when at Carthage, before his conversion, he 
 utterly despised and neglected the Scriptures, on 
 account of the rudeness of their style. n He went to 
 Milan, without the slightest religious object, and there 
 at length began to view them in a totally different 
 light. Prom listening to St. Ambrose, he discovered 
 that many things in them which had appeared to him 
 absurd and ignoble, were full of meaning and dignity. 
 He remained for some time in a state of doubt and 
 wavering; and strong obstacles presented themselves 
 to his complete search after truth. One of these I 
 must give in his own words : " Ecce jam non sunt 
 absurda in libris ecclesiasticis quae absurda videbantur, 
 et possunt aliter atque honeste intelligi. Eigam pedes 
 meos in eo gradu, in quo puer a parentibus positus 
 eram, donee inveniatur perspicua veritas. Sed ubi 
 quaeretur? quando quseretur? Non vacat Ambrosio, 
 non vacat legere. Ubi ipsos codices qucerimus ? unde aut 
 quando comparamus ? a qitibus sumimus ?"^ Up to 
 this time, therefore, he had to provide himself with a 
 copy of Scripture. Immediately upon his miraculous 
 conversion, he retired to Cassiciacum, the villa of Vere- 
 
 n Confess, lib. iii. c. 5, torn. i. p. 91. 
 
 Ib. lib. vi. c. 3, 4, pp. 118, 122. P Ib. c. 11, p. 128.
 
 28 TWO LETTERS 
 
 cundus,and thence wrote to ask St. Ambrose what hooks 
 of Scripture he should read. This holy bishop recom. 
 mended Isaiah, and St. Augustine read it, evidently 
 for the first time. " Veruntainen, ego prirnam hujus 
 lectionem non intelligens, totumque talem arbitrans, 
 distuli repetendum, excercitatior in dominico eloquio." q 
 Here also he began to read the Psalms. 1 
 
 After his baptism, St. Augustine proceeded to Rome. 
 Between his conversion and his return to Africa, he 
 wrote and published several works ; as his Soliloquies, 
 his treatises, De Beata Yita, De Ordine, De Libero 
 Arbitrio, De Immortalitate Animse, De Moribus Mani- 
 chseorum, and De Moribus Ecclesia3. Several of these, 
 especially the last, demonstrate, by his facility in quoting 
 Scripture, that he had already completely impressed 
 it on his memory, and studied it deeply. This brief 
 historical sketch must prove that St. Augustine learnt 
 the sacred books entirely from the Italian text ; and 
 it is highly improbable that upon his return to Africa, 
 he cast it aside and adopted another. On the contrary, 
 it is more probable that he would give the preference, 
 through life, to the text which he had first studied. 
 
 2. But there is a passage, in one of his polemical 
 works, which seems completely to explain his senti- 
 ments and expressions regarding the Itala. Writing 
 against Faustus, he gives a critical rule for deciding 
 among conflicting various readings. " Ubi, cum ex 
 adverse audieris proba,' non confugias (a) ad exetnpla 
 veriora, vel (b) plurium codicum, vel (c) antiquorum, 
 vel (d) linguae prsecedentis, unde hoc in aliam linguam 
 interpretatum est." 8 His order therefore is 1st, (a) to 
 consult MSS. containing a more true or genuine text ; 
 2ndly, (b) to weigh the number ; 3rdly (c) to examine 
 
 i Ib. lib. ix. c. 5, p. 162. * Ib. c. 4, p. 160. 
 
 B Adv. Faust, lib. x. c. 2, torn. viii. p. 219.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 29 
 
 the antiquity, of the testimonies ; and 4thly, (d) if the 
 point still remain undecided, to recur to the originals. 
 After a few sentences, he proceeds thus : " Quid agis ? 
 quo te convertes ? quam libri a te prolati (a) originem, 
 quam (c) vetustatem, quam (d) seriem successionis 
 testem citabis ?" By comparing this text with the 
 preceding, and remembering that number of MSS. (b) 
 is omitted in it, because it treats of the examination 
 of one codex, we see that the exempla veriora are to 
 be discovered by their origin; for one is substituted 
 for the other, in the series of critical authorities. 
 After a few more lines, St. Augustine explains what 
 the origin is which has to determine a manuscript to 
 be sincere and authoritative. For he repeats the same 
 series, with a new and important substitution, and in 
 the form of a conclusion from his previous reasoning : 
 " Itaque si &efide exemplarium qusestio verteretur. . . 
 vel (a) ex aliarum regionum codicibus unde ipsa doc- 
 trina commeavit, nostra dubitatio dijudicaretur ; vel 
 si ibi ipsi quoque codices variarent, (b) plures pauciori- 
 bus, aut (c) vetustiores recentioribus prseferrentur ; et 
 si adliuc esset incerta varietas, (d) praecedens lingua, 
 unde illud interpret atum est, consuleretur." On this 
 passage I may be allowed a few remarks. First, St. 
 Augustine by codices aliarum regionum, etc., certainly 
 means Latin copies ; for he places a reference to the 
 Greek, the pr&cedens lingua, as the last, and a distinct, 
 resource. Secondly, this passage authorizes us to con- 
 clude, that different churches did not use distinct ver- 
 sions ; for it would be absurd, in a question on a 
 difference of reading, to refer a critic to a totally 
 different and perfectly independent translation. 
 
 Thirdly, St. Augustine's critical rule is, that in a 
 doubt regarding the correctness of a reading, recourse 
 must be had in the first instance to the copies of that
 
 30 TWO LETTERS 
 
 country whence the faith had come. St. Augustine is 
 writing in Africa ; we have therefore only to inquire 
 whence did he consider the faith to have been brought 
 into that country ; and, from my first observation, it 
 follows that it must be from some Latin church. The 
 belief of the African Church was undoubtedly that 
 Italy, and particularly Borne, was the fountain of its 
 Christianity. St. Gregory writes as follows to Domi- 
 nicus, bishop of Carthage : " Scientes praeterea unde 
 in Africanis partibus sumpserit ordinatio sacerdotalis 
 exordium, laudabiliter agitis quod, sedem apostolicam 
 diligendo, ad officii vestri originem, prudenti recorda- 
 tione recurritis, et probabili in ejus affectu constantia 
 permanentis." 4 And St. Augustine was manifestly of 
 the same opinion, as will appear from the following 
 passage : " Erat etiam (Carthago) transmarinis vicina 
 regionibus, et fama celeberrima nobilis, unde non me- 
 diocris utique auctoritatis habebat episcopum, qui 
 posset non curare conspirantem multitudinem inimi- 
 corum, cum se videret et Romanse ecclesise, in qua 
 semper apostolicse cathedrae viguit principatus, et 
 ceteris terris unde Evangelium in ipsam Africam venit, 
 per communicatorias literas esse conjunctum." u " The 
 Roman Church and other countries from which the 
 Gospel had come to Africa," is a phrase sufficiently 
 clear. But I may further remark, that the trans- 
 marine countries to which Carthage is near, and those 
 other churches, are manifestly identified in this pas- 
 sage ; for, the bishop's reputation with the former, and 
 his being in communion with the latter, are given as 
 an identical motive of security. Now, there can be no 
 doubt that by the transmarine churches he meant 
 those of Italy. Eor, alluding to the trial of Cecilianus, 
 
 * Epist. lib. viii. No. 33, ed. Maur. torn. ii. p.922. 
 
 n Ad Glor. et Eleus. ep. xliii. (al. clxiii.) vol. ii. p. 91.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 31 
 
 he says : " An forte non debuit Romance ecclesise Mel- 
 chiades episcopus, cum collegis transmarinis episcopis, 
 illud sibi usurpare judicium?"* But we learn from 
 St. Optatus, that the colleagues of Pope Melchiades 
 were all Italians, except three Galilean bishops ex- 
 pressly petitioned for by the Donatists. y St. Augustine 
 therefore considered the African Church as descended 
 from the Italian. 
 
 We have thus a clear critical rule laid down by this 
 Father, that when, in Africa, any doubt should arise 
 concerning a various reading, a reference to Italian 
 codices, or the Italian recension, should be the first 
 critical operation. Let us now compare with this rule 
 the passage in which the Itala is mentioned, and see 
 if it receives any light from it. First, St. Augustine 
 is speaking there, just as in his work against Faustus, 
 entirely about various readings, and the correction of 
 the text. The sentence immediately preceding is, 
 "Plurimum hie quoque juvat interpret um numerositas, 
 collatis codicibus, inspectaque atque discussa, tantum 
 absit falsitas ; nam codicibus emendandis primitus 
 debet invigilare solertia eorum qui Scripturas nosse 
 desiderant, ut emendati non emendatis cedant, EX UNO 
 
 DUNTAXAT INTERPRETATIONS GENERE VENIENTES." 2 
 
 Secondly, after thus saying that the more correct 
 codices must be preferred, provided they descend from 
 the same original version, he proceeds to state which 
 is the text to be preferred ; and this he does in the 
 form, not of an assertion, but of a critical canon : 
 " In ipsis autem interpretationibus Itala ceteris prce- 
 feratur" Thirdly, he then goes on, just as in the 
 passage of the work against Faustus, to say, that the 
 
 * Ib. p. 94. 
 
 y Adv. Parmen. lib. i. c. 23, ed. Dupin, Par. 1702, p. 23. 
 
 z De Doctr. Christ, lib. ii. c. 14, torn. iii. pa. i. p. 27.
 
 32 TWO LETTERS 
 
 Greek is still to be considered a last appeal, even from 
 this : " Et Latinis quibuslibet emendandis, Grseci ad- 
 hibeantur." 
 
 An impartial consideration of the two passages will, 
 I am sure, convince any one that they are perfectly 
 parallel ; that the preference of the Itala is only the 
 preference of the more authentic records of the same 
 version, preserved in the country whence the Gospel 
 had come to Africa ; it is a question of manuscripts 
 and recensions, and by no means of versions. 
 
 3. Nothing further seems wanting to complete the 
 solution of the proposed difficulty regarding the Itala, 
 but that it should be critically or practically verified. 
 If St. Augustine brought his manuscripts from Italy, 
 and used them in Africa, does his text present the 
 appearances naturally consequent to such a suppo- 
 sition ? Does he, though using essentially the same 
 version as the African Eathers, still on some occasions 
 depart from them in a marked manner, when they 
 agree among themselves, and then coincide with the 
 Italian Eathers ? The discussion of this point would 
 involve us in a long examination of various readings, 
 which could not possibly prove interesting to the 
 generality of readers, even should the preceding de- 
 tails have proved so. We must therefore be brief. 
 Several years ago, when pursuing the critical study of 
 Scripture with more leisure, I paid some attention to 
 this point. Though soon interrupted, the examination 
 satisfied me to such a degree, that the theory of the 
 Vulgate here presented to the public, has been repeat- 
 edly delivered in the theological courses of this esta- 
 blishment. I will give a few examples of the various 
 readings of the Italian and African Eathers, from 
 some of the first Psalms ; whence it will appear, that 
 St. Augustine departs from the African Eathers, and
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 33 
 
 classes with the Italian, wherever the writers of the 
 two nations decidedly range themselves upon opposite 
 sides. 
 
 Ps. i. Psalt. Horn, et MedioL, Codd. Corbej., San- 
 germ., Amb., Hil., Cassiod., etc. read " In lege Domini 
 fuit voluntas ejus." Tert., Cyp., Opt. (opus imperf. 
 in Mat.) omit thefuit. St. Augustine agrees with the 
 former ; and this reading is tenacior verborum, the 
 Greek having IO-T/, and has also greater perspicuity. 
 
 ii. Tertullian and St. Optatus consider it as the 
 first ; St. Augustine, with the Italian Fathers, treats 
 it as the second. 
 
 ii. 1. Cod. Sangerm., Amb., Hil., " Quarefremue- 
 runt gentes." Tert., Cyp., always " tumultuatce sunt" 
 St. Aug. with the former. 
 
 2. Sangerm., Amb., Hil., " convenerunt." Tert. 
 (generally), Cyp., " congregati sunt" St. Aug. with the 
 former. 
 
 vi. 6. Psalt. Rom., Cod. Sang erm., Amb., Hil., Leo, 
 Cassiod., Philast., etc. have "in inferno:" Tert., Lucif., 
 Calar.,* " apud inferos." St. Aug. with the former. 
 
 xviii. 6. Psalteria, Cod. Sangerm., Amb., Hil., Cas- 
 siod., Maximus Taur., Philast., " sponsus procedit." 
 Tert., Cyp., " egrediens" St. Aug. with the former. 
 
 I must leave the farther prosecution of this exami- 
 nation to some critic possessed of more leisure than 
 falls to my lot. It is a toilsome, and often an ungrate- 
 ful, task ; for in general, the various readings are a 
 mass of irregularity and confusion, referable to no law, 
 and hardly open to plausible conjecture. Still, in the 
 portion examined, I doubt whether a single instance 
 
 a I consider him an African writer, because Sardinia was really 
 considered as forming the seventh province of Africa, and was part 
 of its diocese. The connection, too, of the two countries is sufficiently 
 inai-ked in ecclesiastical history. 
 
 i D
 
 34 TWO LETTERS 
 
 can be produced, where the African writers stand in 
 united opposition to those of Italy, without St. Augus- 
 tine siding with the latter. This is sufficient to clear 
 up all difficulties. For while the Fathers of different 
 countries agree sufficiently to prove that they all used 
 the same version, their occasional separation into 
 national classes proves the existence of distinct geogra- 
 phical recensions. And the fact that St. Augustine 
 always agrees with the Italians, added to the histori- 
 cal proofs already given, demonstrates that he used 
 the Italian recension, and not the African ; and that 
 he forms a testimony, not of the African but of the 
 Italian Church, in all critical questions regarding 
 Scripture. The important consequences which will be 
 deduced from this conclusion, will justify the length 
 of the discussion. To have given to the words of St. 
 Augustine, on the Itala, a sense consistent with facts, 
 with his own history and his quotations, and with the 
 total silence of all other ancient writers, will, I trust, 
 be also considered a sufficient apology for want of dis- 
 cretion in the present disquisition. 
 
 But, excusable as it may be, I feel that my readers 
 have acquired a right to forget what originally led to 
 it, and to expect to be brought back to the point 
 whence we started. It was simply this : St. Augus- 
 tine, in all his other works, omits the verse of the 
 Three Witnesses ; is not the circumstance of its being 
 found in the Santa-Croce manuscript a sufficient proof 
 that the work was not written by that Father ? It 
 was to answer this objection that this long discussion 
 was primarily undertaken; and the answer which it 
 furnishes is this : St. Augustine, in his ordinary works, 
 used the Italian recension from which the verse had 
 been lost at an early period. His Speculum, as we 
 learn from Posidius, was written for the unlearned,
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 35 
 
 and hence he made use in it of the African recension, 
 which universally contained the verse. I requested 
 the learned monk who has undertaken the publication 
 of the work, to pay particular attention to its various 
 readings, with this view ; and he has assured me that 
 they generally agree with the African Fathers in a 
 very remarkable manner. 
 
 In the next letter, we will examine the testimony of 
 this manuscript, on the hypothesis that St. Augustine 
 is not its author, and proceed to notice some other 
 points connected with this celebrated controversy. 
 
 I remain, &c., 
 
 N. WISEMAN. 
 ENGLISH COLLEGE, KOME, June 26, 1832. 
 
 LETTEE THE SECOND. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Having discussed the question, whether 
 St. Augustine be the author of the treatise contained 
 in the Santa-Croce manuscript, we must now proceed, 
 according to promise, to investigate what degree of 
 authority it possesses in the controversy of the Three 
 "Witnesses, on the supposition that it is the production 
 of a more obscure author. Let me premise a few 
 words on its age and country. 
 
 Perhaps a more minute examination of the treatise 
 than it is at present in my power to make, might give 
 more clues than have been gathered from hasty obser- 
 vation : these, however, may prove sufficient for our 
 purpose. The exact manner in which several proposi- 
 tions are laid down, regarding the Trinity, shows that 
 it was composed after the controversies upon that 
 great dogma had arisen in the Church. The chapter 
 from which I have quoted the verse of St. John is 
 
 D2
 
 36 TWO LETTERS 
 
 headed, " De distinctione personarum" Now the word 
 persona does not seem to have been used in the 
 marked sense which it here hears, until the third cen- 
 tury. Dr. Waterland has remarked, that it is applied 
 by Tertullian to the hypostases, or persons of the 
 Trinity. b And in fact, in the work of that writer 
 against Praxea, the word occurs frequently, espe- 
 cially from the eleventh to the fifteenth chapters." 
 But still, it hardly seems to have become so early a 
 denned theological term. Facundus Hermianensis 
 says, that it only began to be used in the Church upon 
 occasion of the Sabellian heresy, in 257. His words 
 are : " Personarum autem nomen nonnisi cum Sabellius 
 impugnaret Ecclesiam, necessario in usum prsedi- 
 cationis assumptum est, ut qui semper tres crediti 
 sunt . . . communi personarum nomine vocarentur." d 
 But this assertion stands in direct opposition to that 
 of St. Gregory Nazianzen, that Sabellianisni arose in 
 the West from the use of this word. The Latins, he 
 says, were compelled, 
 
 " Propter egestatem linguae et reruin novitatem," 
 
 to apply the word person to the B. Trinity ; .and the 
 consequence was, that Sabellianism arose from a mis- 
 application of the term. 6 To reconcile these conflict- 
 ing testimonies we have only to say, that the word was 
 indeed in use from the time of Tertullian, though it 
 
 b Waterland's Works, by Van Mildert, vol. iii. p. 200. 
 
 c Tert. adv. Prax. pp. 505508, ed. Eigalt. 
 
 d Def. trium Capit. lib. ii. p. 19. 
 
 e 'A\\' ov (Wctytfi/ote (rote 'IraXote) %ia T^V ortVHrrjTa TJjg Trap' avro'ic 
 yXwTTr/Cj rat ovofid.TWj' TTEVIO.V, cbro rrjg ovxr/ae rr)v i/Troorao-tv, rat ia 
 TOVTO avTEiauyovai TO. 7rpo<rw7ra, /Va fifj rpttc oixriai irapa^fi^dwffi, ri 
 ytVfrat ; ac \iav yiXolov j) tXttivov ; ttra 2a/3\Xtai/t(Tyuoc efravda 
 Trevot]6ri rote rptal irpoarwiroic. Greg. Nazian. De Laud. Athau. Op. 
 Paris, 1602, torn. i. p. 395.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 37 
 
 had not yet acquired that decided, definite, theological 
 determination, which the Sabellian controversy, and 
 later, the disagreement at the Council of Alexandria, 
 necessarily gave it. But the manner in which it is 
 used in our treatise shows this to have been composed 
 at a time when this determination had been given. 
 
 There is another circumstance which brings this 
 treatise to a later period. After the section which we 
 have quoted for the text of St. John, is another, di- 
 rected expressly to prove the divinity of the Holy 
 Ghost. This gives reason to suppose, that the contro- 
 versy upon that important dogma, as distinct from the 
 general question of the Trinity, had already com- 
 menced. This will bring down the age of this treatise 
 to the time of the Macedonians, or the middle of the 
 fourth century. The use of the old version in it will 
 not allow us to assign it a much later age, nor indeed 
 could we be justified in doing so, by any single con- 
 sideration drawn from the work itself. 
 
 There can be no difficulty in deciding the country to 
 which the treatise belongs. The circumstance of its 
 being united in the same volume with a work of St. 
 Cyprian, which follows it immediately, gives aprimd 
 facie evidence in favour of its being African. But this 
 point is completely decided by the marked coincidence 
 of its readings with those of the African Fathers. The 
 publication of the original will place this important 
 point beyond dispute. 
 
 Perhaps, to some readers, it will appear of little con- 
 sequence to have gained the testimony of an unknown 
 African writer of the fourth century, in favour of the 
 verse. I must, however, acknowledge myself to be of 
 quite a different opinion. We must consider the addi- 
 tional testimony of any African writer of greater 
 authority than that of one from any other part of the
 
 38 TWO LETTERS 
 
 Western Church. And the reason for this preference 
 may appear to many still farther paradoxical ; it is 
 because all the. authorities hitherto discovered may be 
 said to be African. 
 
 Every one versed in biblical pursuits will be ac- 
 quainted with that great critical principle, first laid 
 down by Bengel, but not fully established and acted 
 upon till the publication of Griesbach's recensions, 
 that the testimonies in favour of a various reading 
 have not an individual force independent of the recen- 
 sion or family to which they belong ; and that a read- 
 ing must be decided, not by the number of distinct 
 authorities, but by the weight of the recension which 
 contains it, 
 
 It is plain that the same principle will apply to any 
 other text as well as to the Greek, in which recensions 
 can be recognised. Having shown that this is the 
 case with tljp old Vulgate, we may fairly try the evi- 
 dence in favour of the contested verse of St. John, 
 upon this principle. Now it has been sufficiently 
 observed by all writers upon the controversy, that 
 almost all the testimonies in favour of the verse are 
 African. St. Cyprian, Marcus Celedensis, St. Eulgen- 
 tius, Victor Vitensis, the four hundred bishops assem- 
 bled under Hunneric, at Carthage, were all members of 
 the African Church. Maximus the Confessor learnt 
 the passage from the same country ; f Eucherius was a 
 Spaniard, and his text is too uncertain to be quoted ; 
 Phebadius was a monk of Lerins ; both, therefore, pro- 
 bably in communication with the African Church. But 
 while so many authors have observed this consent of 
 writers belonging to one church, they have not placed 
 their testimony in its proper light. They have spoken 
 
 f See Nolan's Inquiry into the integrity of the Greek Vulgate, 
 p. 302.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 39 
 
 of them as so many African writers, or even as the 
 body of the African Church, bearing witness to the 
 existence of a passage, but not as the representatives 
 of the African recension or text, as the voice of a great 
 critical family, whose antiquity and authority, as 
 compared with that of other texts, must be critically 
 ascertained. 
 
 Bearing in mind these facts, and especially the one 
 established in the first letter, that the African and 
 Italian Fathers separate into distinct classes, not merely 
 upon this verse, but in many other passages, sufficient 
 to prove the difference of their recensions, I proceed 
 to make such observations as may bear upon the 
 general controversy, in connection with the Santa- 
 Croce manuscript. 
 
 1. The existence of an African recension containing 
 the verse, gives us a right to consider as quotations 
 passages of African writers, which, in the works of 
 Italian authors, might be considered doubtful. It is 
 by insisting upon the incomplete form of the citations 
 in Tertullian and St. Cyprian, that Griesbach and 
 others have endeavoured to convert them into mere 
 mystical interpretations. Now, the certainty, acquired 
 by the examination of later testimonies, that the en- 
 tire Church to which they belonged knew and quoted 
 the verse, gives us just critical grounds for assuming 
 theirs to be real quotations. The system followed 
 by the opposers of the text, of attributing to respect 
 for St. Cyprian and Tertullian, first the allusion to the 
 preceding verse, and then its conversion into a new 
 text, is utterly untenable. These two writers were 
 held in equal, perhaps in greater, veneration in Italy ; 
 and there is no reason why their writings should have 
 influenced other African authors more than their 
 admirers beyond the sea. And at any rate, why did not
 
 40 TWO LETTERS 
 
 St. Augustine follow the same course ? why was he 
 not led to argue, as the other African writers are said 
 to have done, from the eighth verse allegorically 
 explained ? Why is he said never to have quoted the 
 verse ? 
 
 2. But if, instead of an argument, we consider these 
 passages as quotations ; if instead of African writers, 
 we will only speak of the African text, we remove a 
 difficulty which has appeared insoluble to all parties, 
 the silence of St. Augustine. It has heen observed, 
 with great appearance of strength, by a late writer, 8 
 that this Father, who has written so much upon this 
 Epistle, has furnished Sabatier with materials for 
 restoring the whole of it up to this point, and returns 
 to his assistance immediately after it ; but totally 
 fails him in this verse. This, at first sight, appears a 
 negative argument of considerable strength. I would 
 even allow that, upon the ordinary view of the con- 
 troversy, it is unanswerable. But the positions already 
 laid down remove every difficulty. The verse belongs 
 essentially to the African text, and this writer used the 
 Italian. All anomaly, all difficulty, is at an end. "We 
 might indeed almost venture to say, that were the 
 verse to be found in St. Augustine's works, the cir- 
 cumstance would require an explanation. This could 
 probably be easily found, and I have suggested it on 
 a former occasion, from his connection with the 
 African Church, and the propriety he might occasion- 
 ally find, of adopting a less favourite text, to consult 
 the feelings or utility of the people. But still, in all 
 classifications or distributions into families, it is the 
 sporadic varieties, as they are called by naturalists, 
 which perplex and disarrange. The more rounded and 
 
 e Horre Biblicse, by C. Butler, Esq. "Works. Lond. 1817, vol. i. 
 p. 396.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 41 
 
 decidedly pronounced the limits of each class, the 
 more defined the laws and circumstances by which 
 they are regulated, the freer they are from exceptions, 
 the more determinate likewise the extent and value of 
 each : so much the more satisfactory is all reasoning 
 upon them. So far then from St. Augustine's silence 
 being a difficulty in proving the text, it rather removes 
 an embarrassment. 
 
 3. Prom these remarks it follows, that the discovery 
 of an early African writer, however insignificant in 
 other respects, who quotes the disputed verse, goes 
 farther to strengthen the real evidence in its favour 
 than the testimony of an Italian writer of far greater 
 celebrity; because the former would always tend to 
 consolidate and complete the authority of a recension, 
 while the other would only give an individual and an 
 anomalous voice. And this principle defines the weight 
 of the testimony afforded by the Santa-Croce manu- 
 script. It is a new addition to the combined evidence 
 of the African writers, in favour of the verse having 
 existed in the text or recension of that Church. 
 
 Having thus reduced the controversy to a contest 
 between two recensions, the African and Italian, it 
 remains to inquire which of these has claims to the 
 greater authority ; which can justly be considered the 
 true representative of the original version ? Eor should 
 it appear highly probable, or even certain, that the 
 Latin translation was really made in Africa, and that 
 consequently the African text, preserved by the writers 
 of that Church, ascends to a higher antiquity not only 
 than the Italian, but than any Greek manuscript in 
 existence, we gain an argument much more compact, 
 defined, and solid, for the authenticity of the con- 
 troverted verse, than by the usual balancing of quota- 
 tions and texts.
 
 42 TWO LETTERS 
 
 Mr. Nolan has given several reasons why the au- 
 thority of the African Church should be considered 
 grave and weighty on this point ; h but does not enter 
 upon the only true means of deciding the controversy, 
 the determination of, which is the original text. 
 
 It is but justice, not so much to myself as to the 
 cause which I am upholding, to premise that the ex- 
 amination which follows was undertaken, like that in 
 my former letter, without reference to this controversy, 
 being the result of inquiries made for academical 
 purposes, when treating of the Vulgate in a course 
 of theological lectures. 
 
 A palimpsest of a Latin antehieronyman version 
 having been discovered some years ago at Wiirtzburg, 
 Dr. Peder transcribed all that was legible, comprising 
 Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. These fragments he 
 transmitted to the late learned Dr. Miinter, bishop of 
 Seeland, who published an account of them in a letter 
 addressed to the well-known M. Gregoire. This ap- 
 peared in the Revue Encyclopedique for March, 1819, 
 p. 545. The letter is dated Copenhagen, February 7. 
 In this letter he supposes these fragments to be of 
 African origin; he says they cannot belong to the 
 Itala, because they want the "perspicuity of sentence." 
 He promises to publish them : and if I remember 
 right, they have been given in the third number of the 
 Miscellanea Hafnensia ; but not having that journal 
 at hand, I cannot ascertain it at present : I have cer- 
 tainly seen them in some such publication. 
 
 Eichhorn, however, was the first author who hazarded 
 a general conjecture that the Latin Vulgate was origi- 
 nally made in Africa. This is strictly a conjecture, for 
 he attempts no demonstration of his grounds. The 
 principal, or rather the only real one is, the barbarism 
 
 h Inquiry, p. 295.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 43 
 
 of the language in which it is written. 1 Against the 
 term barbarism, we must protest; and we have the 
 suffrage for so doing of the celebrated lexicographer 
 Gesner, who used to say that he considered the Vul- 
 gate as a classical author, since it enabled him to 
 survey the Latin language in its full extent. k 
 
 Instead of such vague conjecture, let us try to 
 collect some specific proofs, tending, in my humble 
 opinion, to demonstrate, that Africa is the birthplace 
 of the Latin version. 
 
 First, it may be remarked, that Greek literature was 
 brought into such repute in Italy, under the Caesars, 
 but especially under Trajan and the Antonines, that a 
 version of the Scriptures would be there hardly neces- 
 sary. It is singular that almost all the names which 
 occur in the history of the early B/oman Church are 
 Greek ; as Cletus, Anacletus, Soter, Eleutherius, Linus, 
 Evaristus, Telesphorus, Hyginus. Several of these 
 were in fact Greeks by birth, and their election to the 
 pontificate indicates the preponderance of that nation 
 in the Roman Church, and the acquaintance of their 
 flock with the Greek language. But this is much 
 better demonstrated by the fact, that for the two first 
 centuries, and even later, we have hardly a single 
 instance of an ecclesiastical writer, belonging to the 
 Italian Church, composing his works in any language 
 but Greek. 
 
 The epistle of St. Clement, or Clemens Romamis as 
 he is emphatically called, was written about the year 
 96, in Greek. 1 He was really a Boman by birth, but 
 there is nothing in his writings to indicate either that 
 he used a translator, or wrote that language with an 
 
 1 Einleitung in das A. T. Ed. 4, Getting. 1823, vol. ii. p. 406. 
 
 k Michaelis's Introd. by Marsh, vol. ii. p. 116. 
 
 1 Eusebius, H. E. lib. iii. c. xvi. p. 107, ed. Beading.
 
 44 TWO LETTERS 
 
 effort. We may add, that the letter is written in the 
 name of the whole Roman Church. 
 
 I need not mention St. Justin and Tatian; as 
 neither can be said to have been a member of the 
 Italian Church, though both published their Greek 
 writings in Rome. 
 
 Modestus, who is placed by Cave about the year 176, 
 seems by his name to have been a Latin, and yet 
 appears to have written in Greek ; for St. Jerome says, 
 "Feruntur sub nomine ejus et alia o-uvTay^aTa."" 1 
 Eusebius mentions him in conjunction with St. Ire- 
 nseus. n 
 
 There seems no reason to doubt that the correspond- 
 ence between the churches of Rome and Corinth, 
 under Soter, was carried on in Greek. 
 
 St. Irena3us, bishop of Lyons, ill 178, wrote his 
 works entirely in the same language. The celebrated 
 letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, is like- 
 wise in Greek. 
 
 St. Jerome says that Tertullian is the oldest Latin 
 writer after Victor and Apollonius? The first is un- 
 doubtedly the pope of that name : the history of the 
 second is more obscure. In St. Jerome's catalogue, 
 two writers of this name are mentioned. The second 
 of these was a Roman senator, who composed an 
 Apology, and certainly wrote in Greek. q For in another 
 place he is mentioned among Greek writers ; r and there 
 is no doubt but he is the same person whose Apology 
 Eusebius published. 8 He probably wrote some other 
 works in Latin : it is sufficient for our present pur- 
 
 m De Viris Illust. c. xxxii. torn. ii. p. 858, ed. Vallars. 
 
 n Lib. iv. c. 25, p. 188. Ib. lib. v. c. xxi. p. 239. 
 
 P Lo. cit. c. liii. p. 875. q Ib. c. xlii. p. 869. 
 
 r Ep. ad Magn. Ixx. torn. i. p. 427. H. E. lib. v. c. 21, p. 189.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 45 
 
 pose that he should have indifferently used either 
 language. 
 
 Caius, the celebrated Roman priest, about 212, is 
 generally acknowledged to have drawn up his numerous 
 treatises in the Greek language. This is solidly 
 established by Tillemont, followed by Lardner.* 
 
 The dialogue against Artemon, the author of which 
 is unknown, appears manifestly, from the fragments 
 given by Eusebius, u and from other circumstances, to 
 have been written at Rome by some ecclesiastic ; and 
 yet it seems undoubtedly to have been composed in 
 Greek. 
 
 Asterius Urbanus seems by his name to have been 
 an Italian, and yet appears to have written and dis- 
 puted in Greek. His work was dedicated to Abercius 
 Marcellus. By Eusebius's account, it was accident 
 that led him to Galatia, where his conferences took 
 place. 1 
 
 St. Hippolytus Portuensis is supposed by some to 
 have been bishop of Portus Romanus, or Adan, in 
 Arabia ; by others, of Portus, now Porto, at the mouth 
 of the Tiber. The grounds for both opinions may be 
 seen in Lardner, y who, however, has omitted the 
 circumstance that the church of Porto, and a well 
 there held in great veneration, bear his name. The 
 question is immaterial; Hippolytus lived and wrote 
 in Rome. His paschal cycle may be seen engraved on 
 his chair in the Vatican Library. It is in Greek, as 
 were all his works. 
 
 Erom these instances, the only ones on record, it 
 appears that Victor was the only author belonging to 
 
 * Works. Lond. 1827, vol. i. p. 396. 
 
 u Lib. v. c. 28, p. 195, seqq. x Ib. c. 16, p. 182. 
 
 y Ubi sup. p. 426.
 
 46 TWO LETTERS 
 
 the Roman, Italian, or Gallic Church, who is recorded 
 to have written in Latin before A.D. 230 ; and there 
 are not wanting grounds to conjecture that he likewise 
 understood Greek. In the mean time, not a Greek 
 ecclesiastical writer appears in Africa, while, on the 
 other hand, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Lactantius, and 
 Minucius Felix, who are the earliest Latin Fathers, 
 were of that nation. Add to this, that St. Mark's 
 Gospel is acknowledged hy ancient writers to have been 
 drawn up for the instruction of the Roman Church, 
 and yet was written in Greek ; and that St. Paul 
 addressed his epistle to that Church in the same 
 language. It would be strange that they should have 
 acted thus, if a translation into Latin had been neces- 
 sary ; and we must therefore conclude that Greek was 
 perfectly understood by the faithful there ; and so it 
 would continue for some time. This in fact appears 
 from the proofs given above. 
 
 Prom these reflections results a strong ground of 
 historical probability that the first Latin version was 
 not made in Italy, but in Africa. And this is more 
 than a mere conjecture. For we have positive proof, 
 in the quotations of African writers, that such a ver- 
 sion did exist in their country before the fourth cen- 
 tury; while the whole historical evidence which we 
 possess regarding Italy, leads us to conclude that the 
 Greek text was used there till the commencement of 
 that age. Now, having in my former letter shown 
 that the version used in the two countries was iden- 
 tical, it will follow that the Italian text was imported 
 from Africa. 
 
 But the most satisfactory method of determining 
 the country of the Vulgate must be by an examination 
 of its words and phrases. The result of such an 
 examination will be twofold. First, we shall discover
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 47 
 
 that it abounds in archaisms, or antiquated forms of 
 expression, only found in writers anterior to the 
 Augustan age. This will plead strongly for the pro- 
 vincial origin of the version; since such peculiarities 
 would he longer preserved at a distance than in the 
 vicinity of the capital. And whoever has made any 
 study of the African writers of the first centuries, will 
 have remarked how many of these are preserved by 
 them/ In the examples now to be produced, this 
 will sometimes appear. Indeed, it is probable that the 
 old Vulgate may have originally contained more of 
 these archaisms than now remain, in consequence of 
 its various corrections. For instance, the old copy 
 of St. Matthew, published by Monsignor Mai, in his 
 Sciptorum Veterum Nova Collectio, torn. iii. Home, 
 1828, has, Matt. iv. 18 (p. 257), the word retiam for 
 retem. Now this confirms the same reading in Plau- 
 tus, quoted by Priscian : a " Nam tune et operam ludos 
 fecisset et retiam" 10 Secondly, we shall discover many 
 decided Africanisms, or expressions found in none but 
 African writers, nearest in age to the old version. 
 
 1 Arnobius, for instance, often uses words and grammatical forms 
 manifestly antiquated. It would be easy to give many examples. 
 Thus, lib. i. adv. Gent. p. 35 (Lugd. Batav. 1651), he uses the 
 word Stribiligines. Of this word Aul. Grellius, Noct. Att. lib. v. 
 cap. xx. p. 341 (ed. Gronov. Lugd. Bat. 1706), says : " Soloscismus . . 
 vetustioribus Latinis stribiligo dicebatur, quasi sterobiligo qusedam." 
 In the passage referred to, of Arnobius, he is excusing the rude style 
 of Scripture ; probably of the original. Comp. Clem. Alex. Protrept. 
 Again, Arnobius often uses the old form of the passive infinitive, as 
 p. 160, velarier and coronarier ; p. 186, convestirier. See note, p. 5. 
 
 a P. 759, ed. Putsch. This is the edition which I shall always 
 quote, of the grammarians. 
 
 b Eud. act. iv. sc. i. 9. 
 
 c Whoever has read the early Christian writers belonging to the 
 African Church, must be struck with the family air which prevails 
 through them, chiefly in the use of particular words and forms, not
 
 48 TWO LETTERS 
 
 The principal of these is of course Tertullian. The 
 examples which will be given, and which may at least 
 suffice to turn the attention of more skilful philologers 
 to the subject, will be almost confined to the New 
 Testament, the Psalms, and Ecclesiasticus, which have 
 been preserved from the old Vulgate in the version 
 used by the Church. I will place the references to 
 authors in the text, not to confuse and fatigue the 
 reader by referring him every moment to the foot of 
 the page. 
 
 I. A common archaism, or, as it is often erroneously 
 called, solecism, in the old version, is the use of depo- 
 nents with a passive signification. Priscian expressly 
 tells us that this is an archaism : " Ex his multa antiqui 
 tarn passiva quam activa significatione protulisse inve- 
 niuntur " (p. 790). Again: "Multa similiter ancipiti 
 terminatione, in una eademque significatione prsetule- 
 runt antiqui" (p. 799). Whence it appears that these 
 deponent verbs were anciently active. In another 
 
 commonly found, except perhaps occasionally in old writers. Thus 
 the word striculus, or, as some editions write it, hystricuhts, for " a 
 boy," occurs only in Aruobius (lib. v. p. 174) and Tertullian (De 
 Pallio, c. iv.). The older editions have ustricolas, which makes no 
 sense. Arnobius often uses qu instead of c, as " arquata sella" 
 (lib. ii. p. 59), arquitenens, Mrquinus (p. 165), &c. This arises 
 from a confusion common in old writers. We find the same inter- 
 change of letters, though in the contrary form (c being used for qu~), 
 in Tertullian, who, for example, has licet for liquet. (De Pcenit. c. vi. 
 I quote here, accidentally, from the old Paris ed. of 1545 ; in other 
 places from Eigaltius's edition.) Plautus and Terence made the 
 same confusion. Heraldus (Animadv. ad Arnob. p. 77) seems to 
 consider this an Africanism ; but from G-ellius's remarks on Insece 
 and inseque, it seems to have been common to old writers. (Lib. xiii. 
 c. 9, p. 282.) I could bring together many other instances ; several 
 will occur in the text. It would be also easy to point out other 
 resemblances of phraseology between Tertullian and Lactantius, or 
 St. Cyprian ; but this is not necessary.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 49 
 
 place (p. 797), he says of deponent verbs: "Prgeterea 
 plurima inveniuntur apud vetustissimos qu.se contra 
 consuetudinem, activam pro passiva habent termina- 
 tionem." Among these he enumerates consolo and 
 horto. Aulus Gellius (lib. xv. c. 13, p. 681) says pre. 
 cisely the same of these two verbs. Both words occur 
 passively, 2 Cor. i. 6. The first is also used, Psalm 
 cxviii. 52 ; Luke xvii. 25. 
 
 A similar instance is Heb. xiii. 16 : " Talibus enim 
 hostiis promeretur Deus." That mereo, in the past 
 tenses, was often used, could easily be shown by 
 reference to the classics. Promereo, however, does 
 not appear to have been used by writers of the golden 
 age with the same facility. Nonius (De Cont. Gen. 
 Verb. Opp. p. 475, ed. Par. 1641) has an article on 
 promeres, for promereris; and quotes Plautus (Trinum. 
 act. iii. sc. ii. 15) for it. It occurs often in him (as 
 Amphit. act. v. sc. ii. 12) and Terence (And. act. ii. 
 sc. i. 30; Adelph. act. ii. sc. i. 47). It is also used 
 by Ovid, and perhaps some others. But besides the 
 evident archaism of the word, it seems to merit notice 
 from its signification of propitiating by sacrifice, which 
 it does not bear in any classical writer ; and, as far as 
 I know, occurs nowhere but in Arnobius, an African, 
 who says : " Ita nihil prodest promereri velle per 
 hostias Deos laevos." (Adv. Gent. lib. vii. p. 229.) 
 
 The passive ministrari often occurs in the New 
 Testament ; as Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45 ; 2 Cor. viii. 
 19, 20 ; 2 Peter i. 11. This is hardly to be found in 
 true Italian writers. Plautus is quoted by Nonius as 
 having " Boni ministrantur, ilium mine irrident mali." 
 The older editions, however, as the one quoted above 
 (p. 138), have " Boni immiserantur, illhunc irrident 
 mali." Columella also, a native of Cadiz, though an 
 elegant writer, uses the word (lib. xii. 1). 
 
 i E
 
 50 TWO LETTERS 
 
 The termination of the future of verbs of the fourth 
 conjugation in ibo is preserved occasionally by the 
 translator of the Vulgate, as Psalm lix. 8, partibor and 
 metibor, and is set down by the old grammarians as 
 an antiquated form. Nonius gives many examples, 
 always from the oldest writers; as Ennius, Accius, 
 Novius. These are reddibo, expedibo (p. 476), esuribo, 
 invenibo (p. 479), audibo (p. 505), aperibo (p. 506), 
 operibo and oboedibo (p. 506), &c. It is singular that 
 Charisius (Instit. Gram. p. 222, ed. Putsch) should 
 giveferibo as the regular future offerio. Yet Horace 
 has (Od. ii. 17, v. 32), " Nos humilem feriemus 
 agnum." He has, however (Od. iii. 23, v. 19), " Mol- 
 libit adversos Penates." The form, nevertheless, 
 always remains a decided archaism. 
 
 In the old Vulgate, the verb odio was used even 
 more markedly than now appears ; though as yet some 
 tenses not used in the classics remain ; as odientes. So 
 in the fragment of St. Matthew's Gospel before re- 
 ferred to, in ch. v. ver. 44 (p. 259), we have odiunt, and 
 again, vi. 24 (p. 260), odiet. Tertullian quotes : " Non 
 odies fratrem tuum," from Levit. xix. 6 (adv. Mar- 
 cion. lib. iv. c. 35), where St. Augustine reads odio 
 habebis. (Qusest. Ixx. in Levit. torn. iii. p. 520.) Ees- 
 tus (sub voce) says the ancients used the verb odio ; 
 but examples are hardly to be met, except in Tertul- 
 lian, who has odientes (ib. c. xvi.), oditur (Apolog. 
 c. iii.). It is once attributed to Petronius Arbiter ; but 
 audientes is the better reading. Were it not for the 
 authority of Festus, I should consider this an Afri- 
 canism. 
 
 Matt. xxii. 30, we have the word nubentur. Nonius 
 tells us, that " nubere, veteres, non solum mulieres sed 
 viros dicebant." (p. 143.) The expression may thus 
 be considered an archaism ; however, it is used this
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 51 
 
 way almost exclusively by African writers. Tertullian 
 says (ad Vxor. lib. i. c. 1), " Apud Patriarchas, non 
 modo nubere, sed etiam multifariam matrimoniis uti 
 fas fuit." (Cf. c. 7.) Again (adv. Marc. lib. iv. c. 38), 
 "Prsestruxit hie quidem nubi, ubi sit et mori." So 
 Plautus (Perstf. act. iii. sc. i. 58), " Cujusmodi hie 
 cum fama facile nubitur" St. Jerome also, who often , 
 seems to imitate the African writers, whom he so 
 much admired, uses it; but perhaps he alludes to 
 the text of St. Matt. (Ep. xxii. No. 19.) 
 
 Ps. Ixi. 7. " Emigrabit te de tabernaculo tuo." A 
 manifest archaism. It is quoted by Nonius from 
 Titinnius (p. 2). " Quot pestes, senia, jurgia sesemet 
 diebus emigrarunt ;" corrected by later critics into 
 " sese meis sedibus emigrarunt." Gellius uses it : d 
 " Atque ita cassita nidum migravit." (Lib. ii. c. xxx. 
 p. 201.) Thysicus, in his Commentary, remarked that 
 it is an obsolete phrase. Gronovius denies it, and 
 appeals to Cicero (De Offic. lib. i. c. 10). But though 
 he uses it there and elsewhere (as De Fin. lib. iii. c. 20; 
 De Leg. lib. iii. c. 4), it is always in the sense of 
 transgressing a law or duty ; in which Tertullian also 
 has (De Cor. Mil. c. 18), "Nee dubita quosdam 
 scripturas emigrare." But the meaning of these 
 words is very obscure. 
 
 I hardly know whether I should instance the phrase- 
 contumeliam facer e, which occurs often; as 2 Mac. vii. 
 27 ; Luke xi. 47 ; Heb. xi. 29, and once in St. Jerome's 
 
 d The occurrence of a phrase in A. Gellius can be no argument 
 of its not being an archaism. On the contrary, his constant study 
 of the older writers familiarized him with their expressions, and led 
 him to use them. Hence Salmasius says of him, " Antonianorum 
 sevo Agellius (A. Gellius) politissime et elegantissime scripsit, et 
 prorsus ap-^aiKov dicendi modum imitatus est." (De Hellen, p. 37.) 
 Hence we shall often see him in the text confirming alone expressions 
 found in Tertullian, or other writers of his class. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 TWO LETTERS 
 
 version, Mic. vii. 6. Some readers will probably re- 
 member Cicero's severe criticism on the expression, 
 when used by Antonius. (Phil. iii. 9.) " Quid est 
 Iporrofacere contumeliam? quis sic loquitur ?" This, 
 however, does not apply to our phrase ; as Quintilian 
 (Inst. lib. ix. c. 3) tells us it had been there used 
 passively, in the same manner as we may say, facere 
 jacturam. The passage of Cicero has nevertheless 
 been a fruitful field for ingenious critics, as my readers 
 may satisfy themselves by consulting Muretus (Var. 
 Lee. lib. vi. c. 18), or the elder Gronovius (Observat. 
 lib. iii. c. 8, ed. 2, p. 488). However, I believe the 
 phrase, even actively, will hardly be found in any but 
 the oldest writers. It occurs in a fragment of a speech 
 by Q. Metellus Numidicus, preserved by A. Gellius 
 (lib. xii. c. ix. p. 564) : " Tanto vobis quam mihi 
 majorem contumeliam facit." It is remarkable how 
 Gellius, having to repeat the sentiment in his own 
 name, carefully avoids this turn, and explains it by 
 . " majori vos contumelia affecit quam me." It is also 
 found in Plautus (Asin. act. ii. sc. iv. 82) and Terence 
 (Hecyr. act. iii. sc. v. ; Phorm. act. v. sc. vii.). 
 
 Thus far I have given a few specimens of the archa- 
 isms of the old Vulgate, many of which are to be 
 found principally in African writers. I will now 
 proceed to give what I consider examples of its 
 Africanisms. 
 
 II. We cannot fail to be struck with the extraordi- 
 nary number of words compounded with super, which 
 occur in the parts of the Vulgate belonging to the old 
 version. I will give a list of those which are not to 
 be found in any profane writer ; and it is singular to 
 observe, in contrast, that St. Jerome in his part has 
 not one which is not sanctioned by classical authorities, 
 except super exaltatus, which he preserved from the
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 53 
 
 old version. Ps. xxxiv. 19, 24, xxxvii. 17, supergaudeo; 
 xxxvi. 35, Jac. ii. 12, superexalto ; Ps. Ivii. 9, super- 
 cado ; ITTX-J. 16, superextollo ; cxviii. 43, etc. super- 
 spero ; Eccles. xliii. 32, supervaleo ; 4 Esdras (Apo- 
 crypha) vii. 23, superdico ; xv. 6, superpolluo ; 29, 
 superinvalesco ; vi. 20, supersignor ; Matt. vi. 11, 
 supersubstantialis ; xiii. 25, supersemino ; xxv. 20, 
 superlucror ; Luc. vi. 38, supereffluens ; x. 35, super- 
 erogo ; 1 Cor. vii. 36, superadidtus ; 2 Cor. v. 4, 
 supervestior ; xvi. 15, superimpendor ; Jud. iii. super- 
 certo. I have given this long list, because it seems 
 decidedly to point out a class of words indicative of a 
 dialectic tendency. To it I may add the word super- 
 adifico, which occurs seven times in the New Testa- 
 ment, though nowhere among classical writers. Perhaps 
 these words abounded even more in older copies ; for 
 Tertullian (adv. Gnostic, c. 13), quoting Horn. viii. 37, 
 has the verb sttpervenio ; whereas our copies have su- 
 pero. Now it is singular to observe precisely the same 
 tendency in the writings of this African, nearest in age 
 to the Latin version ; and I will therefore give a list 
 of words of the same form, found in no other ancient 
 writer but himself : Superinduco (adv. Hermog. c. 26) ; 
 superargumentor (ib. c. 37) ; superacervo (adv. Nat. 
 lib. i. c. 15) ; superfrutico (adv. Valent. c. 39) ; super- 
 inductitius (adv. Marcion. lib, v, c. 3) ; superordino 
 (ib. c. 5) ; superindumentum (ib. c. 12 ; De Resur. 
 Car. c. 42) ; superextollo (De Resur. c. 24) ; super- 
 terrenm (ib. c. 49) ; superccelestis (ib. et De Anima, 
 c. 23) ; superinundo (ib. c. ult.) ; supermundialis (De 
 Anima, c. 18) ; supersapio (ib.) ; superseminator (ib. 
 c. 16) ; supermetior (ib. c. 38) ; supernomino (Apol. 
 c. 18) ; superscendo (De Pcenit. c. 10) ; supervecto (De 
 JBaptis. c. 4). And to come to one specific comparison, 
 Tertullian has also the word supercedijicatio (adv. Mar-
 
 54 TWO LETTERS 
 
 cion. lib. v. c. 6), which is likewise used by Victorinus, 
 no less an African. (Mai. Scriptor. Vet. ut sup. p. 112.) 
 Certainly, it would be difficult, or rather impossible, to 
 cull from any other two such small collections of 
 writings as those I have cited, such a number of com- 
 pound words of the same form, not to be found else- 
 where. For both in the Vulgate and Tertullian, or 
 rather the small portions of each which I have quoted, 
 I have passed over many compounds of this form, 
 which they respectively have in common with other 
 writers. 
 
 Another no less striking class of words, peculiar to 
 the Vulgate and African writers, consists of verbs 
 terminating in ifico ; many of which were afterwards 
 received as established ecclesiastical words. The 
 following instances may suffice to illustrate this point. 
 Mortifico is often used for to kill. Ps.xxxvi. 42 ; xliii. 22; 
 Ixxviii. 11 ; Rom. viii. 36, &c. St. Jerome has once or 
 twice adopted it into his version. Even in those pas- 
 sages, where, from the ecclesiastical use of the word, 
 we translate it by mortify, as Ilom. vii. 4 ; viii. 13, it 
 in reality signifies to kill ; as mortificatio, 2 Cor. iv. 10, 
 undoubtedly signifies death, or as the Douay version 
 renders it, dying. But upon these renderings I may 
 have occasion to speak more at length on another 
 occasion. Suffice it to say, that this verb mortifico, 
 with its derivatives, is nowhere found in classical 
 authors, but is most common in Tertullian, who uses 
 it without the least reference to these texts. Thus 
 (DeResur. c.57), "Caro non prodest quidquam, morti- 
 ficatur enim." Again (adv. Marc. lib. v. c. 9) : " Quod 
 si sic in Christo vivificamur omnes, sicut mortificamur 
 in Adam, quando in Adam corpore mortificamur, sic 
 necesse est et in Christo corpore vivificemur. Cae- 
 terum similitude non constat, si. non in eadem sub-
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 55 
 
 stantia mortificationis in Adam, vivificatio occurret in 
 Christo." It may be proper to notice a passage in 
 Eestus (De Verb. Signif. Amst. 1700, lib. ix. p. 253), 
 who explains the word munitio by mortificatio ciborum. 
 Scaliger proposes to read morsificatio. Meursius, how- 
 ever, prefers retaining the usual reading, but deriving 
 the word from mortare conterere, which is not, I 
 believe, to be found in any ancient writer. Vimfico is 
 another scriptural word not used by profane writers. 
 It is almost superfluous to cite examples, as it occurs 
 in nearly every book. St. Jerome was driven to the 
 necessity of often adopting it, as the idea of giving or 
 restoring life is so essentially Christian, that no heathen 
 word could have been found to express it. We have 
 seen examples from Tertullian both of the verb and 
 substantive. He also has the word vivificator (De 
 Resur. c. 37 ; adv. Marc. ii. 9). Glorifico occurs as fre- 
 quently as the last word, and has been likewise re- 
 ceived into the second Vulgate. The oldest authority 
 for it is once more Tertullian. ( Idol. c. 22 ; adv. Prax. 
 c. 25, saepius.) Clarifico is found only in the old ver- 
 sion, as, 3 Esd. viii. 28, 82 ; ix. 53 ; Jo. xii. 18, 23, 28, 
 &c. ; Gal. i. 24, and elsewhere. The older editions of 
 Pliny had the word (Hist. Nat. lib. xx. c. 13), in the 
 sense of clearing ("visum clarificat") ; but F. Hardouin, 
 from MSS., restored compurgat. The oldest authority 
 for its biblical sense is Lactantius (lib. iii. c. 18) ; and 
 the noun clarificatio is first met with in St. Augustine 
 (De Div. Qucest. c. Ixii. torn. vi. p. 37), both Africans. 
 Sanctifico is another verb unknown to profane writers, 
 yet found very frequently in the Vulgate. It is used 
 by Tertullian, in commenting on the Lord's Prayer 
 (De Or at. c. 3), and in other places (Exhort, ad 
 Cast. c. 7), as also sanctificator (adv. Prax. c. 2 ; S. Aug. 
 Con/, lib. x. c. 34), and sanctificatio (Exhort, c. 1).
 
 56 TWO LETTERS 
 
 Salvifico belongs to the same class, and occurs Jo. xii. 
 27, 47. Sedulius uses it, but evidently in allusion to 
 this passage (lib. vi. 7). Tertullian, according to some 
 editions, has the word salvificator (De Pudicit. c. 2) : 
 " Salvificator omnium hominum maxime fidelium." 
 The older editions, however, have salutificator. 
 Justifico is another common scriptural term unknown 
 to the classics, and is to be found in almost every book 
 of Tertullian, in every possible form. (Adv. Marcion. 
 lib. ii. c. 19, iv. 17 ; De Orat. c. 13, &c.) Magnified 
 too, is often used in a sense unknown to classical 
 writers, for, to make great; as Ps. xvii. 54 ; Ivi. 11. I 
 do not know that it is found in this sense in Tertullian. 
 We have thus eight examples of words of a peculiar 
 form, perfectly unknown to the classics, but almost all 
 in common use among African writers, nearest to the 
 age of the Vulgate. But were it to be urged that even 
 these may have derived them from this version, and 
 that, if inventions, they may equally be the productions 
 of Italy, I would reply, that decidedly this does not 
 appear probable. For, besides these words, others of 
 the very same form are constantly to be found in these 
 African writers, known to no other authors ; and there- 
 fore it seems probable that they were in the habit of 
 using or coining such words, and that with them this 
 was a favourite form. To give a few instances : Ter- 
 tullian has the extraordinary word angelifico (DeResur. 
 Car. c. 25) : " Quse illam (carnem) manent in regno 
 Dei reformatam et angelificatam" He has also the 
 derivatives salutificator (ib. c. 47 ; De Car. Christi, 
 c. 14), and vestificina (De Pallio, c. 3), and deificus 
 (Apol. c. 11). In like manner Arnobius often uses the 
 word auctifico for to honour, especially the gods by 
 sacrifice (adv. Gent. pp. 224, 233) ; a word peculiar to 
 himself, as the others are to Tertullian.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 57 
 
 Ephes. v. 4, we have the word stultiloquium ; 
 Matt. vi. 7, multiloquium; preserved also in Prov. x. 19. 
 These words are prohably found in no ancient writer 
 but Plautus, who has stultiloquium (Mil. Glor. act. ii. 
 sc. iii. 25), stultiloquus (Pers. act. iv. sc. iii. 45), and 
 stultiloquentia (Trinum. act. i. see. ii. 185) ; in like 
 manner, multiloquium (Mercat. prolog. 31), multilo- 
 quus (Pseud, act. iii. sc. ii. 5 ; Cistel. act. i. sc, iii. 1). 
 What strongly confirms the Africanism of these com- 
 pounds is the recurrence of similar forms in Tertullian ; 
 as turpiloquium (De Pudicit. c. 17), spurciloquium 
 (De Hesurrec. Car. c. 4), and even risiloquium (De 
 Po3nit. c. 10). The words vaniloquus (Tit. i. 10), and 
 vaniloqiuum (1 Tim. i. 6), belong to the same class ; 
 the first is used, in the sense it has in the text, only by 
 Plautus (Amph. act. i. sc. i. 223) ; though in a different 
 sense, occasionally, by others. The second is found in 
 no ancient author. 
 
 The text just quoted has brought another under my 
 eye (Tit. i. 7), where we have the Greek compound 
 ctla-Xpoxeffi rendered by turpis lucri cupidum. Plautus 
 uses this very phrase, but in a compound form : " Tur- 
 pilucricupidum vocant te cives tui." (Trinum. act. i. 
 sc. ii. 63.) 
 
 Condignus is a favourite word with the translator of 
 the old Vulgate. We have it for instance, 2 Mac. iv. 
 38 ; Rom. viii. 18. It is often used by Plautus (Amph. 
 act. i. sc. iii. 39 ; see also Cass. act. i. v. 42 ; Bacch. 
 act. iii. sc. ii. 8), and once or twice by A. Gellius (pp. 
 51, 222). It is a common word with Arnobius. (Lib. i. 
 p. 1, 15 ; ii. 55.) 
 
 Minoro and its derivative minoratio are entirely 
 confined to the old parts of the Vulgate, where they 
 very frequently occur. The verb for instance, 
 Ps. Ixxxviii. 46; Ecclus. xxxi. 40; xli. 3; 2 Mac.
 
 58 TWO LETTERS 
 
 xiii. 19; 2 Cor. viii. 15; Heb. ii. 9; and often else- 
 where : the noun, Ecclus. xx. 11 ; xxxix. 23 ; xl. 27. 
 These words are only to be found among African 
 writers. Tertullian often uses the verb : " Perit 
 anima si minor atur " (De Anima, c. 43) ; " a quo et 
 minoratus canitur in psalmo modicum quid citra 
 angelos" (adv. Prax. c. 7, repeated in De Cor. 
 Mil. c. 14). The noun I have only met in Ferrandus 
 Carthaginiensis,who has, " JEqualitas quippe ejus secun- 
 dum divinitatem non accepit initium, minor atio secun- 
 dum carnem accepit initium." (Script. Vet. ubi sup. p. 
 172.) Tertullian also has the verb diminoro. (De Anima, 
 c. 33; adv. Prax. c. 15, where minoro is repeated.) 
 
 Levit. xx. 20, the old version had, " Non accedat ad 
 ministerium Dei si fuerit . . . ponderosus ; " for which 
 word St. Jerome substituted herniosus. Probably the 
 only passage in which this adjective occurs in the same 
 sense is one of Arnobius (lib. vii. p. 240) : " Ingentium 
 herniarum magnitudine ponder osi." 
 
 A word often used in the old Vulgate, and once 
 adopted by St. Jerome (Zac. xiii. 7), merits our notice, 
 from the peculiar signification it bears. This is 
 framea, in the sense of a sword, which it always has 
 in the Vulgate ; as, Ps. ix. 7 ; xvi. 7 ; xxi. 21 ; 4 Esd. 
 xiii. 9, &c. Tacitus informs us of the origin of this 
 word : " Hastas, vel ipsorum vocabulo frameas, 
 gerunt, angusto et brevi ferro, sed ita acri et ad usum 
 belli habili, ut eodem telo, prout ratio poscit, vel 
 cominus vel eminm pugnent." (De Mor. Germ. c. 6.) 
 Wachter derives the word from the old TeutonicyHm^, 
 to throw (Glossar. Germ. Lips. 1737, torn. i. p. 471); 
 but St. Augustine (Epist. 140, torn. ii. p. 437; cf. torn. v. 
 p. 1259) expressly tells us that the word meant a 
 sword ; and thus gives us an African testimony for the
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 59 
 
 meaning it has in the Vulgate, though quite at variance 
 with the signification it bears in the classics. 
 
 Improperium is a word of frequent recurrence in our 
 version, and confine^ as well as its verb impropero, to 
 the old parts. It is doubtful whether any classical 
 authority exists for either ; certainly not for the noun. 
 Some editions have the verb in Plautus (Rud. act. iii. 
 sc. iv. 48) ; but perhaps opprobras is the better read- 
 ing. We meet with both words in some Arian sermons, 
 published by Mai, which appear to me decidedly of 
 African origin : " Ne ab aliquo super eo improperium 
 accipiat." (Script. Vet. p. 219.) A few lines lower 
 the verb occurs. 
 
 The noun pascua, as a feminine, comes often in the 
 old Vulgate ; as, Ps. xxii. 2 ; Ixxviii. 13 ; and has been 
 even preserved in the new. This form is unknown to 
 the classics, but found in Tertullian : " Quse illi accu- 
 ratior pascua est." (Apol. c. 22.) 
 
 The adjective lingua 'tus occurs in the book of Eccle- 
 siasticus, viii. 4 ; xxv. 27. Tertullian once more is 
 the only authority in whom it has been found : 
 " Apostolus Athenis expertus est linguatam civitatem." 
 (De Anima, c. 3.) 
 
 I do not know whether I should mention the words 
 salvo, salvator, salvatio, for which the earliest authori- 
 ties are African ; as, Tertullian (adv. Marc. lib. iii. 
 c. 18), Lactantius, Victorinus (Scriptor. Vet. p. 24, et 
 alibi), who has salvatio. These words are essentially 
 Christian : hence St. Augustine says : " Salvare et 
 salvator non fuerunt haec Latina, antequam veniret 
 Salvator, quando ad Latinos venit, et hsec Latina fecit." 
 (Serm. ccxcix. sec. 6, torn. v. p. 1213.) In fact, Cicero 
 tells us that the Greek word o-corvjp " Latino uno verbo 
 exprimi non potest." (In Ver. 4, c. 63.)
 
 60 TWO LETTERS 
 
 Ecacuare often occurs in the New Testament, for 
 the Greek xara^eoa, to render useless, destroy, &c. : 
 1 Cor. xiii. 8, 10 ; xv. 24 ; Gal. v. 11, and often else- 
 where. Occasionally it corresponds to the verb xevow, 
 as 1 Cor. i. 17. Tertullian, quoting 1 Cor. vi. 13, has, 
 " Deus autem et hunc et hanc evacuabit " (Ep. de 
 Cibis Jud. post med.), where we now read destruet. 
 Thus also he has, in the old editions, " hanc evacuatio- 
 nem et subjectionem bestiarum pollicetur." (Adv. 
 Marcion. lib. iv. c. 24, al. 40.) He has just quoted 
 Is. xxvii. 1, and consequently means killing, or 
 destruction. I think I have met with these words in 
 him oftener ; but cannot find the places. Vacuus is 
 often used by him in the sense of unsubstantial, not 
 solid; as, "phanatasma res vacua" (ib. c. 20) ; as it is 
 by Arnobius, "periculum cassum et vacuum" (lib. ii. 
 p. 44). In the first passage of Tertullian, Rigaltius, 
 it is fair to add, has erogationem instead of evacua- 
 tionem. 
 
 The word intentator ( Jac. i. 13) is excessively harsh, 
 and it will be impossible to find any word of that form 
 that equals it, in the rudest writers. Yet it is impos- 
 sible not to be struck with the number of strange 
 compounds with the negative m, that occur in every 
 page of Tertullian, and writers of that school. Thus 
 we have in him, imbonitas (adv. Martyr, c. 3) ; im- 
 misericordia (De Spectac. c. 20) ; incriminatio (De 
 Resur. Car. c. 23) ; ingratia (De Pcenit. c. 1, 2) ; in- 
 suavitas (ib. c. 10) ; which is found also in Gellius 
 (lib. i. c. 21, p. 107) ; imprasscienMa (adv. Marcion. 
 lib. ii. c. 7); illaudanus (ib. lib. iii. c. 6); invitu- 
 perabilis (lib. ii. c. 10, iv. 1) ; incontradicibilis (lib. iv. 
 59) ; ininventibilis, minvestigabilis (adv. Hermog. 
 c. 45) ; innascibilis (De Prescript, c. 49) ; incon-
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 61 
 
 temptibilis (ApoV. c. 45) ; illiberis (adv. Marc. lib. iv. 
 c. 34) ; intestis (De Pallio, c. 3, according to Salma- 
 sius's reading) ; found also in Arnobius (lib. v. p. 160) ; 
 investis (ad Uxor* lib. ii. c. 9) ; incommunis (De 
 Pall. c. 3) ; inunitus (adv. Valent. c. 29) ; read also in 
 Apuleius ; inemeribilis (De Resur. c. 18) ; Lactantius 
 also has illibabilis (lib. ii. c. 2) ; Arnobius incontigiws 
 (lib. i. p. 7) ; and other peculiar words of that form. 
 A. Gellius, too, peculiarly delights in this form ; as 
 may be seen from the catalogue, imperfect as it is, of 
 words peculiar to him, given by Pabricius on Censori- 
 nus. (Biblioth. Lat. Lips. 1774, torn. iii. p. 77.) Apu- 
 leius, too, an African writer, and occasionally agreeing 
 in the use of words with Tertullian, has often this 
 form. Indeed the phrase most nearly approaching 
 that of the Vulgate, " Deus enim intentator malorum 
 est," is one of Apuleius, where he calls God " malo- 
 rum improbator." (De Deo Socr. Lug. Bat. 1823, 
 torn. ii. p. 156.) This word improbator is likewise found 
 in Tertullian (De Patient, c. 5). 
 
 I will now give a few examples of grammatical con- 
 struction, which seem to indicate an African origin. 
 
 The verb dominor is almost always construed with a 
 genitive ; as, for instance, Ps. x. 5 ; xxi. 29 ; Luc. yxii. 
 25, &c. ; and so has passed even into the new Vulgate. 
 This construction is found only, as far as I know, in 
 African writers. Thus Tertullian has, "nunquam 
 dominaturi ejus, si Deo non deliquisset." (Apol. c. 26.) 
 
 Ps. xxxvi. 1, we have zelare with an accusative case ; 
 so Ecclus. ix. 1, 16 ; and in other places. St. Jerome 
 has used the form twice, though he generally says, 
 zelatus sum pro. This construction, likewise, is con- 
 fined to African authors. Thus the author of the 
 poem against Marcion, whether it be Tertullian or
 
 62 TWO LETTERS 
 
 St. Cyprian, has (Carm. adv. Marc. lib. iv. v. 36, in 
 Opp. TertuL Rigalt. p. 636) 
 
 " Qui zelat populum summo pietatis amore." 
 
 So likewise St. Augustine (De Civit. Dei, lib. in. c. 3) : 
 "Dii credo non eelant conjuges suas." And again, 
 cont. Faust, lib. xxii. c. 79. 
 
 The use of an active QIC passive infinitive after facio 
 is a harsh form of expression ; as, Matt. iv. 19 : 
 " Faciam vos fieri piscatores hominum." Acts viii. 45 : 
 " Figuras quas fecistis adorare." Among the classics 
 this construction is hardly to be seen, unless facio 
 signifies to imagine, or suppose ; as Cicero : " Plato con- 
 strui a Deo atque sedificari mundum facit." (De Nat. 
 Deor. lib. i. c. 8.) Arnobius, however, often uses this 
 rude form; as, "Fecit oppidum claudi." (Lib. v. p. 159.) 
 "Fecit sumere habitum priorem." (Ib. p. 174.) 
 
 Jo. xix. 10 : " Potestatem habeo crucifigere te, et 
 potestatem habeo dimittere te." The poets do, indeed, 
 use the infinitive after potestas ; as Lucan (Phars. 
 lib. ii. 40), 
 
 Quum pendet fortuna ducum." 
 
 and Statius (Theb. lib. iv. 249), 
 
 " Neque enim haec juveni foret ire potestas" 
 
 Yet even these poetical turns cannot be compared with 
 the words quoted from the Vulgate : as in them the 
 verbs are not used actively after the word potestas, 
 which is thus, in a manner, equivalent to the im- 
 personal licet. Victorinus, however, the African writer 
 already quoted, has the expression, "potestas dare 
 vivere." (Apud Mai, prcef. ad Script. Vet. p. xvii.) 
 
 Ps. xliv. 14, we have the expression ab intus. This 
 is likewise found in a commentary on St. Luke, pub-
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 63 
 
 lished by Monsignor Mai (ib. p. 192), the latinity of 
 which seems to indicate an African origin. 
 
 Enallage of tenses often occurs in the old version. 
 Thus the imperfect subjunctive is put for the pluper- 
 fect, as Acts ii. 1 : " Cum complerentur dies Pente- 
 costes," for completi essent. Many other examples 
 might be brought. I will quote a note of Heraldus 
 upon the following words of Arnobius : " Nunquam 
 rebus ejusmodi credulitatis suse commodarent assen- 
 sum." (Lib. i. p. 33.) His annotate writes thus : 
 " AM utuntur saepissime prseterito imperfecto pro 
 plusquam perfecto, ut loquuntur grammatici. Extat 
 hsec svaA^ayr) apud Arnobium et Tertullianum, locis 
 quamplurimis ; quin et apud antiques scriptores, ut 
 apud Plautum non raro. Hinc igitur Augustini cele- 
 bre dictum illud ' Non crederem Evangelio, nisi me 
 Ecclesise commoveret auctoritas.' Id est, non credi- 
 dissem, turn quum eram Manichseus. Sic hoc loco 
 commodarent: pro commodassent.". (Desid. Heraldi 
 Animadvers. adArnob. lib. i. p. 54.) 
 
 I will give the judgment of the same learned critic 
 upon another construction not unfrequent in our 
 Vulgate, a sudden change from an indirect construc- 
 tion to the infinitive. Eor instance (Luc. i. 72) : 
 " Ad faciendam misericordiam cum patribus nostris, 
 et memorari testamenti sui sancti." Arnobius has 
 (lib. ii. p. 64), " Illibatum necesse est permaneat et 
 intactum, neque ullum sensum mortiferse passionis 
 assumere." On these words his commentator ob- 
 serves : " Proba lectio. Nam qui scribendum existi- 
 mant, assumat, plane falluntur. His modorum muta- 
 tionibus delectantur Afri scriptores. Infra ; ' causam 
 convenit ut inspiciatis, non factum, nee quid reliqueri- 
 mus opponere"' (Ib. p. 83.) I may observe that the 
 change of moods I have cited from the Vulgate was
 
 64 TWO LETTERS 
 
 manifestly the result of the translator's taste, and 
 noways suggested by the original, which preserves 
 through the sentence a consistent construction : 
 
 o 
 
 TTQiria-OLi s^eog .... xai |U.V7jo-0$jvaj ^laQrjX^. 
 
 Perhaps some will not consider the preceding 
 inquiry into the origin of the Yulgate sufficiently 
 extensive to prove definitively that it was composed in 
 Africa. I will, however, observe, that the best writers 
 upon the Latin language agree in considering the 
 African authors as composing a peculiar family, dis- 
 tinct from those of other nations. Thus, for instance, 
 Walchius says: "AM propria dicendi ratione Latinum 
 sermonem omnino corruperunt, constat id idem de 
 Tertulliano, Cypriano, Arnobio, aliisque." 6 Now I 
 doubt whether it would be possible to bring as many 
 definite points of resemblance between any two African 
 writers, as I have brought to show the similarity of 
 words and constructions between the Vulgate and Ter- 
 tullian, or Arnobius. And if it be said that the classi- 
 fication of these writers has been suggested more by 
 the general features of their style, and the rudeness of 
 their diction, than by marked approximations of 
 phraseology, I would reply, that the resemblance of 
 style, for example, between Arnobius and St. Cyprian, 
 is by no means so decisive as to warrant their being so 
 associated ; and that even in this view, the Vulgate, 
 taking into account that it is only a translation, may 
 well enter into the same class. To me, this investiga- 
 tion has brought complete conviction that the version 
 was made in Africa ; and that Tertullian is the author 
 nearest to it in age and country. 
 
 And in the foregoing discussion I have laid before 
 my readers the strongest proof, to which I alluded in 
 
 e Johannis Georgii "Walchii Historia critica Latinse Linguse. Ed. 
 noTa. Lips. 1729, p. 188.
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. G5 
 
 my first letter/ that the version used throughout the 
 Western Church was one in origin, however subse- 
 quently modified. For in the quotations of all the 
 Fathers, whether Italian, Gaulish, or Spanish, we find 
 these extraordinary words. If each Church used a 
 different version, still more if every one who thought 
 himself qualified, presumed to translate, is it credible, 
 nay, is it possible, that all, of whatever country, of 
 whatever abilities or education, would have used the 
 same words, and adopted similar forms, and these 
 most unusual, found only in writers of one province, 
 some in no writer except these several versions ? Can 
 any one believe, for instance, that the verbs, glorifico, 
 clarifico, salvifico, magnifico, justifico, mortifico, vim- 
 Jico, should have been invented or adopted by a variety 
 of authors translating independently, when we consider 
 that they are to be found in no Italian author before 
 the Vulgate came into general use ? Why did no one 
 among the supposed innumerable translators say 
 jmtum reddere, mtam dare, or use any other such 
 phrase ? Only one solution, it seems, can be given to 
 these queries ; to suppose the version to have been the 
 production of one man, or of several in the same coun- 
 try and age, who gave to it that uniform character 
 and colour, which it has in all the fragments we 
 possess of it. 
 
 But in one respect I fear I may have been too 
 diffuse ; for I feel that I have once more to lead back 
 my reader to the point whence this digressive inquiry 
 started. I had endeavoured to reduce the question of 
 the authority of the Latin Fathers in favour of 1 John 
 v. 7, to one of recensions. This led me into the inves- 
 tigation of the origin of the Vulgate ; which being a 
 point hitherto untouched, and of importance to the 
 
 f See p. 25. 
 
 i r
 
 60 TWO LETTERS 
 
 general interest of biblical criticism, I have carried on 
 at a length more becoming a separate treatise than a 
 digression. The result is, that Africa was the birth- 
 place of the Vulgate, and consequently the African 
 recension represents its oldest type, and is far superior 
 in authority to the Italian. Thus it gives us the 
 assurance, that in the primary translation the verse 
 existed ; and that, if the Italian Fathers had it not, it 
 was from its having been lost in their recension. We 
 are thus led to conclude that the manuscripts used in 
 making this version possessed the verse; and these 
 were necessarily manuscripts of far greater antiquity 
 than any we can now inspect. 
 
 And now, having had so frequently to refer to Ter* 
 tullian, I will venture to observe, that justice has not 
 been done to the passage commonly quoted from him, 
 as a reference to our text. (Adv. Prax. c. 25.) To 
 see the full force of his expression, we must read far- 
 ther till we come to the following words : " Nam et 
 Spiritus substantia est Sermonis, et Sermo operatic 
 Spiritus, et duo unum sunt" Tertullian certainly does 
 not here refer to the passage he has already discussed 
 so fully, "ego et Pater unum sumus;" for it could 
 never prove that the Son and Holy Ghost are one 
 God. Yet he seems to allude to some text of equal 
 force, where the Word and the Spirit are mentioned 
 as being one ; and this text can only be the one which 
 he had already, in the passage commonly quoted, 
 compared with that regarding the Father and the Son. 
 He says, "duo unum sunt," because his argument, at 
 that moment, required not the mention of all, and he 
 was only alluding, not quoting. But I must hasten 
 to my conclusion. 
 
 I promised only to give an account of some manu- 
 scripts found to contain the disputed verse of St. John ;
 
 ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 67 
 
 and in this I principally had in view the two Latin 
 manuscripts, which I described in my first letter. I 
 have, however, endeavoured to connect the private 
 evidence of one of my witnesses with the general mass 
 of testimony in favour of the cause; and, I trust, 
 proved that its weight is greater than its individual 
 volume might seem to indicate. I have attempted, 
 by this means, to place the favourable evidence upon a 
 footing, of greater authority among critics, than that 
 of dispersed testimonies, and removed some objections 
 from the silence of St. Augustine, which used triumph- 
 antly to be urged against it. I will, however, detain 
 my readers a few moments longer to make some 
 observations upon Greek manuscripts said to contain 
 the verse. 
 
 In the 'Preface to the second edition of a Letter to 
 Mrs. J. Haillie, by the bishop of Salisbury, to which 
 I cannot refer more particularly, as it was forwarded 
 to me in a separate form by his lordship, mention |is 
 made of the evidence existing of a manuscript having 
 once been seen at Venice, which contained the verse. 
 It consists of the testimony of Harenberg, in the 
 Bibliotheca Bremensis, 5 that a valuable Greek manu- 
 script, " auctoritatis non modica3 codicem Grsecum," 
 was shown by a Greek at Venice to P. Antoine. This 
 was singularly confirmed by a marginal reference of 
 one of the Canonici MSS. now in the Bodleian. A 
 still more extraordinary coincidence was a third refer- 
 ence, which I discovered here (Home), to a Greek 
 manuscript at Venice. This I had briefly communi- 
 cated to his lordship, who gave an extract from my 
 letter, in an Appendix, on Sir Isaac Newton's sup- 
 pression of his Dissertation on 1 John v. 7, &c. kindly 
 forwarded to me on a separate sheet. I will now, 
 e Biblioth. Brem. Nova. Brem. 1762. Class, ii. p. 428.
 
 68 TWO LETTERS 
 
 however, state more at length the nature of this 
 reference. In the Angelica Library, belonging to the 
 Augustinians of this city, and so called from its 
 founder, P. Angelo E/occa, is preserved the copy of 
 the Bible used by him, as secretary of the Congre- 
 gation appointed by Clement VII. for the correction 
 of the Vulgate. It is the Roman edition of 1592, the 
 second of Sixtus V. Prefixed to the volume are 
 minutes of the acts of the Congregation ; and on the 
 margin are noted such passages as the secretary wished 
 to submit to discussion, with the arguments, briefly 
 stated, upon which he grounded the rejection, reten- 
 tion, or alteration, of each. Upon the text of St. John, 
 p. 1114, is the following marginal annotation, written 
 with numerous contractions : " Hsec verba sunt cer- 
 tissime de textu et allegantur contra hsereticos ab 
 Athanasio, Gregorio Nazianzeno, Cyrillo, et Cypriano ; 
 et Hieronymus in prologo dicit ab infidelibus scripto- 
 ribus fuisse prsetermissa. In Grcsco etiam quodatn 
 antiquissimo exemplar i quod Tiabetur Venetiis legun- 
 tur ; unde colligitur Grseca, quae passim feruntur, in 
 hac parte esse mendosa, et omnia Latina manuscripta 
 in quibus non habentur ilia verba signata." This 
 testimony, confirmed as it is by the two already cited, 
 must be allowed considerable weight : the occasion 
 too, on which it is given, renders it still farther 
 worthy of our attention. 
 
 I have now to mention the supposed existence of 
 two manuscripts containing the verse, towards which 
 I wish to turn the attention of critics and travellers. 
 I had frequently heard from a gentleman, well known 
 in the literary world as a Greek and oriental scholar, 
 that he had seen manuscripts in the East which con- 
 tained the verse. He had, in fact, travelled over great
 
 . ON 1 JOHN V. 7. 69 
 
 part of Greece expressly with the view of collating 
 manuscripts of the New Testament for a Latin ver- 
 sion of it, which he afterwards published. 11 Anxious 
 to collect with greater accuracy the information he 
 had to give upon the subject, I asked him more parti- 
 cularly to state to me what he had seen in reference 
 to it. I took a note of his observations within a few 
 minutes of our conversation; and as more than a 
 year has since elapsed, I will content myself with 
 transcribing it here. 
 
 " His statement is, that he has seen several manu- 
 scripts with the verse erased, and two in which it is 
 written, prima manu, in the margin. One was at Ni- 
 cosia in Cyprus, in possession of a Greek, of abilities, a 
 merchant as I understood him. It was in uncial letters, 
 large ; on the margin, by the same hand, although in 
 smaller characters, was the verse, with an annotation 
 that it belonged to the text. Erom his manner and 
 character, I could have no reason whatever to doubt 
 that he was perfectly sincere in his statements." I 
 will add no comment upon this testimony ; perhaps 
 some traveller may be able to verify it. 
 
 There are several other points on which I should 
 have been glad to touch, especially upon the objection 
 frequently brought against the free discussion of this 
 controversy from the decree of the Council of Trent. 
 Some writers have given very false views of this sub- 
 ject, which it would be easy to confute, from the acts 
 of the different congregations appointed to correct the 
 text of the Vulgate. In one of these, the arguments 
 for the rejection of 1 John v. 7, seem to have been 
 seriously taken into consideration. In the Bible used by 
 one of these congregations, now in the library of the 
 h This was Don Leopoldo Sebastian!, since deceased.
 
 70 TWO LETTERS ON 1 JOHN V. 7- 
 
 Barnabite Fathers, the following note, by the secretary, 
 is written in the margin : 
 
 " in yrae. cod. vati. et 
 
 al. grae codd. necnon et 
 in aUguibus latinis non habentur 
 verbs, virgula signata." 
 
 The letters printed in italics are supplied, having 
 been cut off in binding the volume. But a valuable 
 and interesting account of the corrections of the Vul- 
 gate, almost entirely from inedited sources, may be 
 shortly expected from the pen of my learned friend 
 P. Ungarelli. Many errors on this subject will be then 
 corrected. But while, from an unwillingness to pro- 
 long a letter already of unwieldy dimensions, I refrain 
 from entering more fully upon this important discus- 
 sion, I cannot help cautioning my reader against the 
 erroneous conclusions to which the work of a late 
 learned Catholic seems to lead, that the decree of the 
 Council of Trent and the critical evidence stand in 
 direct opposition. He observes that " Here the com- 
 municant with the See of Rome takes a higher ground 
 .... those, therefore, in communion with the See of 
 Rome, who now reject the verse, fall within the 
 Council's anathema." 1 The answers to this objection 
 are urged with little strength or feeling of interest, 
 yet the whole of the dissertation is so constructed as 
 to prove, that on critical grounds, the verse has to be 
 rejected ! Such an opposition cannot, and here cer- 
 tainly does not, exist. I remain, &c. 
 
 K WISEMAN. 
 
 ENGLISH COLLEGE, ROME, March 27, 1833. 
 
 ' Horse Biblicas. Lond. 1817. Appendix, p. 383.
 
 CATHOLIC YEESIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 SCRIPTURE. 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW for April, 1837.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS 
 
 OP 
 
 SCRIPTURE. 
 
 ART. IX. A new Version of the Four Gospels, with Notes, Critical 
 and Explanatory. By a Catholic. a London, 1836. 
 
 THE appearance of any work upon biblical literature 
 is, unfortunately, a phenomenon amongst us. Whe- 
 ther this branch of theological science be cultivated as 
 it deserves by the Catholics of Great Britain and Ire- 
 land, it might be deemed presumption in us to discuss ; 
 but of the manifestation, by its fruits, of such a study, 
 we cannot avoid being cognisant. What is done in 
 the seclusion of academical life, in the cloisters of our 
 religious establishments, or in the rural solitude of our 
 clergy, may be much more than falls under the public 
 notice ; the appearance of a work like the one that 
 heads this article, shows that considerable abilities 
 are, in secret, employed upon biblical pursuits, and 
 must check the hasty conclusion, that little is done, 
 because little appears. At the same time, the sudden 
 and unannounced publication of a new version of 
 Scripture was not the earliest indication which we 
 should have expected of increased attention to these 
 studies. We are utterly unprovided with even ele- 
 mentary and introductory works upon them, whether 
 
 a It is now well known that this work is from the pen of 
 Dr. Lingard.
 
 74 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 intended for the education of our clergy, or for the 
 instruction of our people ; we possess not a commentary 
 suited to the wants of the times, or the advances made 
 in biblical science; and are obliged to seek informa- 
 ' tion either in voluminous, rare, and old writers, or in 
 the productions of men whose religion differs essen- 
 tially from ours. And even in this last resource, we 
 have but scanty measure of relief. Protestant England 
 is almost as badly provided as ourselves with works of 
 practical usefulness ; and it would seem as though 
 water were as bad a conductor of knowledge as it is of 
 electricity ; for the narrow strip of it which girds our 
 islands, most effectually precludes all communication 
 of the various and interesting researches which occupy 
 the continent. 
 
 But the indication of attention to biblical learning, 
 which we should most confidently have expected to 
 find preceding any new version of Scripture, and we 
 will add, the proof of its existence which is most impe- 
 ratively called for, is a revision and correction of that 
 version now in use among Catholics, known by the 
 name of the Douay version. We do not suppose that 
 the learned author of the new translation for a moment 
 imagined or intended that it should supersede the one 
 now in general circulation. The sanctioned authen- 
 ticity of the Vulgate, its use in all Catholic churches, 
 the hold which it has upon the memory of clergy and 
 laity, then the confined and partial nature of the new 
 version, which comprises only the Gospels, and the 
 form in which it appears, are sufficient proofs that he 
 never entertained the idea. The correspondence be- 
 tween St. Jerome and St. Augustine, upon the difficul- 
 ties encountered in introducing the translation of the 
 former, instead of the old one made from the Septua- 
 gint, shows how little practicable such substitutions
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 75 
 
 are. "We make these remarks only to conclude, that, 
 whatever necessity existed, before the appearance of 
 this version, for a thorough revision of the text gene- 
 rally used amongst us, the same necessity does still 
 exist. "While, therefore, we are ready to commend the 
 zeal and ability which have led to this publication, we 
 cannot but regret that no one properly qualified, and 
 properly authorized, has yet been found, to undertake 
 such corrections and improvements in our received 
 version as would finally settle its text, and save it 
 from the repeated liberties which have been taken 
 with it. 
 
 To call it any longer the Douay or Rheimish version 
 is an abuse of terms. It has been altered and modified 
 till scarcely any verse remains as it was originally pub- 
 lished ; and so far as simplicity and energy of style are 
 concerned, the changes are in general for the worse. 
 For though Dr. Challoner did well to alter many too 
 decided Latinisms, which the old translators had re- 
 tained, he weakened the language considerably by 
 destroying inversion, where it was congenial, at once, 
 to the genius of our language and to the construction 
 of the original, and by the insertion of particles where 
 they were by no means necessary. Any chapter of the 
 New Testament will substantiate this remark. For 
 instance, in Heb. xiii., which we have accidentally 
 opened, the Rheims edition (1582) has, v. 9, "With 
 various and strange doctrines be not led away." This 
 has been altered into, " Be not carried away with 
 various and strange doctrines." The Latin is, " Doc- 
 trinis variis et peregrinis nolite abduci." Again, v. 16, 
 " Beneficence and communication do not forget," has 
 been changed into, "And do not forget to do good and 
 to impart." The Vulgate has, " Beneficentiae autem 
 et communionis nolite oblivisci." Again, we take
 
 76 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 examples quite at random, 2 Tim. ii. 16 : " Profana 
 autem et vaniloquia devita ; multum enim proficiunt 
 ad impietatem." This the old version translated, 
 " But profane and vain speeches avoid ; for they do 
 much grow to impiety." In the emended, edition 
 (1750) we have, " But shun profane and vain bab- 
 blings, for they grow much towards ungodliness." This 
 correction is taken verbatim from the Protestant ver- 
 sion, with the exception of " grow towards," instead of 
 " increase unto more." But the change was injudi- 
 cious : for the Latin compound vaniloquium, or the 
 Greek xevofycovia., is exactly expressed by "vain speech;" 
 whereas the word " babbling" corresponds to the 
 entire word, and cannot have the epithet " vain;" for, 
 thus, the phrase would represent the absurd tautology 
 " vanum vaniloquium." In later editions, as that of 
 Dublin, 1810, published with Dr. Troy's approbation, 
 the word " speeches" is restored, but the construction 
 is not. 
 
 There is another alteration of more importance, 
 especially when considered in reference to the present 
 times, and the influence it has had upon established 
 forms of Catholic speech. In the first edition, in con- 
 formity to Catholic usage in England, the word " Do- 
 minus " is almost always translated by " Our Lord." 
 The emended text changed the pronoun into an article, 
 and says, " The Lord." In the Ace Maria, Catholics 
 have always, till lately, been accustomed to say, " Our 
 Lord is with thee ;" as it is in that version, and as it 
 was always used in England, even before that transla- 
 tion was made. But, in conformity with the change 
 of the text, we have observed of late a tendency to 
 introduce into the prayer a similar variation, and to 
 say, " The Lord is with thee :" a change which we 
 strongly deprecate, as stiff, cantish, destructive of the
 
 CATHOLIC YERSIONS OF SCULPTURE. 77* 
 
 unction which the prayer breathes, and of that union 
 which the pronoun inspires between the reciter and 
 Her who is addressed. "We have no hesitation in say- 
 ing, that this difference, trifling as many will consider 
 it, expresses strongly the different spirits of our, and 
 other, religions. It never has been the custom of the 
 Catholic Church to say, " The Redeemer, the Saviour, 
 the Lord, the Virgin; " " Redemptor noster, Dominus 
 noster" and so " our Saviour, our Lord, our Lady," 
 are the terms sanctioned ; and, therefore, consecrated 
 by Catholic usage since the time of the Fathers. "We 
 own it grates our ears, and jars upon our feelings, to 
 hear the former essentially un-Catholic forms used by 
 preachers and writers; they want affection; they are 
 insipid, formal; they remind us of Geneva caps, and 
 smack of predestination. The Rheims translators 
 have explained their reason for their translation in a 
 note, p. 585, as follows : " We Catholics must not say 
 The Lord, but Our Lord; as we say Our Lady for 
 his mother, not The Lady. Let us keep our fore- 
 fathers' words, and we shall easily keep our old and 
 true faith, which we had of the first Christians." Nor 
 is such a modification of the word " Dominus," pecu- 
 liar to the English Catholics ; the Syriac version, and 
 after it the Syriac Church, calls Christ, not simply 
 Vo morio " The Lord," but ^o nioran, "our Lord," 
 even where the Greek has 6 Kup*o. If, therefore, it 
 be considered too great a departure from accuracy in 
 translation to restore the pronoun in the text of our 
 version, let us at least preserve it in our instructions, 
 and still more in our formularies of prayer. 
 
 But it had been well if Dr. Challoner's alterations 
 had given stability to the text, and formed a standard 
 to which subsequent editors had conformed. But, far 
 from this being the case, new and often important 
 
 fl>O
 
 78 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 modifications have been made in every edition which, 
 has followed, till, at length, many may appear rather 
 new versions, than revisions of the old. We helieve 
 Catholic Britain to be the only country where such a 
 laxity of attention has existed in regard to the purity 
 of its authorized version. 11 And we should have even 
 less reason to complain, had these systematic varia- 
 tions been the only vicissitudes to which it has been 
 subject. The mass of typographical errors to be found 
 in some editions is quite frightful, from many of them 
 falling upon important words, and not so much dis- 
 figuring them, which would lead to suspicion and 
 thereby to detection, as transforming them into others 
 that give a correct grammatical, but unsound theo- 
 logical, sense. In 1632, the king's printers, Barker 
 and Lucas, were fined 3,000, for the omission of one 
 monosyllable; and -the Oxford Bible of 1792 is con- 
 sidered a curiosity because it reads (Luke xxii. 34) 
 Philip instead of Peter. But, in the edition which we 
 have referred to, of Dublin, 1810, revised under 
 Dr. Troy's direction by the Rev. B. MacMahon, many 
 worse substitutions are to be found. A table at the 
 end gives a number of them, as Matt. xvi. 23, " thou 
 favourest not," for "thou savourest not;" and Ro- 
 mans vii. 18, " to accomplish that which is good I find 
 out" instead of " I find not" The table of errata is, 
 however, very far from complete; for instance, the 
 following among others are omitted in it. Gal. iv. 9, 
 " How turn you again to the work" (for weak) " and 
 poor elements." Ib. v. 23, "modesty, ctmtinency, 
 charity" instead of " chastity" In a note, p. 309, we 
 read, " Sin which was asleep before, was weakened 
 by the prohibition," instead of " awakened" 
 
 b "We have not forgotten the Rev. Mr. Curtis's late Letter to the 
 bishop of London.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 79 
 
 Our principal object, however, at present, is to turn 
 the attention of the Catholic clergy, and particularly 
 the bishops of Ireland, and the vicars-apostolic of 
 England and Scotland, to the want of a complete re- 
 vision of the version itself, for the purpose of settling 
 a standard text, from which editors in future may not 
 be allowed to depart. In this manner, alone, will the 
 Catholics of the empire be provided with what every 
 other portion of the Church has long since possessed. 
 It is far from our purpose to undertake a complete 
 exposure of the many passages which want emenda- ' 
 tion such a task would require a treatise. In order 
 to confine ourselves within reasonable limits, we will 
 only consider the necessity which a new revision would 
 impose on those who should undertake it, of a minute 
 and often complicated study of the original texts. We 
 have selected this view of the matter, because we think 
 it the point most neglected in the past, and most likely 
 to be overlooked, and to form the great stumbling- 
 block, in any future revision. Eor, at first sight, it 
 must appear an almost superfluous task to proceed, in 
 such an undertaking, beyond the accurate study of the 
 work immediatly translated. The Vulgate is written 
 in Latin, and it would therefore appear sufficient to 
 possess an accurate knowledge of the Latin language, 
 in order to translate any work written in it into our 
 own. It is our wish to prove the fallacy of such rea- 
 soning ; and, on the contrary, to show what varied, 
 and often delicate, questions of philology the transla- 
 tion may involve ; and how impossible it is to correct 
 or discover the mistakes of our Douay version, without 
 a constant recourse to the original Hebrew and Greek 
 texts. The object of such reference will be, to decide 
 the true meaning of expressions, obscure or doubtful 
 in the Latin. In the few examples which we intend
 
 80 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 to give, we shall consider the Alexandrine, or as it is 
 commonly called, the Septuagint, version, as the 
 original of the Psalms ; because it is well known that 
 the Latin used by us, and inserted in the Vulgate, is 
 made upon that version, and not on the Ilebrew 
 original. 
 
 I. Let us select, in the first instance, a very simple 
 example. In the fiftieth Psalm,^ 14 (Heb. li. 14), 
 the Vulgate has, " et spiritu principali confirma me." 
 The Douay translators understood the adjective in the 
 sense of principal, excellent, and accordingly trans- 
 lated the sentence thus, " and strengthen me with a 
 perfect spirit." Looking simply at the Latin, the 
 word will certainly bear that sense ; as Cicero says, 
 " Causarum alise sunt perfects et principales" But 
 the question here is, did the author of the Vulgate use 
 the word in this sense, and not rather in its other 
 meaning, of princely ? A reference to the Greek, from 
 which the translation of this book was made, decides 
 the question. For there we read, Trvsupari ify*}/*- 01 '"". 
 a-rygi^ov p.s, " strengthen me with a princely spirit." 
 In the Hebrew, the word used is nan: which bears the 
 same meaning, though it also derivately signifies 
 "generous," "noble." 
 
 II. Wisdom viii. 21, we have the following sentence : 
 " And as I knew that I could not otherwise be conti- 
 nent, except God gave it." This is a verbal transla- 
 tion of the Latin, " Et ut scivi quoniam aliter non 
 possem esse continens nisi Deus det." The word con- 
 tinens corresponds to the Greek eyxparys, here as in 
 every other passage wherein it occurs through the 
 sapiential books, and is never, save in this passage, 
 rendered in our version by continent. This point is 
 
 6 Perhaps the old word " lordly " would best express the double 
 meaning, as its corresponding term herrlich would in German.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 81 
 
 easily established. Eccles. vi. 28, we have the same sub- 
 ject, the acquisition of wisdom, treated as in our text, 
 in these words : " Investiga illam, et manifestabitur tibi, 
 et continens factus,ne derelinquas earn." Our translators 
 did not render these words, by "being made continent," 
 but by "when thou hast gotten her." The Greek has 
 xat zyxpa.Tr)$ ysvopsvog (v.27,ed.Bos). These words occur 
 in two other places, where, however, there is no ellip- 
 sis, but the object is expressed : xv. 1, " Q,ui continens 
 est justitise apprehendet illam;" translated, "he that 
 possesseth justice shall lay hold on her." And xxvii. 
 33, " Ira et furor utraque execrabilia sunt, et vir pec- 
 cator continens illorum erit;" rendered, "and the 
 sinful man shall be subject to them;" that is, shall 
 contain or possess them. This last example proves, 
 that continens, or e-yxpctTyg, does not signify " qui se 
 continet," one who restrains himself, but one who 
 contains or holds something else; and the first instance 
 quoted proves that it is so used elliptically, with ' 
 omission of the object so held or contained. 
 
 These are the only other passages, if we mistake not, 
 in which the Latin word occurs as an equivalent to the 
 cited Greek one throughout these books. We may 
 next ask, Ought a deviation to have been made from 
 the meaning they elsewhere invariably bear, in Sap. 
 viii. 21 ? And we answer, unhesitatingly, not. The 
 entire passage is concerning the acquisition of wisdom. 
 From verse 9 to verse 19, the writer gives us an 
 account of his searches after it. In w. 19, 20, he 
 states the causes that led him to them; first, his 
 having been gifted with an ingenuous disposition ; and 
 secondly, his having preserved himself from sin. The 
 verse under consideration naturally follows : " And as 
 I knew that I could not otherwise possess it (wisdom), 
 
 i G
 
 82 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 unless God gave it (for this was also a point of wisdom, 
 to know whose gift it was), I went to the Lord," &c. 
 But if we read with our present version, " as I knew 
 I could not be continent" &c., we have to meet multi- 
 plied difficulties. First, that not a word has been said 
 about continence, but the whole antecedent matter has 
 been concerning wisdom ; secondly, that the paren- 
 thesis makes no sense, for the thing there mentioned 
 as a gift cannot be continence, as it must refer to a 
 substantive, and not an adjective, such as continent; 
 and, moreover, its antithesis is lost, " it was a point of 
 wisdom to know whose gift wisdom is ;" thirdly, that 
 the prayer which follows, for the quality in question, is 
 entirely for wisdom, and not for continence, which is 
 never asked for. These reasons are more than suffi- 
 cient for retaining, in this passage, the sense invariably 
 attributed to continens in every other. 
 
 III. Ps. Ixvii. 12, presents an instance in which 
 an ambiguity of phrase compels us to recur, not only 
 to the Greek, but, beyond this, to the original Hebrew. 
 The Latin text runs thus : " Dominus dabit verbum 
 evangelizantibus, virtute multa\" and is thus trans- 
 lated in the Douay version : " The Lord shall give the 
 word to them that preach good tidings, in great power" 
 The word virtus is manifestly ambiguous, as it often 
 signifies a host, or multitude. Hence the common 
 phrase, " Dominus virtutum," is always rendered " the 
 Lord of Hosts;" and " virtutes coelorum," "the host 
 of heaven." It became, therefore, the translator's 
 duty to recur to the Greek ; where he would find the 
 words, %wa.[j.ei 7roxx>j. But here the same ambiguity 
 exists. For the word Swapis often indeed corresponds 
 to terms significative in Hebrew of strength, as no/ 
 
 a 1 Chrou. xxix. 2 ; Es. ii. 69 ; Jer. xlviii. 45.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 83 
 
 miaj, e p, f and the derivations of W; g but it almost as 
 frequently corresponds to words of multitude, as &ff a 
 people, 11 ?wn a multitude, 1 rune a camp, k ^n an army, 1 
 and, above all, to ^^', the most usual word for a collec- 
 tion of men, or a host. As the equivalent of this 
 word <Wa/Ai occurs some hundreds of times in the 
 Bible, and one of the occasions is the very passage 
 under discussion ; for the Hebrew text, Ixviii. 12, reads 
 at K3*. Thus, no doubt remains that the ambiguous 
 Greek word Swapis here stands for " multitude" or 
 " crowds ;" and this again determines the signification 
 of the no less ambiguous Latin term "virtus." 
 
 All this investigation was absolutely necessary for 
 the translator, before he could make sure of rightly 
 rendering so simple a word ; and the use of the adjec- 
 tive multa might have led him to suspect that number, 
 and not strength, was contemplated. This verse would 
 afford us room for several other curious philological 
 remarks in illustration of our subject ; but for brevity's 
 sake we pass them over. We need hardly observe, that 
 it alludes to the custom frequently mentioned in Scrip- 
 ture," 1 and practised by other eastern nations besides 
 the Jews, n of female choirs coming forth to celebrate 
 the conquerors on their return from battle. The 
 word corresponding in the original to " evangelizan- 
 
 e Jud. viii. 21 ; 2 Keg. xviii. 10, &c. f Job xl. 11. 
 
 s Job xli. 14; Ps. xx. 1; xlv. 1. h 1 Chron. xxi. 2. 
 
 1 2 Sam. vi. 19 ; 1 Keg. xx. 28 ; Jer. iii. 23. 
 
 k 1 Chron. xii. 22. 
 
 1 This Hebrew word is ambiguous as the Greek and Latin ones in 
 the text ; but constantly means an army, as Exod. xiv. 28. 
 
 m See Exod. xv. 20 ; Jud. xi. 34 ; 1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7 ; 2 Sam. i. 20. 
 
 n See, for instance, the account of the mountaineers of Tiproa, by 
 J. Kawlins, Esq., in the Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. Lond. 1799, 
 p. 191. 
 
 G2
 
 81 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 tibus " is in the Hebrew in the plural feminine, and 
 this could hardly bear the present translation, " them 
 that preach good tidings." The word proclaim would 
 have suited better. 
 
 IV. "We now call the attention of our biblical 
 readers to a very curious rendering in the Vulgate, 
 which seems to us to have been misunderstood by our 
 translators, in consequence of not having attended to 
 the original. This is Sophon. iii. 18, where the He- 
 brew has as follows : vn rpo WSDX -won m The Vulgate 
 translates thus : " Nugas qui a lege recesserunt, con- 
 gregabo, quia ex te erant;" and is rendered thus by 
 the Douay editors : " the triflers that were departed 
 from the law I will gather together, because they were 
 of thee." It must be noticed, that the Latin word 
 nugce purposely corresponds to the Hebrew word ^w> 
 nuglie. This is a passive participle of the verb w, and 
 means "afflicted;" though some lexicographers pre- 
 fer the meaning of " removed," which occurs in the 
 root, and is given by the Greek version, and some 
 Jewish commentator s. p Now the rendering of St. 
 Jerome strikes out a totally different signification, 
 whether we translate it by trifles or triflers. But 
 there is an old meaning of the word nuga, which 
 would exactly agree with the first of those we have 
 mentioned. In Plautus, it means a " lamentation" 
 the ncenia or mourning song of the prceflca ; and this 
 is allowed to be probably the oldest meaning of the 
 ' word. Hence, by a synecdoche, it might be used for a 
 " mourner," as it is used for a " trifler." The ques- 
 tion, therefore, which a translator of the Vulgate 
 would have to ask himself would be, Can St. Jerome in 
 this passage have used the word nugas in that older 
 
 See "Winer's Lexicon Manuale, p. 396. 
 
 P Rosenmiiller's Prophetse Minorca. Lips. 1816, vol. iv. p. 68.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE . 85 
 
 sense ? And we should certainly be inclined to answer 
 it affirmatively, on the following grounds. 
 
 1. St. Jerome, in his commentary, seems indifferent 
 which interpretation we take, his own, or Aquila' s. 
 " Nugas, sive ut Aquila interpretatus est, translates 
 qui a te recesserunt congregabo." q If he had used the 
 word in the ordinary sense, the two versions could not 
 for an instant have been compared. But the sorrowful 
 and the banished are words whose meanings may be 
 easily exchanged, as they are intimately connected 
 by cause and effect. 
 
 2. Any one that has studied the version and com- 
 mentaries of this Father must have seen their constant 
 accordance with the traditions and opinions of the 
 Jews ; and were it necessary for us to illustrate this 
 point by examples, we could do it by many passages 
 in his notes upon the very book of minor prophets 
 now under consideration. But, in fact, he tells us 
 himself that in difficult passages he made it a point to- 
 follow his Jewish masters. 1 Now the Jewish inter- 
 preters and commentators give two meanings to the 
 word. The Targum, or Chaldaic paraphrase, and 
 R. Solomon Jarchi, render it in the same manner as 
 Aquila, approved by St. Jerome, "the removed;" 
 Kimchi, and most others, give the other meaning, 
 "the sorrowful;" and the Gemara, an old comment 
 upon the Babylonish Talmud, shows them both to 
 have been maintained by the ancient Jewish teachers, 
 inasmuch as it attributes the one to R. Joshua, and 
 the other to U. Eleazar. 8 Supposing " nugse" to have 
 
 i Comment, in loc. 
 
 r " Hsec dico ut noveris quos in Prophetae hujus campe-habuerim 
 praecursores, quos tamen . . . non in omnibus sum secutus, ut judex 
 potius operis eorum quam interpres existerem, diceremque quid mihi 
 videretur in singulis, et quid ab Hebrceorum magistris acceperim" 
 ' s Cod.-Berucha, cap. iv. fol. 28.
 
 86 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 been used by St. Jerome in its less ordinary sense, we 
 find him approving of exactly the two interpretations 
 which his avowed teachers would have delivered to 
 him, and hesitating which to choose. But if the word 
 mean " trifles" or " triflers," it is impossible to 
 account for the source whence he derived his inter- 
 pretation, not deducible from the Hebrew root, 
 unknown to every other biblical writer, and not 
 taught him by those on whose authority in such 
 points he relied. 
 
 3. St. Jerome, in his commentary, makes an apology, 
 and gives a reason for having used this word : " Id 
 quod diximus nugas sciamus in Hebraeo ipsum Latinum 
 esse sermonem, ut propterea a nobis ita ut in Hebraeo 
 erat positum, ut nosse possimus linguam Hebrseam 
 omnium linguarum esse matricem." This reasoning 
 supposes that he had gone out of his way to select this 
 word, which certainly would not have been the case, 
 had he used it in its ordinary acceptation. On the 
 other hand, we cannot suspect him of having sacrificed 
 the sense to a mere resemblance between the Hebrew 
 and Latin words. We must, therefore, conclude, that 
 the word nuga is here used in a rarer sense, but one 
 which suits the meaning of the original ; and the result 
 of these reflections seems to be, that this word in the 
 passage is to be rendered by sorrowful or mourners, a 
 signification at once allied to the version of Aquila, 
 given by the Rabbins, and accounting for St. Jerome's 
 excuses. 
 
 Y. It is singular that St. Jerome should translate, 
 on every occasion except two, the Hebrew word P^> and 
 its derivatives, by calumniari or its substantives. Yet 
 this Hebrew verb is admitted by all to signify oppres- 
 sion or violence, sometimes, perhaps, with an addition 
 of fraud. The translator of the Vulgate must, there-
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 87 
 
 fore, inquire, whether St. Jerome really meant the 
 word calumniari to be taken in the sense in which it 
 is usually taken, or whether it bears in his version the 
 peculiar signification of violence. If the former were 
 the case, he must translate it by calumny, however this 
 may differ from the original, since the translator's 
 duty is only to present a faithful transcript of the 
 Latin version. But if St. Jerome used it in the second 
 sense, then the word calumny cannot be used, because 
 it never bears with us the signification of violence. It 
 is impossible to conceive that this learned Father 
 could have used these terms in their ordinary accepta- 
 tion, for they are often placed where the context will 
 not admit of any signification but that of violence or 
 oppression. Thus they are used in apposition with 
 terms of unjust oppression/ they are spoken of whole 
 nations, which certainly could not well be said to be 
 an object of calumny or false accusation. 11 The trans- 
 lator would, therefore, decide that the word calumnia 
 and its derivatives in the Vulgate signify oppression. 
 Yet this is not universally the case, but only when it 
 corresponds to the Hebrew p&w or its nouns. For 
 example, Genes, xliii. 18, we have the words, " ut 
 devolvat in nos calumniam ;" yet as the Hebrew verb 
 there is not ytiy but Vsannb, we must translate the word 
 by a, false accusation. It is only, therefore, by having 
 the original open before us, that we could ascertain 
 when the word was to be translated violence or oppres- 
 sion, or when calumny oic false accusation. The Douay 
 
 * Deut. xxviii. 29, 33 ; Eccles. v. 7 ; Jer. vii. 6 ; Ezech. xiii. 29 ; 
 Amos iv. 1. Two remarkable examples are Jer. xxii. 3 : " Liberate 
 vi oppressum de manu calumniatoris ;" and xxi. 12, where nearly the 
 same words occur. 
 
 u Jer. i. 33 ; Osee v. 11. But see particularly 1 Kings (or Sam.) 
 xii. 4, where the people say to Samuel, upon his retiring from govern- 
 ment, " Non es calumniatus nos."
 
 88 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 translators have indeed generally been right in their 
 rendering of this word, because the context is generally 
 such as to force us to a correct interpretation ; but 
 where this did not lead them, they have failed, and so 
 have left the work unfinished. Thus, Gen. xxvi. 20 ; 
 Levit. xix. 30 ; Prov. xxviii. 16 ; Ezech. xxii. 29 ; and 
 Job x. 3, our version presents the word calumny* The 
 last of these passages is remarkable, for Job is there 
 said to upbraid God with calumniating him, when it 
 is evident, from the circumstances of his history, as 
 well as from the context, and the general tenor of his 
 complaints, that harsh and oppressive treatment was 
 what he objected to the conduct of the Almighty in 
 his regard. Yet in all these passages the same word 
 PBW occurs in the original ; and as we have seen already 
 that St. Jerome understood this word of oppression, 
 though he rendered it by calumniari, it is clear that in 
 all these passages he meant this to have that meaning ; 
 and so it should have been rendered by our translators. 
 Only one thing would be wanting to make this 
 reasoning satisfactory, and that is, to prove that the 
 Latin word calumnia really has this meaning of op- 
 pression, or perhaps more properly of vexation. The 
 Lexicons do not, it is true, present a signification suffi- 
 ciently strong ; the one, for instance, which approaches 
 nearest in Eorcellini/ is No. 6, " Sumitur etiam latius 
 pro quacunque vitiosa calliditate, astutia, vexatione." 
 Craft, however, and not oppression, is here the essen- 
 tial ingredient, and all the examples brought show 
 that he understands it only of vexatious, petty, pro- 
 ceedings in law. Prom this it would appear, that our 
 translators were led only by the force of the context to 
 
 * Isa. liv. 14, the first edition of our version, Douay, 1609-10, has 
 calumny ; the modern correction, oppression. 
 
 y Sub voce calumnia, torn. i. p. 450. col. i. Patav. 1827.]
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 89 
 
 select the extraordinary, but correct, interpretation 
 which they have generally given. But it seems to us, 
 that this word easily passed from its forensic use to a 
 wider signification of oppression in acts; especially 
 when under the sanction of law, which we apprehend 
 to be the most ordinary use of ?vy. Hence this might 
 be accurately rendered by calumniari in Latin. We 
 think the following authority may justify this asser- 
 tion. Under Domitian, and other cruel emperors, a 
 heavy tax was imposed upon all Jews, and was exacted 
 with peculiar rigour, and even cruelty. Suetonius 
 thus writes of the Emperor we have named : " Prseter 
 cseteros, Judaicus fiscus acerbissime exactus est." z 
 Under Nerva, the odious imposition was abolished, 
 and a medal remains to commemorate the event. It 
 bears this legend : 
 
 FISCL IVDAICI. CALVMNTA. SVBLATA.* 
 
 Here the word calumnia evidently signifies " ty- 
 ranny," or " oppression," and will fully justify the use 
 of the word in this sense in the Vulgate, and conse- 
 quently the translation which we suggest. 
 
 We cannot take leave of this word without recalling 
 to our reader's notice another remarkable text where 
 it occurs. We allude to Luke iii. 14. The Baptist is 
 there giving instructions to soldiers, on campaign, 11 
 what they are to do. He suggests three points to 
 their observance : the first is, to do violence to no man ; 
 the third, to be content with their pay. These two 
 points are not only in accordance with the profession 
 
 z Domit. c. xii. torn. ii. p. 328, edit. Burm. 
 
 a Eckhel, Doctrina Num. Vet. torn. vi. p. 404. From the Imperial 
 Cabinet of Vienna. 
 
 b This circumstance is of importance for the rendering of the text. 
 The word is orparevo^tvot. See Michaelis, Marsh's transl. torn. i. 
 p. 51. .
 
 90 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 and habits of the persons instructed, but are also in 
 perfect harmony the one with the other. The soldiers 
 are not to enrich themselves by rapine, but to be satis- 
 fied with what they receive. We should expect the 
 intermediate portion of advice to be of like character ; 
 it is, fwjSs o-yxo<pavT73<r7jT. This the Vulgate renders by 
 neque calumniam faciatis. The Douay version again 
 translates, " neither calumniate any man." c This is 
 totally out of keeping with the context. The fact is, 
 that the verb o-uxo<pavrea> in the Greek of the Septua- 
 gint means to oppress, and is frequently put for the 
 Hebrew Pfo d It had thus acquired that force in 
 Jewish Greek, like so many other words, 6 and should 
 be so rendered. This has been already noticed by 
 writers on the Greek of the New Testament/ 
 
 VI. We shall, perhaps, require still more indulgence 
 from our readers for our observations on another 
 passage from the Old Testament. Ps. xxxix. 9 (in the 
 Septuagint), the Greek version has o-co^a e KOLT^TIO-M 
 jao/, "thou hast fitted a body to me." The Latin ver- 
 sion of the Psalms, as we have before observed, is made 
 from this Greek translation, and yet in this passage it 
 has " aures autem perfecisti mihi," which the Douay 
 version no less singularly renders, " thou hast pierced 
 ears for me." For the verb "perficio" certainly never 
 bore this signification in any ancient writer. At first 
 sight, it would appear as though the Vulgate, par- 
 
 c The English authorized version has nearly the same, " Neither 
 accuse any man falsely." 
 
 d Job xxxv. 9 ; Psalm clxviii. 121 ; Proverbs xiv. 33 ; xxii. 16 ; 
 xxviii. 3 ; Eccles. iv. 1. 
 
 e It is an admitted principle in Hermeneutics, that the Greek of 
 the Seventy is one of the great keys to the right interpretation of the 
 Greek of the New Testament. See Arigler, Hermeneutica Biblica 
 Generalis. Vienna, 1813, p. 103. 
 
 f Vid. Schleusner sub voce owo^aire'w, and Kuinoel in loc.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 91 
 
 ticularly if we admit the correctness of the English 
 rendering, had in this verse been taken from the 
 Hebrew, which has ^ ma aura " aures perforastimihi." 
 Before, therefore, censuring the Douay rendering, and 
 consequently showing the necessity of recourse to the 
 original texts, we must prove that the Vulgate in this 
 verse is not made upon the Hebrew, which it seems to 
 resemble, but on the Septuagint, to which it bears so 
 little affinity. 
 
 A slight comparison of the entire Psalm, in the 
 Vulgate, with the two texts, will satisfy the most 
 superficial scholar, that every other verse is translated 
 from the Greek ; and this affords us a strong presump- 
 tion that this passage was derived from the same 
 source. The principal difficulty resides in the substi- 
 tution of aures, " ears," for o-o^a, " body." But this 
 change is easily accounted for in two ways. First, 
 several copies of the Septuagint read atria, " ears," 
 instead of a-copa. In Parsons' s continuation of Holmes' s 
 critical edition of that version, we have the following 
 note upon the passage, " >/* 8s] tonot 8s (Cod.) 39, 
 tora oe, 142, 156 (292 marg.)." s The same reading is 
 given by Bos from a Greek commentary. The Vul- 
 gate, therefore, may have been made upon a manu- 
 script which read thus ; and in this supposition no 
 objection exists to its having rendered this verse from 
 the Greek. Secondly, it seems probable that originally 
 the Latin read " corpus," and not " aures ;" and then 
 there would be no discrepancy between it and the pre- 
 
 % The MSS. here quoted are thus described in the Prolegomena to 
 the work : " 39. Codex Dorothei, ii. Membr. soc. ix. 142. Bib. 
 Aulier Vindob. Theol. x. ; membr. pervet. optimae notae. 156. Bib. 
 Basil, membr. 4 adm. antiq. sine accent, cum vers. lat. interlin. 
 292. Cod. Bib. Medic, num. iii. Plut. vi. opt. notae membran. in fol. 
 ssec. xi."
 
 92 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 sent Greek text. The Mosarabic and Roman Psalters 
 have it, as well as St. Augustine, Cassiodorus, St. 
 Ambrose, and St. Hilary. 11 The Veronese Psalter, pub- 
 lished by Bianchini, presents the same reading. 1 The 
 use of the verb " perfecisti " leaves little room to doubt 
 that this was the original reading. The substantive and 
 the verb agree perfectly ; when, at a later period, the 
 former was changed, the latter was allowed to remain, 
 and did not suit so well. 
 
 The moment this difficulty is removed, and no doubt 
 consequently remains that the verse is translated from 
 the Septuagint, it is plain that "perfecisti" corresponds 
 to xaTypria-a). Now, this verb means sometimes in 
 Scripture, "to complete, to perfect;" as for example, 
 1 Thess. iii. 10, where the Vulgate translates it " ut 
 compleam;" and, therefore, no doubt, "perficio" is 
 here used in this sense. The old Douay version has 
 correctly " eares thou hast perfited to me," which was 
 subsequently altered into its present reading. If this 
 change was made in deference to the original Hebrew, 
 a principle of translation was violated ; for the Greek 
 should have been consulted, and the Vulgate should 
 not have been here abandoned for the Hebrew, any 
 more than in a thousand other places where they 
 differ. 
 
 VII. "We will now notice a case, which shows how 
 the incautious insertion of the smallest monosyllable 
 may totally alter the sense. It is the well-known 
 
 h Ap. Sabatier, Bibliorum Sacrorum Versiones Antiquse, 1743. 
 
 1 Psalter, duplex cum Canticis, p. 63. Published in his Vin- 
 diciae Canonicarum Scripturarum Vulgatse Latinse editionis. Rome, 
 1740. In a note on this passage, he adds, " Favet utrique lectioni 
 versio Arabica." This is a mistake, which, however, does not sur- 
 prise us, as most that has been written on the Arabic version of the 
 Psalms is very inaccurate. This, however, is not the place to prove 
 this point, and substitute more exact observations.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 93 
 
 passage, Jo. ii. 4, "Quid mihi et tibi mulier?" The 
 old Rhemish editors of 1582 scrupulously rendered 
 word for word, not without a sacrifice of clearness and 
 propriety, " WTiat is to me and to thee woman?" In 
 a note they explain their motives, grounded on the 
 ambiguous character of the phrase, which they did not 
 think it proper more definitely to express. In the 
 correction by Dr. Challoner, this ambiguity was pre- 
 served ; and, indeed, it yet remains in many modern 
 editions. Some, however, as that of Edinburgh, 1792, 
 have slipped in "7," and read, "What is it to me 
 and to thee ?" But there can be no doubt that this 
 translation is erroneous, and that for many reasons. 
 
 First, this form of expression, which occurs in our 
 text, is very common in the Old Testament, and 
 always means that there is no connexion between the 
 persons thus mentioned. It may be sufficient to 
 consult the passages below in the margin. k 
 
 Secondly, it occurs very frequently in the classics, 
 Greek and Latin, and bears invariably the same 
 meaning. Thus Anacreon : 
 
 Tt yap pa^atai 
 
 * # 
 
 T/ H\ld$ff 
 
 Aulus Gellius quotes from Epictetus (lib. ii.) ri 
 xa\ (Toi av^peoTrs ; apxst l/xoi rot. fe/xa xaxa. m Quintus 
 Curtius has, in like manner, " Quid nobis tecum 
 est;" n and Ovid, 
 
 " Quid mihi cum Siculis, inter Scythiamque Getasque ?" 
 
 k Jos. xxii. 24 ; Jud. xi. 12 ; 2 Sam. xvi. 10 ; 1 Keg. xvii. 18 ; 
 2 Eeg. iii. 13 ; Mic. ii. 2. Cf. Glassius, Philologia Sacra. Leips. 
 1776, torn. i. p. 491. 1 Ode xvii. 264, 276. 
 
 m Noctes Atticse, ed. Gronov. lib. i. c. ii. p. 37. 
 
 n Lib. viii. c. viii. 16. Trist. lib. iii. .eleg. xi. 54.
 
 94 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Martial writes thus : " Martialis Deciano suo S. Quid 
 nobis inquis cum epistola ? parumne tibi prsestamus si 
 legimus epigrammata?" p "We could add examples 
 from Oriental writers. But what is most to be noted 
 is, that the classics often fill up the ellipsis, by adding 
 an adjective or substantive. Thus Philostratus, 3o2 Se 
 ri xa.} HpnT(rfae<p xoivov ; q Propertius uses the word 
 "gratia." 
 
 " Cum Tiber! Nilo gratia nulla fuit." r 
 
 And Claudian, " ratio." 
 
 " Quae tibi cum pedibus ratio ? quid carmina culpas ? 
 Scandere qui nescis, versiculos laceras." 8 
 
 The Persians, as for instance Eirdausi, use the sub- 
 stantive^ Kar y "negotium." 
 
 Thirdly, in the New Testament, the phrase occurs 
 several times besides this place, and manifestly has 
 the same meaning. We will at present only notice 
 the message to Pilate from his wife, Matt, xxvii. 19 : 
 "Have thou nothing to do with that just man;" in 
 the Vulgate, " Nihil tibi et justo huic." What con- 
 firms this interpretation is, that whenever a thing is 
 said not to concern a person, the preposition is used 
 with the accusative. Thus, when Judas restores the 
 price of his treason, saying that he had betrayed 
 innocent blood, he is answered, ri -rrfis yp-s ; <rv o\J/e/ 
 " Quid ad nos ? tu videris." (Ib. 4.) And when 
 Peter eagerly inquires about John, our Saviour says 
 to him, Ti Trpos <re ; " Quid ad te ? 9tt " What is it to 
 
 P Introd. to lib. ii. Epig. 
 
 i Philost. Her. p. 8, ed. Boiss. In like manner, Schiller, Jungfrau 
 von Orleans, act v. scene v. has 
 
 " Nicht kann gemein seyn 
 Zwischen dir und mir." 
 
 r Lib. ii. eleg. xxxiii. 20. " Epigr. xxviii. In Podagr. 
 
 1 John xx. 22.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 95 
 
 thee?" Precisely as in the classics; for instance, 
 Martial, 
 
 " Sobrius siccus est Aper : quid ad me /"' n 
 
 These considerations are sufficient to prove, that the 
 accurate rendering of these words is the same as is 
 given in Matt, xxvii. 19, " What have I to do with 
 thee ?" And we prefer this to the one given in the new 
 version which heads our article ; " "What hast thou to 
 do with me ?" Because this seems to make the answer 
 signify, "Why dost thou interfere with me ?" a signi- 
 fication which the phrase does not generally bear ; for 
 it simply expresses the absence or denial of commu- 
 nication between the parties. 
 
 The insertion, therefore, of the pronoun "it" destroys 
 this sense completely, and determines the text in favour 
 of a signification manifestly inaccurate/ 
 
 The philological discussion of this text ought natu- 
 rally to end here. But an objection to the interpre- 
 tation we have preferred will certainly start up in the 
 mind of the pious reader. Is not the expression unac- 
 countably harsh ? Can we suppose our Blessed Saviour 
 to have addressed his holy and dear mother in terms 
 that disowned her, and denied all connection between 
 them ? Nay, we should feel but little satisfaction our- 
 selves in this discussion, did we feel, at its close, that 
 we had by it derogated aught from her honour, whom, 
 from infancy, we have been taught especially to reve- 
 rence ; or that we had successfully striven to establish 
 an interpretation which apparently favoured the cavils 
 of our religious adversaries. For we are aware how 
 
 u Lib. xii. epig. 30. 
 
 * However, Prof. Scholz, in his version of the Gospels (Francf. 
 1829), has retained this meaning : " Weib, was kiimmert das mich 
 und dich ?" That of Augusti and De Wette (Heidelb. 1814) has : 
 " Weib, was habe ich mit dir zu beschafien ?"
 
 96 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 this translation has been considered by some as dis- 
 countenancing our Catholic feelings towards God's 
 mother, by proving that her own Son treated her with 
 little respect. Such, for instance, is the view presented 
 by a certain Mr. Ford Vance, a chosen preacher against 
 our doctrines, who having quoted the Protestant ver- 
 sion, thus observes : " The Roman Catholics say that 
 this is a wrong translation of the passage, and that it 
 should be rendered, ' Woman, what is that to you and 
 to me?" And in reply he appeals to Matt. viii. 29. y 
 Our preceding remarks will be sufficient to show that 
 we have no wish whatever to assert any such thing. 
 But we deny all the consequences which he and others 
 would draw from their version, and assert that the 
 most timid Catholic need fear nothing in adopting it. 
 
 It is easy to prove, that the expression in question 
 might be, and often was, used in the most respectful 
 and even affectionate manner; and as some of our 
 examples, at least, have not been before quoted, we 
 will enter more fully into the matter. "We have a 
 stronger motive for so doing, that even writers not 
 engaged on controversy have expressed themselves dif- 
 ferently from what we deem the truth. Thus Lambert 
 Bos describes the phrase in general, as one " qua 
 molestia et contemptus innuitur." z 
 
 In the New Testament it certainly is used respect- 
 fully by Pilate's wife, when she calls Jesus " that just 
 man." Nor, we think, can it be doubted, that the 
 expostulation of the evil spirits, to which Mr. Vance 
 refers, has the same character. Por they give him his 
 most glorious title, saying, " What have we to do with 
 thee, Jesus, son of God?" and then they make a sup- 
 
 y Sermons on the Invocation of Angels and Saints. Serm. ii. 
 p. 40. 
 
 1 Ellipses Graecse, ed. Schaffer, 1808, p. 227.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 97 
 
 plicating request to be allowed to enter into the swine ; 
 which is granted them. In the Old Testament, the 
 phrase is used in the same manner. For instance, 
 there surely was neither " annoyance nor contempt" 
 intended in those words whereby the widow obtained 
 from the prophet the resurrection of her son : " What 
 have I to do with thee, thou man of God ? Art thou 
 come to call my sins to remembrance, and to slay my 
 son?" a There is an expression, similar in significa- 
 tion, which is manifestly used with similar feelings. 
 We allude to Luke v. 8, where Peter, falling on his 
 knees before Jesus, says to him, " Depart from me, for 
 I am a sinful man, O Lord !" It is exceeding respect 
 which, in these two cases, suggests expressions, at first 
 sight indicative of a wish to have no communication 
 with the person addressed. 
 
 Among profane writers the same use of the phrase 
 may be easily proved. When the banished poet 
 addresses his writings in these words, 
 
 " Quid mihi vobiscum est, infelix cura, libelli, 
 Ingenio peril qui miser ipse meo ?" b 
 
 there is certainly expressed a feeling of affection and 
 attachment to his unfortunate productions. The most 
 respectful use of the expression is made in the East. 
 In the account of a " good monitor," published by 
 Kosegarten, we are told, how, upon a message being 
 brought him that the caliph wished to see him., he 
 replied, (J ^\^\ J ^^ J U "What have I to do with 
 
 the prince of the faithful ?" c This was certainly not 
 said with any intention of slighting that personage, 
 whose call he obeyed ; for his conduct is described with 
 a desire to commend, and to propose it as an example. 
 
 a 1 Eeg. xvii. 18. * Trist. lib. ii. eleg. i. 1. 
 
 c Chrestom. Arab. Lips. 1828, p. 36. 
 i 11
 
 98 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCKEPTUKE. 
 
 But we will quote another instance, which, we flatter 
 ourselves, will leave no room to doubt that this 
 expression could be used in the most affectionate 
 manner. The emperor Marcus Aurelius closes one of 
 his letters to his beloved preceptor, Pronto, in these 
 words : " Valebis mihi Pronto, ubi ubi es, mellitis- 
 sime, meus amor, mea voluptas. Quid mihi tecum est ? 
 amo absentem."' 
 
 These examples are more than sufficient to prove, 
 that our Saviour could use the phrase as we have 
 interpreted it, without incurring the imputation of 
 undutifulness, which some writers, in their zeal against 
 Catholics, seem almost eager to cast upon him. It 
 may have been spoken in the most respectful and affec- 
 tionate manner ; and, as commentators have remarked, 
 our Blessed Lady did not view it in the light of a 
 refusal or a check ; for after it, she felt sure that 
 her prayer was granted, and gave directions for the 
 working of the miracle. 
 
 VIII. The length to which we have been carried by 
 several of our examples, obliges us to suppress many 
 others on which we would willingly have dilated. We 
 must, however, for the present omit them, and will 
 briefly advert to one only. This is Heb. xi. 1, where 
 the Latin word, " substantia," is rendered " sub- 
 stance." "Faith is the substance of things to be 
 hoped for." This rendering leads the reader to a 
 wrong conclusion ; as faith may be the indication, or 
 demonstration, but certainly not the substance, of 
 what we hope for. The Rheims translators say, that 
 the Latin word here bore the meaning of its corre- 
 sponding Greek, wTroo-rao-/^, " groundwork," or " foun- 
 dation ;" and though, with their usual caution, they 
 retained the very word " substance," they added a 
 d M. C. Frontonis et M. Aurelii Epist. Eomse, 1823, p. 105.
 
 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 99 
 
 marginal note to this effect : " By this word substance 
 is meant, that faith is the ground of our hope." The 
 note has disappeared, but the word which they knew 
 to be unintelligible without it, has been retained. The 
 Anglican version has the same word, but likewise adds 
 an explanatory marginal note. A reference to the 
 original Greek could alone guide the translator of the 
 Vulgate; because the Latin word could never have 
 been supposed to have this meaning, except as equi- 
 valent to that Greek term. 
 
 It may be necessary even sometimes to consult St. 
 Jerome's commentary, to ascertain the exact sense in 
 which he used words or phrases. Eor example : 
 " Butyrum et mel comedet, ut sciat reprobare malum 
 et eligere bonum." 6 Prom his commentary on this 
 passage, it is evident that he used the particle ut in 
 the sense of quamvis, as Ovid does, 
 
 " Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas." f 
 
 The sense would be, that the Messiah should eat the 
 common food of infants, although he, in truth, pos- 
 sessed discretion and knowledge. 
 
 These examples are, we trust, sufficient to elucidate 
 our views regarding a complete and authorized revisal 
 of our English Catholic version. Much we have to say 
 respecting the prefaces and notes, the indices and 
 titles, which should accompany any such authorized 
 edition. On these matters it will be time enough to 
 express our sentiments when we shall perceive that 
 the hints here thrown out have been esteemed worthy 
 of notice ; and that attention is turned to the neces- 
 sity or propriety of providing us with a standard 
 edition, no longer subject to alteration from the 
 caprice or ignorance of individuals. The new version 
 e Isa. viii. 15. f De Ponto, lib. iii. ep. iv. 19. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 which, has led to the remarks we have made in this 
 paper, cannot, as we have already observed, supersede 
 the necessity of such a revision. "With several of its 
 verbal changes we are certainly pleased ; but there are 
 others of which we cannot bring ourselves to approve. 
 The change of "Christ" into "Messiah," and " gospel" 
 into " good tidings," seems unnecessary, and likely to 
 startle ordinary readers. For the rejected words have 
 long become part of the language. 
 
 Throughout the notes and preface there is a drift 
 which cannot be overlooked, and which has our cordial 
 approbation ; it is to place the gospels in their proper 
 light, not as narratives intended to form a complete 
 digest of our Saviour's life, but as " occasional pieces," 
 so to speak, suggested by particular circumstances, 
 and primarily directed to readers possessing different 
 qualifications from ours, who could understand much 
 that to us must be obscure. The impression on the. 
 reader's mind, after having perused this edition, must 
 be, that Christianity never depended, for its code or 
 evidences, upon the compilation of these documents, 
 and that they never could have been intended for a 
 rule of faith. Considering the work in this light, we 
 have an additional pleasure in bearing witness to the 
 learning, diligence, and acuteness of its author.
 
 THE 
 
 PARABLES 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 From the DUBLIN KEVJEW/OT Sept. 1849.
 
 THE 
 
 PARABLES 
 
 OP 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
 
 AS ILLUSTRATING CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. 
 
 The Four Gospels, translated from the Latin Vulgate, and diligently 
 compared with the original Greek Text, being a Revision of the 
 Rhenish Translation, with Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By 
 F. P. KENBICK, Bishop of Philadelphia. 8vo. New York, 1849. 
 
 ANT work from the pen of Bishop Kenrick must be 
 received with interest and with respect, by every 
 Catholic who speaks the English language. His 
 varied and extensive learning, his great researches, 
 his distinguished abilities, and his sound orthodoxy, 
 combined with his high position in the Church, must 
 give weight to all that he publishes. The work before 
 us is another proof of his lordship's zeal, and another 
 monument of his learning ; and as such we sincerely 
 welcome it. The object of this new version, with 
 its commentary, appears to be twofold. First, it is 
 intended to vindicate the Catholic Vulgate, and show 
 its superiority to the Anglican version ; secondly, it is 
 directed, both by modifications of the ordinary Catholic 
 translation, and by short notes, to remove difficulties, 
 and facilitate the reading of the gospels. It is by o 
 means a controversial work ; the annotations do not 
 undertake to meet those misrepresentations which
 
 104 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 result from erroneous doctrine; and on the whole, 
 they will be probably much valued and read by Pro- 
 testants, as well as Catholics. 
 
 The work acquires, in our minds, an additional 
 importance from another consideration. It is the first 
 attempt to bring before the notice of ordinary Catholic 
 readers, the critical study of the text. It is an un- 
 doubted fact, that all modern judicious critics will give 
 great weight, and even preference, to the Vulgate, or 
 Latin version, beyond the ordinary Greek text, where 
 the two differ. The reason is simple. On these occa- 
 sions, the oldest and best manuscripts, and the most 
 ancient versions, almost invariably agree with- the 
 Vulgate; and their concurrent testimony establishes 
 the fact, that the Vulgate represents manuscripts 
 more accurate than have been used to form the 
 received Greek text. When we consider the scorn 
 cast by the reformers upon the Vulgate, and their 
 recurrence, in consequence, to the Greek, as the only 
 accurate standard, we cannot but rejoice at the silent 
 triumph which truth has at length gained over cla- 
 morous error. For, in fact, the principal writers who 
 have avenged the Vulgate, and obtained for it its cri- 
 tical pre-eminence, are Protestants. But though such 
 a judgment has long been passed by the learned, the 
 great bulk of readers, including men of education, no 
 doubt fancy as yet, that the Greek must always have 
 the preference ; and even Catholics may not be free 
 from this opinion. Now Bishop Kenrick has taken 
 the simplest mode of removing it. He shows, in few 
 words, that where the Anglican version agrees with 
 the Greek, but differs from the Latin, the best modern 
 Protestant critics give the preference to the latter. 
 
 We have no doubt that this exposure will do much 
 good. At the same time it suggests to us the fear,
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 105 
 
 and shall we add, the shame, that we are not alto- 
 gether prepared for these critical remarks. "We do not 
 believe that Catholics are worse off than their neigh- 
 bours, who profess to draw all their faith from Scrip- 
 ture. But as it is not our place to think for these, we 
 naturally confine our remarks to our own body ; and 
 we regret to say, that we have not an English Catholic 
 elementary book of biblical introduction. Little or no 
 study is made in our schools of the preliminary matter 
 requisite for reading the Bible, although we are sure 
 that the subject could be made as interesting as it is 
 important. Upon this topic we would willingly dilate, 
 did we not view it in connection with deeper considera- 
 tions, and a wider range of defects than we can at pre- 
 sent dwell on. But whoever has paid attention to 
 biblical critical studies, and knows the niceties of the 
 questions in which they get involved, and has tried 
 to unravel the perplexities of recensions, and their 
 theories, and has experienced how difficult it is to fix 
 the date of a manuscript or a version, or to weigh con- 
 flicting evidence about any text, will fear, we think, 
 with us, that very few indeed of such readers as Dr. 
 Kenrick will secure, will be able to appreciate the 
 critical portion of his notes, or to understand their 
 drift. Nor can we hope that the very brief " Explana- 
 tions" at the beginning of the volume, containing 
 necessarily so many hard names, and allusions to 
 matters with which ordinary readers are not familiar, 
 will very effectually assist them. If Dr. Kenrick, or 
 any other sound theological scholar, who could sift 
 the chaff from the wheat in modern scriptural writers, 
 would supply the want to which we have alluded, he 
 would confer a lasting advantage on our body. 
 
 The second object proposed in the learned bishop's 
 notes is, we think, of greater practical utility : and we
 
 106 PAIIABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 do not hesitate to say that many readers will derive 
 great benefit from their perusal. They will find many 
 terms and phrases explained, which they have possibly 
 often read without attaching any very definite idea to 
 them ; they will see apparent discrepancies very simply 
 reconciled, and obscure passages briefly, but ably, 
 illustrated. This book will, in many cases, dispense 
 with the necessity of consulting larger commentaries. 
 
 And again, on this subject, we will express a hope, 
 that this work will lead to others in scriptural learn- 
 ing, and those not merely introductory, but deep, 
 earnest, and solid. For we are fully convinced that 
 the field belongs exclusively to Catholics, and that 
 they alone can properly occupy it. After all the 
 boasted researches of the moderns, what has been 
 done ? What are the commentaries of Kuinoel, Rosen- 
 muller, Campbell, or Bloomfield ? Sapless, heartless, 
 devotionless, merely critical and philological notes, 
 which help one not a step to taste and relish the 
 sweetness of the divine narrative, or to learn its true 
 lessons. There is in them neither breadth of view nor 
 depth of penetration ; they walk you over the surface, 
 and, if anything, deaden the perception of those inner 
 and hidden treasures, those rich mines, which lie 
 beneath the letter. And this must be the case with 
 all Protestant Scripture learning. The tender myste- 
 ries of our Saviour's nativity and holy childhood, asso- 
 ciated at every moment with His Blessed Mother ; His 
 kindness towards sinners, and his familiarity with the 
 poor ; the sorrowful scenes of His passion, in their 
 details, as meditated upon by Catholic Saints ; a all 
 
 8 A curious inquiry to pursue, but not here, would be the follow- 
 ing : How far has the rejection and condemnation, by Protestantism, 
 of pictures and sculptures, conduced to the suppression of meditation, 
 which is a mental representation ? "We believe much. To take one
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 107 
 
 these it is impossible for a Protestant mind to view or 
 dwell on, with the intensity and affectionateness that 
 a Catholic heart requires. Then what can a Protestant 
 do with the evangelical counsels, poverty and chastity, 
 and renouncing of all possessions ; with the apostles, 
 sent without scrip or staff to preach to heathens ; with 
 celibacy and virginity; with fasting and watching; 
 with the forgiveness of sins, and the eating of Christ's 
 Body ; with miracles and wonders to be wrought in 
 the Church ? He must try to show that some of 
 these things are figurative, and that others only 
 applied to the apostolic times ; and that, in fact, they 
 are nothing to us. Only the Catholic can fully and 
 lovingly enter into the heart of God's word, and feel its 
 whole truth and perfect reality. The others must be 
 ever reasoning, while we are content to receive 
 impressions. 
 
 We feel, therefore, deeply convinced, that if we 
 would only take full possession of Scripture, and place 
 it before those who love, or affect to love, it, in its 
 true and Catholic light, and draw from it its practical, 
 yet most moving, lessons, in the Catholic spirit, we 
 should easily convince our adversaries that ours is the 
 only religion of Scripture, and our inheritance its 
 interpretation. But perhaps we shall best explain 
 our meaning, by endeavouring to exemplify what we 
 have said. Let us take, for instance, one charac- 
 teristic point of our Saviour's teaching, and endeavour 
 to develop in it, and through it, the principle which 
 we have laid down : that it requires a Catholic view of 
 it to do it full justice, while yet this does not exclude 
 those modes of illustration which may be deemed the 
 common property of every scholar, though they require 
 
 instance could a person who has never seen a crucifix possibly 
 realize to his mind the crucifixion ?
 
 108 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 the chastening hand of orthodox religion safely to 
 apply them. 
 
 "Were any one asked, what is the peculiar feature of 
 Our Saviour's teaching, as preserved for us in the 
 Gospels, he would naturally answer, that it consists in 
 His constant use of parables and similitudes. The 
 answer would, no doubt, be correct, so far as compari- 
 son with other known methods of instruction can lead 
 us. Not only the ^Fathers, and later teachers in the 
 Church, pursue a system that may seem the very 
 opposite, but even the Apostles, who naturally imbibed 
 the Spirit of their holy Master, and sought to be like 
 him, disclose no traces of this mode of delivering doc- 
 trine. Nor can this be the result of want of genius, or 
 of imagination, or of any other faculty. Eor they wrote 
 under the influence of Divine inspiration, and the 
 Holy Spirit who breathed in, and through, them, and 
 who guided their pens, could have suggested to them 
 parables and illustrations, as easily as simple dogmatic 
 instruction. If He did not so, if in this respect they 
 were guided to depart from the model of their Lord 
 and Teacher, there must have been reasons why that 
 mode should remain sacredly His, and not be con- 
 sidered suitable to them. Again, this could not be 
 because the apostles had to address, in their writings, 
 a different class of disciples. Several of their epistles 
 are directed to the same Jewish people, whether still 
 living in their own country, or dispersed in distant lands. 
 In every respect these compositions bear the Jewish 
 stamp, in style, in reasoning, in quotations, in allusions, 
 in illustration, in figures of speech, in cast of thought. 
 The strongest internal evidence of their genuineness 
 results from this decisive mark of origin, combined 
 with the novelty of their doctrine, and their connec- 
 tion with the gospel system. If, therefore, our Saviour
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 109 
 
 chose the mode of instruction by parables to gratify a 
 Jewish taste, or to gain the Jewish mind, we might 
 naturally expect, that after His justification of such a 
 course, it would have been pursued by His first fol- 
 lowers. And if we say, on the other hand, that the 
 apostles wrote rather for the Church in aftertimes, we 
 shall surely belie our best thoughts and feelings, if we 
 do not consider that every word which our blessed 
 Lord spoke, was as completely addressed to His spouse, 
 as to any unbelieving Jew. 
 
 We cannot be surprised that this peculiar choice, by 
 our Redeemer, of His method of instruction, should 
 have engaged the attention of religious minds, and of 
 ecclesiastical writers. Good and solid reasons have 
 been given for His preference; the beauties of His 
 different parables have been unfolded by many an elo- 
 quent pen ; and the lessons which each contains have 
 been expounded, illustrated, and inculcated, with an 
 almost endless variety of explanation. Each may be 
 likened to a simple theme in music, upon which many 
 composers will elaborate many variations ; through all 
 which the original strain will be heard, though one 
 may seem to droop in mournful key, and languid mea- 
 sure, and another to sparkle in all the brilliancy of the 
 wildest caprice. Every parable has been preached 
 upon, commented upon, meditated on, written on ; 
 chapters, essays, volumes almost, have been devoted to 
 several of them ; their literal, their allegorical, their 
 spiritual, their doctrinal, their ascetic sense has been 
 fully drawn out, sometimes into a very wire of at- 
 tenuated detail, sometimes into beautiful " chains of 
 gold inlaid with silver," 15 the chaste delicacy of the 
 commentary enhancing the rich brilliancy of the text. 
 In so well-reaped a field, what can ice hope to glean ? 
 
 b Cant. i. 10.
 
 110 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Can we, for a moment, flatter ourselves, that we can 
 add another thought, or even another fancy, to the 
 luxuriance of past illustrators ; or that we can throw 
 any additional light upon the method itself of para- 
 bolic teaching, after all that has been written con- 
 cerning it ? 
 
 "We would not put such questions into our reader's 
 thoughts, did we feel ourselves compelled to answer 
 them directly ; were it necessary either to give a pre- 
 sumptuous affirmative reply, and so forfeit his confi- 
 dence ; or, at once, by a self-condemning negative, cut 
 off our right to pen another line on the subject. We 
 will do neither ; but will rather trust ourselves to his 
 indulgence and generosity, to take it for granted that 
 we would not willingly waste the pages of our Review, 
 nor trifle with his patience ; and that, therefore, if, 
 merely taking our suggestion from the volume before 
 us, we venture to lead him on so beaten a road, it is 
 not without the hope, that we may draw his attention 
 to something which he may have passed by before. 
 There is no great merit in this. It may be that we 
 have travelled it over more frequently than he, because 
 our business and duty led us regularly that way ; it 
 may be that we have had more leisure than he in 
 going along it, and so have sauntered, and loitered, 
 and looked about us more ; it may be that we have 
 walked on it in the company of those wiser than our- 
 selves, who, in oriental phrase, may have dropped the 
 pearls of their sage words upon it, and we may re- 
 member where, and pick them up as we go on ; or it 
 may be that we have held in our hands, as we jour- 
 neyed, some quaint old volumes, that collected its 
 histories, its traditions, its associations, and hidden 
 sources of interest. If so, there can be but small pre- 
 tension in embodying the results of such slender and
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Ill 
 
 such pleasant industry, and offering them to others. 
 And having got thus far, let us conclude these intro- 
 ductory remarks, by boldly stating, that we think 
 there are some views of this method of teaching, 
 which have not received their full elucidation, and 
 which yet present a strong attraction ; that the sys- 
 tem, both in its principles and in its details, bears 
 powerfully upon the evidences both of Christianity in 
 general, and of Catholicity more particularly ; and 
 that, moreover, many of the aids to appreciating the 
 full beauty of our Lord's method of instruction, are 
 locked up in works too much out of ordinary readers' 
 way to be familiar to them, or are derived from sources 
 not likely to reach them; which yet are not suffi- 
 ciently brought forward, as they might be, to enhance 
 the interest, or deepen the impressions, of these sacred 
 lessons. 
 
 If we take any portion of our Saviour's discourses 
 in the three first Gospels, we are struck at once with 
 the richness of its texture. It is like a beautiful 
 piece of tessellated work, composed of rich designs of 
 imagery, each of which is beautiful in itself, but runs 
 into the next, while, perhaps, in the midst, to continue 
 our image, comes a fuller and more finished picture, 
 set as in a rich border. There is hardly a sentence 
 that descends to what we should call prose; every 
 thought is conveyed in a sententious, proverbial, and 
 easily-remembered form ; or it is a beautiful and per- 
 fect simile, or comparison with natural objects, or 
 ordinary usages, such as conveys the lesson familiarly, 
 and gives it a hold on the mind and memory ; or it is 
 a more formal and complete allegory, corresponding 
 point by point with a more solemn lesson. Now, to 
 every one of these forms of speech, the term PARABLE 
 is applied. Eor we may observe that the terms proverb
 
 112 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 and parable are almost convertible in Scripture lan- 
 guage. In the three first Gospels, the figurative 
 instructions of our Lord are called Tlapa^o^ : in 
 St. John this word does not occur once ; but the word 
 Hapoipua is always used instead. It is true, the latter 
 means a similitude as well as the former ; but it is the 
 title given by the Septuagint, to what we call the 
 Proverbs of Solomon; and these again are called in 
 the text IIapa3oAa/, d though they exactly correspond 
 to what we should call proverbs. Besides the philo- 
 logical reasons for this commutation of terms, 6 we may 
 assign a very natural one. It is, that what we call a 
 proverb, a similitude, and a parable, are only more or 
 less condensed forms of the same species of speech. 
 A proverb or sententious saying, containing in it deep 
 meaning and practical truth, may be easily considered 
 as the moral of a fable or parable, and its frequently 
 figurative form would very often give, at once, the 
 clue to such an illustration. This building of stories 
 upon proverbs has been so often done, that it would 
 be almost childish to dwell upon it. Eranklin's story 
 
 c "We may likewise here remark, that only in St. Luke is the word 
 TrapafioXri rendered by similitude in the Vulgate, seven or eight times. 
 In St. Matthew and St. Mark this is never found. 
 
 d Prov. i. 1 ; xxv. 1. 
 
 e The Hebrew word whereby the Proverbs of Solomon are called, 
 Wn mashal, corresponds to the Arabic l*^> metJiel, like. It is 
 curious to observe what an influence on all modern European lan- 
 guages the corresponding word in Latin has exercised. From fabula, 
 a fable, comes fabulari, to converse ; hence the old Spanish fablar 
 (now, by an ordinary conversion, hablar), Portuguese foliar, Italian 
 parlare, Pflgnch parler, and hence our parlour and our parliament ! 
 This proves that wherever the Latin language was vernacular, the 
 ordinary word in conversation for to speak was this. And hence we 
 may trace back to the oldest period of the language, the familiar use 
 of apologues and fictitious narratives. In fact, Livy calls Memmius's 
 apologue on the Mons Sacer, the priscum et horridum dicendi genus.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 113 
 
 of " paying dear for one's whistle," will suffice as an 
 instance. Again, to return to our subject, when our 
 Lord thus addresses his fellow-townsmen : " Doubt- 
 less you will say to me this similitude (7rapa|3o?ajv) : 
 Physician, heal thy self. " f It is plain that this ex- 
 pression corresponds exactly to what we should call a 
 proverb, yet who does not see in it, at once, a full 
 parable, which scarcely requires development ? A 
 physician loudly proclaims his skill in curing every, 
 or some particular, complaint : a patient sends for 
 him, and sees at once that he is as sick as himself, 
 and that his boasted method of cure has not answered 
 in his own case. He very naturally rejects him as an 
 empiric, and bids him first cure himself with his nos- 
 trums, before he tries them on others. " Physician," 
 he exclaims, " heal thyself." It matters not whether 
 the phrase arose out of an apologue, or leads to it; 
 whether it be the fruit or the seed, is all one. 
 
 If, therefore, among the Jews, a proverb, a simili- 
 tude, and a parable, were considered as but different 
 degrees of the same form of expression, and if our 
 Lord's discourses were almost entirely made up of the 
 three, we can easily see how literally those words of 
 the sacred text meant to apply, "all these things 
 Jesus spoke in parables to the multitude, and without 
 parables he did not speak to them."* 
 
 It is manifest that a marked difference may be 
 expected, as to novelty, between those shorter pro- 
 verbial phrases, and those poetical comparisons by 
 which our Saviour conveys simpler moral and dog- 
 matic truths, and those longer parables which contain 
 in them a complete system of doctrines. No one, 
 however wise, when conversing with ordinary men, 
 will always employ original phrases, nor even deliver 
 f Luke iv. 23. & Matt. xiii. 34. 
 
 i I
 
 114 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 original ideas. He must be understood, and, to keep 
 up the interest of an audience, say many things which 
 have been said before. Proverbs, which carry in them 
 the thoughts and experience of the good and the wise, 
 have become a public property ; they will be used by 
 the very best and wisest ; but they will be used aptly, 
 happily, more strikingly than by others ; and what is 
 still more important, they will receive fresh strength 
 and higher meaning, and be made to contain some 
 new and great truth. In examining the shorter para- 
 bles of our blessed Lord, there is danger of two 
 extremes; of considering everything as new, and so 
 rejecting all illustration from other sources, on the 
 one hand, and of trusting too much to the light which 
 these may throw upon them, on the other. The latter 
 was the crime of that wretched school of biblical 
 literature, which rose in Germany in the course of the 
 last century ; was matured to avowed rationalism in 
 this ; not so much poisoned, as withered up, the last 
 fibres of faith which Protestantism yet held by ; tainted 
 this country with a venom which has not yet fully 
 developed ; and then seems to have gone out, like a 
 noxious vapour, kindled for a time by an infernal 
 flame. In its insidious beginnings, this was one of its 
 worst deceits : that overlooking or rejecting eccle- 
 siastical teaching and tradition, it sought, with per- 
 verted erudition, for all its illustrations of God's word 
 out of it, and of the natural channel of interpretation. 
 But, on the other hand, to reject totally the aid of 
 such secondary sources of illustration, is, in truth, not 
 merely to reject such light as they can cast on the 
 sacred text, but to exclude what helps much to raise 
 the character of our Lord Himself to its true dignity. 
 Let us examine a few instances. 
 
 Our Saviour makes use of a most appropriate illus-
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 115 
 
 tration in the following passage : " How sayest thou 
 to thy brother : let me cast the mote out of thine eye, 
 and behold a beam in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, 
 cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then 
 thou shalt see to cast the mote out of thy brother's 
 eye?" h Now we can hardly doubt that this was a 
 proverbial expression among the Jews, for we find 
 it quoted as such in the Rabbins, but with a very 
 different effect. "It is written, that in the time of 
 the judges, that if any one said, ' Cast out the mote 
 (stalk) from thy eye;' the other would answer, 'Cast 
 out the beam from thine.' 5)i " Rabbi Tarphon said, 
 ' I wonder if in this age there be any one who will 
 receive correction ; for if any one says to another, Cast 
 out the mote from thine eye, he would answer him, 
 Cast the beam out of thine.' " k Similar passages 
 occur elsewhere. As here used, the expression was 
 clearly one of retort, and he who used it is evidently 
 blamed. The haughty Pharisee, the unbelieving Sad- 
 ducee, the scandalous priest, was no doubt generally 
 the reprover of others' failings (for they were not 
 " as the rest of men "), and to them was the retort 
 frequently and justly addressed. Now our Lord 
 exactly takes part with those who make it, but He 
 goes further still, and takes it in God's name, and 
 brands with the terrible name of " hypocrite," him 
 who dares to incur the injustice of correcting others, 
 while he is guilty of even greater sins. His treatment 
 of the accusers of the woman taken in adultery, 1 is the 
 best illustration of this meaning. But Christ's appli- 
 cation of the familiar proverb rises higher ; it goes to 
 teach, what Jewish doctor never thought of, mutual 
 forbearance, gentleness in dealing with others' defects, 
 
 h Matt. vii. 4, 5. { Bava Bathra, f. x. 2. 
 
 k Erachin, f. xvi. 2. l John viii. 
 
 i2
 
 116 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 strict scrutiny into our own failings rather than into 
 theirs, and self-correction before we undertake the 
 delicate office of directing others. And thus, as in 
 that same sermon on the mount, He took the texts of 
 the old law, and amended them for the new, in all 
 that regarded charity, so did He no less those familiar 
 and additional phrases, current among the teachers 
 of the people. 
 
 Let us take another example, which has given rise 
 to much strange discussion: " It is easier for a camel 
 to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich 
 man to enter the kingdom of heaven. " m Even in 
 ancient times, as appears, from marginal notes on 
 manuscripts, there was a disposition to modify the 
 apparent harshness of this text. A camel passing 
 through the eye of a needle seemed almost incon- 
 gruous ; and hence by changing xa/x7jAo into xdpihos, 
 a " camel" into a " cable," a more natural connection 
 was sought to be given between the two terms em- 
 ployed : " a cable passing through the eye of a needle." 
 Drusius warmly espoused this reading ; n and others 
 followed him. But no sensible commentator would 
 now adopt so useless an attempt at emendation. There 
 can be little doubt that the expression was a prover- 
 bial one, to imply an impossibility. For with the 
 exception of the animal mentioned, we find the same 
 proverb in use in central and eastern Asia. In those 
 countries the largest beast of burthen was the ele- 
 phant, and the image in the comparison was naturally 
 drawn from it. In the J3ava Metsia, one of the Tal- 
 mudic treatises, a person thus addresses another who 
 dealt in wonders : " Perhaps you are from the city of 
 Pumbeditha, where they make an elephant pass 
 
 m Matt. xix. 24. 
 
 n In loc. and in his treatise on Heb. Proverbs, in Crit. Sac. torn. v.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 117 
 
 through the eye of a needle." And in another work 
 it is written : " They do not show a golden palm, nor 
 an elephant going through the eye of a needle." 5 Dr. 
 Prank has given a similar proverb as Indian : " As if 
 an elephant were to try to pass through a small open- 
 ing." 11 "What the elephant was to the oriental Asiatic, 
 the camel was to the western : the proverb would 
 naturally present this substitution of animals, yet be 
 substantially the same. Hence, the Arabs have the 
 proverb, with the camel, as in the gospel/ But what 
 an awful severity, what a definitely acute edge, does 
 not this vague and general expression, more of incre- 
 dulity than of impossibility, receive, when applied, as 
 by our Lord, to the difficulty, for the rich, of entering 
 His kingdom. And how increased is the strength of 
 the figure, by the appeal, which follows it, to God's 
 omnipotence, as the sole power that can reverse or 
 modify the sentence. " With men this is impossible, 
 but with God all things are possible," 8 and therefore 
 this. So firmly welded and riveted have the two 
 parts of the sentence become, in our Saviour's mouth, 
 that no power will ever again separate them ; it would 
 be profane to reduce again to a general expression of 
 difficulty, or human impossibility, that which has been 
 definitely appropriated by Him, to declare the most 
 terrible moral truth of His divine religion. 
 
 We can easily conceive how this familiarity with 
 the proverbial forms of speech in use among the Rab- 
 
 Fol. xxxviii. 2. P Beracoth, fol. Iv. 2. 
 
 1 50th, Continuation of the Accounts of the E. I. Missionaries. 
 Halle, 1742. 
 
 r It occurs in the Koran, Sur. vii. 38 : " They who charge our 
 signs with falsehood, and reject them, the gates of heaven shall be 
 closed against them, and they shall not enter Paradise till a camel 
 pass through the eye of a needle." 
 
 8 Matt. xix. 26.
 
 118 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 bins and learned men of His nation, this apt and ele- 
 gant use of their favourite expressions, and this power 
 giving them new and peculiar beauties, gained Him at 
 once the respect and confidence of the people ; asso- 
 ciated Him, of right, with their admitted teachers ; 
 shut the jealous mouths of these men ; and delighted 
 and charmed all ; till they would remain whole days, 
 regardless of food, in His society. Hence, even in that 
 very place where He was no prophet, the people " all 
 gave testimony to Him : and they wondered at the 
 words of grace that proceeded from His mouth, and 
 they said, Is not this the son of Joseph ?' n But what 
 doubtless added still further to enhance the beauty and 
 gracefulness of His discourse, was the readiness with 
 which His illustrations and comparisons seemed to 
 spring from the objects around, or from the most 
 homely subjects. How important this consideration 
 is, when we study our Saviour's more formal parables, 
 we shall see later : but in the shorter images, the 
 fabellce breviores, as Quintilian calls them, this obvious 
 facility of taking them up must have rendered them 
 much more striking and interesting. The whitening 
 corn-fields suggest the thought of the spiritual harvest 
 ripe for the sickle ; u the fig-tree putting 'forth its fruit 
 furnishes a lesson on the coming of God's kingdom. 
 " See the fig-tree, and all the trees, when they now 
 shoot forth their fruit. " x When discoursing on the 
 mount, how happily the birds flitting about furnish a 
 beautiful image : " jBehold the birds of the air :" and 
 the lilies which spring up, as travellers inform us, on 
 that very ground, give rise to that still more graceful 
 similitude, " Consider the lilies of the field how they 
 grow : they labour not, neither do they spin. But I 
 say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not 
 * Luke iv. 22. John iv. 35. x Luke xxi. 29.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 119 
 
 arrayed as one of these. " y Then every action and 
 operation of the household, and of ordinary life the 
 grinding at the mill; z the leavening of the dough;* 
 the good housewife's hoard ; b the governing of the 
 house ; c the cultivation of the vineyard, from its plant- 
 ing d to its yielding fruit ; e the tillage of the field f and 
 of the garden ; g the pastoral life in its smallest 
 details, 11 each furnishes him with most appropriate 
 imagery, and most pertinent illustration. At the same 
 time even the more refined and luxurious life of the 
 higher classes is no less fertile in His hand ; the 
 management of the estate; 1 the distribution of confi- 
 dential duties to servants ; k the sumptuous feast j 1 the 
 
 y Matt. vi. 26, 28. Solomon is the Croesus of oriental poetry. 
 The prince of Persian poets, Hafez, has a similar figure : 
 
 & ii>W- \pji *r>}y* & &- 
 " "When the rose rides on the air like Solomon." 
 
 (Eosseau's Mowers of Pers. Liter, p. 165.) The rose is in Persian, 
 what the lily is in Hebrew, poetry. 
 
 z Matt. xxiv. 41. a Luke xiii. 21. 
 
 b Luke xv. 8. c Luke xii. 35- 
 
 d Matt. xx. 1 ; xxi. 33 ; Mark xii. 1 ; Luke xx. 9. 
 
 e John xv. 1 6. "Every branch that beareth fruit, he (the 
 husbandman) will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit " 
 (v. 2). This same figure is beautifully applied, almost in the same 
 words, by the Persian poet Saadi : 
 
 j JU *jj 
 
 " Distribute in alms the tithe of thy wealth ; for the more the gar- 
 dener cuts away the redundancy of the vine, the more fruit it gives." 
 Gulistan, chap. ii. tale xlix. 
 
 f Matt. xiii. 3, 24 ; Mark iv. 3, 26 ; Luke viii. 4. 
 
 s Luke xiii. 6. h Matt, xviii. 12 ; Luke xv. 4 ; John x. 1. 
 
 1 Luke xvi. 1. k Matt. xxv. 1 ; Luke xix. 12. 
 
 1 Matt. xxii. 12; Luke xiv. 16. We are tempted to introduce 
 another oriental illustration of an important feature of this parable.
 
 120 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 bridal procession ; m the processes of law ; n even politi- 
 cal events of recent occurrence, serve for Him as 
 groundwork of most expressive and beautiful lessons. 
 And there is every reason to suppose, that even such 
 detailed and pointed parables as that of the rich man 
 and Lazarus had a basis of fact, and alluded to cha- 
 racters and incidents well known. 
 
 "When we consider, in addition, that in almost every 
 case these parables could not have been prepared, but 
 were introduced in discourses arising from casual 
 events, or were spoken in answer to sudden questions, 
 we shall not be surprised at the delight which they 
 gave his audience, and how they found his words truly 
 full of elegance and grace. What we have said will 
 
 (v. 11.) The guests called in on a sudden are all found clothed 
 in a wedding, or feasting, garment (for yci/zoc expresses the feast), 
 corresponding to the Roman ccenatorium. There is only one 
 exception. As he is severely reprimanded and punished for not 
 having one, and yet he and all his fellow-guests were poor, we must 
 suppose that rich garments were given to them, and that gross neg- 
 lect, or some worse fault, was imputable to the unrobed guest. Now 
 Pakr-Eddin Razi informs us, how Jaffar, the son of Yaya, in the days 
 of the great Egyptian khalif Haroun Al Eashid, used to have in his 
 palace secret banquets, and that the guests all put on garments of 
 various colours, red, yellow, or green, and the forbidden cup circu- 
 lated freely among them. One day he had assembled in his apart- 
 ments all his boon-companions except one, whose name was Abd-el- 
 melik, and he left orders with his porter to admit none but him. It 
 happened, however, that there was at court another of that name, a 
 man of austere morals, whom Jaffar had in vain endeavoured to draw 
 to his jovial parties. He happened to come to speak on business, 
 gave his name, and was admitted by the unsuspecting porter. The 
 guests were surprised and confounded at his appearance: but he, 
 without embarrassment, joined the party, and said, " Bring me also 
 one of those rich garments;" and only after he had been thus 
 clothed, asked for a cup of wine. Sacy's Chrestom. Arabe, pp. 35, 
 36 of text. 
 
 ra Matt. xxv. 1. n Ib. v. 25. Luke xix. 14.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 121 
 
 enable us to explain the beautiful description which 
 our Lord himself gives us of His own mode of teach- 
 ing. After the remarkable series of parables in the 
 thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew, in which the 
 Church is symbolized as a field, a treasure, a pearl, 
 and a net, our Saviour, having explained them to His 
 disciples, thus addresses them : " Have you under- 
 stood all these things ? They say to Him, Yes. He 
 said unto them, Therefore is every scribe [or Doctor] 
 instructed in the kingdom of heaven, like unto a 
 man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out 
 of his treasure [that is, his store] new things and 
 old." (vv. 51, 52.) Our Lord, having made use of dif- 
 ferent parables, some from common life, as the sowing 
 of a field, or a draught of fishes, others from more 
 extraordinary occurrences, such as the finding of a 
 treasure, or of an invaluable pearl, asks His apostles if 
 they understood all these illustrations. They answer 
 Him affirmatively. Therefore, He replies, that is, 
 because you find these different images so clear, you 
 see herein the skill of the experienced religious teacher. 
 He is like an economical householder, who has care- 
 fully stored up objects of every kind, some old, some 
 new, and knows where always to find just the thing 
 that he requires. So the good teacher, who has trea- 
 sured up in his mind a rich collection of varied learn- 
 ing, will be ready always to cull out just what is 
 wanted, old things or new : the old, by adapting to 
 his doctrine ancient maxims, proverbs, and wise say- 
 ings, as well as historical events ; and the new, by 
 seizing the occurrences of the moment, or objects that 
 are present, and turning them to the profit of his 
 scholars. 
 
 We have seen how admirably and how perfectly 
 Christ did this. But His hearers not only found His
 
 122 PARABLES Or THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 words full of grace, but they marked a difference 
 between His teaching and that of their usual instruc- 
 tors, which they described in this phrase : that " He 
 was teaching them as one having power, and not as 
 the Scribes and Pharisees." 1 * Besides the remarkable 
 and most important meaning which we hope later to 
 draw from these words, we may easily explain what 
 the Jews meant, by reference to the corresponding 
 teaching of the Pharisees and Scribes. For we may 
 
 O - 
 
 here assume, that their teaching is fairly represented 
 to us by the lessons recorded in the Jewish writings, 
 of the parables and sayings of the older Rabbins. We 
 have not leisure or space to prove this ; but it would 
 not be difficult. We could show that St. Jerome 
 refers to, and even, in his version, follows traditional 
 Jewish interpretations to be found in Talmudic writ- 
 ings ; and if any one desires to test this assertion 
 within a very limited compass, we would refer him to 
 his commentary on Osee. In like manner St. Ephrem 
 has some peculiar comments which are manifestly tra- 
 ditional, agreeing most curiously with the Koran, q 
 which certainly drew its accounts from the Jews. And 
 St. James of Edessa, quoting one of these histories, 
 about Melchisedec, informs us that it came from 
 Jewish traditions. 1 St. James of Sarug does the 
 same. 8 If therefore we are justified in considering the 
 Jewish histories, recorded in later writers, as tradi- 
 tions of far earlier periods, we shall be warranted in 
 comparing the teaching of our Saviour with that there 
 
 P Matt. vii. 29. 
 
 4 As that Jacob knew the story brought him by his sons, of 
 Joseph's death, to be untrue (in loc.) ; which is asserted in the 
 Koran. (Sur. Jusuphu.) Again, that the rocks struck by Moses 
 produced twelve fountains (Op. torn. i. p. 263), which again is found 
 in the Koran. (Sur. ii.) 
 
 r Op. S. Ephrem. torn. i. p. 273. Ib. p. 274.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 123 
 
 recorded; and the result will be what the people 
 describe, in the text just cited. The teaching of the 
 Jewish doctors and expounders of the law was fri- 
 volous, trivial, and childish, and related to every man- 
 ner of petty distinction and dispute, respecting the 
 law, ceremonial and moral. We do Jiot recollect a 
 single instance in which a masterly grasp of great 
 principles is exhibited, in which anything like a broad, 
 generous, exalted view is taken of the whole law, or 
 of a single precept. The character of this teaching 
 could not possibly have been given in stronger and 
 juster terms than it is by our Lord, when he reproaches 
 them with measuring out their tithe of mint and cum- 
 min, and letting alone the weightier things of the 
 law, judgment, and mercy, and faith, straining out a 
 gnat, and swallowing a camel.* Compared with this, 
 how healthy, vigorous, noble, and enlarged must the 
 teaching of our Lord have justly appeared. There the 
 spirit of the law had been clearly caught and denned, 
 and the new and higher law that was engrafted on it, 
 in the Sermon on the Mount, to which the Jews 
 referred, was manifestly its rightful sequence, and 
 natural maturing to perfection. And every illustra- 
 tion introduced, instead of serving to perplex, and 
 bind still further, as in the rabbinical teaching, sim- 
 plified and explained His meaning most happily, and 
 supported generous and exalted views of duty. 
 
 What we have written will guide us at least one 
 step, towards answering the question with which we 
 started : Why did our Lord choose to teach in para- 
 bles, and why did not the apostles ? Because it was 
 necessary for him to claim and secure the title of a 
 Master in Israel, a public teacher ; and so to drive from 
 the field the false teachers who held it, and who had 
 
 1 Matt. xiii. 23, sey.
 
 124 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 so thoroughly perverted the old law, that it was neces- 
 sary to sweep away from it their corruptions, before 
 the new could be fastened on it. This, which may be 
 called the aggressive part of our Saviour's ministry, 
 was not to be accomplished without great command, 
 great vigour, and almost violence. And to it belong 
 those strong and magnificent declamations, in which 
 He thoroughly unmasks their hypocrisy, uncharitable- 
 ness, and hidden vice. How was this work of power 
 to succeed, save by Christ's showing himself fully 
 equal to those rivals in all which their dupes, and the 
 whole people, considered wisdom, and even assert 
 successfully superiority over them in their own modes 
 of teaching ? And effectually we see, that though not 
 brought up in their schools, nor associated with any 
 of their sects, nor holding familiarity with any of 
 them, and consequently having a coalition of Phari- 
 sees, Sadducees, Herodians, priests, and doctors, arrayed 
 against Him, though cordially hating each other, He 
 obtained the title which they most coveted, u that of 
 Master/ Teacher/ and Babbi. z But though this was 
 necessary for Him, it was not so for His followers. 
 On the contrary, as they were to have " only one 
 Master, Christ," they were forbidden to assume or to 
 aspire to this title. 8 
 
 But in addition to the position thus required by 
 our Lord, for founding the Christian religion on the 
 groundwork of the former revelation, there is another 
 reason why he must be considered almost compelled 
 
 u Matt, xxiii. 7. 
 
 * Matt. viii. 19; xii. 38; Luke ix. 38; xx. 21, 28, 39; John 
 viii. 4, et al. pass. 
 
 y Lukev. 5 ; viii. 24,45, et al.pass. This word 7a<7r<xr?c is peculiar 
 to St. Luke in the New Testament. 
 
 z Matt. xxvi. 25, 49 ; Mark ix. 4 ; John i. 38 ; iii. 2, 26, et al. 
 
 a Matt, xxiii. 8, 10.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 125 
 
 to adopt the system of teaching by parables. This is, 
 that it was associated throughout the East with the 
 idea of wisdom. Solomon, the very type of wisdom, 
 was the great parable, or proverb writer of the Jews. b 
 When the Queen of Saba came to him, it was expressly 
 to try his wisdom by enigmas or riddles, which in 
 those times were like parables. 4 And the following is 
 the description of a wise man : " The wise man will 
 seek out the wisdom of all the ancients .... he will 
 keep the sayings of renowned men, and will enter 
 withal into the subtleties of parables. He will search 
 out the hidden meanings of proverbs, and will be con- 
 versant in the secrets of parables." 6 Jeremias cele- 
 brates the wisdom of -the inhabitants of Theman, the 
 capital of the Idumeans/ And Baruch tells us in 
 what that wisdom consisted, when he speaks of " the 
 children of Agar also, that search after the wisdom 
 that is of the earth, the merchants of Merrha and 
 Theman, and the tellers of fables, and searchers of 
 prudence and understanding"* We might add many 
 examples more. But it was so throughout the East. 
 The story of (Edipus proves it for Egypt. jEsop is the 
 impersonation of that oriental wisdom, as it appeared 
 in early Greece ; and his fables may be traced through 
 the Arabic of Lokman (surnamed as their writer, 
 " the Wise ") and the Persian of Bidpai (known more 
 popularly as Pilpay), to the Hipotadesa of India; a 
 genealogy as clear as that of our numerals through 
 Araby to India. The Armenians fall into the chain, 
 
 b 3 Keg. iv. 32. 
 
 c 3 Reg. x. 1. Menander and Dius, the historians of Tyre, whose 
 fragments are preserved by Eusebius, inform us that the friendship 
 of Solomon and Hiram was kept up by their sending one another 
 enigmas to solve. 
 
 d As Jud. xiv. 14. e Ecclus. xxxix. 1, 3. 
 
 f Jer. xlix. 7. e Bar. iii. 23.
 
 126 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 through the fables of Vartbran. The Gulistan, or 
 Hose-garden of Saadi, one of the most beautiful 
 oriental poems, to which we have referred in a former 
 note, consists entirely of a classified series of short 
 parables, or tales, sometimes containing only the saying 
 of some sage; each followed by an often exquisite 
 strophe, containing the moral, or application. And 
 not to multiply instances, suffice it to say, that so 
 much authority is granted to this form of teaching 
 among Mussulmans, that the prohibition to drink wine, 
 now so important a feature in their religious code, 
 rests entirely, not on the Koran, but on the teaching 
 of a parable in the Taalim, their second religious book. 
 So long, then, as, in the country and age in which our 
 Saviour lived, the idea of wisdom was so completely 
 involved in that of teaching by similitudes and para- 
 bles, and this not rashly, but in accordance with the 
 definitions of the sacred writings, and the character of 
 acknowledged sages, it became Him, so far to adapt 
 himself to these habitual and deeply-rooted views, as 
 to insure the deepest and most reverential attention, 
 as a sage. Nay, it was absolutely necessary that He 
 should cope with Solomon himself in his own peculiar 
 form of wisdom, that so He might confidently and 
 boldly tell the Jews, " Behold more than Solomon is 
 here!" h The meaning of these words is indeed very 
 deep and solemn. For as the gift of wisdom to that 
 king was given in terms that excluded rivalry from 
 man, 1 to assert, so decidedly and so boldly, superiority 
 to him, and that in One in whom humility was first 
 shown to be a main part of wisdom, was equal to a 
 
 h Luke xi. 31. 
 
 1 I " have given thee a wise and understanding heart, in so much 
 that there hath been no one like thee, before thee, nor shall arise 
 after thee." 3 Eeg. iii. 12.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 127 
 
 declaration of His superior, and Divine, nature. For 
 no one but the Giver of wisdom to Solomon could 
 possess more wisdom than he. 
 
 These motives for teaching in the manner which 
 alone would commend itself to the Jews, and secure 
 their esteem, will in part explain those awful passages, 
 in which our Lord seems to intimate that He taught 
 them in parables, on purpose that they might not 
 understand. 1 " For we see that this necessity was one 
 of their own making : and that the deafness and the 
 blindness which followed from it, were the fruit of 
 their obstinate adherence to so imperfect a method of 
 teaching. 
 
 But the meaning of such passages will become per- 
 haps more intelligible from our next consideration, 
 which leads us into the main scope of our dissertation. 
 If we accurately examine the whole system of teaching 
 by parables adopted by our Lord, we shall see that it 
 corresponds to prophecy in the Old Law ; that, in fact, 
 in them is to be found the germ of the whole Christian 
 system, as the history of Israel and Juda, and of Christ 
 and His reign, is to be found in the prophets. As in 
 the latter we have seldom anywhere one continued 
 context on these subjects, but have to construct the 
 web out of fragments and separate pieces, not without 
 study and research ; so likewise in the parables we 
 have a variety of apparently detached lessons, which, 
 considered individually, give but partial results, but 
 which, compared and joined together, throw mar- 
 vellous light upon the whole theory of religion and 
 the Church. In like manner, therefore, as the pro- 
 phecies read or heard, when first uttered, were generally 
 most obscure, often unintelligible, and served even to 
 irritate those who heard them, 1 and even made them 
 
 k Matt. xiii. 13, seg. l Jer. xxxvii. xxxviii.
 
 128 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 harder than they were before ; so were the parables, 
 which alluded to a system not yet fully established, 
 necessarily unintelligible, except in so far as, like 
 prophecies of imminent fulfilment, they alluded to the 
 commencement of the system. And as that beginning 
 involved the destruction of the existing state and its 
 upholders, it naturally irritated, provoked, and through 
 their obstinate perversity, even hardened, those un- 
 happy men. At the same time it might happen, and 
 it did happen, that a parable spoken in answer to a 
 question, while beautifully pertinent, and sufficient for 
 its present purpose, contained in it treasures of wisdom 
 for the future Church, which could not possibly catch 
 the eye of the first superficial observer. Let us 
 illustrate our meaning by an example : 
 
 In the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew, there is a 
 series of parables relating to the "kingdom of heaven," 
 that is, the Church. These need not necessarily have 
 been spoken all at the same time. The first of them, 
 the parable of the sower, occurs in the three first 
 gospels, and all the Evangelists remark, that it was 
 addressed to a vast multitude. 111 And in truth it may 
 be well considered as the preliminary, or introductory, 
 parable to the whole series of the parables. For it lays 
 down the necessary dispositions for receiving, with 
 profit, the words of Christ, and particularly describes 
 His ministry. But the other parables may be taken 
 in the following order. 1. The seed then sown by 
 Christ in this field of the world, that portion of it 
 even which fell upon well-prepared ground, was soon 
 to be disturbed by the enemy. A spurious seed would 
 soon be scattered among it, and it would spring up 
 side by side with the blade of genuine grain ; that is, 
 even in the Church itself, and among the faithful, 
 m Matt. xiii. 3 ; Mark iii. 3 ; Luke viii. 4.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 129 
 
 there would arise corruptions, vices, and scandals ; the 
 parable of the cockle. n 2. The sowing of this seed has 
 evidently two distinct operations, one on the indi- 
 vidual, the other on the Church or world in general. 
 The heart, the dispositions, of those to whom doctrine 
 is addressed, are essential for the cultivation in its 
 first instance : when many have received it within, 
 these uniting would form the Church. To each one, 
 then, this seed of true doctrine is of immense import- 
 ance and value ; it is the treasure, the pearl of immense 
 price, which must be purchased by sacrifice of all 
 else. "When once hidden in the heart, it is as a 
 ieaven which will communicate its qualities on every 
 side, and make the whole of society ferment with its 
 spirit. p 3. That seed which will at first be so small, 
 hidden, and confined, will now spring up about the 
 earth; the grain long buried, will become a great 
 and glorious tree. q A portion only of all this belonged 
 to the Jews ; the duty of receiving Christ's doctrine, 
 laying it to heart, and being ready to surrender all to 
 possess it. The rest is prophetic, belongs to the 
 future, and neither friend nor foe could understand it 
 then. It required fulfilment, and, as no one but our 
 Lord himself knew what His kingdom, or Church, 
 was to be, so no one, till the time came, could fully 
 see the beauty of the applications. The time did come 
 at length; and we shall see how admirable is the 
 wisdom which this teaching laid up in store for us. 
 
 There has never been any founder of a false sect, 
 whether deceived himself by fanaticism, or deceiving 
 others in malice, who has not promised, and pretended 
 to make, a perfect system. The world, if it receive 
 their doctrine, is to be regenerated, the elect alone 
 
 n Matt. xiii. 24. Ib. 44, 45. 
 
 P Ib. 33. i Ib. 31.
 
 130 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 have to reign, or even to exist ; vice and evil are to 
 disappear before their doctrines and rule. Mohammed 
 taught this, and used the sword of extermination to 
 realize it. It formed the groundwork of the so-called 
 reformation, beginning with the mischievous tenets of 
 Wycliffe and Huss, that sin put an end to all rights, 
 down to the murderous ravings of the German Ana- 
 baptists, the fanatical brutishness of the Cromwellian 
 Puritans, and the wild dreams of Mormonites or 
 Agapemonites. Certainly the beginning of the Church 
 might easily have seduced men into the same dream ; 
 and the sight of the one-hearted church of Jerusalem, 
 or of the love-bound community of Alexandria, might 
 have made sanguine believers hope, that a state of 
 unmixed virtue was beginning to prevail on earth. 
 But jealousy and contest soon came in to dispel the 
 vision. It was not, however, till many years after 
 that this false principle assumed the form of a specific 
 heresy. It is essentially in every heresy ; it lurked in 
 the early sects ; it appeared palpably in Novatianism 
 and Montanism ; but it incarnated itself in Donatism. 
 The basis of that heresy and schism, was, that the 
 Church could only consist of incorrupt members, and 
 that every portion of it which tolerated, or forgave 
 those guilty of a grievous crime, had forfeited its 
 claims. Protestantism is essentially Donatist, whether 
 in its high-church theory of branch separation from 
 the trunk, or in its lowest evangelical idea of an 
 invisible elect church. Where was the confutation of 
 this dangerous theory to be found ? In the parables 
 which we have arranged, with one more which follows 
 them, and is but a confirmation of a preceding one ; 
 the likening of the kingdom of Heaven to a net, gather- 
 ing all sorts of fishes, which are separated only on the
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 131 
 
 shore. 1 This, our Saviour, by mentioning the angels 
 as the sorters of good and bad, clearly refers to the 
 explanation given by Himself, of the parable of the 
 cockle. To judge of the importance of these parables, 
 on the point referred to, let the reader only open, at 
 random, any of St. Augustine's works against the 
 Donatists. He will hardly glance at a page in which 
 he does not find these two parables quoted or alluded 
 to, together with the similar image of the Baptist, 
 that on the barn-floor the wheat and the chaff lie 
 mixed, till the winnowing-time comes in the end. 8 
 " Novit Dominus triticum suum, novit et paleam," is 
 almost a proverbial expression with that Father. He 
 is never afraid of wearying by repeating the same 
 arguments : these images are again and again quoted, 
 are turned on every side, are alternately arguments 
 fully developed, and illustrations to elucidate his own 
 reasonings. But it is clear that in them lies the whole 
 gist of the question ; and that our Lord had carefully 
 buried in them a seed of doctrine, which would not 
 reach its maturity, till they who heard it had long 
 passed away. 
 
 And now let us take another instance of parables 
 seemingly spoken for a passing illustration ; which 
 yet have acquired a most sacred importance in the 
 Church. One of the dangers to our Lord's disciples 
 arose from the facility with which they would take up 
 the tone of false zeal common in their time, and 
 considered a characteristic of great virtue. Eor it is 
 difficult for men, especially if untutored, to get clear 
 of national characteristics. Symptoms of this soon 
 appeared. There were little pharisaical contests for 
 the first place, among those young children of the 
 r Matt. xiii. 47. Ib. iii. 12 ; Luke iii. 17. 
 
 K2
 
 132 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Gospel: 1 they soon got to wish for judgment upon 
 those who resisted their master : u and they rebuked 
 little ones who would approach Him, as they thought, 
 over familiarly." The Pharisees, it need not he added, 
 only included our Saviour among those whom they 
 despised, the sinners and publicans, because of His 
 charity towards them. To each of these two classes, 
 to His apostles and to the proud Pharisees, He sepa- 
 rately, as it would appear, proposed the same parable ; 
 that of the man who, having a hundred sheep, and 
 losing one of them, leaves the ninety-nine in what we 
 call the desert, that is, to use a corresponding English 
 phrase, on the Downs, or an uninclosed range of hilly 
 pasture-land, and goes to seek the lost one. In 
 St. Matthew, this parable is given to show the value 
 of the soul of the least child before God, in answer to 
 one of the uneasy questions alluded to, put by the 
 disciples. " At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, 
 saying : Who thinkest Thou is the greatest in the 
 kingdom of Heaven ? And Jesus calling unto him a 
 little child," &c. And so from the sin of scandalizing, 
 or causing the loss of, such an one, He proceeds to the 
 earnest desire which God has of his salvation. Then 
 comes the parable of the lost sheep, with this con- 
 clusion : " Even so it is not the will of your [Father 
 who is in Heaven, that one of those little ones should 
 perish. " y In St. Luke, publicans and sinners have 
 gathered round our Saviour, and the Pharisees mur- 
 mur, saying : " This man receiveth sinners and eateth 
 with them." He replies by the same parable, with a 
 different inference : " Even so there shall be joy in 
 Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance." 2 The 
 parable, therefore, is primarily spoken, to illustrate 
 
 Luke xxii. 24. n Ib. ix. 54. x Matt. xix. 14 ; Luke xviii. 15. 
 y Matt, xviii. 1 14. z Luke xv. 17.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 133 
 
 two points of immediate use : 1st, that His disciples, 
 instead of striving for pre-eminence, and despising 
 children, must take them as a model, as being the 
 special favourites of Heaven, for whose safety God is 
 as careful as a shepherd is of that of a stray sheep ; 
 and 2ndly, that as a lost sheep recovered is dearer to 
 the shepherd than what are safe at home, so is a con- 
 verted sinner more a cause of joy to heaven, than many 
 just souls. But no sooner has our blessed Lord else- 
 where said, "I am the Good Shepherd," 8 and in a 
 different parable assumed all the characteristics of one, 
 than these words touch with a ray of new light this 
 parable, and present it to us in a far more tender and 
 consoling form. We no longer look at the immediate 
 application, or consider it as an illustration : it be- 
 comes a description of Himself, in His dealings with 
 the Jews, and with each individual soul, with Mag- 
 dalen, with Peter, witfc&gul, with every other penitent, 
 down to the w r riter or reader of these lines. But how 
 could proud Pharisee, or dull disciple, nay, or bright 
 angel, unless foreknowledge be part of his light, have 
 possibly understood the whole beauty, reality, and 
 pathos of this parable, till the pursuit of the lost sheep 
 had been macfe from Olivet to Sion, and from Sion to 
 Calvary, and the stray one had been seen borne up the 
 toiling ascent, upon shoulders bruised beneath the 
 cross's load ? As long as the world shall last, that 
 brief parable, which sounded at first but as a most apt 
 figure of speech, will prove the consolation of many 
 an aching breast, and the light of many a darkened 
 spirit, and the inspirer of many a grateful thought. 
 
 But let us look at both these classes of parables, 
 and we hesitate not to say, that only a Catholic can 
 thoroughly realize them, or apply them. A Protes- 
 
 a John x. 11.
 
 134 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 tant may see in them just as much as the Jew did. 
 He will understand, in the first class, how the Christian 
 religion was a treasure, or a pearl, worth every sacrifice. 
 But if he stands to his Homilies, or to the popular 
 belief of his church, he must teach, not that the 
 enemy sowed cockle or tares among Christ's wheat, 
 but that the whole crop came to nothing ; that much 
 of the seed rotted from the beginning and brought up 
 spurious plants, and that what sprung up soon can- 
 kered, turned sickly, and died down to the root ; so 
 that the field showed little better than the high-road 
 or the rock. For such would be the parable, to cor- 
 respond with the theory that all Christendom was for 
 hundreds of years involved in idolatry. Then, if to 
 get some Protestant church-theory out of the parable, 
 it is supposed that the bad seed signifies error in 
 doctrine as .well as scandals in morals so that the 
 Church has to be a sort of confederation of all manner 
 of sects ; or, like Anglicanism, may permit peaceful 
 existence in her of any amount' of denominations 
 or shades ; then, indeed, we go counter to his- 
 torical realization of it. For the Church has ever 
 repelled into antagonism every other system, and 
 has refused any to coexist with her in the same field. 
 Then we iiave the image of the tree springing up from 
 one seed, which at once overthrows this theory. The 
 idea of one tree from one root, with living coherence 
 of all its branches with the trunk, is incapable of ap- 
 plication, upon any other system than that of Catholic 
 unity. It is easy then to see how the parables of our 
 Lord, which describe the future Church, or any of its 
 great characteristics, can only have their true meaning 
 in Catholic hands, and only receive verification in our 
 Church. And in the beautiful parable of the lost
 
 PARABLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 135 
 
 sheep, painful as it may be to say it, still we must not 
 hesitate to assert it, only a Catholic can feel its ap- 
 plication. Others no doubt sin, and repent, and feel 
 the sense (if their religious opinions guide them that 
 way) of a forgiveness. Or a few, who mimic Catholic 
 institutions, may seek forgiveness in a sham confession 
 and hollow absolution both uttered under the very 
 shadow of an episcopal reproof. But a system of 
 grace which, from first to last, by a certain working, 
 brings home to the penitent sinner the lively assurance 
 and sense that he has been mercifully followed through 
 his wanderings, by a kind and steady friend ; that he 
 has been won back by gentleness ; that there has been 
 a delicate raising up of his heavy load, a caressing of 
 his sickened heart, a mild soothening of his sorrows ; 
 that the thorns which had wound themselves around 
 him as he wandered are not plucked, but picked from 
 him with a dainty hand, and every wound and every 
 bruise searchingly and minutely probed, but only to be 
 cleansed and closed and skilfully dressed ; and that 
 then he has been borne in arms like a babe back to his 
 home; a system, or rather a power, of grace, which 
 makes him know the day and the hour, and the very 
 moment in which he is again God's child, that is to be 
 found nowhere, yes nowhere, save only in the one true 
 fold of God's Catholic Church. And do we want one 
 short, convincing proof ? Nowhere else is the banquet 
 ever ready, at which the angels are invited to rejoice 
 for the lost sheep found. Nowhere else is communion 
 considered, or given, as the pledge of a sinner's re- 
 pentance. His heart may be full of contrition and 
 sorrow, but he may wait many months before his 
 minister shall think that this is a ground for an extra 
 communion-day in the parish : but in the Catholic
 
 136 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Church, he bounds, at once, full of love, to the ban- 
 quet ; from Magdalen's place at the feet, to John's on 
 the bosom, of Jesus. 
 
 If this fulfilment be the result of a dispensation in 
 the Church, this parable creates a not less perfect 
 counterpart by its moral application. How the early 
 Christians loved this image ! How they sculptured it 
 on their tombs, painted it in their catacomb oratories, 
 enamelled it on their glass ! The type of their Lord as 
 the Good Shepherd, with the wayward sheep upon 
 His shoulders, oh ! how it spoke to their hearts of the 
 mercies of their conversion ! How tender a treatment 
 of the sinner, to represent him as the sheep, the very 
 kin of the Lamb of God ! Then how natural that an 
 institution founded for reclaiming and saving souls, 
 that have gone the most fearfully astray, should take 
 the same emblem and the same name. It keeps ever 
 before the thoughts of those holy religious who adopt 
 it, the charity with which their duties are to be prac- 
 tised, and the gentleness with which those bruised 
 souls are to be handled. In other instances and ways 
 do the parables, so easy of adaptation in the Catholic 
 mind, influence the institutions and the language of 
 the Church. To call the duties of the ministry the 
 " labours or the cultivation of the vineyard," to speak 
 of the clergy as " husbandmen," simply operarii, and 
 above all to give familiarly the name of shepherd or 
 pastor to the bishop, more perhaps in other countries 
 than in ours, are modes of speech most common 
 among Catholics, but scarcely so, we believe, among 
 even Anglicans. This trifling circumstance shows, 
 how the parables fit into our system, as we have before 
 observed. 
 
 And as we have alluded to the application made by 
 our Lord to Himself of the image of the Good Shep-
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 137 
 
 herd, we will observe ; that as He is the model of 
 pastors, the characteristics which He so justly assumes 
 to Himself, must be considered as those at which in- 
 ferior shepherds of souls should aim. Now this again 
 is practical to a Catholic mind, even in that hard duty 
 of being ready to lay down life for the sheep. Pro- 
 testantism has had its pretended martyrs ; the Church 
 of England numbers bishops amongst them ; Cranmer 
 and Bidley for example. But can it be for a moment 
 pretended, that they, or any of their fellows, laid down 
 their lives for their flocks threw themselves gene- 
 rously between their people and iniquity, and became 
 a willing sacrifice? But our own St. Thomas, and 
 the late Archbishop of Paris, and St. Stanislaus, and 
 St. John Nepomucen (though not a bishop), and 
 many others, fulfilled this to the letter. And the 
 number is still greater of those, who have shown 
 themselves ready to make the sacrifice. 
 
 It will be seen, by what we have written, that we 
 consider the parable-teaching of our Lord as mainly 
 embodying doctrines or precepts, belonging to the 
 Church about to be established. This is in fact our 
 idea; and we think it susceptible of being pursued 
 still further. Speaking, of course, not so much of the 
 passing, short, proverbial illustrations, or of such com- 
 parisons as are merely explanatory, with both which 
 every discourse of our Lord is enriched, as of set and 
 formal parables, there is a striking difference to be 
 traced in the different gospels, between the selec- 
 tions made by each. It will be seen, we think, that 
 St. Matthew, who writes for the Jews, and whose 
 main drift is to show them how Christianity had to 
 supersede their religion, has recorded, almost exclu- 
 sively, parables that illustrate this point. His parables 
 relate to the rejection of the Jews, in order to make
 
 138 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 way for Christianity. In addition to the series of 
 parables in this thirteenth chapter, which we have 
 already quoted, and which all go to inculcate the im- 
 portance of embracing the new religion, the following 
 are the principal ones : indeed, all which occur in 
 him, as spoken to the Jews. 1. The labourers in the 
 vineyard, of whom those called at the end of the day 
 were made equal to such as had been there all day; 
 that is, the Gentiles were put on a level with the 
 Jews. b 2. The two sons sent to work, one of whom 
 pretended to go, and did not the Jews again the 
 other demurred,, but went; that is, publicans and 
 sinners, who should go before them into the Church. 
 3. The vineyard, let out to -husbandmen who gave no 
 return, but persecuted their master's messengers and 
 servants, and slew his son ; for which the vineyard 
 was to be given to other husbandmen, a parable so 
 plain in its application, that " when the chief priests 
 and Pharisees had heard His parables [this and 
 the preceding], they understood that He spake of 
 them." d 4. The marriage feast, the first-invited 
 guests to which were rejected in favour of the poor 
 from the waysides, no bad image of the despised 
 Gentiles. 6 The parables of ten virgins, five of whom 
 were rejected, and of the ten talents, were indeed 
 addressed to the disciples privately ; but both, and the 
 latter in particular, will apply to the purpose above 
 intimated, the rejection of those who had neglected 
 profitably to use the advantages committed to them/ 
 And of such, the principal were most certainly the 
 Jews. It can hardly be doubted that all these parables 
 were purposely selected out of the many which Christ 
 spake, to prove St. Matthew's particular point. They 
 
 b xx. 1. c xxi. 28. d Ib. 45. 
 
 e xxii. 2. f xxv. 1, 14.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 139 
 
 become, as it were, the key to his whole Gospel ; and 
 when we look also at the very discourse with the dis- 
 ciples in which the two last-mentioned parables occur, 
 and see that its whole subject is the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, and when farther we compare the detail 
 with which the Evangelist gives our Lord's noble and 
 vehement declamation against the hypocrisy of the 
 scribes and Pharisees, in his twenty- third chapter, and 
 his full record of the Sermon on the Mount, in which 
 the Jewish moral law is superseded, and the modern 
 deformations of it are swept away, like cobwebs, from, 
 the sanctuary, we find that St. Matthew's Gospel 
 bears intrinsic evidence of having been written with 
 the view of proclaiming, to his countrymen, the over- 
 throw of Judaism. 
 
 But while this scope may be discovered in the 
 special parables which he has preserved for us, these 
 no less belong, in many of their features, to the 
 Church, and, in those parts, could not have been fully 
 understood by the Jews. To take one example : the 
 parable of the marriage feast clearly enough told the 
 Pharisees, that they had refused the invitation to 
 God's banquet, and that those whom they heartily 
 despised and hated, had been called in their place. 
 But what follows after is not for them. The man of 
 the second party, who appears unrobed for the feast, 
 and is cast forth, represents one already a Christian, 
 unworthy of his profession, who is to be no less 
 punished than they. How could they see the force of 
 this declaration ? It is for us. But then, in the eyes 
 of the Christian, the whole scene changes. The 
 parable represents to him the Church or kingdom of 
 God, not in its wider and external aspect, but in that 
 which belongs to the children alone of the Kingdom. 
 The Jewish view can only reach the outer wall which
 
 140 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 shuts it out. The Church within shows to us, not 
 a system of dry faith and precepts, but a banqueting- 
 hall, full of domestic joy and peace, and wherein God 
 hath spread out a table ever furnished. Interior 
 unity, the being one house, one family, one body, 
 symbolizes itself in this form. The kingdom of God 
 is to us a feast nay, the feast ; and we can no more 
 realize the thought of practical warm religion, in dis- 
 connection with the eucharistic banquet and sacrifice, 
 than we can think of home without a hearth, or of a 
 family without a common table. The Church is not 
 merely a teaching, but a feasting-place: not a lecture- 
 room, but a banqueting-hall. And which Church 
 exclusively is this ? Enter the Catholic church (the 
 type of the Church in the abstract), and you find not 
 only always a table, but, if one may speak in so 
 homely a way, a table with the cloth spread, which 
 tells you that to-day there has been already a feast, 
 and to-morrow there will be another, and the day 
 after, as there was yesterday. If a Catholic found it 
 otherwise, if he saw the altar uncovered and naked, 
 and its furniture removed, and its tabernacle, in 
 which the feast lies ever prepared, open and empty, 
 he would conclude at once that the place was not in 
 use ; that, in fact, it is not actually used as a Church : 
 he cannot dissociate the two the Church and the 
 feast. Where else is this to be found? In the 
 meeting-house, we trow, the pulpit reminds one not 
 of feasts. And in an establishment-church, though 
 the piscina may have been restored, and two new oak 
 carved chairs may be beside the communion-table, this 
 is but as a piece of furniture covered up when the 
 family is from home. Nor can we believe, that in the 
 mind of an average churchman, there is any obvious 
 and natural connection between his religion and the
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 communion-table; nor that, by any instinctive asso- 
 ciation, does he think of the latter, when he speaks of 
 " going to church." No one, we again repeat, can 
 fully realize this parable but a Catholic. Por, as our 
 Saviour spake it to the Jews, of His kingdom, conse- 
 quently of the Church, it is to this it must be applied. 
 But when applied as by a Catholic heart it necessarily 
 is, every part is coherent, the figure is perfect, and the 
 details full of beauty and instruction. It associates 
 two ideas, those of the Church and of the Eucharist, 
 which, in him alone, are almost correlative. And thus 
 only is the problem solved, how wonderfully a parable 
 spoken of the one can so beautifully apply to the 
 other. 
 
 St. Mark agrees with St. Matthew in this, as in 
 other respects, and therefore does not call for any par- 
 ticular remark here. But when we come to study St. 
 Luke, we find, through his parables, a different pur- 
 pose and scope in his Gospel. He is not engaged with 
 the Jews, nor endeavouring to root out their preju- 
 dices, and prove to the converts from them, that their 
 religion and state have passed away. He writes for 
 the Greek or the Hellenist converts, for those who 
 have less difliculty on that point ; and therefore his 
 object is, to place before them the high standard mo- 
 rality of Christ, and exhibit the beauty of His religion, 
 by its influence on the character and nature of man. 
 With St. Matthew, he has parables in common; as 
 the sower, the hundred sheep, the vineyard and hus- 
 bandmen, and the marriage feast. The parables of 
 the mustard-seed, and leaven, also he has, but not as 
 in a series relating to the Church. g But the following 
 beautiful parables are exclusively his : 1. The good 
 Samaritan; 11 2. the Prodigal child ; { 3. the unjust Stew- 
 e Luke xiii. h Ib. x. 30. ' Ib. xv. 11.
 
 142 PARABLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ard ; j 4. Dives and Lazarus ; k 5. the Pharisee and the 
 Publican j 1 6. and that short, but most sweet of para- 
 bles, of the two servants forgiven by their master, and 
 proportioning their love to his kindness, His pleading 
 for Mary Magdalen to the Pharisee." 1 And it must be 
 observed, that many of these are not spoken in answer 
 to questions, but are direct and spontaneous ema- 
 nations of the divine wisdom in Jesus Christ ; conse- 
 quently, must be considered as intended to convey 
 great and complete lessons. In fact, if we attentively 
 consider them, in the order in which we have enume- 
 rated them, we shall find them to contain the whole 
 theory of the following practical points : 1. Active 
 fraternal charity in its perfection; 2. the whole his- 
 tory of the sinner's fall, return, and forgiveness; 
 3. the duty of alms-deeds, and its motives ; 4. the 
 vital and fundamental principle of man's end, and of 
 the use and worth of creatures ; and the consequences 
 of rightly or wrongly acting on that principle : n 5. the 
 complete doctrine of prayer ; and 6. the true charac- 
 ter and motives of repentance, and the right principle 
 of forgiveness and justification. 
 
 Before we enter into any details on any of these 
 points, we must observe that still these parables refer 
 to the visible and practical duties and morality in the 
 Church. They represent courses of action, principles 
 embodied in practice: they include the inward ani- 
 mating motives, or impulses of grace that guide them, 
 as descriptions of the actions of the body suppose 
 corresponding wishes, or thoughts, of the soul within. 
 
 J Luke xvi. k Ib. 19. l Ib. xviii. 10. m Ib. vii. 40. 
 
 n The entire principle of St. Ignatius' s Exercises is to be found in 
 this parable. 
 
 o "With the parable immediately preceding it, of the unjust judge, 
 overcome by the widow's importunity (v. 2).
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 143 
 
 To another evangelist belongs the higher office of de- 
 scribing the direct and invisible influences of grace. 
 But these parables, in general, contain new principles 
 of action, and describe a course of proceeding which 
 could not be understood fully in the old dispensation, 
 and have reference to what was to be developed in the 
 new. And although some of them, as referring to 
 moral duties, may appear as applicable in one form of 
 Christianity as in another, yet it is not so. There is 
 hardly one of them which does not contain an idea 
 incompatible with Protestantism. Eor example, the 
 publican standing "afar off" in his prayer in the 
 temple : Erom what is he afar off ? The Catholic 
 says at once, " Erom the altar, of course, at the very 
 bottom of the Church ; " and, if better instructed, he 
 will add, " and where, in accordance with this feeling, 
 the early Church put penitents, and penitential pil- 
 grims would now kneel." The Protestant would say, 
 " The parable has reference to the temple, and not to 
 a Christian Church." Then which realizes the para- 
 ble ? But if he thinks it may be applied to our times 
 so materially, being a high-churchman ; we ask, Do 
 penitents in his church stand, through reverence, far 
 away from the altar on a common day ? Is that natu- 
 ral to them ? It is to us. And why ? Because the 
 Catholic has, more than in the temple, a Holy of 
 Holies on his altar, in the Blessed Eucharist : while 
 the Protestant communion-table, when it has reached 
 its highest aim, bears only a cross and a pair of candle- 
 sticks ; the emblems at most, one of a possible image, 
 the others of a suppressed or prevented light. Again, 
 the parable of the unjust steward contains the idea f5f 
 intercession by those in heaven : evade it, and you 
 destroy its completeness. The parable in favour of 
 Mary Magdalen is expressly directed to #rove, that
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 love, and not mere faith, is the groundwork of con- 
 trition ; and it shows the merit and value of outward 
 acts exhibiting sorrow, and the wish for pardon, tears, 
 penance, satisfaction, all approved of; as well as an 
 outward declaration of pardon. 
 
 The parable of the prodigal would require more 
 space than we can give it : but we do not hesitate to 
 say, that its beauties cannot be fully seen, except by a 
 Catholic eye. Who but a Catholic can trace the exact 
 parallel between the father's house, and the religious 
 child's home in the Church ? Who but one familiar 
 with the tale of many sinners, opening their hearts to 
 him, can track every step of others' wanderings ; can 
 thus tell to many a startled hearer his own sad his- 
 tory, or rather tell the prodigal's, so as that it shall 
 be a mirror before him, and make him taste his own 
 heart as bitter as the acorn ? And if we have thus 
 roused him to return towards his early home, where, 
 out of the Church, is to be found the warm embrace, 
 the self-accusation made indeed, but almost stifled in 
 the caresses of forgiveness ? Where the robe of grace, 
 the ring of filial adoption, the shoes of strengthening 
 encouragement ? Where, above all, the feast of joy, 
 not merely of refreshment, prepared to welcome him ? 
 Is all this minute, and most natural, and most cheer- 
 ing detail, but superfluous dressing out of a most 
 simple idea, that by an inward act, there was sudden 
 conviction of sin, and a sense of forgiveness ? Or does 
 it signify that, still inwardly, a man repented him of 
 his ways, and perhaps shed silent tears over the past, 
 and resolved amendment : or perhaps even applied to 
 himself the general absolution in the morning service: 
 or if he went to his rector and told him what he felt, 
 and had determined, was told, " he was glad to hear 
 it, and hoped there would now be less poaching in the
 
 ( 
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 145 
 
 neighbourhood." But trifling apart, there is not a 
 parish priest, nor a missionary, nor a spiritual di- 
 rector, who could not give twenty cases of conversion 
 in which the parallel with the prodigal's history is 
 most complete : and there is not a penitent in the 
 Church who could not say, that from his first depar- 
 ture from virtue to the communion that crowned his 
 conversion, he had seen and felt, in acts, and sensible 
 ministrations, and their effects, all that is so minutely 
 described by our Lord. 
 
 But while we have thus claimed for the Catholic 
 Church alone the power fully to appreciate our divine 
 Lord's parables, by entirely realizing them, we have, 
 we trust, prepared the ground for another conclusion. 
 It may be observed, that truth presents us ever with 
 two classes of evidence. The first consists of the srreat 
 
 o 
 
 and direct proofs on which it rests ; the second, of 
 those innumerable and unprepared convergences of 
 argument that meet in it from various points. The 
 former will bring us to the truth ; but the latter often 
 more sensibly secure our conviction. The one is as 
 the trunk of the plant, the other as the suckers and 
 tendrils, which lay hold on every side of various and 
 effectual support, and will often prevent the plant 
 from being overthrown by a sudden gust. Now we 
 think that even so slight and superficial a view, as we 
 have here had an opportunity of presenting, of the 
 parables, may contribute somewhat towards these 
 minor evidences, in favour of our faith. 
 
 Eor surely, it must afford our minds considerable 
 satisfaction, to find how, in our own religion, and in 
 no other, this part of our Saviour's teaching is fully 
 carried out. It has been by other means that we have 
 been brought to a distinct conception and belief of 
 dogma : by the plain texts of the Old and New Testa- 
 
 L
 
 146 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ments, by the teaching of our Redeemer, and that of 
 His apostles : by the concurring testimony of an- 
 tiquity, and the living voice of the Church. "When 
 from all these a system has resulted, of the Church, 
 its government, its characters, its duties, its sacra- 
 ments, its connection with the world and with time, 
 boldly clear, and definite ; and when, taking this more 
 obscure part of our Lord's instructions, and analyzing 
 it, we find it fit this view exclusively and in every 
 part, we must conclude that they were made for one 
 another, this Church and the series of parables, and 
 that both come from one hand. It is like experiments 
 in magnetism coming to corroborate the Newtonian 
 theory. 
 
 But there is a higher thought to which these our 
 poor inquiries have led us : and we trust it will not 
 be deemed presumptuous. Our blessed Lord speaks 
 His parables off-hand, if we may reverently use the 
 word ; with reference often to passing demands on 
 His instruction. Even they who have impiously pre- 
 tended that the whole Gospel was an after- thought, 
 and the composition of disciples in early ages, must 
 admit at least, that the record of these parables is far 
 anterior to the age when Catholicity (according to 
 them) took its present development. How then ac- 
 count for the coincidence of the two in every part ? 
 Let us observe that the marvellous structure of 
 Christianity was from its foundations without a for- 
 mal plan : its laws were embodied in no stiff code ; its 
 government was not defined in one formal decree ; its 
 doctrines were not compressed into a symbol ; and its 
 precepts and maxims were not extended into a trea- 
 tise. Nor were men chosen to raise the edifice, who, 
 from scattered materials, were likely to compile a 
 beautiful and perfect whole. Yet this was the result.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 147 
 
 Stone joined itself to stone, as if by instinct, or 
 mutual attraction ; the whole building stood, as if by 
 magic, weather-tight, massive, solid, yet regular, rich, 
 and magnificent. Government, law, faith, morals, 
 discipline, all were found to have been provided for ; 
 and as it grew, and extended on every side, ample 
 provision appeared to have been made for its increase, 
 in regard both of plan and of materials. And so it 
 expanded still, until some thought that it had out- 
 grown its measure, and original design. In all this, 
 who does not see proof of a divine wisdom that de- 
 signed and superintended the work ? But let us sup- 
 pose even, that our Lord left, as some would say, the 
 details of the system to natural causes and the working 
 of time ; that He merely put together the main lines, 
 and allowed them to be filled up ; or that even, upon 
 a Protestant theory, the corruptions and superstitions 
 of ages have shaped the Catholic Church as it now is 
 still, in every hypothesis, the fact is the same, and 
 will go far to overthrow the erroneous supposition. 
 Whatever led to the Church's present organization 
 and development, it is plain that Christ's parables, 
 that have reference to it, or his workings, fit exactly 
 to it, as it is. Call confession an abuse, a mistake, or 
 what you like, there is nothing else on earth that will 
 make the close of the prodigal's history look like a 
 lesson or a home-truth. Then our Saviour foresaw all 
 this, and provided for it its rules and principles ; and 
 He who could cast into the world but the rudimental 
 forms of a religion, and yet throw out, in a mysterious 
 form, what would describe its state, and regulate its 
 institutions, after a thousand years, and more, of vi- 
 cissitudes, could be only what He claimed to be, the 
 Lawgiver himself, the supreme Author of the new 
 Law, the incarnate Word of God. And that system 
 
 L2
 
 148 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 with which His prophetic teaching so approvingly ac- 
 cords, can be no delusion, or corruption of men. 
 
 Still further to bring out this argument, let us 
 remark the immensely superior position which He 
 takes, compared on the one side with the prophets, 
 and, on the other, with the apostles. The prophet 
 who deals most largely in parables, partly spoken, and 
 partly acted, is undoubtedly Ezechiel. But he, like 
 all the other prophets, never presumes to deliver one 
 as from himself. It is always a command from God, 
 both parable and application. On the other hand, the 
 apostles in their writings constantly appeal to their 
 having been taught, having received their doctrine. 
 They also make use of phrases of exhortation ; and 
 give advice. Now our Redeemer always speaks the 
 parable as His own, and gives us His own, and no 
 other, authority. Yet these parables contain modi- 
 fications of the old law, declare the rejection of the 
 Jews, or rather pronounce sentence of it, give the 
 terms of forgiveness from God, define the duties of 
 the new religion, promulgate the new law ; and often, 
 as if to contrast with the prophetic declaration of 
 dependence, " thus saith the Lord," these definite 
 declarations are supported by " Amen, Jsay to you." 
 Considering that the nearer one comes to God, and 
 the greater consequently perfection, the stronger will 
 be the sense of dependence, and the humble conscious- 
 ness of the honour of such service ; as Raphael with 
 Tobias, p Gabriel with Mary, q the angel with St. John/ 
 more explicitly even than the prophets, declared them- 
 selves only messengers of God, we cannot admit even 
 one step of separation between the Divinity and Him 
 who "thought it not robbery to be equal to God." s 
 
 P Tob. xii. 18. i Luke i. 28. ' 
 
 r Apoc. xix. 10 ; xxii. 9. Philip, ii. G.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 149 
 
 And as to the second comparison, it must certainly be 
 considered remarkable, that not once throughout the 
 Gospels is the word "exhort" used, except once in 
 St. Luke, of the preaching of St. John.* And this is 
 to be the more noticed, as it is a word of frequent use 
 by the same evangelist, in his Acts of the Apostles. 
 Our Lord always commands, and leaves no alternative 
 but obedience. He gives not advice, which supposes 
 only partial knowledge ; but He enjoins one, and only 
 one, course. And this it was which really constituted, 
 as we before hinted, our Lord's teaching "with power ;" 
 that is, as having dominion over the law itself, as 
 possessed of inherent and rightful jurisdiction. 
 
 We fear we shall be considered to have indulged in 
 a long digression; and, in truth, we must beg our 
 reader to carry his memory back to where we enume- 
 rated, and commented briefly on, the parables in 
 St. Luke. We there did not make any remarks upon 
 undoubtedly the most perfect in structure, and the 
 most beautiful in substance, of all the parables, unless 
 that of the prodigal may dispute equality. We allude 
 to that of the good Samaritan. We then purposely 
 omitted any remarks on it, because we reserved it for 
 this place. It will better illustrate all that we wish 
 to convey, respecting the application of parables, than 
 any observations of ours can do it. If we have not 
 already exhausted our reader's patience, we will 
 request him to follow us into some detail. 
 
 1. Let him read the parable as in St. Luke's tenth 
 chapter ; and that will save him, and us, the task 
 of a narration. But we may be allowed, in a few 
 words, to point out some circumstances which, to the 
 hearers, must have invested it with additional interest. 
 Our Lord lays the scene of it between Jerusalem and 
 
 1 Luke iii. 18.
 
 150 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Jericho. Now the latter name does not signify the 
 moon, as some tell us, hut alludes to the sweet odour 
 of the halsam-plant, there chiefly cultivated. The 
 Arabic name, at this day, Rihha, confirms this deriva- 
 tion. Considerable intercourse existed in consequence, 
 between it and the capital, distant a day's journey. 
 But our Saviour placed the scene of the parable on the 
 road between them, because it was notorious for being 
 infested with robbers. It is as if one, writing in the 
 last century, had put it on Hounslow-heath. The 
 robbers of Palestine have always been the same; 
 armed bands of desperate men, or tribes of Bedouins,* 
 who are prepared for any violence, even where there 
 is no resistance. One who heard our Lord deliver His 
 parable, and who knew the road, would have the spot, 
 at once, before his mind's eye. It was just between 
 seven and eight miles from Jerusalem. It is the 
 critical spot now, as it was then, for the East changes 
 but little. In St. Jerome's time it was the same ; and 
 the very name, which the place bore, indicated its 
 character. It was called, he tells us, Maledommim* 
 that is, " the assault or rising up of the Idumeans," 
 to which nation possibly many of these marauders 
 belonged. Where the mode of travelling does not 
 change, the length of a day's journey, and the dis- 
 tances for repose remain almost unvaried. Hence 
 inns will be found for whole centuries on the same 
 
 u St. Jerome, on Jer. iii. 2, observes, that by the robbers in the 
 wilderness, there mentioned, " may be understood the Arabs, which 
 nation, given to marauding, yet infests the boundaries of Palestine, 
 and besets the roads leading from Jerusalem to Jericho." 
 
 x D'cnx r6l7D St. Jerome, after Eusebius, translates it by ardftn^is 
 Kvppuiv, understanding by the second word, men red with blood. (De 
 Situ et Nom, Loc. Heb.) At a later period a station of soldiers was 
 placed near, to protect travellers. See also on the insecurity of this 
 neighbourhood, Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 5.
 
 PAEABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 151 
 
 spot. In Italy this is certainly the case, as it was 
 in old times in England. And in the East, where 
 changes happen so much less than in Europe, it will 
 be still more so. The pace of the ass or the camel has 
 not varied; and they are still the beasts of travel. 
 At the present time there is, or there was, not many 
 years ago, a khan or inn, not far from the spot 
 thus indicated in the parable. And so faithful has 
 tradition been, and so deeply has our Saviour's beau- 
 tiful lesson impressed itself on " the very ground, that 
 this hostelry is known by the name of the khan of the 
 good Samaritan. " y But there are two more reasons for 
 the choice of this place. The first is, that Jericho, 
 after Jerusalem, was the great station of the priests 
 and Levites, who came in turns to Jerusalem, to serve 
 the temple. The body of the priests, the Jewish 
 writers tell us, was divided into twenty-four classes, 
 twelve of which were stationed at Jericho. Each class 
 comprehended Levites. z It would, therefore, be most 
 natural, that men of this profession, not usually great 
 travellers, should be found on that road. And on the 
 day when a priest had to pass from one city to the 
 other, it is most probable that a Levite likewise entered 
 on, or left, duty ; and travelled at a respectful distance 
 from his superior, but near enough to have the pro- 
 tection of his escort or retinue. Hence the priest 
 passes first, and then the Levite ; contrary to the order 
 in which, to show their inefficiency, we might have 
 expected them to come on the stage. The second 
 reason for the choice of place is, that Jericho is on the 
 way from Samaria to Jerusalem, not straight across, 
 but according to the line of public roads. Business, 
 
 y Mariti, Viaggi per 1' Isola di Cipro, e.per la Soria, e Palestine, 
 vol. iii. cap. 6. 
 
 1 Talm. H. Taanith, fol. 27.
 
 152 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 therefore, may have brought a Samaritan on that 
 road, perhaps the only one in all Judea. 
 
 We can easily imagine how graphic and vivid the 
 parahle, improvised so completely in answer to a 
 petulant question, "who is my neighbour?" must 
 have sounded to persons, who at once caught the 
 propriety and nice fit of every minute circumstance in 
 its recital. But every other detail is the same. A 
 traveller on horseback and alone, would not be likely, 
 amongst us, to have in his scanty baggage, salves and 
 medicines ; but fortunately in the east, what was pro- 
 vision for food, was considered the best dressing for 
 wounds and bruises. The inns of Asia furnish nothing 
 but shelter ; the traveller must take care to bring his 
 own provisions ; two of the most indispensable were 
 oil for condiment, and wine for drink. The Samaritan 
 came from the country where both were of the best 
 quality, in the land of Samaria the one, a and on the 
 seacoast, from Carmel to Saron, the other. He was 
 likely, therefore, to have brought his flask of each, 
 for his own use. Now wine and oil were a common 
 medicament with the Jews. We will quote their 
 words, because they will show how justly, on other 
 occasions, our Saviour declaimed against their absurd 
 splitting of hairs, and Sabbatarian uncharitableness. 
 " An old tradition hath, it is not lawful, for the sake 
 of a sick man, to mingle oil and wine together on the 
 sabbath day." Again, "They spread a plaster for a 
 sick man on the Sabbath. When ? when they mix it 
 up with wine and oil on the eve of the Sabbath. But 
 if they did not mix it on the eve, it is forbidden. " b 
 What wonder, that the men who thought it better to 
 
 a " Oleum pretiosissimum missum est ab Epbraim, cujus terra 
 
 Samaria olei feracissima est." S. Hieron. in Os. xii. 1. 
 b Shabbat, fol. 134 , Beracboth. fol. 3, ap. "VVetst. in loc.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 153 
 
 let a sick man die, than prepare his medicine on a 
 Sabbath, should easily have found excuses for not 
 taking one up on the roadside ? The circumstance, 
 therefore, of the Samaritan's dressing the poor tra- 
 veller's wounds, is quite natural, and the ingredients 
 of his application are necessarily with him. 
 
 The last point to which we will advert, is one which 
 often spoils the recital of the parable. The Samaritan 
 is said, upon delivering his charge to the host, " to 
 take out twopence," and give them with these words: 
 " Take care of him, and whatsoever thou shalt spend 
 over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee" 
 (v. 35). This seems to us but a paltry sum, and cer- 
 tainly if one made such an offer as this sounds to us, 
 at the Star and Garter, or even a small roadside inn, 
 it would be looked at with amazement. But the fault 
 lies in the translation. Unfortunately a denarius has 
 got translated penny : but without going into any 
 learned discussion on its value, it is sufficient for us to 
 say that it was a man's good wages for a day's work 
 at that time. For, the labourers in the vineyard 
 were satisfied with it for the whole day, till they saw 
 that the same was given to those that entered at 
 the eleventh hour. The sum given was therefore 
 
 c Matt. xx. 13. In the Apocalypse, famine prices are thus given : 
 " Two pounds of wheat for a penny (a denarius), and thrice two 
 pounds of barley for a penny" (vi. 6). We may remark that the 
 difference of price between wheat and barley, as here given, is as 
 one to three : whereas in the famine in Samaria the proportions 
 were one to two. (4 Reg. vii. 1.) It is difficult to adjust the propor- 
 tions of measures and values at different times, because coins and 
 measures vary. The following varieties appear incredible; but we 
 give them to show how much could be done, at times, for a penny. 
 In the Chronicle of Josue Stylites we learn that, at Edessa, in 495, 
 thirty bushels of wheat, and fifty of barley, could be purchased for a 
 denarii. (Assem. Bib. Or. torn. i. p. 261.) Later, the prices were
 
 154 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 enough to keep the patient two days ; and when we 
 consider that the Samaritan was only seven miles from 
 Jerusalem, to which he was going^, d and might be re- 
 turning in the course of next day, we shall not be 
 surprised at the amount of the advance. 
 
 2. This parable, then, in its materiality is perfect ; 
 every part is most exact. And what a variety of 
 important lessons it contains. Eirst it effectually 
 answers the impertinent question proposed, " "Who is 
 my neighbour ?" Secondly, it conveys a most mild, 
 but tremendous, rebuke to the proud interrogator : 
 for it tells him that a Samaritan knew better the 
 meaning of a precept of law than a Jewish doctor. 
 Thirdly, it gives a lesson of practical charity, without 
 reference to creed or nation ; a doctrine totally at 
 variance with that principle, which dispenses charity 
 to the perishing by hunger and disease, only on con- 
 dition of their renouncing their faith. 
 
 3. But who has ever read this parable, and not re- 
 cognised in it the history of the world, and understood 
 that Jesus Christ was the Good Samaritan described 
 in it ? Now this is in fact the grand aspect of this 
 splendid composition. It would be impossible in 
 fewer words to make a sketch of the whole history of 
 man from his fall, to his complete regeneration and 
 preservation. It is masterly in every way, the strokes 
 
 four of wheat and six of barley (p. 271), and immediately prices fell 
 again, and were, twelve measures of wheat and twenty-two of barley 
 for a denarius (p. 272). 
 
 d This appears from the difference of the expressions ; the priest 
 and Levite were going " the same way " as the traveller (vv. 30, 31), 
 Avhile the Samaritan is "on his journey" (v. 33), and speaks of 
 returning, which intimates going from home, consequently towards 
 Jerusalem. The image is thus most happy ; the priest is one who 
 walks in the same direction as the wounded man, of the same country 
 and religion ; the Samaritan is one who goes opposite to them.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 155 
 
 few, the masses simple and grand, and yet detailed so 
 as to give them definiteness and character. Could 
 man's fall he more accurately pictured than by a 
 traveller (the homo viator of the schools) assailed by 
 an enemy, robbed of everything, wounded all over, 
 naked, half-dead, helpless, unable to move ? And 
 now comes the priest, the type of every system of 
 previous religion, of Noah's, Melchisedec's ; nay, of 
 Egypt's, India's, Greece's, false worship. They all 
 recognised in man, the bruised and fallen type of 
 a better state : but they neither cured nor raised him. 
 Then follows the Levite, a title which specifies what 
 before was generic; the law and priesthood of the 
 Old Testament, still better informed of man's history, 
 but as unable to succour him. At length comes the 
 Samaritan, the stranger to man's race. Thus far an 
 intelligent Jew might follow : but beyond this he 
 would be at fault. Recognising in Christ this charac- 
 ter, he would ask, How does He intend to bind those 
 wounds ? What oil and wine has He that will stanch 
 the bleeding gashes of humanity ? How will he bear 
 the burthen on His shoulders, of that prostrate frame 
 of a whole gasping race ? Was it possible for the 
 most learned to solve this problem ? Not till fulfil- 
 ment had taken place of those awful realities, which 
 were to give as truthful a counterpart of this por- 
 tion of the parable, as existed in the other parts ; 
 and not even then, till the full system of the atone- 
 ment was preached to him, and he understood that by 
 His wounds ours were healed, and that He verily bore 
 the iniquities of us all. And thus much further, 
 though not completely, can the Protestant pursue the 
 parable ; but not beyond this. We say not completely, 
 for the sacramental nature of the remedies escapes 
 him. The wine he will know; but what is the oil,
 
 15G PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 which has ceased to have all meaning in the Protes- 
 tant system ? It anoints him not, regenerated, into 
 part with a kingly priesthood ; nor, a stripling de- 
 scending into the lists, to do battle with unearthly 
 foes ; nor a priest into an inviolable consecration ; 
 nor a worn-out pilgrim for his last wrestling with 
 the giant Despair. With him it has no symbolism ; 
 it represents not to him the light of God's sanc- 
 tuary, nor the unction of His word, nor the balmy 
 softness (the oleum effusum) of two Names most 
 sweet in Catholic mouths. It rises not to his mind 
 with the thought of virginity, anointed with the oil of 
 gladness above its fellow-orders of holiness. It lingers 
 not, as a holy seal, upon the stones of his altar, after 
 ages of desecration in the wall of the old church, to 
 tell whose once it was. It has vanished from his sys- 
 tem, and together with it all uplifting of the priestly 
 hand to bless. Consecration of man or thing he has 
 lost, and knows no more. But oil, the emblem of all 
 consecration, and of sacramental grace, and wine, the 
 purest symbol of the saving stream of life, and of its 
 sacramental in-pouring into man, form to the Catholic 
 mind, the most apt imaginable representation of the 
 communication, to his wounded nature, of new health, 
 new vigour, new life. 
 
 But as we before observed, but one step beyond 
 the Jew's apprehension of this parable, Protestantism 
 stops. Man, rescued from total death, is, according 
 to strict Protestant doctrine, left to himself, and to his 
 own judgment, to make the best of his way home. 
 The good Samaritan leaves no vicarious authority on 
 earth, to whom He fully and unreservedly commits 
 the charge of him, and who has to carry out his work. 
 The cure was complete when he had touched, and 
 there was no one to bind up anew the sores, should
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 157 
 
 they re-open, or to supply refreshment if the patient 
 should faint. But the Catholic sees here to the end, 
 every part fulfilled. The good Samaritan has gone on 
 in His journey, and is not yet returned : we wait His 
 coming at the end of ages. And man, though the 
 death- wound is healed, and life secured, remains still 
 but a weak and sickly creature, and has no food of his 
 own, and no remedy, but what that compassionate 
 stranger has left behind. But he has left it and him. 
 in good and faithful hands. Still requiring support, 
 still in the pupilage of an impaired mind, still with 
 the plague of recrudescent wounds, he feels with 
 thankfulness that, till his best friend comes again to 
 lead him home, he has been committed to those that 
 have received the strictest charge to give a good ac- 
 count of him, and have been amply provided with 
 present means, and secured by ampler promises for 
 any outlay. A hostelry indeed it is that stately 
 Church of Christ that Khan of the Good Samaritan 
 for there is no lasting dwelling, no home for any 
 one, this way to Jerusalem. Only pilgrims travel it. 
 But how just a type : a house which is not our home, 
 where we are only wayfarers seeking an enduring 
 city, yet where we find rest, food, comfort, medicine, 
 strength, at the sole charge of Him who has snatched 
 us from destruction, and healed our wounds. Not 
 from some one chance inmate of the house, who is 
 but a servant there for a time, but from the house 
 itself ; always the same, whoever rules it ; always the 
 same, and the same to all. Surely no Church but the 
 Catholic inspires her children with the feeling, that 
 they are under this particular and certain care. It 
 is the very contradictory of the theory of private 
 judgment. 
 
 4. And now let us see where the practical lesson of
 
 158 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 the parable is understood, and followed. Is it in poor- 
 law relief, or in charitable associations, and mendicity 
 societies, or in tract-distributing, domiciliary visits? 
 Surely not. We have heard of a charitable society in 
 London, called a " Samaritan Society ;" which, a short 
 time ago, busied itself very laudably with furnishing 
 the dwellings of the poor with Arnold's ventilators. 
 Very properly, certainly; but not very appropriately 
 for their name. Noah's opening the window at the 
 top of the ark, when the deluge was over, would have 
 been a fitter symbol for this peculiar operation of 
 charity. But go to the Caridad at Seville, and see 
 that painting by Murillo, of one, not tricked out in 
 ideal beauty, but humble, earnest, and busy with his 
 toil the bearing of a sinking, helpless, body to the 
 hospital : with an angel at his side, that seems as if 
 he felt honoured in supporting him. That is a Catholic 
 Samaritan St. John of God. Or see him at Grenada, 
 amidst the blazing hospital, lifting and carrying into 
 safety, one by one, its numerous patients. Go to 
 the frozen wilderness of Mount St. Bernard, and visit 
 those men who have chosen it for their dreary abode, 
 solely that they may be able to rescue the perishing 
 traveller from the snow-wreath, or the precipice, and 
 bear him to their house for Christ's sake, and warm, 
 and restore him. Aye, and they have even, in the 
 ingenuity of their charity, engrafted their Samaritan 
 spirit upon canine instincts; and have taught their 
 mute, faithful allies, to wander forth in the dark night 
 and listen, amidst the howling blast, for the wail of 
 the lost traveller ; and having found him, warm him 
 with their breath, and refresh him with their ready 
 store, and lead, or even if young, bear him, with wag- 
 ging tail and glistening eye, as a prize beyond the 
 hare or the partridge. Go to every quarter of the
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 159 
 
 globe, and see the sister of charity, serving the sick 
 and the wounded with her own hands, and hushing 
 the old veteran that moans in his pain, as though he 
 were an infant, and soothing more suffering by the 
 gentle speech of her lips, or the crucifix in her hand, 
 than surgeon's skill or apothecary's ointment can ever 
 do. These are the copies of the good Samaritan, which 
 the Catholic Church exhibits, without going back to 
 those ages, when charity itself imbibed the knightly 
 spirit, and the hospitaller of St. John was not more 
 ready to strike home for Christ's sepulchre, than to 
 bear his vanquished foe to the ready ward, and there 
 nurse him like a brother ; and without recurring to 
 that more recent exhibition of the same spirit, when 
 the ransomer, with our Lord's cross upon his breast, 
 gave himself in pledge, or in exchange, for the captive 
 slave in Barbary. 
 
 5. And now it is time to ask, what manner of 
 wisdom that was, which indited so perfect, so grand, 
 and so sweet a lesson ? The most practised philoso- 
 pher could not have struck off, in a moment, a more 
 complete summary of the moral history of the human 
 race, or a truer picture of man's fallen condition. Nor 
 can we imagine any man, however gifted, presuming 
 to speculate on the effects of his own death upon the 
 whole world ; and to put himself forward as destined 
 to regenerate it by ignominious suffering. And still 
 less could any man have darted his eye so deeply into 
 futurity, as to sketch out accurately a system resulting 
 from that event, as it would remain after hundreds of 
 years, for carrying out and applying the fruits of his 
 sacrifice. In the few lines which record this parable, 
 we have a strong and irrefragable proof of our Lord's 
 divine character. 
 
 ~VVe must, however, hasten to a conclusion. We
 
 1GO PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 have endeavoured to show that St. Matthew's parables 
 are chosen in accordance with his natural purpose in 
 writing for the Jews, that of showing them that the 
 old law had given place to, or had been absorbed in, 
 the new : and that St. Luke's are addressed more 
 towards forming the moral character of the Church 
 already established. Both direct their records towards 
 the outward mould of the Church, and her exterior 
 offices: towards the Church, that is, as symbolizing 
 our Lord's Sacred Humanity. The Gospel of St. John 
 presents a different character. The Church is now 
 fully formed, and the walls have been built all round 
 her, which separate God's vineyard from profane 
 ground. The first sprouting of error makes its 
 appearance among the chosen plants. A gospel is 
 wanted for the interior of the house, for those to 
 whom Jesus would not speak in parables. 
 
 This difference between St. John's Gospel and the 
 other three, may not have struck every reader. But 
 it is remarkable that in St. John there are only three 
 passages approaching to parables, 6 which yet essen- 
 tially differ from those of the other gospels. For the 
 three instances are those in which our Lord compares 
 Himself to a door, and a vine ; f and where He de- 
 scribes Himself as the Good Shepherd. 8 In no other 
 parable is He one term of the comparison : and we 
 may say, without danger of error, that these three 
 comparisons of Himself to other objects ought hardly 
 
 e Unless we reckon the passage in iv. 35, pointing out the fields 
 as white for the harvest, which is rather an illustration than a 
 parable. 
 
 f John x. 1 ; xv. 1. In the first of these our Lord first makes a 
 parable, but immediately applies it to Himself. The second was 
 addressed to the apostles alone. 
 
 e x. 11.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 161 
 
 to be called parables. At any rate they form a separate 
 class. Now what makes this peculiarity of St. John 
 more striking is, that he clearly intimates to us 
 that our Saviour's habitual teaching was in parables. 
 After His last supper He says to His apostles, " These 
 things I have spoken to you in proverbs. The hour 
 cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs." 11 
 And the apostles soon after reply to Him, "Behold 
 now Thou speakest plainly, and speakest no proverb." 1 
 These passages express that our Lord's habitual teach- 
 ing had been proverbial, or in parables ; and yet, had 
 St. John's Gospel alone been written, we should not 
 have discovered this. They prove to us, therefore, 
 that St. John supposed, or knew, other records to be 
 in the hands of his readers, from which the nature 
 and truth of this allusion would be manifest. These 
 texts refer more to the other Gospels than to his own : 
 and they form one of those delicate connecting links, 
 which associate the four Gospels, as forming one 
 record. 
 
 We may naturally ask, why did St. John select those 
 discourses of Christ, which were free from parables-? 
 If we might venture to answer without presumption, 
 it is because our Saviour Himself divided His teach- 
 ing into two portions. So long as He treated of the 
 Church, its duties and its vicissitudes, in other words, 
 so long as He spoke of what was to be external, and 
 one day historical, but, when He spoke, had only 
 existence in prophecy, He employed what we have 
 seen to compose the prophetic element of the New 
 Testament, parabolic teaching. But when He spoke 
 of what already was, HIMSELF, His own existence 
 previous even to Abraham, His coequality with the 
 Father, His own Divinity, He shunned all parable, 
 h John xvi. 25. * Ib. 29. 
 
 M
 
 102 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 and spoke plainly and distinctly. St. John's office 
 was to treasure up this second series of instructions, 
 for the confutation of nascent errors, and the orthodox 
 teaching of the whole Church. 
 
 Hence, wherever he touches upon a matter already 
 treated in the other Gospels, we shall find that, while 
 they record for us what relates to its external forms or 
 administration, that is, its body, St. John only pre- 
 serves the discourse which describes its interior and 
 more spiritual functions, that is, its soul. Por in- 
 stance, St. Matthew had fully preserved for us the 
 institution of Baptism, and its form : St. John mani- 
 fests to us in the conversation with Nicodemus, the 
 invisible agency of the Holy Spirit, and the inward 
 regeneration by the outward action. k Again the three 
 first evangelists had carefully described the institution 
 of the B. Eucharist; St. John passes over this, but 
 has secured to us that invaluable discourse in his sixth 
 chapter, in which the union with Christ, the immor- 
 tality, and the inward life bestowed by that holiest of 
 sacraments, are so consolingly described. St. John's 
 office, then, seems to be, to manifest to us what our 
 B/edeemer taught, respecting that mysterious action 
 which in His Divine nature He exercises upon the 
 inward life of the Church, and on the soul of the 
 believer, but still ever in the Church, and through the 
 Church. 
 
 But this has led us beyond the region of parables, and 
 though we would gladly dilate on it, we must pause. It 
 was our desire to add some remarks upon our Saviour's 
 miracles, as illustrative of His teaching, and of Catholic 
 doctrine; but we have already exceeded reasonable 
 limits. We may therefore reserve our thoughts for 
 another occasion, when we hope not to tax our reader's 
 
 k Matt, xxviii. 19 ; John iii.
 
 PARABLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 163 
 
 patience so severely. For we must own, that we can 
 only compare ourselves to a poor beast of burthen, 
 which, driven day by day on a long dusty road, cannot 
 resist the temptation of turning into a green field, that 
 lies open on the side ; and there rioting somewhat on 
 the dainty food around it, and striving to recall the 
 thoughts and feelings of other days, and live them 
 over again. "We have heard that some find a joy in 
 seeing wealth in heaps around them ; we have seen 
 the satisfaction of the man of taste when luxuriating 
 amidst objects of art ; we have felt the delight of 
 living among the records of wisdom of past ages or 
 distant lands ; but far, far brighter and happier are 
 hours spent in this treasure-house of knowledge, this 
 rich collection of peerless gems, this library of heaven- 
 fetched, eternal wisdom the speakings of God to man. 
 If we have ventured in, and may seem to have pre- 
 sumptuously ransacked it, it has only been because 
 encouraged to look in this storehouse of the wise 
 Householder for old things and new; the first to be 
 discovered by earnest study, the latter only by humble 
 and sincere meditation. 
 
 M 2
 
 THE 
 
 MIRACLES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 From the DUBLIN EEVXEW/OT Dec. 1849.
 
 THE 
 
 MIRACLES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
 
 AS ILLUSTRATING CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. 
 
 WE proceed, in fulfilment of a promise which closed 
 our last essay, a to unfold our thoughts on a subject 
 which cannot fail to interest every reader of the Gospel, 
 the Miracles of our Lord. 
 
 But before entering upon it, we beg for a few mo- 
 ments' grace, while we indulge in some preliminary 
 remarks. In opening our paper on the " Parables," 
 we briefly approved of the critical study of Scripture, 
 and expressed regret, that it was not more cultivated 
 amongst us. In a notice of that paper, in a Catholic 
 periodical, its writer remarked : " We do not agree 
 in all the propositions laid down as to the value and 
 advantages of biblical criticism ourselves." So slight 
 a comment, so passing an observation, so modest an 
 expression of difference of opinion, could never have 
 elicited a word from us, unaccustomed as we are to 
 notice reviews upon our reviews, did it not appear to 
 us to indicate, what we have seen more strongly 
 expressed elsewhere without reference to us ; a ten- 
 dency to depreciate biblical studies, and the theo- 
 
 a Page 163.
 
 168 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 logical use of holy Scripture. That persons who have 
 witnessed, during a great part of their lives, the sad 
 and fatal abuse of God's word who have seen it 
 become a snare to the feet, a veil to the eyes, a cloak 
 to hypocrisy, a seed-bed to heresies, and a very excuse 
 for sin : that men who have seen havoc come to souls 
 from its misapplication, and ruin to conscience from 
 its distortion, who have heard every key of the 
 sacred instrument jangling and jarring in distracting 
 dissonance, as at once bravely thumped by the evan- 
 gelical, and timidly stolen over by the churchman : 
 that they, in fine, who have themselves perhaps lived 
 for a time entangled in the meshes of contradictory 
 interpretation, and have now exclaimed, " Laqueus 
 contritus est, et nos liberati sumus," should look with 
 distrust, and some dislike, on studies which tie men 
 apparently to the killing letter, and quench the living 
 Spirit, is perhaps natural, and as such pardonable. 
 But there is danger in too violent a rebound ; and we 
 are truly and deeply anxious, that any extreme views, 
 on so important a subject, should not be encouraged. 
 
 Let us for a moment consider this very critical study 
 of God's word. No pursuit has been more abused : 
 and we hope it is looking rather at the abuse than the 
 use, that the writer alluded to tells us, that he does not 
 agree with us, as to the value of that branch of learn- 
 ing. Eusebius, Origen, St. Jerome, St. Augustiii, 
 Alcuin, and many others, applied sedulously to it, and 
 their labours have been highly prized by the Church 
 of God. The Council of Trent, in ordering a new 
 revision, and consequently a new recension, of the 
 Vulgate to be made, commanded the severe critical 
 pursuits necessary for this purpose. 
 
 But we are looking at the matter too seriously. 
 There are two ways in which critics can justify their
 
 MIRACLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 169 
 
 disapprobation, in sweeping and general terms, of a 
 pursuit. The one is by looking outwardly at its effects, 
 and without taking the pains of fathoming it, making 
 up their minds to its inutility. Even a very mild 
 person might be led to pronounce that conchology, for 
 instance, however pretty, is not a very useful science, 
 because its influence on society, or letters, or indi- 
 vidual character, and its results to mankind, nowhere 
 appear. It is negatively condemned, if one may say 
 so. But a great science, pursued by many great and 
 good men, and, by them, brought to bear upon theo- 
 logy, and upon the preservation of God's word, can- 
 not be so judged ; and only they, we will confidently 
 assert, have a right to pronounce, who can say that 
 they have gone fully and thoroughly into it, and have 
 discovered its hollowness. Now, unhesitatingly, we 
 declare such a result to be impossible. No one can 
 apply himself to the critical study of the Bible 
 without finding it graceful, noble, sure to enhance 
 his appreciation of the real beauties of the divine 
 writings, certain to bring home to him many hidden 
 treasures, and, at the same time, solid, convincing, 
 based upon sure principles, and superadding the 
 elegant and protecting structure of human research 
 and skill, to the immovable and unshaking foun- 
 dation on the rock of truth. It is like a bastion 
 thrown out beyond an impregnable fortification ; a 
 breakwater outside the safe harbour, scooped in a 
 craggy shore. Neither is necessary for security : but 
 the one terrifies the assailant, and keeps him further 
 from the walls ; the other represses the unruly waves, 
 that would fain agitate the haven's calmer waters. 
 No part of biblical science has more thoroughly 
 disappointed the unbeliever, and answered the Catho- 
 lic's hopes, than the critical study of Scripture.
 
 170 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 But probably it will sound strange to some, to hear 
 us pronounce this to be a " graceful or noble" pursuit. 
 Solid it may be ; but what there is to captivate the 
 mind, or win admiration, does not easily appear. We 
 speak, then, of this study as catholicly followed ; and 
 as the great purpose of our whole paper is to prove 
 how truly Catholics alone hold the sway of scriptural 
 literature, we may be pardoned if we dwell a little 
 longer on this point, and show how we have found 
 this driest and least spiritual looking portion of bibli- 
 cal science, most savoury, sweet, and delightful. That 
 the path to it is rugged, intricate, and often conse- 
 quently wearisome, we will not gainsay ; for the prin- 
 ciple holds here, as elsewhere, that there is no royal 
 road to knowledge. It requires patience to learn the 
 technical part of the study, to become familiar with 
 its peculiar phraseology, to unravel the intricacies of 
 various systems, classifications, and recensions. Nor 
 can this be attained without the further patience of 
 learning perhaps more than one language, uncouth to 
 the eye, rugged to the ear, and strange to the mind. 
 Then there is a certain amount of practical skill in 
 manipulation to be acquired, which is tedious at first, 
 and requires perseverance. But when these prelimi- 
 naries have been gone through, the science, even in 
 itself, is interesting and delightful. When an un- 
 initiated person gets an old biblical manuscript into 
 his hands, " miratur pulchros apices," he turns it 
 from end to end, admiring the regularity of the 
 writing, or the preservation of the ink, and gives 
 it back to the librarian, wondering somewhat of 
 what real value such an old volume can be, or whether 
 it may not possibly contain some new and strange 
 reading (if he have heard of such things), which 
 may puzzle critics or commentators. And then he
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 171 
 
 remains " oculis laudator, sed mente non cognitor." 
 Now let the practical critic take it into his hand, and 
 see with what confidence and intelligence he handles 
 it. As surely as a connoisseur in art examining a 
 picture, he knows how to explore it. The very crackle 
 of the parchment speaks to him : if thin or thick, if 
 polished or rough, if white or yellow, it gives him a 
 mark, a datum for calculation. The colour of the 
 ink, the retouching of faded letters, the corrections 
 between lines, all tell him a tale. Then he inspects 
 the letters, which, like troops in a review, wear the 
 uniform of a country or age. He pries into their 
 junctures and divisions, their punctuation and length 
 of ranks or lines ; he scans their straightness or their 
 flexures, their lengths and breadths. He notes the 
 letters on the margin at given intervals, which to 
 the other appeared random marks, and from all 
 these signs, he pronounces, at once, a confident judg- 
 ment of the volume's age. Now for its country. He 
 looks into the text, darts over a few lines, detects 
 certain errors by substitutions of letters pronounced 
 alike in some countries but not in others, and thus 
 gets a first simple clue. Then with a few master 
 glances, just like an expert leader at the bar, who, 
 turning over folios of foolscap in his brief, catches 
 with his eye just the recital which contains the pith 
 of the bulky brief, and makes up his case, over 
 which his junior has pored for hours ; he turns 
 familiarly to a few decisive texts, gives but one 
 scrutinizing look, and, shutting the volume, tells 
 you, not merely its country, but perhaps the very city 
 or monastery in which it was written. As certainly 
 as that picture-critic will distinguish the Spanish from 
 the Flemish school, and even tell you whether your 
 painting came from Andalusia or Estramadura, so
 
 172 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 surely will the other tell you whether your manu- 
 script was written in Egypt, or on Mount Athos. 
 And of what use is this ? "Why, he knows, that if 
 you were to read it carefully through, you could not 
 find in it a single novelty ; that by no possible combi- 
 nation of chances, could it contain a single word that 
 could give the sceptic a new objection, any more than 
 the discovery of any imaginable genuine sketch by 
 Raphael, could possibly lead us to the conclusion that 
 he was a bad draughtsman. But at present we are 
 rather bent on proving that this critical study of the 
 Bible is really a pleasant and gratifying pursuit. Let 
 us take another example. Let us suppose that we 
 wish to amuse ourselves with the origin of some out- 
 landish translation. "We will take, for instance, the 
 Arabic version of the Psalms, published by Gabriel 
 Sionita, at Rome, in 1614 and 1619, b and most beauti- 
 fully printed. Be not startled, gentle reader ; we are 
 not going to give you a single hard word, or strange- 
 looking character, as we did in our last article. We 
 are not going to use any long technical terms. Follow 
 us gently, and as it were tiptoe ; and we will give you 
 a little specimen of critical clairvoyance. Look into 
 that cell. It is in an Eastern monastery, on the 
 craggy side of Mount Libanus, with palm-trees 
 shooting up slender around it, and waving their 
 graceful heads to the evening breeze. All is still 
 and calm; the chanting has ceased, and each pious 
 recluse has slowly returned to his cell. Look again 
 at the one we have chosen, rude and bare as it is. 
 There, by the latticed window, thrown open to the 
 setting sun, on his little square mat, sits, Arab 
 fashion, a bearded monk, grave and furrowed with 
 
 b That is, the same text is reproduced at the latter date, with a 
 new title.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 173 
 
 lines of thought. At his left side is his inkstand 
 with his reed-holder, passed behind the girdle like a 
 dirk. In his left hand he holds his page of vellum 
 on a slight board, in his right his ready cane pen : for 
 he leans not his body nor his book on anything when 
 he writes. He lives at a time when the sacred 
 language of his country, the Syriac, is becoming less 
 known even in religious houses, and an Arabic, or 
 vernacular, version is required of the Psalms. He, 
 being well skilled in languages, and a worthy man, 
 has been ordered to make it, and is already plying his 
 sacred task. 
 
 Now first, what is he translating from ? On a low 
 three-legged stool beside him, lies the open volume. 
 What language is it ? " How," you reply, " can I 
 possibly see, at this distance of place and time?" 
 Then I will tell you : it is a copy of the Septuagint, 
 or ancient Greek version of the Bible. How do we 
 know this ? Every verse of his translation tells us 
 so. For, while that version differs very remarkably 
 from the Hebrew in its readings, his translation 
 throughout keeps close to the former. Well, this is a 
 very simple discovery. But we see that our good 
 monk is not very strong in his Greek, for he keeps 
 every now and then looking at another old volume, or 
 rather roll beside him. It is clearly the Hebrew 
 original, which being more akin to his own language, 
 he can better master. He uses it, therefore, as another 
 would a lexicon. Hence through his translation, when 
 a hard and puzzling word comes in the Greek, we find 
 him putting the very Hebrew word into his text, 
 making quite a jumble of it. This tells us that he did 
 not help himself out of another version already made 
 from the Hebrew, but dealt freely with the original. 
 But we have very curious proofs of this. We are now
 
 174 MIRACLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 watching him translate Ps. Ixxvii. v. 74 (69 Heb. and 
 Gr.). He has hit upon two curious deviations from, 
 both the Greek and the Hebrew. And yet we can 
 very easily account for them ; but only one way. If 
 in two small words together, we imagine him to have 
 mistaken, in one a beth for a caph, in the other a caph 
 for a beth (the two Hebrew letters being very much 
 alike), we get just his reading. And the same verse 
 contains another certain proof, but too complex for 
 our present purpose. 
 
 See him now fairly nonplussed. He has got to 
 Ps. xxxix. (Heb.) v. 9 (in LXX v. 6), and there he 
 finds the two texts irreconcilably different. You may 
 behold him, with his hands dropped before him on his 
 knees, waving his body backwards and forwards, and 
 gently stroking his beard, as Orientals do when they 
 wish to convey electricity to their brains. And now a 
 bright thought has struck him. He knows not which 
 reading to prefer, so he will put them both in ; and 
 consequently he combines them, and gives us in his 
 translation a double version, from the Greek and from 
 the Hebrew. 4 Having discovered this notable expedi- 
 ent, he has recourse to it again in similar difficulties : 
 for example in Ps. xlv. (Heb.) verses 13, 14, where he 
 once more treats us to both texts. But this Psalm 
 seems to have greatly perplexed him ; for sometimes, 
 as in a fit of desperation, he fairly takes his departure 
 altogether from both his originals, and hazards a most 
 unaccountable paraphrase of his own. 6 He however 
 finds another remedy in his difficulties. There he gets 
 up, and takes down from his small library, or rather 
 out of his book-chest, another volume. How shall we 
 make that out ? Very easily : we can see it from here, 
 
 c See note (A) at the end of this paper. d See note (B). 
 
 e See note (C).
 
 MIRACLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 175 
 
 as we peep over his shoulder. It is the Syriac Peshito 
 version. He is engaged on Ps. xcvii. (Heb.), and at 
 every verse he looks into this translation, and does not 
 hesitate to be guided by it. Coincidences so curious 
 occur, as to leave us no doubt of this/ 
 
 The good old translator may have pretended what 
 he liked to his less learned brethren, and may have 
 made them suppose that he was very fluent in Greek, 
 and read it off like an Athenian : but he cannot trick 
 us, and we can make out, as plain as if we saw him, 
 every book that he used. Nay, we can even decide to 
 what country his copy of the Greek text belonged, 
 that it had the text, as corrected by Lucian : and 
 probably that it was what is called a Hexaplar copy. 
 
 We may be further asked, why we put the author 
 of this version on Mount Libanus, and not in Chaldea, 
 or Egypt, for instance. Here again interior data 
 combine to determine us : the translation from the 
 Greek, and the knowledge of Hebrew, do not allow us 
 so easily to attribute it to the first country, where the 
 Greek language had long ceased to be known, and 
 Hebrew could be but little cultivated, before this 
 version was made : while the use of the Syriac version, 
 unknown or unused in Egypt, does not permit us to 
 assign it to the latter. But in Syria we have every 
 requisite condition for explaining the character of this 
 translation^ 
 
 f See note (D). 
 
 e What is lightly and vaguely described in the context is the true 
 history of this version. The writers of " Introductions to Scripture" 
 have been satisfied with pronouncing it to be translated from the 
 Septuagint. But a searching- collation of a sufficient portion has 
 convinced us, that the medley of versions enumerated above has 
 concurred to produce a most anomalous, heterogeneous, and often 
 unaccountable translation. "We have minute data for this conclusion. 
 [This might suffice for an anonymous publication ; but the author
 
 176 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 But all this may show how any one who has spent 
 perhaps years in the preliminaries of this study, and 
 has some peculiar local opportunities of perusing it 
 practically, may find interest and even amusement in 
 his researches ; but what influence can these have 
 upon his higher perception or relish of God's word ? 
 Or we may even ask, do they not naturally divert his 
 thoughts from the better study of its uses, and value 
 of its perfection ? We say, most decidedly not. An 
 illustration strikes us, which may explain our view of 
 the matter, better than a disquisition. Let us suppose 
 two enthusiasts about architectural beauty to enter a 
 noble old cathedral ; and both, as is the custom with 
 such, straightways to fall into raptures real ones, in 
 our supposed case, about it. They vie with one 
 another in their exclamations of delight ; they praise 
 the harmonious whole, the exquisite proportions, the 
 gigantic dimensions, the delicate enrichments, the 
 airiness of its superstructures, and the solidity of its 
 walls. Chancel and nave, aisles and transepts, pave- 
 ment and vault, are accurately scanned, rated, dated, 
 and pricelessly valued. The bewildered verger stands 
 amazed, for they evidently know more than he does, 
 who has been in and out of that church, as man and 
 boy, any day these six-and- thirty years. But of the 
 two admirers, the one has evidently some peculiar skill 
 beyond the other. While one is still rambling on, and 
 re-admiring the same beauties again and again, the 
 other is standing still on one spot, and book and 
 pencil in hand, is sketching perhaps ? No, actually 
 calculating. In the midst of that wondrous structure, 
 he has the heart to think of Cocker, or Bonnycastle, 
 
 has felt it his duty to give some of these data, in notes at the end of 
 this essay, to prove his statements ; though his arguments can have 
 but slight interest, except for biblical critics.]
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 177 
 
 and to perpetrate so vile a thing as a sum ! By a 
 penetrating, as well as a comprehensive glance, he has 
 measured the vast masses which compose the edifice ; 
 he has calculated the weight of those enormous blocks 
 
 %j 
 
 which, to his companion's eye and his own, looked so 
 light, more like stalactites pendent from a cavern's 
 roof than solid stone, and appeared hardly to press 
 upon the slim and towering piers. He has estimated 
 how nicely adjusted to the weight is the skilfully 
 planned support, and what clever combinations were 
 required to produce the actual effect. Moreover, he 
 has accurately ascertained, what complicated, yet 
 correct machinery must have been necessary, before 
 the resources of modern mechanics were developed, to 
 exercise the huge power requisite to raise those blocks, 
 and place them securely on their beds high up in air. 
 But if his friend casts on him a glance of almost 
 scorn, as he passes by him, still engaged in his un- 
 poetical labours, how will he regard him when he sees 
 him actually begin to grope and poke into every cranny 
 of the building, and rub off the whitewash, and scrape 
 the pavement, and scrub the tombs ? And thus he 
 discovers of what curious materials the structure is 
 composed. This pillar is marble, from Devonshire or 
 from "Westmoreland ; this canopy is stone, from Caen ; 
 this monument is alabaster, from Tutbury ; this slab 
 is granite, from Anglesey ; this bit of pavement, is 
 tesselated work from Italy; for here are serpentine 
 and porphyry with gold smalti : even the main walls 
 are built up with sandstone from quarries at least 
 twenty miles off, without water-carriage. 
 
 Now we ask, does this man who thus studies and 
 comprehends the laws of the construction and pre- 
 servation of the building, and its very hidden and in- 
 ternal substance, lose or gain in true, deep, and earnest 
 
 N
 
 178 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 admiration of it, and of its wonderful architect ? Yet 
 we do not hesitate to say, that in equal measure will 
 he have advantage, who has carefully and catholicly 
 pursued the critical study of Scripture. Eor what 
 else is this but the endeavour to discover the means 
 whereby God has framed and preserved this beautiful 
 structure of His wisdom on earth ? It is, in fact, the 
 history of his providential dealings with His own 
 divine Word. As we follow it, we discover the mar- 
 vellous agencies which have been kept at work to 
 preserve, through the vicissitudes of ages, the sacred 
 text. It is translated in every variety of language, 
 by every diversity of genius and learning ; it is col- 
 lated and revised from the most opposite motives, 
 hostile or friendly, orthodox or heretical. It is tran- 
 scribed in every country, by holy scribes like Bede and 
 Alcuin, or by hasty, blundering, and mercenary pen- 
 men. And this goes on for ages ; the Jew desirous 
 of one reading, and the Arian of another, and the 
 Catholic striving for the truth. Only an accurate 
 critical study can give a right notion of these various 
 powers, some naturally appearing to tend towards 
 involving the whole text in inextricable confusion, 
 others to distorting it positively into a wrong di- 
 rection. Yet as surely as did the steam-engine and 
 the hydraulic press, and the pontoons, and the many 
 capstans with their many crews, lately bring the 
 Britannia tube-bridges into their right position, and 
 firmly plant them there ; because, though to a mere 
 bystander they appeared pulling in various and con- 
 flicting ways, yet they were all under the direction 
 of one master-mind ; even so do the many strange 
 powers, to all appearance discordantly at work for 
 ages upon the texts of Old and New Testaments, 
 appear to the devout scholar, overruled and made
 
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 179 
 
 subservient, by a wise and unseen control, to the 
 placing and preserving in its high and noble position 
 in the Church, that holy and venerated record of 
 God's mercies. The very jarrings of conflicting inter- 
 ests, the jealousies, the strivings of error against 
 error as against truth, will be found to conspire to 
 the same great purpose. And most certainly, a 
 searching study by a Catholic mind into the very 
 words and points of that sacred writing, is a homage 
 of respect and love to the wise Builder, who has em- 
 ployed them as His materials in this His edifice. 
 They who of old loved God's sanctuary, loved the 
 very stones of which it had been built, even after they 
 had been dispersed. 11 And that study which directs 
 its attention to the materials that enter into the con- 
 struction of the sacred volume, makes us search for 
 their origin, their accurate form, their rightful po- 
 sition ; which enables us to see the treasures and 
 curious fragments of different ages and countries, 
 brought from afar, and made to fit in, and strengthen 
 the work ; nay, which in the rudeness or elegance 
 of its construction, shows us equal aptness, design, 
 and evidence of truthfulness and genuineness, 
 that study, surely, instead of impairing, greatly 
 must increase our veneration and love for Him, who 
 has condescended to speak to man in the language of 
 man, and subject His written, as He did His living, 
 word to the gaze, the scrutiny, and even the in- 
 flictions of men. We would venture to say more, were 
 it likely that we should be believed by any but the 
 experienced. We will, therefore, draw this rambling 
 and perhaps tiresome disquisition to a close, by 
 referring, as an example, to only one passage, Matt, 
 xxvii. 17, where the terrible awfulness of the proposal 
 
 h Ps. ci. 15. 
 
 N2
 
 180 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 which it records, is inexpressibly aggravated, to one 
 acquainted with the critical history of its text. 1 
 
 Most writers who have treated of our Saviour's 
 Parables, have joined to them His Miracles. A con- 
 siderable number of essays profess to speak of both : 
 and the reason is sufficiently obvious. Our Lord's 
 miracles may be contemplated in three distinct lights. 
 
 1. Simply as miracles or wonderful works, directed 
 to give overwhelming authority to His teaching, and 
 to evidence His heavenly mission and His divine 
 nature. Hence He Himself repeatedly appeals to 
 them, as proofs of His claim to be heard and believed. k 
 This view of his miracles appertains to the evidences 
 of Christianity ; and in that branch of theology, the 
 character, reality, and the testimony of these marvels, 
 are duly considered and vindicated. 
 
 2. As works of mercy. He whom compassion for 
 fallen man had drawn down from heaven, and who 
 had come to rescue him from sin and death, could 
 not but desire to alleviate those sufferings, which were 
 the consequence of the one, and the precursors of the 
 other. He possessed the power likewise to do so, 
 while he chose to live in privation of the means of 
 ordinary alms-giving. It was by the exercise of His 
 
 1 [As I find this allusion is not easily understood, I take the 
 opportunity of explaining it. From ancient MSS. and other sources, 
 it would appear that Barabbas bore the same name as He, with whom 
 he is here impiously compared ; a name, at that period not uncom- 
 mon, but now only to be pronounced with deep reverence, and tender 
 love. Out of these feelings, the robber's praenomen has been dropped 
 from the text : which, with it inserted, would now make one shudder. 
 Pilate's description of our Lord, " who is called, &c.," thus becomes 
 more natural.] 
 
 k Matt. xi. 20, 24; xii. 41; Mark iv. 40; Luke iv. 36; vii. 16; 
 John ii. 23 ; v. 36 ; vii. 31 ; x. 25, 38 ; xii. 37 ; xiv. 12 ; xv. 24,
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 181 
 
 power, therefore, that He gave us example of the 
 discharge of charitable duties towards the poor. He 
 could not give them money, in their illness, to buy 
 food ; but he gave them health and strength to 
 earn it. In this way St. Peter considered the exercise 
 of the miraculous powers deputed to him : " Silver 
 and gold, I have none ; but what I have I give thee : 
 in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and 
 walk." 1 Where others gave silver, he gave a cure ; 
 where others bestowed gold, he bestowed a miracle. 
 The Jews saw our Lord's miracles under this aspect : 
 they not only admired them as evidences of immense 
 power, but they esteemed them as proofs of un- 
 bounded goodness. They would have feared Him, 
 whereas they loved Him, had His miracles been only 
 deeds of might; had the withered fig-tree, or the 
 drowned herds of the Gerasenes, alone evinced his 
 greatness, they never would have exclaimed, " He 
 hath done all things well; for He hath made the 
 deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak." n 
 
 3. It is evident that Christ's miracles, even under 
 these two points of view, were powerful auxiliaries 
 to His teaching. The first secured, in earnest-minded 
 hearers of His word, deep attention ; the second won 
 from the affectionate, a willingness to be taught. 
 The one drove to conviction, the other led to easy 
 persuasion. According to the principles of the Rhe- 
 torician, they respectively served " reddere auditores 
 attentos et benevolos." The third mode of consider- 
 ing these great works, the one of which we are about 
 to speak, rendered them docile, or teachable; for 
 we have to (treat of them as important and truthful 
 lessons. 
 
 1 Acts iii. 6. m Matt. xxi. 19 ; Luke viii. 32. 
 
 n Mark vii. 37.
 
 182 MIRACLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 We take it for granted that every Catholic, at 
 least, has been instructed in this mode of reading the 
 scripture. account of our Saviour's miracles. He has 
 again and again read or heard them commented upon, 
 as lessons acted rather than spoken. " Dominus ac 
 Redemptor noster, per Evangelium suum aliquando 
 verbis, aliquando rebus loquitur." It is nothing new 
 to say that the cleansed leper represents the forgiven 
 sinner, and that the boat saved from the storm, by 
 the power of Jesus present in it, signified the Church. 
 And if the leper is sent to the priest, the Catholic 
 sees naturally the intimation of the priestly ministry 
 in the parallel case. We, therefore, may assume 
 that our Lord's miracles taught a lesson, and some 
 important one. 
 
 In treating of the Parables we showed, not, we 
 trust, unsuccessfully, that they contained a distinct 
 body of teaching, corresponding to the prophecy of 
 the Old Testament, and containing the principles, the 
 history, the developments, and the action of the 
 Church. Can we find in the Miracles of our Saviour 
 a counterpart to this ? Such is our present inquiry. 
 If what was mysterious in His oral teaching related 
 to things of future accomplishment, it may be fairly 
 surmised that what was still more mysteriously taught 
 by action, should be referable to similar objects. The 
 analogy between a parable spoken, and one acted, 
 is evident, and a miracle which contains in it a lesson, 
 beyond its immediate and obvious purpose, is to all 
 intents and purposes a parable, more even than the 
 symbolical actions of Ezechiel or Osee. Eor example, 
 when Christ orders His disciples to cast their nets, 
 and, though all night they had done so in vain, they 
 now find them filled with the miraculous draught of 
 St. Greg. Horn. 32 inEvang.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 183 
 
 fishes, p we at once see how appropriately this fore- 
 shows, how they, when hecome " fishers of men," q 
 shall bring multitudes into that net, which in another 
 spoken parable has been made the image of the 
 Church, 1 without the multitude breaking the net, 8 
 that is, destroying religious unity : and how this will 
 be, not by human power, but in obedience to the 
 divine command, and through the energy of grace. 
 Eor, till the order was given them to go and preach, 
 they had striven in their ministry in vain. Now all 
 this is most apt, not merely because part corresponds 
 to part, but because it corresponds adequately 
 miracle answers to miracle, each real, and not on the 
 one side figurative. The command of God is equally 
 true in both : and the draught of fishes is miraculous, 
 as is the draught of men in the apostolic net. On the 
 other hand, the cutting and burning of Ezechiel's 
 hair/ or his going forth from his house through a hole 
 in the wall, u or his lying upon his right or left side, x 
 or Osee's marriages, 7 bear no proportion to the terrible 
 exercise of power which they figure. They are mere 
 human actions ennobled into representations of divine 
 judgments; whereas, as we have observed, in the 
 Gospel image there was as much miracle on one side 
 as on the other. Yet it must be borne in mind, at 
 the same time, that the one miracle was immediate, 
 definite, and clear to sight, while the other was 
 gradual, indistinct, and to be learnt by reasoning. 
 For, no one doubts that the propagation of Christi- 
 anity by the twelve fishermen of Galilee was a di- 
 vine and supernatural work. But while it was going 
 on, this could not appear, as it does to us, looking 
 
 P John xxi. 6. 1 Matt. iv. 19. r Matt. xiii. 47, 
 
 v 8 Johii xxi. 11. t Ezec. v. m xii. 5. 
 
 x iv. y Osee i. iii.
 
 184 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 back on its success ; nor does the Church's net cease 
 yet to descend, and to bring its goodly freight into 
 the bark of Peter. 
 
 Prom the illustration which we have given, we may 
 draw some first principles, that will gradually bear us 
 forward towards our object. 1. Por, if the analogy 
 between the Parables and the Miracles of the Gospel, 
 corresponding to that between prophecy by words, and 
 prophecy by acts, in the old Law, will suggest their 
 both having a common end and term, the instance 
 which we have chosen will give us a further sugges- 
 tion. And it is, that the miraculous lesson delivered 
 by Christ our Lord, in action, will have a corresponding 
 reality in what it teaches. If, in the prophets, the 
 act of man was made to represent the action of God, 
 the order cannot be reversed, and the best be degraded, 
 by the actions of God in the flesh, describing or sym- 
 bolizing anything less than themselves. Miracle can 
 only foreshow, typify, or guarantee miracle. Nay, we 
 will venture to say more. The marvel performed as a 
 type cannot be greater than its fulfilment : the latter 
 must be the greater. The delivery of Israel from 
 Egypt was a divine miraculous achievement : the 
 wonders of Aaron's rod, the opening sea, the swallow- 
 ing of Pharaoh's host by the abyss, the plunder of 
 Egypt, the great work preceded by the mysterious 
 pasch, and apparently dependent on it, were well 
 worthy to be considered final and complete. Yet they 
 were all types : and when the fulfilment came, it 
 came with such a superiority of grandeur and sublime 
 results, as proved how only God can surpass His own 
 work : and will surpass it, however magnificent, when 
 it has been the figure of another dispensation. 
 
 2. Purther, in this second instance we have pre- 
 sented to us another result, which may be also drawn
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 185 
 
 from the first. In both we find, that while the 
 fulfilment is far superior to the figure, yet the appear- 
 ance of miracle is much greater in the latter. Or we 
 may better express it thus : the fulfilment relates to 
 the order of grace, and the figure belongs to that of 
 nature. The deliverance of man from the broken 
 power of Satan on Calvary, was no less real, and 
 was a more wonderful work, than the freeing of 
 Israel from Egypt's bondage; yet it was not seen 
 by man's eye, nor felt by his soul, as this was. 
 The conversion of the heathen world was a greater 
 miracle than the catching of one hundred and fifty- 
 three fishes : but conversion was an inward, soul- 
 hidden act. If the miracles of our Lord teach as 
 types, we must expect them to represent other acts in 
 the Church, not only equally, but superiorly to them- 
 selves wonderful and miraculous : and yet these may, 
 and probably will, be invisible and belonging to the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 "We may carry this comparison much further into 
 details. The eating of manna represented the spiritual 
 food in the B. Eucharist : z the drinking from the rock, 
 the refreshment received from Christ : a the raising of 
 the brazen serpent to cure the bite of fiery serpents, 
 the lifting of the cross with its precious burthen to 
 heal the angry bite of the infernal serpent : b Jonas, in 
 the whale, and cast again on shore, .our Lord's resur- 
 rection. The thing represented was far nobler and 
 sublimer than the type in every instance, and intrin- 
 sically more prodigious and miraculous ; yet this 
 quality did not appear to men's eyes in the reality, as 
 it did in the inferior figure. "We must ever, therefore, 
 bear this in mind. 
 
 1 John vi. a 1 Cor. x. 4. 
 
 b John iii. 14. c Matt. xii. 40.
 
 186 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 The Christian revelation wonderfully opened to man 
 a second world, the sight of which had been utterly 
 withheld from the heathen, and only manifested in 
 glimpses to the better Jews. The new heavens and 
 earth thus manifested showed man in a new state ; a 
 spiritual life, which has its laws, its course, its goods 
 and evils, its beginning and progress, nay, its very 
 food, its organic operations, its illnesses, its cures, its 
 very death, though not destruction. The soul, that 
 indefinite being even in Jewish theology, is with the 
 Christian so real an existence, that he can individualize 
 it in mind, and separate it in thought from his very 
 self. He can speak of his soul as weak though his 
 body is strong, or as powerful when he is feeble : it 
 may be at rest and in peace while his outward exist- 
 ence is passed in tempestuous troubles the soul may 
 sleep, with Jesus, in the very bark that is tossed on 
 the billows. He may feed that soul, while his body is 
 starving ; clothe it, while his flesh is naked. It may 
 fly towards heaven while the mortal frame creeps on 
 earth, and will attain its object when this perishes. All 
 this requires a system provided for it : the " things 
 spiritual," which are so familiar in the Catholic's 
 mouth. Grace is the sphere, the order in which this 
 spiritual life has place : it is its principle, its breath ; 
 the soul of soul, the food, the vesture, the sustaining 
 vigour, the means of growth, the motive power ; it is 
 the ruling, and regulating, and perfecting energy of 
 this invisible economy. A Catholic holds and under- 
 stands all this, as though he saw it. But in the Gospel 
 estimate this spiritual order is infinitely higher and 
 nobler than that which includes the body, and its 
 natural contingencies. To cure the soul is infinitely 
 a greater deed and a greater miracle than to cure the
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 187 
 
 body, and so is to raise a soul, far more than to raise a 
 body, from death. 
 
 There is thus established a corresponding order of 
 existence and operations, between the seen and the 
 unseen life; each being equally real. The Miracles 
 then of our Saviour, if they are representatives of 
 other actions, can find in this spiritual state their 
 truest counterparts, realities no less marvellous, and 
 of a far superior character. 
 
 Yet so long as man has not been totally absorbed 
 into the spiritual life, but still lives on earth, a com- 
 pound being, it is clear that the ministrations to the 
 spiritual life must pass through his lower state, and 
 be connected with earth. The rain first rises from the 
 earth, then falls on it again, and thence it comes forth 
 once more in bubbling spring, or sparkling fountain, 
 or it steals quietly out a brook or river, with fertilizing 
 energy. And so grace was first begotten on earth, by 
 the merits and the death of the Holy One ; thence it 
 was borne to its boundless treasure-house in heaven, 
 whence descending into the Church's rich soil, it is 
 redistributed, in endless beautiful forms, through her 
 various agencies and ministerial institutions. Now the 
 sacramental action of Grace, as conceived and under- 
 stood by the Catholic alone, will exactly answer all the 
 conditions requisite to solve our problem. The sacra- 
 ment belongs to the higher sphere of the spiritual life ; 
 it is supernatural in its invisible efficacy, as the miracle 
 is in its visible effect ; yet it is real : it is so perfect 
 a counterpart as to be a sufficient fulfilment ; and it is 
 so immeasurably above it, as to be a worthy fulfil- 
 ment. And such we believe to be the real teaching of 
 the great body of our Saviour's Miracles, as preserved 
 for us in the apostolic records. As the Parables con-
 
 188 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 tained the dogmatical and moral principles to be 
 developed in the Church, so do the Miracles show 
 forth the superhuman, and in truth miraculous, 
 agencies of her practical ministry. The one tells us 
 what the Church shall be and say, the other what 
 she shall do. 
 
 It is now time that we look into the Gospel itself 
 for the groundwork of this view. 
 
 Our blessed Lord, when alone with His disciples, 
 before His passion, said to them : " Amen, amen : I 
 say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I 
 do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he 
 efo." d That the miraculous powers alluded to in the 
 first part of the sentence, were not bestowed on the 
 body of the faithful indiscriminately, is clear. St. Paul 
 gives evidence that they were at most distributively 
 given to the first Christians ; e nor is there reason to 
 suppose, that every simple faithful was a Thauma- 
 turgus : it is peculiarly related of St. Stephen, that he 
 being " full of grace and fortitude, did great signs and 
 wonders among the multitude ;" f as though this gift 
 was special. But to the Apostles and disciples, the 
 gift of doing all miracles, even the same as Christ our 
 Lord, was part of their commission, bestowed on all, 
 previous to their receiving any spiritual or priestly 
 charge. " Going, preach, saying : The kingdom of 
 heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, 
 cleanse the lepers, cast out devils." g Again, to the 
 seventy -two the same power was granted : " Heal the 
 sick . . . and say to them : The kingdom of God hath 
 come nigh unto you." 11 To the first of these commis- 
 sions, it seems impossible to add. The four classes of 
 miraculous benefits enumerated, include all that our 
 
 d John xiv. 12. e 1 Cor. xii. 11. f Acts vi. 8. 
 
 s Matt, x, 8 ; Luke ix. 1. h Luke x. 9.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 189 
 
 Saviour ever performed, even to the raising of the 
 dead. And beyond this exercise of miraculous power, 
 how was it possible to go ? "What greater works than 
 Jesus did, as miracles, remained to be performed, in 
 virtue of his promise ? Was it possible to go beyond 
 the raising of Lazarus ? The words cannot be so 
 understood. Then we can only reasonably explain 
 them in this sense, that works of equal power, but 
 belonging to a higher order, would be performed by 
 the faithful followers, whom the apostles represent. 
 We shall be more ready to admit this interpretation, 
 when we see similar language employed elsewhere. 
 For instance : " Every one who hath left house, or 
 brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
 children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an 
 hundred-fold, and shall possess life everlasting." 1 It 
 is clear, that the hundred-fold of earthly goods, signi- 
 fies not the reward of the future life, from which it is 
 expressly distinguished; but a recompense in this 
 world. But it means corresponding spiritual gifts, 
 greater because belonging to a higher order, affecting 
 the soul and not the body. For no one has ever 
 imagined that the promise related to the real increase 
 of the very things renounced, except perhaps some 
 sensual millenarians. Yet no doubt the greater things 
 promised, are not so striking to sense, so appreciable 
 by the animal man, in his debased nature and with his 
 limited faculties, as are the grosser and more material, 
 though lesser, ones. In like manner, therefore, we 
 may reasonably conclude the greater things than 
 Christ's visible miracles, which the faithful had to 
 perform, to refer to those works of power, which the 
 ministry of the Church effects in the spiritual class 
 
 1 Matt. xix. 29.
 
 190 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 of her operations : and this gives us at once, her 
 sacramental energy. k 
 
 Upon this theory, the Catholic easily explains the 
 selection made out of the countless miracles wrought 
 by our Saviour. When St. John, shutting up the 
 Gospel records, twice takes care to inform us, that 
 " many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of His 
 disciples, which are not written in this hook," 1 and 
 that " the world itself would not be able to contain 
 the books that should be written," to relate all the 
 things which He did: m we must conclude that the 
 miracles recorded are selected from that vast unre- 
 corded multitude, because these were particularly 
 important for us to know. Hence St. John tells us, 
 what was one main principle in his selection, and it 
 accords exactly with what we concluded respecting his 
 Gospel, when treating of the parables. After the first 
 of these two texts, he continues : " But these [signs] 
 are written that you may believe, that Jesus is the 
 Christ, the Son of God." n In other words, St. John 
 selected his miracles with a view to establish our 
 Saviour's Divinity, against the rising heresies of the 
 early Church. Accordingly, as we find him give fewer 
 parables, so we find him relate fewer miracles. But 
 those which he does record, he describes with a minute- 
 ness of detail and a drawing out of proof, which are 
 not only highly interesting, but clearly show his 
 purpose. The most remarkable instance is, the cure 
 
 k [St. Gregory, to omit others, thus writes concerning the mira- 
 culous powers given by our Lord to His disciples : " Habemus de 
 his signis atque virtutibus quse adhuc subtilius considerare debeamus. 
 Sancta quippe Ecclesia quotidie spiritualiter facit, quod tune per Apo- 
 
 stolos eorporaliter faciebat Qua nimirum miracula tanto major a 
 
 sunt, quanta spiritualia : tanto majora sunt, quanta per Ticec non 
 corpora, sed animcB suscitantur." Horn. xxix. in Evang.] 
 
 1 John xx. 30. m xxi. 25. n xx. 31.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 191 
 
 of the blind man, in his ninth chapter. Every perusal 
 of this beautiful narrative inspires us with fresh 
 admiration. The sifting of the evidence, and the 
 cross-examination of the witnesses, are masterpieces 
 of almost forensic investigation. The resurrection of 
 Lazarus, is another similar instance of detailed narra- 
 tion, directed to show how fully the miracle was tested 
 by adverse parties, and how easy would have been its 
 refutation or its gainsaying, had there been a flaw in 
 its decisiveness. Another of St. John's miracles is 
 remarkable, as bearing, like this, upon a point, towards 
 which our Lord seems to have directed more especial 
 miracles than towards any other the confuting of the 
 Jewish superstitions respecting the Sabbath. St. John 
 relates another cure wrought on the Sabbath for this 
 purpose, on which our Redeemer reasoned against the 
 Pharisees respecting it. This was the cure of the 
 cripple at the pool of Bethesda, in the fifth chapter, 
 referred to and defended in the eleventh. 5 When we 
 consider that the right claimed by our Lord, over the 
 divine institution of the Sabbath, as the Jews con- 
 sidered it, was a strong proof of His assumption of a 
 Divine power, we can easily understand how St. John, 
 as well as the other Evangelists, should have selected 
 miracles in which this legislative prerogative was ex- 
 ercised. And as we are on this subject, we may close 
 it by remarking, that a similar selection of miracles is 
 to be found in the other Evangelists, not only perhaps 
 to establish the important truth, in the abstract, that 
 the " Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath ;"* but, 
 as He transferred all His authority to His apostles, 
 and sent them, as His Father had sent Him, to show 
 how they were authorized to exercise this lordship, by 
 the transfer of its obligations to another day. The 
 
 xi. t vv. 2123. . i Matt. xii. 8 Mark ii. 28.
 
 192 MIRACLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 miracles recorded to prove this truth are, the cure of 
 a withered hand in the very synagogue, 1 that of a 
 woman bowed down, 8 and of a dropsical man.* It 
 may be worthy of remark, that these three miracles 
 (the two last exclusively) are related by St. Luke, 
 whose Gospel we saw, in our former paper, seemed 
 clearly directed to the forming of the Church, already 
 established beyond the want of mere evidence against 
 the Jews (the scope of St. Matthew), in practical 
 virtue and religion. The rules of Christian Sabbath 
 observance, as well as the Church's right to appoint 
 the Christian Sabbath, are thus laid down by him. 
 
 But to return to St. John's Gospel, from which we 
 have somewhat digressed, it may be worthy of notice, 
 that besides the miracles which we have mentioned, 
 the histories of Lazarus, the blind man, and the 
 helpless patient of Bethesda, there are only two others 
 recorded by him, before the resurrection, which, while 
 they signally proclaim the divine power of Jesus, are 
 most important for establishing the view which we are 
 taking of His miracles. 
 
 While St. John made his selection of signs from the 
 boundless riches of our Saviour's works, the other 
 Evangelists did the same. They all concur in assuring 
 us that He healed every sort of disease ; u and yet it is 
 evident, that they ever dwell upon some in particular, 
 and such does our Lord Himself ever select. And 
 these we shall find, both in their own nature, and in 
 the circumstances accompanying them, the liveliest 
 image possible of the sacramental institutions in the 
 Church. "We will rapidly glance at each : 
 
 I. Baptism. The most striking effect of conversion 
 in the early Church, would be the admission to a new 
 
 r Mark iii. 2 ; Luke vi. 6. s Imke xiii. 11. * Luke xiv. 4. 
 Matt. iv. 23 ; xv. 30 ; Mark i. 32 ; Luke vii. 21.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 193 
 
 and wonderful knowledge of religious truth. The 
 cleansing from original sin would be known as the 
 direct grace of the Sacrament ; but the obvious effect, 
 and the fruit of the grace, would be the initiation into 
 the beauties of the Christian mysteries, and the parti- 
 cipation thence resulting in the vast range of sublime 
 religious thought. What a flash of intellectual illumi- 
 
 O O 
 
 nation would dart upon the soul of a right-minded 
 heathen, who had been groping in the gloom of 
 complete ignorance, or in the twilight of a striving 
 philosophy, when, for the first time, the Christian 
 doctrine of man's origin, destiny, fall, and reparation, 
 was unfolded to him ! What a steady, calm, and 
 cheering brightness would seem to overspread the 
 moral firmament, when the principles of love of God 
 and man, and the splendid system of Christian virtues, 
 were completely communicated to him ! If to men 
 of study, of thought, and of superior mind, such as 
 Brownson or Stolberg, the passage from a false Christi- 
 anity to the true has appeared as the transition from, 
 light, tftdarkness ; if their previous wisdom has seemed 
 to them as mere childish perception compared with 
 the clearness and brilliancy of the spiritual light which 
 has shone on them, and played from its vivid centre 
 on all other objects of knowledge, and kindled them 
 up in its own warm ray; what must the beam have 
 been that flashed on a Dionysius, from the lips of St. 
 Paul, when his noble doctrines threw into the shade 
 all the wisdom of the Athenian council ? Surely to 
 say, that "their eyes had been opened; that they 
 had passed from darkness to light ; that now indeed 
 they saw;"- would be the most natural expressions 
 they could use to describe the intellectual change 
 which they experienced in themselves. What would a 
 moral pagan thinker, who was drawn towards Christi- 
 i o
 
 194 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 anity, most naturally ask, but Domine ut videam ? 
 " Lord, that I may see ?" x Hence, any one conversant 
 with the New Testament will at once remember, that 
 " darkness" in it signifies the state of men before 
 Christ's coming; and "light" the condition of those 
 who followed Him. 
 
 But the spiritual condition of man was not merely 
 one of darkness and blindness : it resembled rather a 
 state of total helplessness. Even when his feeble ray 
 of moral light showed him the right way, he had no 
 strength to follow it. 
 
 " Video meliora proboque, 
 Deteriora sequor," 
 
 was a true picture of man's mind, in regard to moral 
 good. There was no vigour nor energy in the will ; 
 there was no stimulant to the choice of good ; and 
 worse than all, there was no consciousness nor hope 
 of any infusion of a superhuman grace. But when 
 the Christian found himself suddenly, not only able 
 to fulfil the law of nature, but to " run in the way" of 
 most arduous commandments; nay, when he felt 
 himself ready and eager for suffering and death for 
 Christ, and saw his tender daughter joyfully weaving 
 for her own head the lily and the rose, into a double 
 crown of virginity and martyrdom ; to what would 
 he liken himself better, than to one who had lain 
 grovelling till then in impotent lameness, a cripple 
 in every limb, till set free; and new strength and 
 buoyancy had been marvellously bestowed upon his 
 spiritual frame ? 
 
 Every other sense, even the most inferior, has its 
 parallel in the spiritual life. The soul hears in Christi- 
 anity by that docility of learning, and that readiness 
 
 * Luke xviii. 35 ; Matt. xx. 33 ; Mark x. 51.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 195 
 
 of obedience, which belong exclusively to the believer. 
 " The Lord hath opened my ear, and I do not 
 resist," 7 exclaims Isaias in the person of Christ. 
 And frequently those who refuse to hear the word 
 of God, through him, are styled by him deaf, z as 
 they are by the other prophets. a In the New Testa- 
 ment a similar use occur s. b To open the mouth or 
 the lips, expresses similarly the power worthily to 
 praise God, and to speak His truths. Again, there- 
 fore, we may easily imagine how a Christian, once 
 fully imbued with the truths of his religion, one to 
 whom the wonderful mystery of the blessed Trinity 
 had been taught, with its no less sublime sequel, the 
 Incarnation, able now to address God as He is, d and 
 to speak worthily of His nature, would feel as though 
 the enjoyment of a new sense had been given him, 
 and his tongue had been loosened, like Zachary's, 6 to 
 proclaim the mercies of God. 
 
 There are some other circumstances worthy of con- 
 sideration in this matter. 
 
 1st. The afflictions which we have enumerated are 
 almost always congenital, or date from birth. The 
 blind, the deaf and dumb, and the crippled, are almost 
 always born so; the cases that arise from accident 
 are the exceptions. And in the New Testament this 
 circumstance is particularly recorded. St. John ex- 
 pressly tells us, that the blind man cured by Jesus, 
 
 y Is. 1. 5. vi. 10 ; xliii. 8 ; xlviii. 8 ; Ixiv. 4. 
 
 a Jer. v. 21 ; vi. 10 ; xi. 8 ; xxxiv. 14 ; Ezec. xii, 12 ; xl. 4 ; Mic. 
 vii. 6 ; Zac. vii. 11. 
 
 b Mark viii. 18 ; Acts xxviii. 26 ; Eom. xii. 8. 
 
 c Ps. 1. 17 ; Prov. viii. 6 ; Is. vi. 8 ; 1. 4 ; Jer. i. 9 ; Ezec. iii. 27. 
 
 A " In confessione verse fidei, aeternae Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, 
 et in potentia majestatis adorare unitatem." Collect for Trinity- 
 Sunday. 
 
 e Luke i. G-l. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 had been so from, birth ;' and two cripples, cured by 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, are especially described as such 
 from their mothers' wombs. g The state, therefore, 
 was one of privation rather than of loss ; it came 
 with birth, and was a natural condition, This class 
 of visitation represents, in consequence, the state of 
 man not brought to Grace, better than those sick- 
 nesses or infirmities which have afterwards grown 
 upon him, or have resulted from personal misfortunes. 
 When the disciples asked our Lord, if the blind man 
 had been so afflicted for his parents' sins, h they gave 
 us no bad clue to the discovery of the cause of man's 
 spiritual blindness. 
 
 2nd, In those whom our Saviour cured, by re- 
 storing to them lost senses or power of limbs, 
 poverty seems generally to have been an additional 
 affliction. That he was equally willing to heal the 
 rich as the poor, we cannot doubt, But the Evange- 
 lists have recorded for us comparatively few instances 
 of His going into the houses of the wealthy for such 
 a purpose. It was the multitude that flocked around 
 him in the streets, the beggars on the roadside, and 
 at the gates of towns, 1 who chiefly applied to him for 
 relief. He went to sup with Simon the leper, k but 
 we do not read that He healed him. Perhaps the 
 proud Pharisee, who despised Magdalen, was above 
 asking for it, or recognising our Lord's miraculous 
 power. This further enhances the parallel between 
 man in his fallen state, and the healed by Christ. 
 He was spiritually poor, as well as blind, lame, deaf, 
 and dumb. 
 
 3rd. These particular ailments are especially con- 
 nected, as consequences, with demoniacal possession, 
 
 f John ix. 1. 8 Acts iii. 12 ; xiv. 7. h John. ix. 2. 
 
 * Matt. xx. 30 ; Mark x. 52 ; Luke xviii. 43. k Mark xiv. 3.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 197 
 
 We have three remarkable cases recorded of this. The 
 first is related by St. Matthew and St. Luke, of a 
 dumb demoniac. 1 The second is of one possessed, 
 who was deaf and dumb, mentioned by St. Mark and 
 St. Luke. m The third unites with possession, the 
 triple loss of sense ; the energumen being blind and 
 deaf, consequently dumb, as described by St. Matthew 
 alone. n Now, here again is a most striking similitude 
 
 y o o 
 
 between the spiritual condition of man and the 
 physical state of those whom Jesus Christ mostly 
 cured on earth, so far at least as it has been thought, 
 for our instruction, right to record. Man's soul was 
 blind, deaf, and dumb, through the fearful possession 
 of the evil one, who had usurped God's dominion 
 over the mind and heart of man. He was in the bon- 
 dage of the devil, as well as in darkness and gloom. 
 Hence the two are joined in enumerating the objects 
 of Christ's mission. " To preach deliverance to the 
 captives, and sight to the blind," had been foretold by 
 Isaias, and is quoted by St. Luke, as descriptive of 
 His glorious work. And speaking of this satanic 
 mastery over man's body, we may as well remark, 
 how fearfully, yet how strikingly, it was meant to 
 represent a similar tyranny over his soul, in one 
 other gospel description of it. It was a legion of 
 devils that had invaded him, their influence had 
 brutalized him to the level of the most unclean of 
 animals, and then pushed him headlong into a gulf in 
 which he must perish. p 
 
 We have not thought it necessary to strengthen 
 what we have written by reference to authorities. 
 
 1 Matt. ii. 33 ; Luke xi. 14. 
 
 Mark is. 16, 24 (" Deaf and dumb spirit ") ; Luke ix. 38. 
 n Matt. xii. 22. Is. bti. 1 ; Luke iv. 19. 
 
 P Matt, xviii. 24.
 
 198 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 There is not a point which we could not corroborate 
 from the holy Fathers, who again and again repre- 
 sent the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the demoniacs 
 as representing man in his fallen state. We will, 
 therefore, proceed at once to the application of what 
 we have said. 
 
 The rite by which, in ancient as in modern times, 
 the Church acts upon that state of man, touches him 
 with the healing power of Christ, frees him from 
 Satan's gripe, changes his condition, opens his eyes, 
 his ears, his mouth, and makes him rightly see, hear, 
 and speak, and gives him strength to walk in God's 
 commandments, is Jjply Baptism. So natural was 
 this idea, that her whole ritual of baptism is based 
 upon it. 
 
 First; the exorcisms which occupy its first part, 
 show that the unbaptized are placed by her in the 
 class, spiritually, of those under the grasp and con- 
 trol of the evil one. He is rebuked, cursed, and 
 disdainfully adjured, and violently thrust out ; and 
 this is done with an energy and rudeness of language, 
 exactly suited to the object, and like to what our 
 Saviour used with His demoniacs. Dr. Pusey, in his 
 well-remembered Tract on Baptism, has proved that 
 every liturgy but the Anglican contains these exor- 
 cisms, and consequently this idea. 
 
 Secondly ; the senses are treated as requiring resto- 
 ration, and the very rites are copied which our Lord 
 condescended to employ for the purpose of restoring 
 them. "When " they brought to Him one deaf and 
 dumb, and besought Him that He would lay His 
 hand upon him :" he would *hot consent to exercise 
 His power, by that ordinary mode ; but " taking him 
 from the multitude apart, He put His fingers into 
 his ears, and spitting, He touched his tongue ; and
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 199 
 
 looking up to heaven, He groaned and said to him : 
 Ephpheta, which is, Be thou opened." 4 Now this 
 ceremony, the Church has, from the beginning, 
 adopted into her ritual for baptism : where the priest, 
 touching the ears of the catechumen, pronounces the 
 same word, touching similarly with spittle, as in 
 imitation of the divine action, the nostrils. And then 
 into the mouth is put the salt, " the sacramentum 
 salis," still further symbolizing the opening of the 
 mouth, to speak heavenly wisdom, of which salt is 
 the emblem. 
 
 Thirdly, in the rite for the baptism of an adult, 
 there is a striking ceremony, which expresses strongly 
 the Church's thought on this resemblance, The 
 officiating bishop or priest signs with the cross the 
 various senses, with appropriate words. " I sign thy 
 forehead J< that thou mayest receive the Cross of 
 Christ. I sign thine ears *%4 that thou mayest hear 
 the divine precepts. I sign thine eyes >J< that thou 
 mayest see the brightness of God. I sign thy nostrils 
 >J< that thou mayest feel the sweet odour of Christ. 
 I sign thy mouth $< that thou mayest speak the 
 words of life. I sign thy breast, J< that thou mayest 
 believe in God. I sign thy shoulders >J< that thou 
 mayest receive the yoke of His service. I sign thee 
 all J< [not touching] in the name of the Father, 
 >J< and of the Son, J< and of the Holy Ghost, >J< that 
 thou mayest have life everlasting, and mayest live for 
 ever and ever. Amen." Again, when the bishop in 
 the porch of the church, truly to the Catholic, " the 
 beautiful gate" of God's house, stretches out his hand 
 to the catechumen there kneeling, and raises him up, 
 and saying to him, " Enter into the Church of God," 
 leads him, holding by his stole, for the first time 
 
 i Mark vii. 33.
 
 200 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 into the temple, how much the resemblance must 
 strike us with what was done by Peter, the first 
 bishop after Christ, when, in the name of Jesus, he 
 bid the lame man, at the temple gate, to rise ; " and 
 taking him by the right hand, lifted him up ;" and 
 the man " walked, and went with them into the 
 temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God;" 
 and he on his part, "held Peter and John," 1 no 
 doubt, by their garments, as affectionately clinging 
 to them. 
 
 Fourthly ; but the great blessing of baptism or 
 bringing to the faith, was that which St. Peter so beau- 
 tifully expresses when addressing his new Christians, 
 in the words adopted from him by St. Augustine, 
 in speaking to the newly baptized, calling them, " a 
 chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, 
 a purchased people ; that you may declare," he adds, 
 " His virtues, who hath called you out of darkness 
 into His marvellous light." 3 "While the miracles that 
 regard other bodily organs and powers may be con- 
 sidered as accessories, this bestowing of the grace of 
 Faith, the foundation of all other virtues, must be con- 
 sidered as the very essence of baptismal regeneration, 
 and is truly the bringing of blind nature to the 
 " marvellous light of God." Hence in the baptismal 
 service of the Church it is frequently alluded to, 
 under this image. In the very opening prayer, with 
 his hand placed on the child's or catechumen's head, 
 the priest thus speaks : " All blindness of heart drive 
 from him, break the bonds of Satan in which he hath 
 been bound." And again, more solemnly, and with 
 the same important action, he prays as follows : 
 " I entreat Thy eternal and most just pity, holy Lord, 
 Father almighty, eternal God, author of light and 
 1 Acts iii. 111. * 1 Pet. ii. 9.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 201 
 
 truth, on behalf of this thy servant N., that Thou 
 wilt vouchsafe to enlighten him with Thine intel- 
 lectual light." And this in the baptism of adults, is 
 preceded by an abjuration of Satan, in these words : 
 " For He commandeth thee, accursed one for ever 
 lost ! who opened the eyes of the man born blind." 
 Finally, in the same service we have the following 
 prayer : "I beseech Thee, holy Lord, Father almighty, 
 eternal God, that to this Thy servant N., who wanders 
 uncertain and doubtful in the night of this world, Thou 
 wilt command the way of Thy truth, and of know- 
 ledge of Thee to be shown ; that the eyes of his heart 
 being opened, he may know Thee, one God, the 
 Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father, with 
 the Holy Ghost," 1 &c. 
 
 These passages will prove sufficiently, how strong 
 the analogy is in the mind of the Church between 
 the giving of sight to the bodily blind, and of faith to 
 the unbaptized. Among the rites familiar to our 
 Saviour as a means of cure, was that of laying His 
 hands upon the patient, a ceremony which may be 
 said to have become especially sacramental. This was 
 employed by him in curing the blind ; and in one in- 
 stance remarkably : " And taking the blind man by 
 the hand, He led him out of the town ; and spitting 
 upon his eyes, laying His hand upon him, He asked 
 him if he saw anything. And looking up, he said : I 
 see men, as it were trees walking. After that, again 
 He laid his hands upon his eyes, and he began to see 
 and was restored, so that he saw all things' clearly."" 
 Now we have seen how just twice, in the adminis- 
 tration of baptism, the priest places his hand upon the 
 
 * We can only refer to the Eoman Eitual or Pontifical, where the 
 two baptismal services are given, for these various extracts. 
 u Mark viii. 2226.
 
 202 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 cliild, with a prayer for the removal of blindness at the 
 first, and for the granting of light at the second time. 
 
 But another instance is more remarkable. When 
 Saul is overtaken by the merciful judgment of God, 
 on the road to Damascus, he is struck blind. Was 
 this merely to humble and subdue his haughty spirit, 
 to tame him, like a blinded eagle, plucked down in his 
 first flight for prey ? Or is there not also in this, a 
 deeper symbolic meaning, to show him how the power 
 of the Church's ministry, while it cured his corporal 
 blindness,, gave his soul also intellectual light ? For 
 Ananias coming in to baptize him, " laying his hands 
 upon him," said : " Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus hath 
 sent me . . . that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be 
 filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there 
 fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his 
 sight ; and rising up he was baptized."* Now here 
 we have the very miracle of blindness cured, con- 
 nected with the baptismal rite : nay, more, to all 
 appearance, blindness inflicted, on purpose to show 
 the close analogy between the two, and to bring the 
 visible miracle in confirmation of the invisible. 
 
 Our Lord Himself, however, has directly given us 
 the most interesting example of this connection. We 
 have before referred to the detailed account preserved 
 by St. John, of the cure of a blind man. In this in- 
 stance our blessed Saviour first made use of the mys- 
 terious ceremony described by St. Mark. For, " He 
 spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and 
 spread the clay upon his eyes." This, one might have 
 supposed, would have sufficed to complete the cure. 
 And so it would have done, had He so willed it. But, 
 undoubtedly to teach a lesson, of which we ought to 
 learn the import, He " said to him : Go wash [bathe] 
 
 x Acts ix. 18.
 
 MIHACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 203 
 
 in the pool of Siloe, which is interpreted, Sent. He 
 went therefore, and washed, and he came seeing." 7 If 
 Jesus desired to symbolize the miraculous action of 
 baptism as we have described it, as giving the divine 
 light of Eaith supernaturally to the soul, He could not 
 have done it more completely than in this, the most 
 minutely recounted of all His cures wrought on the 
 blind. The anointing of the eyes, for so the text 
 describes it, z was only made a preliminary ceremony, 
 like the unction with the oil of catechumens in our 
 baptism ; but the cure was completed by the waters 
 not of the Jordan, the waters of John, but of the 
 bathing-pool of Siloe, the waters of the Messiah. And 
 even this choice is most expressive, when we take into 
 account the Jewish belief concerning it, that it was 
 the most efficacious bath for purification from legal 
 defilement. a Not even Caesar's celebrated report, 
 " Veni, vidi, vici," expressed more emphatically the 
 rapidity of his conquest, than does the blind man's 
 narrative, the instantaneousness of his cure. " That 
 man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed 
 my eyes, and said to me : Go to the pool of Siloe, and 
 wash. And I went, I washed, and I see" No won- 
 der that the ancient Christians should have applied 
 to the baptistery, the very word used in this passage, 
 calling it among other names, the xoXuptjSqdpcx or 
 swimming-bath : doubtless from this very passage. 
 
 y John ix. 6, 7. 
 
 z 'ETrt'xpifff, v. 6. The act here described, like that before quoted 
 from St. Mark viii. 23, will appear in no ways strange to those who 
 are aware how much a similar practice was in use among the Jews, 
 and other nations of antiquity. See Wetstein in loc. 
 
 * " Even if he should wash himself in the waters of Siloam he 
 
 would not obtain complete cleanness." Talm. Hieros. Ibid. Where 
 see also, on v. 6, the Jewish denunciation against anointing the eyes, 
 or rubbing them with saliva on the Sabbath. Compare v. 13.
 
 204 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 All that we have said will receive confirmation 
 from a beautiful passage in Isaias, and will, in return, 
 throw light upon it. It is the following : " God 
 Himself will come, and will save you. Then shall the 
 eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf 
 shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as 
 the hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free. For 
 waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the 
 
 wilderness And a path and a way shall be there, 
 
 and it shall be called the holy way ; the unclean shall 
 not pass over it ; and this shall be unto you a straight 
 
 way, so that fools shall not err therein they 
 
 shall walk there that shall be delivered." 11 It is to 
 spiritual ailments alone that allusion can here be 
 made. 
 
 It may well appear superfluous to add, that only in 
 Catholic baptism is a counterpart discoverable, to the 
 class of miracles which we have united together, as 
 they generally are classified in the Gospels. The 
 exorcisms and other prayers, which we have quoted, 
 have disappeared from the Protestant Liturgy ; all 
 intimation of belief in effects parallel to those miracles 
 of our Lord will be sought there in vain. But not 
 only in the formularies, but in the opinions, of the 
 Anglican system, there is a total absence of the 
 doctrine necessary to establish such a parallelism as 
 we have traced. We are sure that Faith is there 
 neither spoken of, nor considered, as a gift of God, an 
 infused virtue, actually and instantly communicated to 
 the soul in baptism into the soul even of an infant. 
 Faith with Protestants is a profession of a mode of 
 thought; thought being an act of the individual. 
 Hence, in Confirmation, the Anglican system looks to 
 personal profession of what had been professed by 
 b Is. xxxv. 4 9.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 205 
 
 proxy, in baptism. But there is no actual belief 
 (unless it be in the ideal church which lurks in the 
 closets of Oxford theologians) that the child had, from 
 baptism, possessed an inherent, true, and orthodox 
 faith. Hence the first question in the Catholic Ritual, 
 put to the catechumen is, " N., What dost thou ask of 
 the Church of God?" and the answer is, "Faith." 
 That the Anglican theory, even when elevated to the 
 highest stage of High-churchism, has no perception of 
 this most important point of the doctrine of baptism, 
 will appear from this, -that none more than Oxford 
 theorists try to deter ladies and young men from 
 becoming Catholics, by telling them that thereby they 
 will be renouncing " the Church of their baptism." Eor 
 such a phrase can only signify, that in baptism they 
 were incorporated into the English establishment, as 
 a body distinct from the orbis terrarum Church, or 
 the Catholic Church in communion with Rome. Eor 
 if Anglicanism be part of the one universal Church, 
 such an expression is as unmeaning and as absurd, as 
 if one were to say to a man, " Do not become a British 
 subject, lest you cease to be a citizen of London;" or 
 to a soldier, " Do not Join the body of the army, lest, 
 thereby, you renounce your regiment." The phrase, 
 therefore, means, that Anglicanism is so distinct from 
 Catholicity, as that the baptism of the one is not that 
 of the other. Now for this to be, either the baptized 
 child receives no faith, or it receives faith according 
 to the holding of Anglicanism, as distinct from that 
 of the Catholic Church ; and that is clearly no faith at 
 all. The only sense to be attached to such a now 
 " cant phrase " is : " In baptism you made profession 
 of Anglicanism, and it is sinful in you to depart from 
 that profession." And this meaning is rendered more 
 evident by the fact, that they who use it profess Angli-
 
 206 MIllACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 canism, but make no scruple of believing Catholicity. 
 The expression is another Protestant novelty : we are 
 only surprised that it had not been forestalled by the 
 Donatists. It makes the Church more like the corpo- 
 ration of a close borough, than the empire of God over 
 the whole world. 
 
 The Catholic Church, on the other hand, considering 
 baptism as the Janua Ecclesice, " the gate of the 
 Church," considers every one validly (even though 
 unlawfully) baptized, as a member of the true Church, 
 a Catholic, possessing sound faith, as well as other 
 infused virtues, and as continuing so until some con- 
 tradictory act destroys the virtue, and transfers the 
 unhappy victim to the dominion of error, schism, or 
 heresy. Look well to this, ye high-church teachers ; 
 every one of you, if duly baptized, has once, in the 
 estimation of the Catholic, Universal, One Church, 
 been a member of it. Each of you has left it by an 
 act of apostasy ! and your children, whom you have 
 with your own hands baptized, that the sacred rite 
 might not be made void by the profane carelessness of 
 its daily administration around you, these yet innocent 
 prattling little ones are still ours, in communion with 
 the holy Church of God throughout the world. When 
 the day comes that you, more in doubt than is 
 consistent with safety, about your own position, shall 
 pour into their docile ears, the poison of a heresy 
 which you regret, shall make them believe that Jesus 
 Christ has left no one united Church on earth, or that 
 he commanded not communion with Peter, or that the 
 titular of your diocese is a descendant of the apostles, 
 or that Mary should not be invoked, or that baptism 
 made them Anglican, or that there is no real corporeal 
 presence of our Lord in the Eucharist, or that priestly 
 absolution is not of necessity for pardon of sins ; or
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 207 
 
 should the day come (for strange things do now 
 happen), when you will teach exactly the contrary, 
 and tell your children that your Church (as you call 
 it) holds every one of the opposite doctrines, just as 
 Catholics do, and so cheat them verily into an heretical 
 profession of orthodox doctrine ; when that day comes, 
 know ye, that you will he guilty of a parricidal act ; 
 you will pluck from off your children's body that white 
 garment of innocence (for heresy is sin), which in 
 every real baptism is spiritually placed upon the 
 neophyte ; you will snatch the burning lamp of or- 
 thodox faith from their hands ; you will tear off the 
 garland of joyful adoption which true baptism placed 
 upon their heads. You will do worse ; you will 
 reverse the wonders of baptism ; you will undo its 
 miracle. You will blind the eyes that have been once 
 opened, seal up the ears again that have been un- 
 stopped, tie up the tongue that has been loosened, and 
 cripple the limbs that have been made whole. Oh ! 
 think of this, before it becomes too late. You, whose 
 minds are tempest-tossed, uncertain of your faith, who 
 perhaps natter yourselves with the hope that unity 
 may yet be restored, and you may be carried safely by 
 the gulf-stream into the haven of Catholic rest ; you, 
 who will not venture to say that no occurrence may 
 happen that will unmoor you from your present 
 position, and drive you into our Church ; you, above 
 all, who say, that while you believe it to be your duty 
 to remain where God has placed you, you would 
 rejoice had His Providence from the beginning rooted 
 you in the Catholic Church, who " would give any- 
 thing" to have been always Catholic. Spare your own 
 pains, your own stings, your own tortures, to those 
 you love; forego the delusion that you can educate 
 your children Catholics in an Anglican church, or an
 
 208 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Anglican parsonage ; frankly and generously give 
 them up to the only mother that will train them 
 holily ; make them pledges of your love, which you 
 give not to your own system; send your treasures 
 where you profess your heart to he, that the two 
 he together, and you give not the lie to truth. 
 Yes, we holdly repeat it, there are many now in 
 Anglicanism, who cannot, without fearful sin, allow 
 their children to he brought up in it, for they have not 
 the excuse of a false conscience. Their only escape 
 is, to let them continue safe in the Church of their 
 baptism, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. 
 II. Penance. It will not he necessary to delay 
 the reader longer upon the other Sacraments. The 
 application of our Lord's miracles to them will he less 
 complicated. If those afflictions, which disable man for 
 work, which afflict him from his birth, which visit him 
 rather as negations or privations of good than as 
 a positive withdrawal of what has been held, and 
 which were in Christ's time united often with demo- 
 niacal possession, seem most aptly to apply, as figures, 
 to unregenerated man ; those ailments and diseases 
 which befall him in his course of life, and often end in 
 death, may be taken to symbolize those spiritual 
 distempers which he brings upon his soul by sin. 
 Indeed, so accurately could the resemblance be traced, 
 that particular complaints might be easily compared 
 to particular sins or vices. Even the heathen poet 
 could read the parallel between the avaricious mind 
 and him who 
 
 " Crescit indulgens sibi dims hy drops." 
 
 Anger is a fever of the mind, anxious care its gnawing 
 canker, jealousy its jaundice, pride its plethory, sloth 
 its atrophy.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 209 
 
 But we will confine ourselves to three of the lashes 
 of that scourge which fell upon man when first he 
 sinned. 
 
 1. The first of these is palsy. It is not unfrequently 
 the consequence of excess, and it reduces the man to 
 a helpless condition : it deprives him often of utter- 
 ance, it incapacitates him for work. It makes him, as 
 far as possible, what we have before described, as 
 symbolizing the state of fallen man. "What more exact 
 image of what man does to his own soul by sin ? He 
 makes it a palsy-stricken, prostrate, trembling, helpless, 
 useless, wretched thing. The cure recorded by the 
 three first Evangelists, of a paralytic man, is especially 
 interesting for this, that it is evidently recorded to 
 establish the Catholic doctrine on forgiveness of sins. 
 The patient is brought before our Saviour, by being 
 let down through the roof; and instead of being at 
 once healed, he is addressed in these words : " Man, 
 thy sins are forgiven thee." Now, this mode of acting 
 no doubt proceeded from the charity and goodness of 
 Jesus, who, like a skilful physician, would not deal 
 with a lesser malady while there was a greater in 
 possession. But the words were, most assuredly, 
 designedly spoken. They were intended to provoke a 
 grave objection, and to afford an occasion to answer 
 it : and that answer was to be of solemn and dear 
 importance to us. They indicate, moreover, how the 
 sight of the man's corporal affliction brought to our 
 Lord's mind his spiritual and unseen state. Eor else, 
 wherefore did He not address the same words to any 
 of the bystanders, who may have needed, as no doubt 
 most did, this timely pardon ? But this poor wretch's 
 prostrate frame and quivering limbs were to Him but 
 the lively image of a soul overthrown and disabled by 
 c Matt. k. 6 ; Mark ii. 10 ; Luke v. 24. 
 
 > P
 
 210 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 sin. Some Protestant commentators have considered 
 this expression equivalent to a declaration of cure; 
 but it is clear that the effect of restoration to bodily 
 health did not ensue. We must, therefore, conclude, 
 that true remission of sins was here granted ; and the 
 more, because the very same words are used, as were 
 on occasion of Magdalene's forgiveness. 4 The Jews 
 inwardly think, that our Lord blasphemes, by arro- 
 gating a power which belongs exclusively to God. 
 " Who is this that speaketh blasphemies ? Who can 
 forgive sins but God alone?" Had he merely cured 
 the poor man, they would not have raised the objection. 
 They had seen him cure plenty of such : but, evidently, 
 they considered the power of healing spiritual maladies 
 so much higher and greater, that they could not allow 
 the one necessarily to involve the other. He, there- 
 fore, meets their thoughts ; and answers : " Which is 
 easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee ; or to say, 
 Arise and walk ? But that you may know that the Son 
 of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (He saith 
 to the sick of the palsy,) I say to thee Arise, take up thy 
 bed, and go into thy house." 6 Our Lord Himself may 
 be said here to draw the resemblance ; first, between the 
 two ailments, the body's and the soul's ; and secondly, 
 between the cure of the one and that of the other, 
 between the healing of a grievous malady, and the 
 forgiveness of sin. He, moreover, establishes the 
 adequacy of the resemblance, comparing them as acts 
 of power, and showing how one was of the same 
 nature as the other each a miracle. If, then, to the 
 apostles He gave this very power "heal the sick;" f 
 and if afterwards, as though almost alluding to this 
 very passage, and using the same words, He repeats 
 the assertion of His own power on earth, and com- 
 d Luke vii. 48. e Ib. v. 23, 24. f Matt. x. 8.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 211 
 
 municates it to them, to the extent of exercising, 
 that which He cured the palsied man to claim the 
 forgiving of sins, g we may surely conclude that 
 this prerogative was received by them in a sense, 
 which perfectly made it correspond to the miraculous 
 gifts conferred on them. And who doubts that of the 
 two, the spiritual healing was a much greater boon 
 from Christ our Lord than the visible and corporal ? 
 Who doubts that, " thy sins are forgiven thee," though 
 to men as easy to say, was a far greater mercy, than, 
 " arise, take up thy bed ?" Had the latter alone been 
 spoken, it might have been the prolongation only of a 
 life of sin, and an accumulation of condemnation, that 
 would have ensued. Had the former only, they would 
 have secured to the sick man, at least, an everlasting 
 life. And as the boon, so was the power from which 
 it flowed. 
 
 Here then, we have the parallel exactly established 
 between a visible act of supernatural power, and an 
 invisible exercise of an equal, or greater, power. 
 When the Apostles raised a paralytic, all the multi- 
 tude would applaud, as they no doubt did when 
 St. Peter, almost in the same words as his divine 
 Master, said to Eneas, " who was ill of the palsy," 
 " Arise, and make thy bed ; and immediately he 
 arose. " h But they did much more, and no one saw it, 
 
 6 Compare "the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins" 
 with " all power is given to me in heaven and on earth " (Matt, xxviii. 
 18), and, " as the Father sent me [on earth], so do I send you. 
 Whose sins you shall forgive, they me forgiven them " (John xx. 21, 
 23). The words in italic are the same, in the different passages, in 
 the original. 
 
 h Acts ix. 38. While this miracle presents a resemblance to the 
 healing of the palsied man in the Gospel, the account which imme- 
 diately follows it (the raising of Tabitha), has no less resemblance to 
 the raising of the daughter of Jairus. (Matt. ix. 23.) 
 
 p2
 
 212 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 when, in virtue of their higher commission, they for- 
 gave a man his sins. This parallel leads us to the 
 following conclusion. 1st. The commission to for- 
 give sins was, in regard to the soul, what the charge 
 to heal the sick, here fulfilled hy St. Peter, was with 
 respect to the body. 2ndly. It was to he exercised hy 
 a specific act, as was the raising of the paralytic. 
 3rdly. It was to be not declaratory but efficacious. 
 4thly. It was to be followed by instantaneous effect. 
 The sinner was to be as truly forgiven, on the words 
 being pronounced, as the sick man was well, when he 
 had heard the command to arise. Surely it is only in 
 the Catholic Church that all this has reality ; or even 
 that any one believes that there exists, vested in the 
 successors of the Apostles, a power which permits of 
 such a comparison with the cure performed by our 
 blessed Redeemer. 
 
 2. It would be wasting our reader's time to endea- 
 vour to prove that the leprosy was a fitting emblem of 
 sin. This fitness arises from the character of the 
 disease ; it is an uncleanness as well as a malady. It 
 commenced generally by a small spot : if not checked, 
 it increased and spread ; it eat into the live flesh, it 
 separated the limbs at the joints, and it finally caused 
 death. It was, moreover, deemed infectious, and thus 
 further resembled sin. But in addition, it was not 
 left to be treated by the physician ; but it was placed 
 especially under the jurisdiction of the priests. To 
 them the person, conscious of the disease, had to 
 present, and to denounce, himself. They had the 
 minutest rules to guide them, in forming their judg- 
 ment, and pronouncing on the complaint. If they 
 did not declare the patient clean, they put off his case 
 for some days longer, and he again submitted to sacer- 
 dotal judgment. Even if he were now declared free,
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 213 
 
 he had to perform certain acts ; as washing his gar- 
 ments, before he rejoined his people. But when the 
 defilement was certain, and the disease manifest, he 
 was separated from the people ; he wore a peculiar 
 garb ; he lived without the camp or city ; and he cried 
 out to every passer-by, that he was unclean. Then, if 
 at last restored to health, many mysterious rites had 
 to be performed : the principal or final one of which 
 was, that he should " take a lamb and offer it up as a 
 trespass offering," and " immolate the lamb where the 
 victim for sin is wont to be immolated, and the holo- 
 caust; that is, in the holy place." 1 All this was done 
 after the leper had been allowed to return to the com- 
 munion of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 We cannot be surprised that the ancient Church 
 should universally have considered this malady as the 
 most natural type of sin in the individual; as the 
 privations of sense in our former classification were, 
 of the sin of the whole race. Leprosy and sin are 
 almost synonymous in ecclesiastical language, even 
 where the bodily affection itself was unknown. But 
 to see fully the accuracy of the resemblance, we should 
 view it as demonstrated in the discipline of the ancient 
 Church. There the sinner, as now, when conscious of 
 transgression, presented himself to the priest of God. 
 But in those days of fervour, this minister of justice, 
 as of mercy, took into deliberate consideration the 
 offence committed ; and, while he admitted to forgive- 
 ness, and slighter works of purification, the lesser 
 offender, sentenced, the more guilty to public sepa- 
 ration from the faithful, and severe expiation of his 
 crime. His leprosy was revealed to all by his peni- 
 tential garb ; and how strikingly resembling the 
 treatment of the leper must his case have appeared, 
 
 1 Levit. xiii. xiv.
 
 214 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 as lie stood at the gate of the church, telling all that 
 entered in, that he was a sinner, unworthy to join 
 them in communion of sacred offices. Then, when 
 the time came for pardon, the priest once more spoke, 
 and pronounced him clean : And what was his first 
 act ? Surely, as it is now, with every penitent in the 
 Catholic Church, to hasten to the holy place, to assist 
 at the immolation of the Lamb slain for sin, and there 
 partake of the sacred victim. And although that out- 
 ward separation from the faithful, which served to 
 make the parallel so perfect, has now ceased in the 
 discipline of the Church, yet all that is essential has 
 remained ; so that to this day, " to distinguish be- 
 tween leprosy and leprosy," is a familiar expression 
 in writers instructing the priest, how to discern, and 
 deal with, sin. 
 
 It will not be surprising that our Saviour should 
 have dealt with this distemper as distinct from other 
 ailments. The cleansing of lepers is distinguished 
 from other works of power, both in the narrations of 
 the Evangelists, and in His own enumeration of such 
 acts. k In His commission to His apostles, this is 
 mentioned as one of the powers committed to them. 
 But He was pleased to show, how He did not allow 
 even the exercise of His miraculous power to super- 
 sede the provisions of His law. Accordingly we find, 
 that in every instance, distinctly recorded of His 
 healing this complaint, He sends the patients to the 
 priest, to receive from him, ratification as it were, of 
 the cure which He had performed. Whether He first 
 completed it, or left the recovery to appear after, He 
 gave them the same command. 1 Now if leprosy re- 
 presented sin, and the miraculous healing of it showed 
 
 k Matt. x. 8 ; xi. 5 ; Luke vii. 22. 
 
 1 Matt. viii. 4 ; Mark i. 44 ; Luke v. 14 ; xvii. 12.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 215 
 
 forth the pardon of sin in the Church, this peculiar 
 attention to the law which over Him had no force, 
 most aptly serves to complete the resemblance ; by 
 showing how, if even in the figure He would have the 
 interposition of the priestly ministry, so much more 
 does He require it, in the fulfilment, which He has 
 made one of the very highest duties and prerogatives 
 of the sacerdotal office. 
 
 In describing the treatment of sin in the Church, 
 compared with the treatment of leprosy in the old 
 law, we have shown how exactly the type finds its 
 accomplishment in the former. And we see how the 
 inward cleansing from sin, by the word of the priest, 
 corresponds exactly with the action of Christ, when, 
 in commanding phrase, he simply says : "I will : be 
 made clean." But if it is exclusively a Catholic prac- 
 tice and doctrine thus to make forgiveness of sin 
 dependent on the exercise of an act of ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction; if it be solely with us that the leper 
 must come before him who has to heal him, and 
 declare himself unclean, as such did with our Lord ; 
 how boldly Catholic is that further analogy with what 
 He practised, which consists in compelling even those 
 whom God Himself has pardoned, to show themselves 
 to His priests, make known even forgiven transgres- 
 sion, and hear his sentence, though in this case antici- 
 pated, rather than ratified, in heaven. For while no 
 one, even in the Anglican system, dares to make 
 confession compulsory, in even extreme cases, but 
 some admit it as one mode of obtaining pardon, the 
 Catholic Church admits of no exception. Let the 
 sinner, pierced, not by lightning of God's judgment, 
 but by the very arrows of His love; plunged, not 
 into an abyss of despair, but into an ocean of sweetest 
 confidence, burst his very heart in penitent sorrow J
 
 216 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 let it be full and deep as that of David, when Nathan 
 pronounced his forgiveness:" 1 tender and gushing as 
 that of Magdalene, when Jesus spoke her pardon : let 
 it be that perfect contrition which bespeaks instant 
 remission ; yet he hears a voice, as he rises from the 
 outpouring of his grief, which tells him : " Go, show 
 thyself to the priest." He knows it has been a con- 
 dition of his forgiveness (if he can presume to hope 
 it has been already granted), that he should submit 
 to the keys of the Church, manifest his past frailty, 
 and receive the only assurance of reconciliation and 
 restored grace, in this life the absolution of Christ's 
 minister. In fact, so perfectly does the Church 
 Catholic act up to this example of her Lord, and 
 believe in the lesson which He gave for curing the 
 leprosy, that she admits no contrition to be perfect, 
 which does not contain confession in voto, in desire 
 and intention. Most faithfully, then, does she copy 
 His practice, in exercising the marvellous power con- 
 fided to her, of healing the leprosy of the soul. 
 
 3. It would seem to us even more superfluous than 
 in our last illustration of sacramental penance, to 
 trace the resemblance between its exercise, and the 
 raising by our Lord of the dead to life. A few brief 
 remarks will suffice to sketch it, as peculiarly belong- 
 ing to us. 
 
 One of the offices of the Holy Spirit in the Church, 
 is to " convince the world of sin," n that is, among 
 other effects, to give a right understanding of its 
 nature. In the Old Law it was merely considered as 
 a transgression, a violation of a precept, for which 
 anger and punishment were to be expected from God. 
 The inward havoc of sin in the soul is not to be found 
 described or alluded to, even in the fervent outpourings 
 
 m 2 Beg. xii. 13. n John xvi. 8, 9.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 217 
 
 of sorrow which David first manifested. The spiritual 
 life, as we have before observed, was but obscurely 
 and imperfectly understood. If we may use so strong 
 an expression, sin, once committed, was external to 
 the sinner, it was a reckoning which he had to make 
 with God. It lay at his door, it would be a lion on 
 his path, p but it was not the inward domestic enemy ; 
 it was not disease, canker, blight, and ruin. "With the 
 doctrine of Grace, which Christianity first revealed, 
 came the knowledge that the soul has a life by that 
 gift, the loss of which involves spiritual death. And 
 Grace is forfeited by deadly sin. This is a language 
 familiar to a Catholic child, taught in every catechism; 
 hence, to the eye of faith, a soul in such guilt is as 
 truly dead as is a corpse to that of the body : and the 
 contemplation of it, moving amidst the occupations 
 and affections of life, presents as hideous a spectacle 
 as would a body with unmoving features, sunless eyes, 
 blanched lips, and icy limbs, gliding silent through 
 the merry dance. There is a reality attached to this 
 thought of spiritual death, in a Catholic mind, which 
 shows itself in many ways. For example, a mother 
 like St. Monica does not express " her regret that her 
 dear son should be so wild, but hopes he will become 
 steadier," as many a modern parent would speak of 
 the vices of a son, and think she had paid a tribute to 
 virtue ; but she weeps bitter tears, and follows him 
 from land to land, and fasts and prays, and pines in 
 grief ; and why ? Her son expresses it to the life : 
 " Me multos annos Sever at, ut oculis suis viverem." q 
 She believed, nay she knew, him to be spiritually dead; 
 and she wept over him as a widow does over her 
 dead only child. Hence, the Church most becomingly 
 
 Gen. iv.^i. y P Ecclus. xxvii. 11, 31 ; xxviii. 27. 
 
 i Confess, lib. ix. c. 12.
 
 218 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 appropriates to her festival (May 4th), the history of 
 Christ's raising the son of the widow of Nairn/ as 
 beautifully symbolical of the conversion of her son; 
 and further reads his own commentary upon it, in the 
 office, applying the narrative to the restoration of the 
 soul to life. And what else is the secret of penitent 
 grief, such as St. John Climacus describes among the 
 solitaries of Egypt, such as every Charter-house, or 
 Cistercian abbey could exhibit, and yet does ; where 
 men, who have every reason to hope that pardon has 
 been vouchsafed them, will continue, for long years, 
 to mourn and do penance ; but that deep earnest con- 
 viction of sin and its detestable enormity, which makes 
 them loathe its defilement, abhor its impiety, and dread 
 its deadly stroke ? which from very love of God, makes 
 the estrangement from Him which it causes, the deadly 
 cold obstruction which it opposes to his life-giving 
 graces, a state as fearful as that of bodily dissolution 
 and corruption ? 
 
 This sentiment is not to be found in Protestantism ; 
 it is contrary to its very first principles. First ; such 
 effects as we have described, are not witnessed nor 
 approved there. To weep, to mourn, to afflict the 
 body, to fast, are works, and are familiarly considered 
 opposed to justification by faith. Hence there is no 
 provision for them; no religious solitudes, no peni- 
 tential communities, are to be found where Protest- 
 antism prevails. As things to be plundered, stripped 
 and beaten down, it knows of them ; but not as 
 things to be admired and upheld. Hence, secondly, 
 it is astonishing how easily a load of sins is supposed, 
 in the Protestant, and consequently in the Anglican, 
 system, to be got rid of. Suppose a man, a noble one 
 for example, to have been notorious, through years, for 
 
 r L\ike vii. 11.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 219 
 
 open and scandalous vice, addicted to shameless 
 immoralities before the world : well, if growing gray, 
 he begins to go about the neighbourhood in his 
 phaeton, leaving Bibles at every cottage, and giving 
 tracts to every village dame, and fits up the family 
 pew, and becomes president of the county auxiliary 
 Bible Society, and presides at May meetings in the 
 season, the scarlet of his youthful sins becomes at 
 once white as his locks of snow; and no one, any 
 more than himself, thinks of sorrow and tears, as 
 having been necessary to make him a saint. But, 
 thirdly, we find a marked abhorrence in Protestant 
 writers, of the distinction between mortal and venial 
 sin. They reject the very idea of there being such a 
 thing : they hold the Stoic maxim that " all sins are 
 equal." 8 What is the necessary consequence? That 
 there is no apprehension of any deadly character in 
 any sin. For who can bring himself to imagine, 
 that a passing thought of anger, or a hurried word of 
 impatience, or a trifling act of unkindness, kills the 
 soul and robs it of grace ? Then, how can the more 
 grievous act of deliberate crime do so, seeing that it 
 is no greater sin ? There is only one escape, that such 
 failings as we have mentioned are not sins at all ; and 
 hence comes a dulness of conscience, and a heaviness 
 of perception, respecting sin, which soon extends to 
 more heinous transgressions. For the greatest security 
 against mortal, is the dread of venial offences. 
 
 The view, then, of sin, which makes death its most 
 perfect symbol, even in this life, is distinctly Catholic. 
 And thus the raising of the dead is most eminently 
 representative, with us, of the ministerial power to 
 forgive the sinner. Hence, in the three instances of 
 resurrection recorded in the Gospel, there is scarcely a 
 
 8 Cicero, Paradoxa.
 
 220 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 circumstance related which does not strike the Catho- 
 lic's mind, as containing an analogy with what he 
 sees in the sacrament of penance. And they whose 
 ministry is employed in it, will, more than others, 
 feel the resemblances. We will rapidly enumerate 
 them. 
 
 1. There are three dead raised, each of whom repre- 
 sents a different class of sinners. The first is just 
 dead the beginning of sin : the second is being 
 carried to the grave the commencing of habitual 
 transgression : the third is buried and lying in cor- 
 ruption the obstinate and forgetful sinner. With 
 each of these the priest has to deal ; and he finds in 
 each a practical lesson. 
 
 2. The first is indeed a corpse, but the minstrel and 
 the multitude are still around it the world and its 
 vanities ministering to the dead spirit ! When he that 
 would raise it to life approaches it, and speaks of his 
 wish, they laugh him to scorn. They must be put 
 away; silence and quiet are necessary to raise the 
 soul. Peter is there with his keys, James with his 
 earnest zeal, and John with his gentle charity. A 
 kindly hand is stretched out, and in the power of that 
 hand, the dead one rises. And what shall be done 
 next with her, that is, with the soul ? He who has 
 raised her, "bids them give her to eat.' n As there 
 was a banquet when the prodigal returned, as there 
 was feasting and rejoicing when the stray sheep was 
 brought back, so surely must there be a rich and 
 dainty repast, to refresh the dear daughter of the 
 house, restored to life. Did the mother spare, that 
 day, her sweetest confections ? Did the ruler of the 
 synagogue stint of his richest cellarage, to warm his 
 child's frame, or to make his congratulating guests 
 
 4 Matt. ix. 23 ; Luke viii. 55. Compare the two accounts.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 221 
 
 rejoice ? And shall the Church, to whose motherly 
 care the revived soul is committed, be less parent-like 
 than they ? Will not she have her banquet too, ready? 
 and for the hour, is not she the dearest to her, who 
 has been the most cruelly severed from her, of her 
 children ? and is not the feast for her especially ? 
 Surely so, as it was for the prodigal. And how 
 strange, but how beautiful, that, as if intending to 
 show us the identity of the two lessons, in the parable 
 and [the miracle, our Lord should have made the 
 prodigal's father say : " Let us eat and make merry ; 
 because this my son was dead, and is come to life 
 again; was lost, and is found. ' Su The dead raised, and 
 the prodigal returned, are one and the same : and both 
 must be refreshed and feasted. This is, indeed, what 
 the Catholic Church alone understands. 
 
 3. The second has left home, the house of the 
 weeping mother : strong ones are bearing him to the 
 grave. A stronger hand must arrest them in this 
 cruel errand. At its touch, they that carry must 
 needs stand still : a more powerful command is uttered, 
 and the dead youth rises from his bier. What shall 
 be done with him ? What the Samaritan did with the 
 poor wounded man, after he had dressed his wounds. 
 He gave him in charge to the innkeeper, to provide 
 for all his wants. And here there is one by, the one 
 by whose tears Jesus was moved to exert His power, 
 far better than the innkeeper for she is his mother. 
 " And He gave him to his mother." x There is some- 
 thing inexpressibly sweet in this expression. Was he 
 not hers before ? Had death broken the filial tie, and 
 did it need to be renewed ? No, but a new and ten- 
 derer relation was established : by birth she had rights 
 over him ; but the second life which Jesus bestowed 
 Luke xv. 24. * Ib. vii. 15.
 
 222 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 was His: and His rights He resigned to her. He 
 was to be doubly her child, because he was a second 
 time given to her by Him : and he had, from hence- 
 forward, to pay to her the gratitude, the obedience, 
 and the filial love, which He might have claimed for 
 Himself. Yes, truly ; He has given repentant sinners 
 to His Church, as the tenderest part of her charge. 
 And to the ear of loving children there is an under- 
 sound in this phrase, mystically soothing and con- 
 soling. "And He gave him to his mother," sounds 
 so like a prelude to the sweetest words ever uttered 
 on Calvary ? Eor how else could He give a son to 
 his mother, but by saying : " "Woman, behold thy 
 son?"? 
 
 4. Finally, Lazarus has been four days in the grave : 
 " Quatriduanus est, jam fcetet," say his own sisters, 
 who are not likely to exaggerate the foulness of his 
 condition. And here groans and supplications are 
 necessary, and the uplifting of heavy obstructions, and 
 the drawing forth from corruption of the dead thing, 
 that once was a living man, by a strong command; 
 and then comes the loosing him from his bands, as 
 he starts to life. How distinctly allusive to the power 
 to bind and to loose are these words : " And pre- 
 sently he that had been dead came forth, bound feet 
 and hands with winding-bands, and his face was bound 
 about with a napkin. Jesus said to them : Loose him, 
 and let him go." z He did not do so Himself, but 
 He commissioned others. They have to loose for Him 
 those bound in the laquei mortis, " the toils of death." 
 And where do we next meet Lazarus ? Precisely 
 where we might expect. At Bethania "they made 
 Jesus a supper, and Martha served ; but Lazarus was 
 one of them that was at table with Him."* It is 
 y John xk. 26. l Ib. xi. 44. a Ib. xii. 2.
 
 MIEACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 223 
 
 always the same the banquet for the recovered dear 
 one. But here it is quite denned : he who a few days 
 before was dead, was lying reeking in corruption 
 even he is at table with Jesus. O holy, sweet, loving 
 Church of God! How we recognise thee at every 
 step, in the workings of love divine among men ! 
 Unchanged as Himself, thy Spouse and Master, for- 
 getting not one of His examples, dropping not one of 
 His blessed words, how dost thou renew, day by day, 
 the beauty of His character reflected in thee, and the 
 splendour of His institutions, ever fresh in thy right 
 hand ! 
 
 It is an invidious, and we sincerely believe, a hope- 
 less task, to examine the claims of others to similar 
 coincidences. They may say that all these minute 
 comparisons are fanciful and arbitrary. There is an 
 easy test. Show that they can be made in some other 
 system, and we will own it. If not, whence comes it 
 that the Catholic system alone, yea, the corrupt, the 
 superstitious, the silly, the unspiritual system of 
 Popery, should furnish throughout, not a faint re- 
 semblance, but a minute, distinct, and lively counter- 
 part, to what our Saviour did in His greatest works 
 on earth ? 
 
 III. Extreme Unction. It is worthy of note, that 
 St. Mark, who generally is considered to follow closely 
 St. Matthew, should alone have preserved for us three 
 instances of cures by external rites. Two we have 
 already seen, in the restoring to health of a blind, and 
 of a deaf and dumb, man. b The third remains ; and 
 to Catholics is most interesting. It is the following : 
 The apostles " cast out many devils, and anointed 
 with oil many that were sick, and healed them." 
 This calls to mind the well-known text of St. James : 
 b Ib. vii. 34 ; viii. 23. c Mark vi. 13.
 
 224 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 " Is any man sick among you ? Let him bring in the 
 priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, 
 anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord. 
 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man ; and 
 the Lord shall raise him up, and if he be in sins, they 
 shall be forgiven him." 4 The resemblance of this 
 text, of St. Mark's narrative, suggests at once to the 
 Catholic the type of Extreme Unction in these first 
 apostolic miracles. A few remarks will here suffice. 
 
 1. We do not find recorded anywhere, directions 
 from our Saviour to His apostles, to use this means of 
 cure. Yet though three Evangelists (including St. 
 Mark) give us in detail His instructions, and this 
 practice of anointing is not mentioned by any, we 
 cannot hesitate for a moment to believe that it was 
 prescribed by Himself. This will show us how His 
 institution must be assumed in other cases, where we 
 find practised by His disciples what we do not read to 
 have been commanded. When, therefore, St. James 
 enjoins, unhesitatingly, the anointing by the priest, as 
 to be followed by remission of sins ; as we must sup- 
 pose the miraculous cures wrought by the unction, 
 to be proof of divine appointment, so we may well 
 conclude, that the more wonderful effect of forgiveness 
 of sins could not have been attributed to the same act, 
 unless an equally supreme sanction and promise had 
 been attached to it. It was, therefore, a sacramental 
 action ; and as such permanent. 
 
 2. We may consider this an established principle, 
 that what was instituted for men's souls was to 
 remain ; what was instituted for their temporal bene- 
 fits was temporary. We have an example in the 
 appointment of deacons. On the face of the insti- 
 tution, it was to serve a merely casual and secular 
 
 d James v. 14. e Acts vi. 2.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 225 
 
 purpose, " to serve tables," or distribute alms. 6 But 
 it becomes evident from St. Paul's description of the 
 diaconal character/ that they who received it were 
 invested with an ecclesiastical dignity ; and they were 
 ordained by imposition of the apostles' hands. 5 The 
 Anglican establishment has reasoned wisely in this 
 case, that, though the temporal functions of the dea- 
 cons have ceased, it does not follow that the institution 
 itself ended with them, even though they were the 
 immediate cause of the appointment. What was 
 temporal was temporary, and no longer continues ; 
 but the spiritual gifts and duties subsist to the end. 
 In like manner it has reasoned rightly (though it -fcas 
 sadly failed in application of its reasoning), tliat what 
 was purely miraculous in divine commission, was a 
 personal gift to the apostles ; what was of spiritual 
 benefit to the Church, was to descend to their suc- 
 cessors. But it could not see in St. James's text the 
 same distinction, and separate the spiritual benefits of 
 forgiveness of sins, from the raising up of the sick 
 man; and consider the one as enduring, the other 
 as, perhaps, temporary. Yet a clear analogy would 
 have led any one of sense, unblinded by puritanical 
 hatred of forms, so to conclude. 
 
 3. But the Catholic Church has no need of such 
 explanations. She takes the text as it is; as the fulfil- 
 ment of the whole of Christ's promise. The apostles 
 are to do His works, and greater than His visible 
 works ; and in the Catholic doctrine of Extreme Unc- 
 tion, this is believed by us to be done. That bodily 
 health is frequently restored by it, no experienced 
 priest doubts from his own observation, independently 
 of the Church's teaching. This is the work equal to 
 Christ's. That sins are forgiven by the sacrament, no 
 f 1 Tim. iii. 8. *> Acts vi. 6. 
 
 i Q
 
 226 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Catholic is allowed to doubt. This is the work greater 
 than men saw Him do on earth. It was the same 
 when St. James wrote. The miraculous, the visible, 
 the striking effect was allowed to continue the more 
 marked and attractive. But who that judges, " com- 
 paring spiritual things with spiritual," 11 will for a 
 moment imagine, that in St. James's mind, the raising 
 to health could have been considered a primary effect 
 of any institution or rite, which at the same time gave 
 pardon of sin ? Or that this, when certain of effect, 
 and consequently most salutary to man, could ever 
 have been held secondary to the healing of the body ? 
 Those who have seen that beautiful spectacle, the 
 sudden kindling up of St. Peter's in Rome, at Easter 
 night's illumination, will remember how in each lamp 
 was a heap of light inflammable materials, which, 
 touched by the torch, instantly blazed brilliantly 
 forth, but quickly faded. This was not the lamp des- 
 tined to burn through the night, but was only meant 
 to light this up. For when the first flash had sub- 
 sided, the steady light which succeeded it, though far 
 less dazzling, fed upon unfailing nourishment, and, in 
 spite of wind or rain, burnt unflinching to the end. 
 Such was this, such were other institutions. Two 
 lights were kindled at the same moment; but one 
 obscured, or over-shone the other. The first was the 
 brilliant, miraculous gift; that of tongues in Con- 
 firmation, that of healing in Extreme Unction. 
 These gifts were made for a time, and proved the 
 reality of that constant, perpetual grace, which was 
 for the while obscured by them. And when they were 
 withdrawn, they left that other undying flame burn- 
 ing as brightly as at the beginning ; for its invisible, 
 unfailing oil, is the unction of the Anointed. 
 11 1 Cor. ii. 13.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 227 
 
 IV. The Ulessed Eucharist. It would indeed have 
 been strange, if miracles had been wanting to foreshow 
 the miracle of spiritual miracles. But there are such, 
 and most splendid, most perfect, and most beautifully 
 illustrative of the Catholic doctrine. We will dwell 
 upon these, though not at the length which the 
 importance of the subject deserves. 
 
 1. Our blessed Lord Himself has furnished us with 
 a clue to the connection between the first and His own 
 institution. He who did nothing without a design, 
 intended to communicate His doctrine respecting this 
 food of life ; and by way of preliminary, He led the 
 people into the wilderness like Moses, and there 
 miraculously fed them. Eive thousand men, besides 
 women and children, were fully satisfied with five 
 loaves and two fishes. Nor was the feast exhausted. 
 Twelve baskets of fragments of bread remained ; and 
 who doubts that these would have sufficed, as well as 
 the original loaves, to feed as many more ? The 
 people saw the analogy between this feast, and that of 
 manna in the desert ; and through it, our Saviour led 
 them to His heavenly discourse on the B. Eucharist. 
 The three first Evangelists record this miracle, but not 
 the doctrinal teaching which resulted from it. 1 Two 
 of them relate a similar miracle, where four thousand 
 were similarly fed. k The repetition of a miracle of 
 such magnitude, seems intended, as it is calculated, to 
 fix our thoughts upon it. 
 
 First. We must be struck with the motive of the 
 miracle it was compassion : "I have compassion on 
 the multitude." Who but the Catholic familiarly calls 
 the Eucharist the "Sacrament of Love?" It is to 
 others a commemorative rigkt, intended to revive the 
 
 ' Matt. xiv. 15 ; Mark vi. 42 ; Luke ix. 16 ; John vi. 11. 
 k Matt. xv. 32 ; Mark via. 6.
 
 228 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 memory of Christ's passion. But as an outpouring of 
 divine affection, as the communication of God's love 
 to man, it is only by us that it is regarded. We 
 consider it instituted out of compassionate love for 
 man, as medicine, as food, as a dainty, as support, as 
 treasures, to strengthen and cheer him in the desert 
 of this barren life. 
 
 Secondly. This miracle was not an individual one ; 
 not a prerogative or favour. It required no particular 
 state, beyond appetite or desire, to receive it. Food 
 was given to the strong man as to the feeble, to 
 the healthy as to the sickly, to the young as to the 
 old, to the rich as to the poor. One relished it 
 keenly, another barely took it as sustenance; one 
 enjoyed its flavour, another seemed scarcely to taste it. 
 One expressed himself warmly in gratitude, another 
 appeared barely thankful. But there it was for all, 
 for the mere asking ; and when it was over, it was 
 hardly a thing to talk about. One would hardly boast 
 of having partaken of that bread, as one would of 
 having been restored to sight by Jesus ; and men 
 would not have gone to a distance to see a person who 
 had eaten of that miraculous food, as they went to 
 Bethania to see Lazarus, raised from the dead. 1 And 
 this, because the miracle left no visible evidence after 
 it ; because it was for the benefit of so many (which 
 only made it the greater), and because it bore such 
 a homely aspect. Such also is the feeling with regard 
 to the blessed Eucharist. Its wonderful mysterious 
 effects do not strike, nor unhappily excite the gratitude 
 and admiration it deserves. But, like the bread of the 
 desert, it is the food for all "suniit unus, sumunt 
 mille" and it is partaken of by all manner of cha- 
 racters, the fervent and the lukewarm, the strong 
 
 1 John xii. 9.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 229 
 
 in grace and the feeble in desire the rich in virtue, and 
 the poor. 
 
 Thirdly. In this miracle, our Saviour does not act 
 beyond, by His blessing, multiplying the bread. Its 
 distribution He leaves to His apostles. They arrange 
 the throng, they carry round the food, they give to 
 each his share, they satisfy all, they treasure up the 
 fragments ; and lo ! wonder of wonders ; they reserve 
 as much as they began with the self-same food is ready 
 for the next comers ; and they may come in thousands, 
 and it shall suffice. 
 
 Fourthly. The miracle thus meets one of the most 
 popular objections against the Catholic doctrine con- 
 cerning this sacrament, that many partake of the same 
 food at the same time "nee sumptus consumitur." 
 For it is not said that our Lord created new bread, nor 
 dilated what there was, so to speak. From beginning 
 to end of the banquet, they were the same five loaves 
 and two fishes, which were eaten by this hungry 
 crowd, and the fragments left would have made up the 
 same loaves and fishes again. Any other theory alters 
 the character of the miracle. It would not be that 
 our Lord fed 5,000 people with five loaves, but that 
 having but five loaves, he created, say 4,995 more, to 
 give each person one. In that case, there being five 
 loaves at the beginning had nothing to do with the 
 miracle; this consists in the creating of the others. 
 Then, according to the Gospel narrative, more than 
 five thousand persons were actually eating the same 
 food, and each one had enough, and it was not 
 consumed. How was this ? The Catholic answer is 
 plain and simple ; in the same manner as it happens 
 every day in the blessed Eucharist. One miracle is 
 a counterpart to the other. 
 
 2. Another great objection to the Catholic doctrine
 
 230 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 of the Blessed Eucharist, is directed against Transub- 
 stantiation. The change of one substance into another 
 seems opposed to all our notions. And yet we believe 
 modern chemistry is fast approaching to conclusions 
 which will greatly modify that old pretended con- 
 tradiction of science. Such a change is no doubt 
 miraculous ; and against this perpetuation of miracles 
 Protestantism protests. But that is of its essence. 
 Our dear Lord, therefore, was pleased to make the 
 evidencing of such a transubstantiation His very first 
 miracle. m We will make but a few remarks upon it. 
 
 First. It was at a feast that He was first pleased to 
 manifest Himself to the world. It was by a feast that 
 He closed His ministerial career. At that first feast 
 at Cana, He emerged from His first state, His hidden 
 life ; at the second, He passed again into its last stage, 
 its sorrowful and afflicted close. The first was a 
 marriage feast : and what was the last ? Let loving 
 spouses, like St. Catharine, or St. Hose, or St. Juliana 
 answer. What must that feast be, at which, for the 
 first time, is poured forth the "vinum germinans 
 virgines ?" How like are these two feasts ! 
 
 Secondly. At the first feast the wine fails. Of water 
 there is abundance ; but the nobler beverage is wanting. 
 How is the desire of the guests to be satisfied ? By 
 changing the ignoble into the noble, the water into 
 wine. Here is the first stage of change, the first 
 exercise of the transmuting power. What must the 
 next naturally be ? Wine was the richest, most 
 generous, most invigorating of nature's productions. 
 Earth could yield nothing more excellent than the vine 
 and its fruit. The water, which filtering through the 
 earth, is caught by its roots, elaborated into its sap, 
 distilled into its grape, and there sweetened by the 
 
 ni John ii. 0.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 231 
 
 sun, is raised in nature and qualities, in the estimation 
 of men. Our blessed Lord, by one simple action, gave 
 it that higher existence. Then it must now be changed 
 again at the second feast. And for whom ? For us 
 who want not wine, not earthly growth, of any sort. 
 Man was surfeited of that, and called for better refresh- 
 ment. If the first transubstantiation was so great and 
 so worthy of the power that made it, what shall 
 we find, into which the wine itself shall be changed ? 
 There is but one stream, a draught from which would 
 refresh, renew, revive our fainting race ; but who shall 
 dare to ask it ? It was of " the water out of the 
 cistern that is in Bethlehem" (the house of bread), 
 that David longed to drink; but he shuddered to 
 partake, saying : " The Lord be merciful to me, that I 
 may not do this : shall I drink the blood of these 
 men ?" n And it is from the well-spring of Bethlehem 
 that we too thirst to drink ; but we must not shrink 
 from the awful draught the priceless Hood of Him 
 that opens it. No, there is only one change more that 
 can be made ; the wine must become a living flow, 
 from His divine heart. Only thus shall the second 
 feast surpass the first. 
 
 Thirdly. But it will be said : "In the first miracle 
 the change was visible, was tested by the senses ; in 
 the second, as Catholics believe it, this evidence is 
 wanting. Here your parallel fails." Quite the con- 
 trary. Hereby is shown the superiority of the second 
 miracle. That which is worthy of a miracle to be its 
 type, is proved thereby of a higher nature. If in the 
 Eucharist the transubstantiation were sensible, there 
 would have needed none to precede it at Cana. The 
 latter would have been so far useless. But it is a 
 much greater and higher miracle to have a change 
 
 n 2 Reg. xxiii. 17.
 
 232 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 made and yet concealed, than to have a visible and 
 patent mutation. The latter could not be an object of 
 faith ; and objects of sense belong to the inferior 
 order. The change was once made visibly, that God's 
 power should be manifested, whenever He should 
 please to make it invisibly. They who gainsay it in 
 the latter case, say to Him : " Let it be as it was 
 at Cana, and we will believe Thee : but in our 
 theory they only are blessed who believe because 
 they see." 
 
 3. The Eucharist, according to Catholic doctrine, 
 perpetuates the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 on earth. He is in it, God and Man, in the fulness 
 of His perfections. One remarkable quality of His 
 sacred Person, when He lived a visible man, was, that 
 virtue ever went from Him, and healed all. p This 
 unceasing flow of miraculous energy, this atmosphere 
 of life which invested Him, as with a robe of majesty, 
 the Church verifies, and may be said daily to feel. It 
 is indeed hard to make this understood, for it belongs 
 j;o the hidden influences of religion, more to be felt 
 than to be expressed. But devout souls will know 
 our meaning ; they will have experienced the fervour, 
 the peace, the confidence, the love which the mere 
 presence of the B. Sacrament inspires, in prayer and 
 meditation ; the soothing and tranquillizing influence 
 which It has on their troubled, and agitated, or 
 anxious minds. What religious community would 
 stand the privation of this society ? On what would 
 
 Of Matrimony we will content ourselves with saying, that the 
 Catholic rite is singularly and beautifully interwoven with the Mass 
 or Eucharistic sacrifice, only similarly interrupted for the hallowing 
 of the sacramental oils ; as though to copy our Lord's example, of 
 uniting the marriage-feast with the foreshadowing of the sacrament 
 of the altar. 
 
 P Matt. ix. 20; xiv. 36; Mark iii. 10; v. 30; Luke viii. 46.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 233 
 
 the chaste love of the spouses of Jesus live, if they 
 had not Him near them, and if after the Martha-like 
 duties of their charity towards men, they could not 
 often take the place of Mary at His feet, and there, 
 in silent contemplation of His mercy, and gracious- 
 ness, and loveliness, repair the slight distractions of 
 the day, and refill their lamps with that love of God, 
 which burns outwardly as charity for man ? 
 
 That this influence of this adorable mystery is real, 
 and not imaginary, is proved by its effects on those 
 who know nothing of it. We could mention several 
 cases of conversion from it ; we will content ourselves 
 with two, because we received them both from the 
 mouths of those whom they regard. 
 
 The first is that of the late worthy and pious priest, 
 the Eev. Mr. Mason. He had been a Wesleyan 
 preacher for some years, and we heard him declare 
 in a public sermon, to a large congregation, that his 
 conversion was due mainly to this ; that whenever he 
 entered a Catholic church or chapel, he felt himself 
 awed, hushed to silence, and compelled to kneel in 
 adoration, though no worship was going on ; whereas, 
 in his own meeting-house, he never experienced any 
 such feelings. Yet he was totally unconscious of the 
 cause; and when he learnt the Catholic belief and 
 practice, in regard to the B. Eucharist, he was so 
 convinced of the adequacy of the cause of his emo- 
 tions, that he hesitated not to yield to their evidence, 
 and became a Catholic. 
 
 The second is that of the Baroness K , well 
 
 known to many for her abilities, her piety, and her 
 many good works. She was a German Protestant, 
 strongly imbued with prejudices against the Catholic 
 religion. Coming to Rome, she entered the church of 
 the Perpetual Adoration, where the B. Sacrament is
 
 234 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 exposed to worship the whole day. She saw many 
 people, in silent prayer, howed down, or gazing 
 intently towards the altar. Ignorant of the object 
 which engaged their attention, observing only a 
 multitude of lights upon the altar, but as yet without 
 sense of His presence, "who walketh in the midst 
 of the seven golden candlesticks," q she exclaimed: 
 " Good God ! surely these people are not adoring 
 those tapers!" But she found herself, in spite of 
 herself, gently forced upon her knees, and compelled 
 to worship she knew not what. She returned again 
 and again, marvellously attracted, and ever with the 
 same effect. It was a year before she discovered the 
 truth, and became aware "Who was there ; and with 
 gushing tears did she deplore to us, that year, as she 
 called it, of grace resisted, and of time lost. 
 
 To some, perhaps to many, of our readers, these 
 things will sound foolish and fanatical ; but there 
 is a phrase that accounts for this. When Nathaniel 
 would not believe that the Messiah could come 
 from Nazareth, " Philip saith to him, Come and 
 see."* And to this there is a corresponding one 
 in the Old Testament : " Taste and see how sweet is 
 the Lord." 8 We have known a convert whom God 
 soon transferred from her life of suffering, but of joy, 
 here below, to one of unclouded bliss above, whom 
 conversion at once changed from a pleasure-seeking 
 worldling, into a devout and cheerful servant of God ; 
 who when debarred, herself, from approaching to 
 holy communion, would gently draw close to those 
 who came from receiving it, and feel a glow of com- 
 fort and a ray of happiness shed into her own heart 
 the virtue going forth from the sacred humanity 
 
 i Apoc. ii. 1. r John ii. 40. 
 
 8 Ps. xxxiii. 0.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 235 
 
 of Jesus, even though lodged in a frail tabernacle 
 of clay. 
 
 " Expertus potest credere 
 Quid sit Jesum diligere." 
 
 But if this experience of the children of the house- 
 hold he scarely intelligible to those without, what 
 shall we say of another experience, most awful to 
 think of that of fear of this latent virtue ? It will 
 be hardly credited, but we know it on the best 
 authority, that persons wavering in the Anglican 
 establishment, and leaning strongly towards Catho- 
 licity, are forbidden, by what they call their directors, 
 ever to enter into any chapel in which the B. Sacra- 
 ment is kept ! In other words, they fear lest Jesus 
 Christ Himself, in whose presence they profess to 
 believe, should entice them by His sweetness, from a 
 system which has lost Him. They dare not trust one 
 of their flock to His guidance ! 
 
 But, drawing now our remarks to a close, we will 
 observe, that in the Catholic Church all is true, real, 
 and consistent. Not a promise of our Lord's there 
 falls through. If he gave the power of miracles to 
 His Apostles, it was coupled with the greater power 
 of working spiritual wonders ; and while that first 
 faculty is not withdrawn, but reserved for occasions 
 that require it, the other is permanent and of daily 
 use. The Catholic mind becomes as familiar with 
 this, as we all do with the wonders of nature. " My 
 Father worketh until now; and I work,"* says our 
 divine Redeemer. Their work is one, but its opera- 
 tions are divided. What the Father doth in the 
 order of nature, the Son performs in the order of 
 grace. To us, each is equally real, as equally invi- 
 
 1 John v. 17.
 
 236 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 sible. The One speaks to the waters of the deep, and 
 they teem with life, and send forth the birds, and 
 the creeping things of the earth ; the Other breathes 
 upon them, and they give to grace a new progeny, 
 a regenerated humanity. The One commands the 
 winds, and they pass over the earth, rough or gentle 
 at will, but always cleansing, renewing, and recre- 
 ating ; the Other sends His Spirit upon the soul, and 
 He, breathing where and how He willeth, purges, and 
 frees from corruption the spiritual being, and reno- 
 vates its fading life. The One, with kindly look, 
 lights up the heavens with gladness, and feeds the 
 sun's unfailing radiance; the Other casts His fire 
 upon the earth, and straightway it is enkindled : it 
 sparkles through the soul, like a vivid electric dart in 
 the youth, as he kneels to receive the Holy Ghost ; it 
 is strongly but steadily lighted in the sacerdotal 
 breast, for a beacon, set on high, to guide frail barks 
 to a safe haven ; as a furnace, in which every passion 
 has to be consumed and every virtue annealed ; as a 
 cheering domestic glow, round which the child and 
 the old man will gladly gather for warmth. The One 
 diffuses life through all nature ; sends His seasons 
 and their various energies to earth ; distributes its 
 shower and its dew, vivifies the corrupting grain, and 
 makes it shoot forth bread for man, and sends through 
 the plant its nourishing juices, to come out first fair 
 in blossom, and then salubrious in fruit : the Other 
 sows on earth a corn and a wine, that gladden the 
 heart of man ; scatters His harvest and His vintage 
 over his Church, and with their unfailing succulency, 
 feeds, sustains, cheers, and refreshes the unseen world 
 of the spirit, the immortal part and being of man. 
 
 We can see nothing to disbelieve in the one, more 
 than in the other series of marvellous operations,
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 237 
 
 God is in both ; the same power, the same wisdom, 
 and the same love. This is the Catholic's simple 
 thought ; he believes the order of grace to be as real 
 as that of nature ; holds the existence of a spiritual, 
 as much as of a physical, life. He believes that 
 Jesus Christ has promised to be with His Church all 
 days to the end of the world ; u and he cannot under- 
 stand this in any other sense, than in one becoming 
 Him, as promising, not a distant superintendence, 
 nor an occasional assistance, but a close and intimate 
 association, and a daily by-standing, to borrow an 
 expressive word. x Ego operor, " I work," is His 
 invaluable word ; and this accounts for any amount 
 of superhuman agency in the Church. " Peter bap- 
 tizes," says St. Augustine; "it is Christ that bap- 
 tizes. Judas baptizes; it is Christ that baptizes." 
 And so it is in all other sacramental mysteries. 
 The hand .that blesses is Christ's; the hand that 
 consecrates is Christ's; the hand that anoints is 
 Christ's; the hand that absolves is Christ's; the 
 same hand that touched the eyes, and they saw ; that 
 was laid on the sick, and they arose ; that took hold of 
 the dead, and he lived. This realization in fact of our 
 divine Lord's presence in His Church, as an active, 
 daily, and hourly truth, forms the difference between 
 Catholic and Protestant belief on the Church. Thus 
 Protestants can imagine the Church disunited the 
 note of unity in abeyance, as was lately said then 
 Christ is not there. For He cannot be disunited. 
 His presence must be conceived to be a mere theo- 
 retical one, not an incorporation of Himself with the 
 Church. They can believe her, even in general coun- 
 cils, to err. Then Christ is not really there with her. 
 He is not truly in the midst of the more than two or 
 
 n Matt, xxviii. 20. x JBeistand (GTenn.), assistance.
 
 238 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 three gathered together in His name. They can 
 believe in no inherent virtue in the B. Eucharist, and 
 repudiate its adoration. Then He is not truly there 
 present. In fine, they have no confidence in their 
 own sacerdotal functions ; they dare not ask for abso- 
 lution from any clergyman, but only from certain 
 initiated men, like those admitted to the mysteries of 
 old : then Christ is not in the ministerial act, but comes 
 into it through the godliness of the minister. But, to 
 the Catholic, this assistance is actual on our Lord's 
 part ; it is not a theory, but a fact ; and he believes 
 in it as naturally as he does in God's providence, of 
 which it is only a specific operation. Hence these 
 wonderful effects of the Church's ministrations cease 
 to be in his eyes miracles; they are only dispensations 
 of grace. 
 
 And in truth, if further we consider what is a 
 miracle, we shall find that it bears a twofold aspect, 
 the Jewish and the Christian. The perversity of the 
 Jews consisted in a call for signs that could be seen. 
 " Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not," y 
 was our Saviour's reproach to them. " Master," they 
 ask, " we wish to see a sign from you." z This was the 
 lowest stage of belief; and could only lead to know- 
 ledge of that inferior class of wonders, which meets the 
 senses. To this alone Protestantism is able to reach ; 
 and even in that it stands on so slippery a downward 
 descent, that it easily falls over into the gulf of 
 rationalism and infidelity. It calls ever out for the 
 testimony of its eyes, just like the Jews. But the 
 Christian rule of faith is very different. "Faith 
 comes from hearing"* and not from seeing; and this 
 is the Catholic evidence. By this alone the true 
 
 y John iv. 47. l Matt, xii. 38. 
 
 a Rom. x. 17.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 239 
 
 wonders of God can be found ; by this only are the 
 real miracles of revelation discovered. The Jewish 
 shepherd looked at the manger in Bethlehem, and 
 contemplated its miracles with awe. The heavens 
 had opened to him, and its radiant host had sung for 
 him a wonderful hymn of jubilee ; a brilliant star had 
 glided from the east athwart the firmament, and had 
 drawn after it the kings of earth. But to the Christian 
 eye, the real "miracle is, that the child in that manger, 
 between an ox and an ass, is " true God of true God, 
 begotten, not made, consubstantial to the Father, by 
 whom all things were made." Before this knowledge, 
 which the sight reveals not, all seen marvels sink into 
 insignificance. 
 
 When Jesus was brought before Herod, he wished 
 to see Him perform a miracle, b and Jesus refused to 
 gratify his insolent curiosity. "What fitting miracle 
 could He have wrought under such circumstances? 
 He might most justly have struck the profligate idiot 
 with blindness, as St. Paul did Elymas ; c and it would 
 have been a just punishment, as well as a true sign. 
 Yet a sign was wrought before him, and a wonder that 
 made angels weep with amazement ; and we see it, but 
 that worthless infidel did not. It was the eternal 
 Wisdom clad in a fool's coat, and the Son of God, 
 mocked by a stupid rabble of courtiers and no fire 
 came down from heaven on them. 
 
 When, finally, the cross is raised on Calvary, and 
 the sun is darkened, and the earth quakes, and the 
 mountains are rent, and the veil of the temple is torn, 
 and the dead arise ; here surely are miracles and signs 
 enough to satisfy even a Jew's gaping curiosity. But 
 the Christian heeds them not : the greatest of mira- 
 cles is on that cross. The eclipsing of that Sun of 
 
 b Luke xxiii. 8. c Acts xiii. S.
 
 240 MIRACLES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Justice ; the quivering of His frame ; the breaking 
 of His heart ; the rending of His humanity ; the 
 death of a God; absorb all other thoughts and 
 feelings, and make Redemption, the marvel of marvels, 
 alone attended to. 
 
 In perfect consistency with this principle, is the 
 Catholic view of the miracles of the New Testament. 
 They are the noble, and the most perfect counterpart 
 of the unseen wonders of the Christian dispensation. 
 
 NOTES ON THE PRECEDING ESSAY. 
 
 A. 
 
 IN republishing this paper, I will add a few notes, to explain more 
 minutely what is popularly stated in the text ; as this version has 
 not been much studied. 
 
 Ps. Ixxviii. (Neb.), v. 74 in Ar., 69 Heb. and Gr. The Hebrew 
 has iJi O'Erriro p^i, which is translated by the Septuagint, Kai 
 <j)KO(Jo/j.i](T)' we fiovoKtpwTov, K. T. A. Now the Arabic has }UJ\ \c i.~~>] 
 
 "He founded upon high." It is clear this cannot be a trans- 
 lation from the Greek. Again, we may ask, whence could the words 
 "/bunded upon" be taken? From the Hebrew; by changing the 
 3 into n in p% which thus becomes p% "he founded;" and the 3 into 
 3 in 103 ; which thus becomes ICD, " upon," instead of " as." 
 
 The second illustration, alluded to in the text, is found in the 
 translation of the word O'n. The Greek translator considered it 
 identical with G'Cjn. According to the Greek, this word occurs 
 four times in the Psalms : twice it is written fully with an s inserted, 
 twice defectively. The two instances of the first case are Ps. xxix. 6, 
 and xcii. (Heb.) 10, AT. 11. In the first of these places the Arabic 
 has the very word of the Hebrew, +)]] on which ample details will 
 
 be found in Bochart's Hierozoicon, vol. ii. p. 335. In the second it 
 gives an accurate translation of the Greek word used in both texts 
 /ioyofc-fpwc, by rendering it ...Jill ^^~J "the one-horned." 
 
 The instances of defective orthography of the word are Ps. xxii. 
 21, Ar. 22, and kxviii. 74 : and here the word presents the form
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 241 
 
 , resembling the plural of en, " high." Now, though in both 
 these places the Septuagint version has /zovca-tpwc, the Arabic has 
 high. In the first passage it reads, " and from the horn raised upon 
 my lowliness." On the second text, I have already remarked that the 
 translator seems to have had the Hebrew before him ; and this con- 
 firms it : for here again he translates by high. " He has founded 
 on high." And although Aquila has uiii/Xwc, and Symmachus we TO. 
 v\l/r)\a, yet neither of these is represented in our version. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that in the two places where the word is 
 written full, the Arabic version agrees with the Greek ; where it is 
 defective, it gives a translation only derivable from the Hebrew. It 
 is right, however, to mention, that the same phenomenon is to be 
 found in the Syriac Peshito. 
 
 The Arabic version published by Walton in his Polyglot, agrees 
 with the LXX in all four places. 
 
 B. 
 
 This verse suggests an interesting critical discussion, affecting not 
 only the Arabic version, but the Vulgate. The Hebrew has S'JTK 
 'h ;vo, " Thou has pierced [or opened] mine ears." 
 
 The Septuagint, followed by St. Paul (Heb. x. 5), Sw/xa 
 ftot. 
 
 The Vulgate has, " Aures autem perfecisti mihi." 
 
 Finally, the Arabic version before us, 
 
 .JCW 
 
 " Thou hast made me a body, and Thou hast opened mine ears." 
 
 To begin with the Vulgate. Through the entire Psalm, it is 
 evidently translated from the Greek, without the slightest interven- 
 tion of the Hebrew. Yet in this verse, and in it alone, it deserts the 
 Greek, and, in part at least, approaches to the Hebrew. So likewise 
 does the translator of St. Irenseus. But this approximation is more 
 apparent, perhaps, than real. It seems to lie in two words, " aures" 
 and "perfecisti." 
 
 1. Aures. The Mosarabic and Roman Psalters, St. Augustine, 
 Cassiodorus, St. Ambrose, and St. Hilary, read corpus. It would 
 thus appear that there is good authority for assimilating the text in 
 this word to the Septuagint ; and reading, " Corpus autem perfecisti 
 mihi." 
 
 2. Perfecisti. All the Latin Fathers use this verb, whether they 
 read aures or corpus, except St. Ambrose, who, once, in his Commen- 
 tary, has prceparasti ; though in the same place he also, several times, 
 
 i B,
 
 242 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 reads perfecisti. This shows that he considered the two as nearly 
 equivalents : " Thou hast prepared, or perfected, a body for me." 
 The same Greek verb occurs in the passage in St. Paul, where 
 the Vulgate renders it by aptasti : which, again, has the same 
 meaning : " Thou hast fitted a body to me, or prepared a fitting body 
 for me." 
 
 It follows that perfecisti corresponds to rarj/prto-w, and not to n'"O : 
 for the Greek verb means sometimes in Scripture, " to perfect ;" but 
 the Latin verb never means to "pierce." (Vide Schleusner in voce.) 
 The Douay version, therefore, which renders it thus: "Thou hast 
 pierced ears for me," is incorrect; and this instance might have been 
 added to those given in the essay on " Catholic Versions." 
 
 Proceeding now to the Greek text, we find a variety of readings 
 corresponding to that of the Latin version. Lambert Bos cites a 
 Commentary as reading irm c)e /zot mrijprio-w. Nobilius gives all 
 MSS. as unanimous in reading o-w/ia, except one. But more exten- 
 sive inquiries have led to further discoveries. For in Parsons's 
 (Holmes's) Septuagint, we have the following note : <rwyua 2e] wna 
 It, 39 ; wra 8e, 142, 156 (292 marg.). This gives us three MSS. that 
 have " ears " in the text.* But all have the same verb, which can 
 only have been applied to " body :" and we may therefore conclude 
 that the more general is the correct reading. 
 
 And as the same reasoning applies to the Vulgate, we must con- 
 clude that originally it was in perfect accordance with the Greek, and 
 the word aures is a modern variation. 
 
 Finally, to come to our Arabic, it is clear that the translator gives 
 at full both the Hebrew and the Greek texts. And, what makes this 
 more remarkable, the Polyglot version, before mentioned, does the 
 same, though differing in words. I will observe, that a connection 
 between these two Arabic versions is traceable : for instance, in the 
 Psalm before us, the two first verses are identical, except in two 
 words ; and the translation in both is peculiar : " "With patience I 
 have hoped in the Lord." 
 
 C. 
 
 Vv. 13, 14, are as follows : " Because He is thy God, Him thou 
 shalt adore. The daughters of Tyre shall adore Him." Here, again, 
 are two readings joined. The Hebrew has ib>~ 1 innu'ni, " adore Him," 
 in the femin. imper. The LXX has Kai TrpoirKi'viiaovffiv aurw ^vyarepec 
 
 * In the description of MSS., the ones here quoted are thus described : 39, Cod. 
 Dorothaei, ii. membr. saec. ix. 142, Bib. Aulier. Vindob. Theol. x. membr. pervet. 
 opt. note. 156, Bib. Basil, membr. 4 adm. antiq. sine accent, cum vers. lat. 
 interL 292, Cod. Bib. Medic, num. iii. Plut. vi. opt. notae membr. in fol. saec. xi.
 
 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 243 
 
 Tvpov. Vv. 10, 11, 15, 16 of this Psalm are quite unaccountable. I 
 will give one curious translation in the first of these, which seems 
 plainly to indicate the use of the Hebrew. The translator has made 
 a pause at ^3'n, or flapiuv : and to make sense, has added a suffix, 
 as he sometimes does (e. g. Ps. Ixxvii. 69, *^.*Le which is neither in 
 
 the Greek nor in the Hebrew; Ivi. 2, Iviii. 16). After this, he pro- 
 ceeds : " The most noble ivory are the instruments of thy splen- 
 dour" (combs, &c.). The Hebrew for this is T|inntir *J ftf; the 
 word in construction with fc? having been, as I have observed, 
 detached from it. Now we cannot easily account for this translation, 
 otherwise than by supposing our Arab to have taken yn for a plural 
 noun in construction. In fact the Chaldaic JKO, vas, an " utensil," is 
 frequently, if not always written defectively, without the K in the 
 Targum (e. g. Gen. xxiv. 53), and in construction would be >J, and 
 correspond to the translation. The next word would necessarily be 
 taken for a noun ; and thus we have, " ivory are the instruments of 
 thy gladness." In v. 18, we have the verb in the future, as in the 
 Hebrew ; while, in the Greek, it is in the past, without any variation 
 of MS. or Father, except the aXXoe of St. Chrysostom, who seems 
 to be overlooked in Parsons's collection. 
 
 D. 
 
 It would be easy to bring a great many proofs of the use of the 
 Peshito in this version. In the Psalm mentioned in the text, this 
 use is continuous. Thus, v. 2, the Hebrew *?nj? is translated in the 
 Greek by yyo^oe; in the Syriac by jl^-f^ the same word as the 
 Hebrew, only in the plural. Contrary to the Lexicons, this word 
 means clouds, and not darkness. I base this translation on the fol- 
 lowing grounds : 1. The plural form, here used, excludes the latter 
 meaning. 2. St. Ephrem uses the expression ju| f<yu [iaj.^ (Oper. 
 torn. i. p. 9), which can only be translated " a bright cloud." Now 
 to this Syriac version alone the plural Arabic ,.iU-tf> corresponds. 
 
 V. 3. Hebrew rjSrv, to which corresponds the Greek TrpoTropevtrtrat ; 
 the Syriac . ^ \Q^|/ shall consume ; Arabic jiJbJ shall burn. 
 
 V. 10. The Greek po-eire agrees with the Hebrew. The Syriac 
 has ^im do hate ; so the Arabic ^^ak^. 
 
 V. 11. Heb. and Gr.justis; Syr. and Arab, singular. 
 
 To most readers all this will be highly uninteresting, and even 
 unintelligible : but I will venture to offer to the consideration of 
 biblical critics two more curious examples. Ps. cxxxix. (Heb.) 7 : 
 
 R2
 
 244 MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 " If I take the wings of morning.'" The Greek has, "If I take my 
 wings KO.T opQov ;" or, as the Alexandrine MS. more correctly reads, 
 KCLT op6po>, in the morning (Vulg. diluculo). Both the Syr. and Arab, 
 read, "If I take the wings as the eagle's." 
 
 Ps. Ixxix. (Heb.) 1. The Seventy translate D" most peculiarly 
 by oirb>po<j>v\aKiov (Vulg. pomorum custodia). The Syriac has |2u3^* 
 desolate. The Arabic has combined the two readings, putting 
 IT^S^^ \i\ j>~ " desolate " (the same word as in the Syriac) " as a 
 
 prison" fyv\a.Kiov. (Can he have read wo-Trcp <j>v\aKiov?) 
 
 It was by this frequent approximation to the Syriac, no doubt, that 
 Michaelis, who calls our translator Arabs Antiochenus, was deceived 
 into the idea that his version was made directly and entirely from 
 the Peshito. See his edition of Castelli's Syriac Lexicon, in the 
 words }.**, 52is, ]o1 and
 
 LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 
 
 HIS WORK ENTITLED 
 
 "POPEBY IN ALLIANCE WITH HEATHENISM." 
 
 , OVK i tripuv 
 
 <j>pa.ffaffSaL 
 Euripid. Medea, 661.
 
 THE following Letters have been written in haste, 
 amidst the hurry of more important occupation. It 
 would have been easy to prolong them to a much 
 greater extent, and thus meet every page of Mr. 
 Poynder's accusation by a detailed reply. I have, I 
 trust, done quite sufficient to convince any impartial 
 reader, how solid he is in his arguments, and how 
 accurate in his facts. If I have brought forward 
 little that is new, my poverty must be ascribed to the 
 old worn-out theme I have been induced to handle ; 
 it is not necessary to purchase a new spear, to tear 
 open the rusty mail in which Mr. Poynder has clothed 
 himself. 
 
 LONDON, Dec. 29, 1835.
 
 LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN POYNDEE, ESQ 
 
 LETTER THE FIRST. 
 
 SIR, An article in the Times newspaper lately 
 called my attention to a work published by you, pur- 
 porting to establish " the alliance between Popery and 
 heathenism;" and though, from the copious extracts 
 in that journal, I at once saw that you had but given 
 the repetition of a twice-told tale, I was induced to 
 procure your book, and run over its pages. Although 
 occupied with other matters more congenial to my 
 taste, and, I trust, more beneficial to my fellow- 
 Christians than this effusion of your zeal, I have 
 agreed to devote a few hours to record the impression 
 which it has produced upon me, and appeal to your 
 own good taste and undoubted erudition, on the pro- 
 priety of the course, and the validity of the arguments, 
 which you have thought proper to pursue. 
 
 The first feeling excited in me was one not of admi- 
 ration, but of wonder, at the rich diversity, and 
 marvellous ways, whereby the spirit of charity mani- 
 fests itself in this country. I had long heard of you 
 in my foreign residence, as of one who devoted his 
 energies to the abolition of self-immolation in India ; 
 whose eloquence and learning, inspired by humanity, 
 had striven to snatch the deluded widow from sharing
 
 250 LETTERS TO 
 
 her husband's pyre. But after this long struggle 
 to abolish the suttee in distant lands, you have re- 
 solved to escape from the censure too often cast upon 
 your friends of going to the east and to the west 
 for objects of charity, while your fellow-subjects are 
 suffering around you ; of subscribing to the relief of 
 any victim to inundation in India, while an entire 
 population at your side was writhing under, what 
 Calderon so nervously calls, "the wooden knife of 
 hunger ;" and you have now come forward to pour out 
 among your fellow-Christians of Britain, the sweet 
 abundance of fraternal love, which had so long felt no 
 sympathy but for the Ganges or the Burrampooter. 
 But how Proteus-like are the changes which the same 
 spirit of charity doubtless undergoes ! You appear 
 before the public no longer as one anxious to extin- 
 guish the flames which the Indian widow covets ; but, 
 on the contrary, with holy zeal, you snatch up a torch, 
 which long has been smouldering, qualified and directed 
 to put in a blaze the bigotry and fanaticism of one 
 party, and with it the bitter indignation and outraged 
 feelings of another, such as may, like the apocalyptic 
 brand, scorch up, or turn to wormwood, the sacred 
 and beautiful fountains of social and friendly inter- 
 course, at which men of all opinions have for a long 
 time drunk together. And yet doubtless, in the esti- 
 mation of your pious zeal, this is but a prelude, and a 
 foreshowing, of the lot which idolaters must elsewhere 
 expect. 
 
 All this is assuredly, as you tell us in your preface, 
 exceedingly charitable ; " for a feeling Christian will 
 express in his words a character of zeal and love" 
 (p. 9) ; and becomes doubly interesting from seeing 
 how, after having, through one hundred and fifteen 
 pages, called Catholics in every line idolaters, and us
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 251 
 
 of the priesthood cheats, you feelingly and movingly 
 complain, " with what injustice the Church of Home 
 charges her younger sister, the Protestant Church, 
 with heresy!" (p. 115.) Little was I prepared for 
 such gentle, fondling expostulation as this ; little 
 could I have thought that you held the right calling 
 of names to he so exclusive a monopoly ; or that you 
 cared about being considered a heretic by idolaters, or 
 claimed any compassion at our hands. But, Sir, allow 
 me to say, that in the publications of Catholics, or in 
 their sermons, you will not find the name of heretic 
 applied to Protestants, however we may consider their 
 doctrines heretical, and observe there is a great differ- 
 ence between the two ; a while you in every page of your 
 work call us personally idolaters ; and that were any 
 one amongst us to call down the fire of heaven as you 
 have done upon any of our fellow-subjects, we should 
 say to him, as was said to others of old : " Ye know 
 not of whose spirit ye are." 
 
 But, to descend from the spirit to the substance of 
 your work, the next impression produced on me in 
 reading it, was a sense of its excessive deficiencies. I 
 was surprised, how, after taking such great pains, as 
 obviously you have done, with the resemblances between 
 our religious practices and those of others in the 
 ancient and modern world, you should have added so 
 little that is new, and overlooked so many coincidences 
 which I think very remarkable. For instance, the 
 custom of hanging the exterior of churches with 
 boughs on festivals, as described by Virgil, 
 
 Nos delubra Deum, miseri quibus ultimus esset 
 Ille dies, festa velamua fronde per urbem ; 
 
 the practice of confession, which Volney maintains to 
 have prevailed in Greece ; the form of the sacerdotal 
 
 a See St. Chrysostom, Horn. ii. de Inc. Nat.
 
 252 LETTERS TO 
 
 vestments, in which the cope or pluviale is manifestly 
 the Roman dress, with the latus clavus on its front ; 
 and the amice or amictus drawn over the head in some 
 religious orders when proceeding to the altar, mani- 
 festly recalls the veiling of the priests' heads in former 
 times, when going to sacrifice, though, by the bye, 
 copes and hoods are most severely enjoined by the 
 canons of the Church of England to be worn in all 
 cathedral churches and college chapels ; b these, and 
 many other peculiarities which I omit, would have 
 greatly enriched your cabinet of comparative religious 
 anatomy, and relieved the monotony of reading 
 "Middleton" over again. Indeed, I am at a loss 
 to account for your omission of the many rich glean- 
 ings which Mr. Blunt would have supplied, and for 
 his work not being honoured by insertion in the 
 edifying list of fellow-labourers at the end of your 
 work. 
 
 But one new element you have collected, and for it, 
 a little later, I shall thank you from my heart 
 a comparison of our rites and practices with those 
 of India : at present I have only to complain that 
 your additions of f this character have been so scanty. 
 Why not discover some resemblance between us and 
 the Ghebers, which you might easily have done by 
 a few snatches of some of our service? Why not 
 compare our rosary to that of the dervishes, our 
 reliquaries to the fetiches of Africa, our exorcisms to 
 the shamanisms of Tartary ? How did you overlook 
 the Grand Lama and his consistory, and the bells 
 on his churches, and the dresses of his priests, and 
 the splendour of his worship ; or the Talapoins of 
 Ava, with their noviciate, and profession, and holy 
 vows of poverty ? For I can hardly believe that 
 
 b Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, 24. Lond. 1827.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 253 
 
 the researches and discoveries of Abel Remusat or 
 Pitchaurinsky would have deterred you from so happy 
 and detailed a comparison. And having now extended 
 our connection so far towards the East, how did you 
 overlook the new and striking analogies to be found in 
 the western hemisphere, among the original inhabitants 
 of America ? If you had looked into old Acosta, though 
 a Jesuit, you would have seen, in the second part of his 
 Historia natural y moral de las Indias, a chapter on 
 the confession practised by the Mexicans, and another 
 on their communion ; as well as a notice of many other 
 practices most obstinately Catholic. Or if you would 
 consult the splendid work on Mexican antiquities 
 published by Aglio, under the munificent auspices of 
 Lord Kingsborough, you would find a very long essay 
 upon this subject, showing such resemblances as lead 
 the author to conjecture, that Christians must have 
 settled in America, long before its discovery by 
 Columbus. 
 
 Thus you see, Sir, that I do not shrink from the 
 species of inquiry in which you have indulged, but 
 that I am quite willing to lend my feeble aid towards 
 preventing any other gentleman having to trouble 
 himself with completing what you have begun, and 
 thus to keep our literature unstained by any more 
 names connected with so ungodly a work of zeal ! 
 But while I have thus pointed out to you these imper- 
 fections in your work, and communicated to you some 
 little additional information upon its subject, I must 
 not conclude this letter without thanking you for the 
 much I have learnt from you, concerning matters on 
 Avhich I had till now considered myself tolerably well 
 informed. 
 
 I did not know, till I read your work, that holy 
 water was supposed by us to have the power of
 
 254 LETTERS TO 
 
 washing out murder, as your most pertinent quo- 
 tation from Ovid teaches me (p. 20). Neither was I 
 aware, till I there learnt it, that it possesses a narcotic 
 power, and is used to send persons to sleep (p. 97). 
 Nay, to own my ignorance to the full, I did not know 
 that it was at all usual to administer it internally ; 
 of which points I think the next edition of the 
 pharmacopoeias should have the advantage. 
 
 Though I have lived more than half my life in 
 Borne, there are a great many particulars touching its 
 antiquities and customs for which I am indebted 
 exclusively to your book. Thus, I never heard of the 
 "Maria in triviis" (p. 32), so common all over the 
 country; and though very familiar with the pea- 
 santry, and accustomed to see them pass in crowds 
 every day, when in the country, before the " wooden 
 crosses" or rustic chapels (not altars) at the entrance 
 of their villages, I never saw them indulge in " genu- 
 flection and prostration as they passed them," though 
 perhaps they may touch their hats in token of respect; 
 nor did I ever learn that " the poor unenlightened pos- 
 tilions would think that they deserved to be murdered 
 before the end of their journey, if they should omit the 
 accustomed acts of piety prescribed by their priests" 
 (p. 32). Does this mean that the postilions genuflect 
 or prostrate before every cross they meet on the road ? 
 I have often seen the church of St. Agnes, and the 
 beautiful statue of the saint to which you allude 
 (p. 41) ; but I think it would perplex a Phidias to 
 convert a jovial statue of Bacchus, as you say was 
 done by " a little change of drapery," whicli in ancient 
 Bacchuses is rather scanty, into the modest and 
 touching virgin, standing amidst the flames, with eyes 
 and hands lifted up to heaven. But, pray Sir, have 
 you not been puzzling yourself with the statue of
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 255 
 
 St. Sebastian on the opposite altar, which is so exqui- 
 site a work of art, that some have conjectured it may 
 once have been an Apollo ? The same is to be said 
 of the two Jupiters changed into St. Peters one 
 by having a new head, and a pair of keys instead of 
 a thunderbolt ; the other by being re-cast. This is all 
 new information for the Roman antiquaries, who have 
 never, till now, confirmed this tradition of the valets 
 de place ; for I suppose only they can have told the 
 tale of the change of heads (p. 41). Your informant, 
 I fear, has mistaken the measurements of St. Leo's 
 altar in St. Peter's, for it is no larger than any of the 
 rest ; and in his horror of looking on idols, has trans- 
 formed SS. Peter and Paul into one angel driving 
 away Attila (p. 55). Perhaps it was the same fear 
 of too narrowly searching into Popish things which 
 led you to place St. Winefred's well in Staffordshire 
 (p. 103). You cannot have read the book which you 
 so severely censure. 
 
 I have never met the " prayer in the Romish books 
 of offices, ordered by the rubric to be addressed to 
 the sacred and miraculous picture of St. Veronica" 
 (p. 43) ; although tolerably conversant with all the 
 rubrics and books of offices. But even if what you 
 say be correct, it is only necessary to understand it 
 rightly to be satisfied. Again, though I have read a 
 good deal on the subject, I never knew, till now, that 
 to be canonized, a person must have wrought miracles 
 while living (p. 33) ; or that " the creation of saints 
 has become almost as common as that of cardinals" 
 (p. 35) ; for I have seen some scores of cardinals made 
 in my life, but not one saint canonized. 
 
 But the most important accession of knowledge 
 which I have received from your learned work, con- 
 
 c [In 1835.]
 
 256 LETTERS TO 
 
 cerning my religion, is the astounding fact that 
 " confession has a prospective efficacy in reference to 
 sins about to be committed, as well as those which 
 have occurred already." The only open, or, as we call 
 it, scholastic question on the subject, seems to be, 
 according to your information, whether penance has 
 not the same efficacy too (p. 71). Here have I 
 been brought up since a child to the practice of this 
 duty, and not one of my teachers ever had the 
 kindness or the sense to tell me this most useful 
 prerogative of confession. And what has been the 
 necessary consequence of such stupidity ? why, that 
 I have been teaching and directing others for years, 
 and have been always saying exactly the contrary to 
 what you now tell me is the doctrine of my Church. 
 And I fear the evil is now past remedy; for I find 
 that all my fellow-clergymen have been kept in the 
 same ignorance with myself, and teach the same 
 doctrines as I do on the subject. 
 
 Do I blame you, Sir, for being ignorant upon such 
 matters, as our belief concerning holy water or con- 
 fession ? Certainly not : but I blame you severely for 
 writing on subjects whereon you are ignorant. If a 
 blind man goes abroad into the streets, and stumbles 
 against me, and injures me as well as himself, I do 
 not chide him for being blind, but for not getting 
 some one, at least a child, to guide his steps. Now, 
 Sir, this is precisely your case, and so do I say to 
 you : Why did you not ask for some boy who frequents 
 our charity schools, or has learnt his catechism, to 
 inform you on these subjects ? Even he, Sir, could 
 have taught you better. I am, &c.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 257 
 
 LETTER THE SECOND. 
 
 SIR, I contented myself, in my first letter, with 
 simply noting the firsfc impression produced on my 
 mind by the perusal of your work; I will, in this, 
 examine the worth of the argument which it contains; 
 after which I will descend, in my future communi- 
 cations, to the more detailed examination of its 
 principal counts against us. 
 
 Your hook professes to demonstrate the alliance 
 between the Catholic religion, or, as you term it, 
 Popery, and heathenism, by pointing out an identity 
 between many ceremonies, and, as you say, doctrines, 
 in the ancient and modern religions of Rome. Your 
 mildest conclusion of course is, that Popery is nothing 
 but a human religion, having no claims to a divine 
 original. 
 
 I will for a moment grant you the full extent 
 of your assumptions and premises; I will concede 
 that all the facts you have brought forward are true, 
 and all the parallels you have established between our 
 rites and those of paganism correct ; and I will join 
 issue with you on your conclusions, trying them by 
 clearly applicable tests. 
 
 You are doubtless aware that Dr. Spencer, a learned 
 divine of the established church, published two folio 
 volumes, replete with extraordinary erudition, enti- 
 tuled De Legibus ILebrceorum Hitualibus^ et earum 
 ration e, which has gone through many editions, both 
 here and on the continent. Now the entire drift and 
 purport of this work is manifestly twofold. First, to 
 prove that the great design of God, in giving rites and 
 ceremonies to the Jews, was to prevent their falling 
 into idolatry. Secondly, to demonstrate that almost 
 every practice, rite, ceremony, and act, so given, was 
 
 i S
 
 258 LETTERS TO 
 
 directly borrowed from the Egyptian heathens. If 
 you wish to satisfy yourself of this^ latter point, you 
 have only to read over the table of contents to the 
 several books, and you will find, that whether we 
 speak of the more solemn and special injunctions, or 
 of the minutest details of the ceremonial law; of 
 circumcision, and of sacrifice in all its varieties, and 
 with all its distinctive ceremonies ; of purification and 
 lustration, and new moons ; of the ark of the cove- 
 nant and the cherubim ; of the temple and its oracle ; 
 of the Urirn and Thummim, and the emissary goat ; 
 of them all Spencer has endeavoured to prove, and 
 that to the satisfaction of many learned men, that 
 they pre-existed among the Egyptians and other 
 
 neighbouring nations. But I do not mean to force 
 
 ~ ~ 
 
 you into any such specific consequence; I wish to 
 leave you a choice of conclusions. 
 
 In the first place, do you dissent from this learned 
 divine, and assert that he has not made good his point 
 of establishing the derivation of all or most Jewish 
 rites from those of the heathens ? Then, Sir, I con- 
 clude that there may be such resemblances between 
 the ceremonies and institutions of two religions one 
 
 O 
 
 false and the other true as to enable a man to write 
 two folios upon them, and yet these resemblances may 
 be purely accidental, and no ways show any real 
 connection between them. Your one hundred and 
 twenty octavo pages have not done as much for us as 
 Spencer's two folio sliave for the Jews ; and therefore 
 we may conclude the same of your lucubrations, and 
 of your master's before you. 
 
 Secondly, do you, with a great body of learned men, 
 admit that Spencer has made good his point ? Then I 
 conclude, that a religion may have borrowed all its 
 ceremonies and rites from its heathen neighbours, and
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 259 
 
 yet not be, on that account, the less divine and 
 sanctioned by God. Nay, to take the whole of Spen- 
 cer's reasoning, the institution of such rites, instead 
 of leading to idolatry, is the best preservative against it. 
 
 Now, of these two conclusions, and their application 
 to the value of your work, I leave you the free choice. 
 Either, after all your efforts, you have established no 
 connection between our ceremonies and those of the 
 heathens ; or, if you have, you have done nothing 
 towards impugning the worth and correctness of the 
 Catholic religion. 
 
 But let me ask, does it follow that every resemblance 
 is proof that one has borrowed from the other ? May 
 not both have come from a common source? May 
 they not, in both, be the spontaneous and natural 
 manifestation of feelings common to men under 
 similar circumstances ? The Indian kneels in prayer, 
 or raises up his eyes to heaven ; does it follow that all 
 who do so have learnt it from the Indian ? Do not 
 nations the most distant express their feelings of 
 respect and affection in the same way ? do they not 
 bow, or prostrate, or embrace, or shake hands ? 
 and yet no one sees therein any necessary dependence 
 or close alliance between them ; but we consider all 
 these outward demonstrations as common and neutral 
 property, which all may enjoy. Now, Sir, here is the 
 great fallacy of your own and your predecessor's 
 reasoning. What you have said of miracles, after 
 Bishop Hall, that they must be judged by the doctrine 
 they confirm, not the doctrines by the miracles/ is 
 
 d Page 102. Admitting this position to be correct, how comes 
 Paley's, who follows exactly tlie opposite course, to be the established 
 work on the evidences, in Protestant education ? Does he not place 
 the pyramid on its point, proving Christianity from miracles, instead 
 of basing miracles on the truth of Christianity ? 
 
 s2
 
 260 LETTERS TO 
 
 much truer of ceremonies ; they must be judged 
 by the doctrines they- outwardly manifest, not the 
 doctrines by the external rite. 
 
 If it be lawful at all to show respect to images or 
 relics, and if, in the mind, the line is clearly drawn 
 between that respect and the adoration reserved to God 
 alone, it matters not by what conventional act it is 
 exhibited. To genuflect, or to prostrate, or to bow, or 
 to kiss, are but indifferent acts, receiving their value 
 from the mutual understanding of men. In England, 
 the Catholic kneels before any bishop to receive his 
 blessing ; in Italy, he is content with kissing his hand. 
 In the "West, we manifest our respect by uncovering 
 the head, and consequently we serve bare-headed at 
 the altar ; in China, it would be deemed disrespectful 
 to appear so before the great, and consequently the 
 Catholic priest officiates there with his head covered. 
 The different ways, therefore, wherein such feelings 
 are exhibited, are equally harmless ; it is the inward 
 application only that can give them a moral deter- 
 mination. 
 
 See then how you proceed. You assume that our 
 doctrine is incorrect regarding saints and their repre- 
 sentations, and then, of course, any outward mark of 
 respect is wrong; and as the marks of respect, if 
 shown, must, by human nature, be the same as others 
 have shown in a false worship, you identify the acts, 
 and lay them to the charge of the religion. Again, if 
 our faith in the eucharist is well-grounded, we cer- 
 tainly are fully warranted in bowing down before 
 it, and adoring it. You take it for granted that it 
 is false, and then, with a blasphemous levity, which 
 must chill the blood of every Catholic, speak of the 
 worship, which must be justified or condemned, 
 according to the dogma it obeys, as idolatrous and
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 261 
 
 profane (pp. 66, 88). Now, Sir, suppose a Socinian 
 or infidel were to act thus : and, assuming at once that 
 there is no redemption through the cross, and no 
 corruption of original sin, were to censure your practice 
 of baptism as a fond superstition, scoff in derision at 
 the sign of the cross there used, or at the idea that 
 outward ablution could affect the soul, and ridicule 
 your solemn rite in terms of indecent profaneness, and 
 compare it to the washing of the heathens for the 
 forgiveness of sin, as described in your apposite lines 
 from Ovid (p. 20) : 
 
 " Ah ! nimiura faciles, qui tristia crimina caedis 
 Fluminea tolli posse putetia aqua;" 
 
 would you not reply, that the whole question turned 
 upon the doctrine involved in these practices, and that 
 to dispute about the outward forms was but discussing 
 the shadow, while the body was neglected ; that it did 
 not follow from a similarity of rite, even coupled to 
 some resemblance of doctrine, that the two were 
 identical or equally reprehensible. Your reply would 
 be quite correct, and I beg of you to apply it. So 
 long as you proceed on the supposition that we are 
 wrong in the doctrine, you will have it all your own 
 way. But it is there where the entire question rests, 
 and where we are at issue with you. They are the 
 dogmas of a religion which must decide its value; 
 their outward action depends on their inward worth. 
 Some naturalists, likeVirey or Lamarck, have com- 
 pared the limbs and organization of man to those of 
 the chimpanzee ; and finding that they have " organs, 
 dimensions, and senses," very much alike, have con- 
 cluded that the human race is descended from that 
 respectable animal. But they have judged as you 
 have ; they have looked at outward appearance ; they
 
 262 LETTERS TO 
 
 have forgotten the soul, the living spark of life and 
 intelligence, the power of directing thought and action 
 to high and immortal destinies. To compare two 
 religions, and judge them identical, while the one 
 professes to believe in only one God, in undivided 
 Trinity, in the Incarnation of His Son, and in redemp- 
 tion through His "blood, and the other is a professed 
 system of polytheism, because the two have the same 
 forms for expressing religious feelings, is assuredly as 
 vain and absurd as the conduct of those philosophers. 
 There are processions, and lights, and incense in the 
 Catholic, and in the ancient Roman worship ; therefore 
 the two religions are identical. Truly " there is a river 
 in Macedon ; and there is also a river at Monmouth ;" 
 therefore Macedon and Monmouth are both alike. 
 
 You have yourself, as I intimated in my first letter, 
 greatly spoiled your cause by introducing into it a 
 comparison between our rites and those of India. For 
 how, in the name of all history, did the Catholics of 
 Italy, or Rome, or Ireland, come by Indian cere- 
 monies ? When or how were they ever introduced 
 into the service of the Church? These ceremonies, 
 too, according to your quotations, appear to be of very 
 great antiquity ; the holiness imparted by the Ganges, 
 which you compare to the water-idolatry, as you call 
 it, of the Irish (p. 69), is a fundamental point of the 
 Hindoo religion, and doubtless existed long before 
 the time of Christ ; yet had it no parallel in western 
 heathenism. How then did it get to Ireland, or any 
 other Christian country ? Is it not manifest that the 
 connection between rites and practices so far apart, is 
 more hidden and mysterious than you would have 
 your readers imagine ? that, instead of such resem- 
 blances giving any necessary proof of derivation, they 
 only show one of these two things : either that in
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 263 
 
 every worship, however corrupt, there are fragments 
 remaining of purer and primeval forms, which are 
 found more or less disfigured in them all ; or else that 
 nature directs men, under the most various circum- 
 stances, to a similar symbolization of their inward 
 belief, and to similar acts of religious worship ? And 
 the more you can point out resemblances between the 
 acts of religious observance prevalent in unconnected 
 countries, the more you establish these positions. And 
 if you would look into Catholic works, you would find, 
 that so far from wishing to pass over or conceal such 
 coincidences, they are even more explicit on them 
 than you have been ; and that, instead of fearing them 
 as evidence against themselves, they insist upon them 
 as arguments in favour of their belief. I do not mean 
 merely scientific authors, like Mabillon, Durantus, or 
 Bona, but writers for general edification. Read, for 
 instance, and I am sure it would instruct you on many 
 points, the learned and pious Abbe Gerbet's treatise 
 Sur le Dogme regenerateur de la Piete Chretiemie, 
 and you will find how powerfully he uses the many 
 cravings after the Catholic Eucharist discernible 
 in the rites of almost every heathen worship. 
 
 But I must not pass over the way in which your 
 line of argument was met in older and better times; 
 for perhaps you are not aware that your objections 
 are much older than Dr. Middleton, or Hospinian, or 
 Brower de Niedek, both of whom you overlook in 
 your valuable catalogue of writers on comparative 
 idolatry. The first person who argued as you have 
 done was Julian the Apostate, who said that the 
 Christians had borrowed their religion from the 
 heathens. 6 This proves at once that even then the 
 
 e Cyrilli Archiep. Alex. cont. Jul. Julian! Opera, editio Spanheim, 
 torn. ii. p. 238.
 
 264 LETTERS TO 
 
 resemblance existed of which you complain as idola- 
 trous; so that it is not the offspring of modem 
 corruption, but an inheritance of the ancient church. 
 It proves that the alliance between Christianity and 
 heathenism existed 300 years after Christ, and that 
 consequently so far Popery and ancient Christianity 
 are identical. The Manichees also are accused by 
 St. Augustine, writing against Paustus, of having 
 made the same charge. 
 
 Now to this objection the fathers answered precisely 
 as I have done : " Habemus qusedam cum Gentibus 
 communia, sed finem diversum," says St. Augustine/ 
 And again, writing to Deogratias, " Wherefore they 
 who know the Christian books of both Testaments, 
 do not blame the sacrilegious rites of the pagans 
 because they built temples, instituted priesthoods, 
 and offered sacrifices, but because these things were 
 
 in honour of idols and demons Erorn which 
 
 you may sufficiently understand, that true religion 
 reprehends, in the superstitions of the heathens, not 
 so much that they immolated, for the saints of old 
 immolated to the true God, as that they immolated to 
 false gods." s It matters not how our rites and cere- 
 monies resemble one another, so long as the worship 
 to which we apply them is different. 
 
 A similar objection had been made, even in more 
 ancient times; for Tertullian, and other writers of 
 the first ages, go so far as to suppose that it was a 
 policy of the arch-deceiver to pre-occupy, or copy, 
 the sacraments and rites of the new and old cove- 
 nants in heathenish religions, that so he might lead 
 men astray. I am not discussing the correctness 
 
 f Contra Faustum, lib. xx. cap. 20. " "We have some things in 
 common with the Gentiles, but we apply them to different ends." 
 Epist. 102, al. 40.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 265 
 
 of this idea ; I only want the fact of their acknow- 
 ledging such resemblances between true and false 
 religions. 1 ' 
 
 But, Sir, has it never occurred to you how this 
 argument of yours may be turned against doctrines 
 as well as rites ? and indeed your reasoning is of this 
 sort ; and not only against Catholic doctrines, but 
 against the entire Christian faith ? Nay, are you not 
 aware that this very line of argument has been pur- 
 sued by the enemies of Christianity? Is not the 
 doctrine of the Trinity clearly to be traced in the 
 celebrated letter of Plato to Dionysius, given by 
 Eusebius, and in the works of Plotinus and others of 
 his school, and in the Oupnekhat and the Vedas, and 
 in the philosophical writings of Lao-Tseu ? And has 
 not Dupuis, in his Origine de tous les Cultes, deduced 
 therefrom, that this dogma could not have been 
 revealed in Christianity, since it was so well known 
 before, and so widely diffused, but that it was 
 borrowed by St. John, and the other apostles, from 
 the heathenish philosophy ? Are not the very terms 
 of the doctrine, the Word, as well as the Father and 
 Spirit, and f heir procession one from another, found 
 by him and others in this eastern school ? Has not 
 Volney drawn a parallel between Christ and the 
 Indian Chrishna, in name and character ? And are 
 not the parallels between the two much stronger than 
 any you have brought, between our ceremonies and 
 those of ancient Rome or India ? Has not the idea of 
 
 h " Ceterum si Numse Pompilii superstitiones reyolvamus, si sacer- 
 dotalia officia, insignia et privilegia, si sacrificalia ministeria, et in- 
 strumeuta, et vasa ipsorum sacrificiorum, ac piaculorum, ac votoruin 
 curiositates consideremus, nonne manifesto diabolus morositatein illam 
 Judaicse legis imitatur?" De Prescript, cap. xl, "Quo agnito hie 
 quo-quo studium diaboli cognoscimus, res Dei semulantis ; qui ex ipso 
 baptismo exercet in suis quid simile." De Bapt. cap. v.
 
 266 LETTERS TO 
 
 a divine incarnation, and of salvation through the 
 interference of God in the flesh, been found again and 
 again in the Indian mythology, and in that of other 
 eastern religions ? Could we not easily collect in the 
 same quarters many resemblances to the doctrines of 
 justification, of predestination, of grace, and of atone- 
 ment ? And yet who that has an understanding to 
 judge, is driven for a moment from the holdings of 
 faith by such comparisons as these ? Doubtless in this 
 country the experiment has not been made as it has 
 abroad. The Huines of Yolney and the abridgment of 
 Dupuis' Origine have done much towards sapping 
 religion among the weak in Prance ; and a popular 
 work such as you have put forth might be easily got up 
 in English, attacking Christian truths precisely in the 
 same manner. Now perhaps those who have any 
 desire to find the evidences of Christianity wanting 
 in the balance, would be satisfied by such an argu- 
 ment. And so it is with your work; to those who 
 have already made up their minds that popery is 
 idolatry, your arguments will be most convincing, for 
 there will be an interior echo to respond to its invec- 
 tive; but on the Catholic, or on the enlightened 
 Protestant, it can have no more influence than the 
 similar argument of the Prench infidel. 
 
 I have already intimated, that the few rites pre- 
 served in the Protestant religion might be just as 
 easily traced to heathen customs. In what does the 
 sermon, which forms the main feature of your service, 
 differ from the clnttbat or discourse of the Iman in 
 the Mohammedan mosque ? and the pulpit from its 
 millibar ? Indeed, to tell the truth, I rather suspect 
 it may be still more heathenish ; for if I remember 
 right, in the basilica at Pompeii (from which class of 
 buildings the form of three-aisled churches is taken),
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 267 
 
 there is a sort of elevated pulpit or reading-desk, 
 occupying the most important place. Not to say that 
 in the lately excavated Temple of Concord, wherein 
 Cicero harangued, there seems to he something very 
 much of the same nature. Why, are not your sur- 
 plice and cassock the exact copy or rather successor of 
 the upper garment over a longer one, which Mr. Blunt 
 tells us was worn by the ancient priests, as exhibited 
 in a bronze of the museum at Naples ? Nay, he is 
 obliged to own, that " the cassock of the Protestant 
 Church is an imitation of this more ancient article of 
 clerical dress;" that is, I suppose, of the Catholic 
 cassock, which he has just been deriving from the 
 heathen one. 1 And moreover your one vestment must 
 always be white, the colour ever used in ancient 
 heathen worship ; whereas we vary ours according to 
 circumstances. Again, he tells us that the custom of 
 boys, such as sing in cathedrals, attending at worship, 
 " is a custom manifestly derived from heathen times." 
 And he quotes a picture from Herculaneum, where a 
 boy attends at sacrifice dressed in a white tunic, 
 descending to his knees; and he adds that the boy 
 who ministers at the altar in Italy has the same dress 
 and office, only that he supplies books instead of chap- 
 lets. j Now, as the Italian surplice does not reach 
 below the waist, I hold that the parallel of boys in 
 white tunics with books will be more easily found in 
 St. Paul's than in St. Peter's. 
 
 What is your marriage ceremony but the counter- 
 part of that of the Roman pagans ? for they too used 
 
 1 Vestiges of Ancient Customs, p. 112. 
 
 J The upper garment worn by the priests is called, according to 
 Mr. Blunt, the mozzetta. The mozzetta is only worn by bishops, and 
 in Rome only by cardinals, and is only a tippet which covers the 
 shoulders. Never yet have I found a Protestant traveller describe 
 anything relating to our service correctly.
 
 268 LETTERS TO 
 
 a ring on such occasions, the annulum proniibum, as 
 TertuUian calls it ; so that Juvenal says, 
 
 " Conventum tamen, et pactum et sponsalia nostra 
 Tempestate paras, jamque a tonsore magistro 
 Pecteris, et digito pignus fortasse dedisti." Sat. vi. 
 
 For which use of ceremony and outward rite, I 
 know not what warrant you find in the New Testa- 
 ment. And in like manner the endowing with all 
 worldly goods corresponds to the formula, "Ubi tu 
 Cajus ego Caja ;" though where the worshipping with 
 the body, " and with my body I thee worship," came 
 from, I cannot discover ; for, as when Catholics speak 
 of the worship of images, it is insisted, in spite of 
 their declarations, that they adore them, I suppose 
 I must take this bodily worship for idolatry, and that 
 of the very worst kind, being directed towards a 
 living being. 
 
 The funeral service may be treated in like manner ; 
 the fashion of bearing the body to the grave with 
 great pomp, but without a single symbol about it 
 of Christian hope, or of religious feeling, appears 
 to all foreigners marvellously heathenish ; and the 
 friends going as mourners, and the escutcheons of the 
 family borne with it, and the hired mutes, are exactly 
 to be found in the ancient Roman funerals, where 
 the bier was followed by relations, and the images 
 of ancestors were borne before it, and many hired 
 mourners swelled the crowd. In Italy, on the 
 contrary, the clergy and charitable confraternities 
 alone accompany the body, singing religious chants. 
 Then, the custom of nearest relations throwing earth 
 on the coffin corresponds, as well as possible, with 
 their lighting the funeral pile in ancient times ; and 
 I think too that this practice shows a better con- 
 nection between ancient and modern rites than your
 
 JOHN POYNDEB, ESQ. 269 
 
 charming conjecture, which you recommend to the 
 notice of the learned, that the "Terra sit tibi levis" 
 (which, for prosody's sake is on monuments, always 
 sit tibi terra levis) " was the foundation of prayers 
 for the dead" (p. 80) ; which conjecture I suppose 
 you mean to confirm in the very following paragraph, 
 by allowing that the Jews at the time of the Macca- 
 bees offered sacrifice for the dead. 
 
 Of your baptism I need not speak ; for assuredly 
 your quotation from Ovid, deriding the absurdity of 
 thinking that sin can be washed away by water, would 
 apply, in the mouth of a free-thinker, quite as well to 
 baptism as to holy water; or rather better, as we 
 do not believe crimes to be forgiven by this. 
 
 Thus you see that with very little trouble, we may 
 trace as many resemblances between Protestantism 
 and heathenism, as you can between Catholic and 
 pagan worship. For, with a little second-hand quota- 
 tion and a good deal of original invention, I might 
 have extended each of these heads into so many 
 chapters, and made as long a book as you have. And 
 if my heads would not have been as numerous as 
 yours, my argument would have been better ; because 
 I should have touched on all the ceremonies which you 
 have preserved. 
 
 And then too I could have made another charge. 
 How come you to have retained so many remnants of 
 popish idolatry, saints in your calendar, and saints to 
 whom your churches are dedicated ? And if hea- 
 thenish deification and Catholic canonization are the 
 same thing, what make you of the apotheosis of King- 
 Charles, martyr ? For what virtue was he taken into 
 the calendar ? To what cause did he bear witness ? 
 How comes it that as yet, in the Temple church, is 
 preserved the inscription which grants an indulgence
 
 270 LETTERS TO 
 
 to all who visit it annually?" Surely, if popery be 
 idolatry, you have continued many of its abominations. 
 But I am willing to take the comparison on the 
 broadest grounds which you propose. You imagine 
 that little or no change has taken place in the Pan- 
 theon, by the substitution of all the saints in it for all 
 the gods. I presume you would not quarrel with a 
 heathen temple's being changed into a church ; for you 
 have not scrupled to occupy our churches, even without 
 a thorough Knoxian purgation. 1 But I will suppose, 
 if you please, an ancient Roman revisiting that temple. 
 Thafirst thing which would strike him would be the sign 
 of salvation the image of Christ crucified, raised upon 
 every altar and most conspicuously upon the principal 
 and central one. On the right, the picture of one whom 
 men are stoning, while he, with eyes uplifted, prays 
 for their conversion, would rivet his attention ; and 
 on the left, the modest statue of a virgin, with an 
 infant in her arms, would invite him to inquiry. Then 
 he would see monuments of men, whose clasped 
 or crossed hands express how they expired in the 
 prayer of hope ; the inscription on one side would tell 
 him how the immortal Raphael had willed that no 
 ornament should deck his tomb, but that very statue 
 of God's mother which he had given to that church ; 
 
 k This curious document, placed over the front door, on the inside, 
 runs as follows : 
 
 ANNO AB INCARNATIONS DOMINI MCLXXXV DEDICATA 
 H^EC ECCLESIA IN HONORE BEATAE MARIAE A DNO 
 ERACLIO DEI GRA SCE (SANCT;B) RESURRECTIONIS ECCLESIAE 
 PATRIARCHA IIII IDUS FEBRUARI Ql EA (QUI EAM) ANNATIM 
 PETETIBUS DE IIVNTASi (INJUNCTA SIBI) PENETETIA LX DIES INDULSIT. 
 
 1 At least as to the first point of his system ; the second was 
 pretty well understood in both countries. " The first invasion was 
 upoun the Idolatrie ; and thare effcer the comoun Pepill began to seik 
 sum Spoyll." Historic of the Keformatioun in Scotland, p. 128.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 271 
 
 another informs you, that the illustrious statesman 
 (Consalvi), after bequeathing the fortune he had made 
 in the service of the public, withoiit reserve, to the 
 propagation of Christianity among distant nations, 
 would have no tomb ; but that his friends had, as it 
 were by stealth, erected to him that modest memorial. 
 Around him he would see, at whatever hour of the 
 day he might enter, solitary worshippers, who gently 
 come in through the ever unclosed brazen portals, 
 to keep watch, like the lamp which sheds its mild 
 light upon them, before the altar of God. And I 
 fancy it would be no difficult task, with these objects 
 before us, to expound and fully develop to him the 
 Christian faith ; the life of our Redeemer, beginning 
 with His birth from a Virgin to His death upon a 
 cross ; the testimony to His doctrine, and the power 
 which accompanied it, exhibited in the triumph of the 
 first among His martyrs; the humble and modest 
 virtue which His teaching inspired to His followers, 
 their contempt of worldly praise, and the fixing of 
 their hopes upon a better world; the constant and 
 daily influence His religion exercises among its be- 
 lievers, whom it sweetly invites and draws to breathe 
 a solitary prayer, amidst the turmoils of a busy life. 
 And methinks this ancient heathen would have an 
 idea of a religion immensely different from that which 
 he had professed the religion of the meek and of the 
 humble, of the persecuted and the modest, of the 
 devout and the "chaste. I believe, too, that by seeing 
 the substitution of symbol for symbol, of the cross, 
 the badge of ignominy, with its unresisting Victim, 
 for the haughty thunderer, of the chastest of virgins 
 for the lascivious Venus, of the forgiving Stephen 
 for the avenging god of war, he would conceive 
 a livelier idea of the overthrow of his idolatry by the
 
 272 LETTERS TO 
 
 mildest of doctrines, of the substitution of Christianity 
 for heathenism, than if the temple had been merely 
 stripped, and left a naked hall, or a tottering ruin. 
 
 For I think that the ark of God, standing in the very 
 temple of Dagon, with the idol at its side, broken and 
 so maimed that it might no longer be able to stand 
 upon its pedestal, would convey a prouder and stronger 
 demonstration of the superiority of the Law to the 
 religion of Syria, than when concealed in silence 
 behind the curtain of the sanctuary. And, in fact, so 
 far were the ancient pagans from considering the 
 substitution of Christian emblems for those of their 
 religion, as only a modification of the same worship, 
 that nothing enraged them more, or made them feel 
 more keenly the change which had been introduced. 
 Julian the Apostate thus writes to the Christians : 
 " You, oh hapless men ! while you refuse to adore the 
 shield descended from Jove" (the ancile which you 
 somewhere compare to a popish thing), " which the 
 great Jupiter, or our father Mars, sent down, giving a 
 pledge, not by words but by deeds, of sure protection 
 to our city, adore the wood of the cross, signing its 
 image on your foreheads, and sculpturing it 011 the 
 front of your houses." You see, therefore, that Julian 
 did not think that the substitution of our symbols for 
 those of heathenism was any continuation of the same 
 religion. 
 
 And I might here ask you, what sort of Christians 
 these were who are thus accused of substituting the 
 cross for the ancile, and superstitiously signing it 011 
 their foreheads ? Were they Protestants, or do not 
 these practices strangely savour of Popery ? Now 
 mark St. Cyril's answer. He does not deny the facts 
 he does not enter into any long explanations he 
 answers as a Catholic child might answer your cavils,
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 273 
 
 from the words of his catechism, that Christians 
 " are indeed careful, and esteem it a primary duty 
 
 always to mark the cross upon their foreheads 
 and houses, because it brought to their remembrance 
 how One, dying upon the cross, banished the devil 
 from the kingdom he had usurped over all men, and 
 with him his evil powers, whom our calumniator calls 
 tutelary deities ; and here too they are reminded of the 
 spiritual blessings purchased for us on the cross."" 1 
 And again allow me to ask, would you or I, in other 
 words, your religion or mine, have met the objection 
 in these terms ? Who then were the Christians whom 
 Julian attacked, and Cyril defended ? I will gladly 
 yield you the full benefit of the former's alliance, and 
 contentedly put up with the second's reply, and the 
 faith and practice it supposes. In fact, the Theodosian 
 code orders heathen temples to be destroyed, and 
 " expiated by placing thereon the sign of the venerable 
 Christian religion." 11 
 
 But to return to my parallel. After having thus 
 allowed the heathen to discover, if he could, his 
 ancient worship and morality in the very Roman 
 Church which you have chosen, and explained to him 
 the doctrines there taught, I would bring him to the 
 only splendid temple in this country wherein the 
 Catholic religion has never been exercised, and where 
 alone it has left no vestige of its truths and practices. 
 I would bring him, after duly paying his entrance-fee, 
 into the cathedral of St. Paul's, and desire him to guess 
 the religion to which it belonged. Would not his first 
 question be, Does it belong to any religion ? is it a 
 place of worship at all? No altar, no chapel, no 
 
 m Julian! Apostatse Opera, ut sup. ed. Spanheim, vol. ii. p. 194. 
 n Cod. Theodos. lib. xvi. p. 526, ed. Cujac. 
 i T
 
 274 LETTERS TO 
 
 emblem of any holy thought is visible ; no point towards 
 which men turn, as strongly concentrating the divine 
 presence ; no emblem of a peculiar dedication ; not a 
 worshipper or a reverential spectator; not one who, 
 as he crosses the threshold, prepares his soul, as if 
 approaching God, in prayer. There he sees men, with 
 their heads covered as if in the public street, walking 
 to and fro, looking at the edifice only as an architec- 
 tural wonder, cut off by a stockade from the great 
 nave, because so little respect is paid to it, that, if 
 open, it would be profaned without scruple ; while the 
 jibe and the joke, or the state of the funds, or the 
 scandal of the day, alone divide with their well-taxed 
 curiosity, the conversation of the various groups. 
 Would he, so far, see anything to show him that he 
 stood in a place for Christian worship ? Might not 
 the organ suggest to him that it is a hall for festive 
 meetings ? Might not the mouldy banners that wave 
 above him, lead him to imagine it was the curia, or 
 the senate-house, of the city ? But one circumstance 
 alone might lead him to some accurate judgment ; the 
 seeing how here, one portion of the building, precisely 
 its cella, is parted off and closely screened from the 
 gaze and the tread of the profane ; and as he had not 
 seen anything of this sort in the Catholic Church, and 
 it exactly corresponds to the form of his temples, 
 assuredly he might suspect some still closer analogies. 
 But while he thus felt himself at a loss to discover 
 what religion claimed the possession of this temple, I 
 
 Mr. Poynder quotes Kennet sometimes ; I will therefore quote 
 him too : " Some curious persons have observed this similitude 
 between the shape of these old temples and our modern churches ; 
 that they had one apartment more holy than the rest, which they 
 termed cella, answering to our chancel or cJioir." Antiquities of 
 Borne, p. 41. In the Eoman and Italian churches this does not 
 exist.
 
 JOHN POYXDER, ESQ. 273 
 
 would direct liis attention another way, and bid him 
 look among the tombs and costly monuments which 
 surround him, for some intimation of what god is here 
 worshipped, and what virtues are taught. There he 
 sees emblems indeed in sufficient number, not the 
 cross, nor the dove, nor the olive-branch, as on the 
 ancient tomb ; but the drum and the trumpet, the 
 boarding-pike and the cannon. Who are they whose 
 attitudes and actions are deemed the fit ornaments for 
 this religious temple? Men, rushing forward with 
 sword in hand, to animate their followers to the 
 breach, or falling down while boarding the enemy's 
 deck, heroes, if you choose, benefactors to their coun- 
 try, but surely not the illustrators of religion. Of one 
 it is said, that he died as a Roman would certainly 
 have wished him, after having grappled with his 
 enemy's ship, and rendered the destruction of one or 
 both secure; the epitaph of another is expressed in 
 the words of his commander's despatch ; that of a 
 third, in the vote of the House of Commons ; not a 
 word of a single Christian virtue, of a thought for God, 
 of a hope of heaven ; not a hint that one professed or 
 believed in any religion. And would not the heathen 
 rejoice to have found a temple, where the courage of 
 the three hundred Fabii, or the self-devotion of the 
 Decii, or the virtues of the Scipios, were so plainly 
 taught, and held up to the practical admiration and 
 imitation of men ? 
 
 And how would his delight increase, on more closely 
 inspecting the emblems under which these, virtues or 
 their circumstances, are expressed. Sea and river gods, 
 with their oozy crowns, and out-pouring vases; the 
 Ganges, with his fish and calabash ; the Thames, with 
 the genii of his confluent streams ; and the Nile, with 
 his idol the sphynx : Victory, winged and girt up as 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LETTERS TO 
 
 of old, placing earthly laurel on the brows of the 
 falling ; Fame, with its ancient trumpet, blasting forth 
 their worldly merits; Clio, the offspring of Apollo, 
 recording their history ; and, besides these, new crea- 
 tions of gods and goddesses, Rebellion and Fraud, 
 Valour and Sensibility ; Britannia, the very copy of 
 his own worshipped Roma; and some of these, too, 
 with an unseemly lack of drapery, more becoming an 
 ancient than a modern temple. This assemblage of 
 ancient deities, as the only symbols to instruct his 
 eye, would assuredly go far to confirm him, either that 
 his ancient religion, its emblems, and its morality, had 
 never been supplanted, or that they had lately been 
 restored. Little would it boot to explain to him, how 
 behind that screen a sacred book was read to a few 
 people once a week, to empty benches every day, 
 which teaches men to abhor his idolatry, and worship 
 God in spirit; and that learned men there preach 
 homilies on the peril of idolatry, and the danger of 
 admitting even symbols into worship. All this would, 
 I think, but perplex him the more. If you are not 
 permitted to make any images, or to have them in 
 your temple, he would ask, why break the law only in 
 favour of warriors and river-gods ? If you are allowed, 
 why are the Christians of Home to be denounced and 
 anathematized, for erecting those of Christ and his 
 saints ? And truly, I have no hesitation in saying, 
 that if he reasoned as you have done, and followed 
 your principles of judgment ; if he pronounced upon 
 religion by the shell, and not by the kernel by the 
 body, not by the soul by the outward forms, not by 
 the belief which they express ; and if he persisted, like 
 you, in giving credit to his own impressions and pre- 
 conceived judgments, rather than to the protestations
 
 JOHN POYNDEB, ESQ. 277 
 
 and declarations of those with whom he deals, I have 
 no hesitation in saying, that he would see a much 
 fainter impress of Christian thought in the Protestant, 
 than in the Catholic, temple much greater memorials 
 of proscribed idolatry in the English, than in the 
 Roman, cathedral. 
 
 Such, however, are not the tests which I should 
 suggest to him. I would send him. into a neighbouring 
 island to study its history, and the conduct of those 
 who have there taught the two conflicting religions, 
 with a text in his hand, which would decide the point 
 upon higher authority than yours or mine. In which 
 of the two clergies has the following comparison been 
 fulfilled, or which hath shown more propensity to do 
 that which is attributed in it to the heathen ? " Be 
 not solicitous, therefore, saying : What shall we eat, 
 or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be 
 
 Clothed ? FOB AFTER ALL THESE THINGS DO THE HEA- 
 THENS SEEK. . . . Seek ye, therefore, first, the kingdom 
 of God and his justice." Matt. vi. 31. I am, &c. 
 
 LETTEE THE THIED. 
 
 SIB, I proceed now briefly to touch the particular 
 grounds of your charge against us, and see how far 
 you are borne out in attributing the practices of the 
 present Catholic Church to the rites of heathenism. 
 There are several ways of refuting your supposed 
 parallels ; as by proving what you call the corruptions 
 of popery to have existed in the Christian Church, 
 before you, who make the distinction between the 
 two, allow popery to have existed ; by showing them 
 to have had a different origin altogether ; or by
 
 278 LETTERS TO 
 
 proving you to be entirely mistaken in your facts. I 
 shall use these methods indiscriminately ; and will 
 consult brevity above all other things. 
 
 1. Your first attack (p. 17) is upon the use of 
 incense in the church. It was used among the 
 heathens; granted. Therefore the Catholics derived 
 it from them ; certainly not. The Jews used it before 
 the Romans in the worship of the true God : Did the 
 adoption of it by the heathens render it evil ? Did 
 not Christianity descend in right line from the Jewish 
 religion ; is it not therefore more honest to attribute 
 rites common both to us and them, rather to those 
 whom we profess to follow than to the others ? But 
 fairness is I suppose more than Catholics have a 
 right to expect from, you ; we must drive you from 
 the very field before you will be just to us. Do I say 
 then that we have taken it from the Jews? No, 
 certainly ; we derive it from a higher example, and 
 from a holier temple than theirs. Eor did not the 
 temple of heaven, which surely we may think it 
 right to copy, show to John, angels offering up 
 incense at the altar as symbolical of holy prayer ? 
 (Revel, viii.) And thus alone do we offer it ; for if 
 you will look at the prayers used in presenting it at 
 the altar, you will find them simply referring to this 
 symbolic meaning. It is not with us a sacrificial 
 rite, as among the heathens ; for the priest, and the 
 ministers, and the people, are all honoured by its use. 
 
 Was it just in you to say nothing of the use of 
 incense in the ancient Church ? For doubtless one 
 so learned as you are in ecclesiastical antiquities, is 
 aware, that Dr. Beveridge, bishop of St. Asaph's, 
 defends the genuineness of the Apostolic canons, 
 from Daillie's objection that in the third of them it is 
 expressly said: "Let it not be lawful to offer any-
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 279 
 
 thing at the altar, except oil for the lamps, and Incense 
 at the time of the holy oblation" The learned bishop 
 contends that this clause no way affects the apostolic 
 origin of these canons, because incense was certainly 
 offered up in the ancient Church. And for this he 
 quotes a passage from St. Hippolytus, bishop of Porto 
 in the third century, as well as the testimony of 
 St. Ambrose. 1 " To which he might have added the 
 decree of Pope Sergius in the second, preserved in the 
 pontifical book of Damasus, that "no nun should 
 touch the sacred pall, or serve incense in the church;" 
 also the testimony of St. Ephren, the earliest Syriac 
 writer; who thus speaks in his last will : "Do not 
 bury me with incense and spices, for to me it is as 
 useless glory. Burn your incense in the sanctuary, 
 but perform my funeral with prayer. Offer your 
 odours to God, but follow me with psalms." q How did 
 the Syriac Church get this custom from the Roman 
 heathens ? Perhaps they derived it from the Chinese ; 
 as you have taken pains to prove that these also 
 practise it. 
 
 Is it fair to deduce that offering incense was 
 anciently considered essentially heathenish, from the 
 Christians having refused to offer it expressly to idols, 
 in token of apostasy ? or because Theodosius confis- 
 cates a place where it has been offered to idols ? For 
 the most determined opposers of the ancient use of 
 incense allow it to have been adopted in his time in 
 the Church. 
 
 2. Your second topic presents a similar mixture 
 of suppression of truth and extenuation of falsehood. 
 Holy water is, you say, manifestly of heathen origin, 
 
 P Codex Canonum Ecclesiae primitive vindicatus. Lond. 1678 ; 
 p. 190. See the canon itself, p. 434. 
 
 i Assemani Bibliotheca Orient, torn. i. p. 143.
 
 280 LETTERS TO 
 
 simply again because the heathens used lustration, 
 as the Jews also did. Because the ancient Christians 
 would not eat meat sprinkled with the apostate 
 Julian's holy tcater, as you call it, they equally 
 abhorred every other sort. " Hence we may see," 
 such is your conclusion, " what opposite opinions the 
 primitive Church and the Romish Church entertained 
 on holy water" (p. 9). Now, see the absurdity, I had 
 almost written dishonesty, of this reasoning. You 
 first of all christen with the name which we give 
 to our blessed water, the lustral water of the heathens, 
 and then conclude that because they abhorred this, 
 they detested the other. Suppose I argued thus : The 
 ancient Christians would not go into a church (mean- 
 ing thereby a heathen temple); how horrible then, and 
 how much at variance with the practice of antiquity, 
 is the Protestant custom of praying in churches. 
 And in this manner you conclude most self-con- 
 tentedly, that holy water " could not have been 
 introduced so early" as Pope Alexander I., or 113 
 years after Christ, because St. Justin calls the heathen 
 lustrations a device of the devil ! (p. 19). 
 
 But did not the ancient Christians use holy water ? 
 Indeed they did, and that in a manner to shame us. 
 They did not sprinkle themselves with it, to be sure, 
 or "help themselves from a vessel at the door," as 
 you express it ; they did more than either, they 
 bathed in it. Bead Paciaudi De sacris Christianorum 
 Jlalncis, Borne, 1758, and you will find much to 
 instruct you on this subject. You will there see how 
 the ancient Christians used to bathe themselves before 
 going to church, after the commission of any sin : 
 "Why do you run to the bath after sin?" asks 
 St. John Chrysostom ; " Is it not because you con- 
 sider yourself dirtier than any filth ?" r And Theo- 
 Homil. 18 in 1 Cor.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 281 
 
 phylactus writes in a similar strain. An ancient 
 Christian bath was discovered by Ciampini among the 
 ruins of Rome. But what is more to our purpose, 
 the ancient Christians' never went to receive the 
 Eucharist, or even to pray in their churches, without 
 Washing their hands. "What propriety is there," 
 says Tertullian, "to go to prayer with washed hands, 
 and yet with an unclean spirit ?" s St. Chrysostom is 
 still stronger : " Thou darest not touch the sacred 
 victim with unwashed hands, although pressed by 
 extreme necessity : approach not, therefore, with an 
 unwashed soul."* 
 
 To supply the necessary convenience for this rite, a 
 fountain or basin was provided at the church porch, 
 at which the faithful washed, as St. Paulinus of Nola 
 has several times described in the churches which he 
 built. I will quote only one passage. 
 
 " Sancta nitens famulis interflu.it atria lymphis 
 Cautharus, intrantumque manus lavat amne ministro." u 
 
 St. Leo the Great built one at the gate of St. Paul's 
 Church, which was celebrated by Ennodius of Pavia in 
 eight verses, of which I will quote the four first lines. 
 
 " TInda lavat carnis maculas, sed crimina purgat 
 Purificatque animas, mundior amne fides. 
 Quisquis suis meritis veneranda sacraria Pauli 
 Ingrederis, supplex ablue fonte manus." x 
 
 8 De Oratione, cap. xi. * Homil. ad pop. Antioch. 
 
 u " The portal's basin yields a sparkling wave, 
 
 "Wbere they who enter in, their hands may lave." 
 
 Epist. 32 ad Sulpic. Sever. 
 
 x " Waters can wash the flesh's stains, but faith, 
 Purer than they, can cleanse the soul's defects ; 
 Thou, whoso enterest this holy place, 
 Through the apostle's merits venerable, 
 "Wash, humbly praying, at this font thy hands." 
 
 Ennodii Opera, Carm. 199, torn. i. 
 Perhaps the comma should be placed after supplex.
 
 282 LETTERS TO 
 
 The same was the practice of the Greek Church ; 
 for Eusebius tells us with commendation, how Pau- 
 Unus, bishop of Tyre, placed in the porch of a 
 splendid church which he built, " the symbols of 
 sacred purification, that is, fountains, which gave, by 
 their abundant supply, means of washing themselves 
 to those who entered the temple. " y In fact we have 
 several of the old lustral vases, with early Christian 
 symbols and inscriptions, belonging to both the 
 churches; as a celebrated Latin one at Pesaro, and 
 a Greek one at Venice; drawings of both which 
 you will find in Pacciaudi's work, with an ample 
 description. 
 
 Thus, Sir, you see how much more plentifully the 
 ancient Christians " helped themselves from a vessel 
 at the door of a church" than we do ; for they washed 
 their hands in their holy water. But you will say, 
 This was not holy water ; for we do not read of any 
 blessing pronounced over it. Does then a blessing, 
 or the prayer of faith over any of God's creatures, 
 spoil it or render it unfit for use ? Or does the use of 
 it become superstitious thereby ? The early Chris- 
 tians used to wash their hands at the door of their 
 churches in token of purity ; this has been modified 
 into dipping the finger into vessels of blessed water, 
 placed in the same situation, and with the same 
 symbolical intent : the rite may be modified, but 
 it is essentially the same. 
 
 But, in fact, water was blessed in the ancient Church, 
 and that two ways ; more solemnly on the eve of the 
 Epiphany, and less so once every month ; and this is 
 called in the Greek Euchologium, the pixpo$ ayia(r[j.os, 
 the lesser benediction. The waters of both, although 
 the first was primarily intended for baptism, were 
 y Histor. Eccles. lib. x.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 283 
 
 carried home by the faithful, and highly valued ; so 
 that St. John Chrysostom, whom I dare say you do 
 not consider a papist, tells us that they were miracu- 
 lously preserved from corruption for many years ; 
 which he adduces as a proof of their value, and the 
 holiness of this practice. 2 Nay, the learned Cave 
 quotes the authority of this father in favour of the 
 miracle, and makes no objection to it. a All which 
 looks very much like popish doctrine on this subject. 
 
 But how do you think an ancient father would 
 have answered your reasoning, that this practice is 
 taken from the heathens ? Listen to St. Augustine : 
 " Accursed be the Manichee in Faustus, who says we 
 have changed nothing in the customs of the heathens, 
 knowing not what he speaks about. Por they who 
 otherwise believe, hope, and love, must necessarily, 
 also, otherwise live. And if the use of some things 
 appear in us similar to that of the heathens, as of 
 food, of -drink, of ablutions, ... he uses these things 
 very differently, who directs them to a different 
 end." b This, Sir, is strong language, but well de- 
 served by those who write without well knowing what 
 thev are treating of. 
 
 v <j 
 
 But I must not leave this subject, without noticing 
 the ceremony of blessing horses, at St. Anthony's 
 Church at Borne, on his festival ; which I know not 
 why you couple with the use of holy water (p. 20). 
 In your account there are many inaccuracies, which I 
 beg to point out. First, the priest does not sprinkle 
 the animals singly, but often in droves, and placed at 
 such a distance that the holy water cannot reach 
 
 Hornil. 23 de Bapt. Christi. torn. i. p. 278. 
 a Hist. Lit. Script. Ecclea. Dissert. 2, de Libria Eccles. Gr. voce 
 Agiasmoa. 
 
 b Adv. Faustutn, lib. xx. c. 23.
 
 284 LETTERS TO 
 
 them ; consequently, the contact of holy water is not 
 necessary for the blessing. Secondly, there is 110 
 payment of tant par Ute, as you express it ; a small 
 voluntary oblation is given by some, but there is no 
 tax ; and the greater part of those who choose to bring 
 their horses there give nothing. Thirdly, it is quite 
 clear that the sprinkling of horses at the games was 
 110 sacred rite, but only for their refreshment ; as the 
 dissertation by my learned colleague Professor Nibby, 
 on the circus of Romulus, would have taught you. 
 
 In what therefore consists the ceremony ? Why in 
 a prayer pronounced by a priest, that those who use 
 those animals may not receive injury or hurt; after 
 which holy water is sprinkled, as it is at the conclusion 
 of every blessing in the church, for a token of the 
 direction or application of the prayer, and as an 
 emblem of purification. I have known several Pro- 
 testants go into the sacristy and procure a copy of the 
 prayer, and express themselves quite satisfied of its 
 perfect propriety. 
 
 But, Sir, have you nothing similar to this ceremony ? 
 You are, I doubt not, strictly observant of religious 
 forms ; and certainly every day bless your meat. What 
 greater superstition or heathenish folly is there in 
 blessing a living animal than in blessing a dead one, 
 a horse, which through its wickedness may lame you, 
 or a pheasant or partridge, which can only by your 
 own intemperance prove hurtful ? Do you not see, 
 that the blessing of an irrational thing is only another 
 form of blessing on those who use it ? and as you 
 perceive nothing monstrous in the idea of blessing or 
 praying over meat, or animals deprived of life, there 
 can be 110 great harm in anticipating that blessing, and 
 giving them the benefit of it while alive. 
 
 3. Your next grand division is, Lights and Votive
 
 JOHN POYKDERj ESQ. 285 
 
 Offerings. As to the first, you have again a most 
 respectable precursor in antiquity, worthy to keep 
 company with Julian and Faustus. This is the 
 heretic Vigilantius, who, St. Jerome tells us, called it 
 idolatry to have lamps always burning before the 
 tombs of the martyrs. You have seen the Apostolical 
 Constitutions mention the practice with commendation, 
 in company with incense. St. Paulinus and St. Jerome 
 inform us, that tapers were burnt day and night in the 
 church. The former says, 
 
 " Clara coronantur densis altaria lychnis, 
 Lumina ceratis adolentur ad ora papyris, 
 Noctu dieque micant." d 
 
 In the works of St. Optatus, we have a list of the 
 plate given up to the persecutors by Paul, bishop of 
 Cirta ; among which are " lucernse argenteas septem, 
 cereopala duo," seven silver lamps, two candlesticks* 
 And similar objects of church plate are mentioned in 
 the acts of St. Laurence. 
 
 But here again, why is the practice of burning 
 lights in the Jewish sanctuary overlooked ? Is there 
 any, the slightest, moral impropriety, or essential evil, 
 in the use of lights ? And if not, is it desecrated by 
 having been formerly applied by the heathens to a false 
 worship, as well as by the Jews to a true one ? The 
 same is to be said of votive offerings. You erect 
 a statue or a bust to a man whom you honour and 
 admire ; this is a natural manifestation of good feeling 
 and gratitude ; does it become wicked and abominable 
 because as much was done by heathens to their fellows 
 
 c Ep. ad Ripar. 53. 
 
 d " The glorious altar, thickly crown' d \vith lights, 
 
 Is perfumed by the tapers' odorous flame ; 
 
 Through day and night they shine." Xatal. 3. S. Felicis. 
 e Acta purgat. Caeciliani, p. 266.
 
 286 LETTERS TO 
 
 of old ? Even so, if a Catholic believes that he has 
 received a favour from God, through the intercession 
 of His saints, is he to be debarred from the public 
 attestation of his conviction, and the open declaration 
 of his gratitude, because heathens, who pre-existed, 
 naturally were the first to seize on the most obvious 
 way of expressing these sentiments ? Once more, Sir, 
 it is the doctrine, and not its outward expression, that 
 should have been attacked. 
 
 4. You quarrel greatly with our sacred vestments, 
 which you say, " for a Romish priest, are sufficiently 
 numerous and puzzling" (p. 27) ; and in another place 
 you manifest a particular abhorrence for the clerical 
 tonsure. Puzzling and numerous they doubtless are 
 to you, who do not know their names or understand 
 them ; but not so to Catholics. Why, Sir, to me the 
 dresses of a doctor of divinity at Cambridge, three, I 
 believe, in number, with their scarlet cloth, and rose- 
 coloured silk, and sashes, and scarfs, and cassocks, and 
 rich ermine capes, and full round sleeves, are perfectly 
 unintelligible. Surely we are not to quarrel about the 
 " fashion of our doublets," or raise controversy upon 
 one another's dress. Nay, your clergy would look 
 strange enough, if they observed their canons; and 
 that too not merely when in their churches, but in 
 public places. For in the Constitutions and Canons 
 Ecclesiastical, not long ago reprinted, and therefore, I 
 suppose, in force, it is ordained, " that no ecclesiastical 
 persons shall wear any wrought nightcap, but only 
 plain nightcaps of black silk, satin, or velvet:" also 
 that, " in their journeys they shall wear cloaks 
 without sleeves, commonly called priests' cloaks, 
 without guards, welts, long buttons, or cuts:" more- 
 over, that in private houses, they may "use any 
 comely and scholar-like apparel, provided that it be
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 287 
 
 not cut or pinkt; and that in public they go not 
 in their doublet and hose, without coats or cassocks, 
 and that they wear not any light-coloured stockings." f 
 But seriously speaking, if you would look into the 
 meaning and antiquity of. our sacred vestments, per- 
 haps you would be a little surprised at the ignorance 
 you have betrayed ; and for this purpose, as well as 
 others connected with the points I have briefly touched 
 upon, allow me to recommend to your perusal the 
 excellent work of my very esteemed friend Dr. Rock, 
 entitled Hier-urgia-, where you will find much that will 
 be quite new to you. As to the tonsure, how there is 
 more superstition in uncovering the head, by removing 
 the hair, than in covering it by a wig, as the bishops 
 of the establishment have heretofore been used to do 
 a laudable practice I believe, of late rather neglected 
 I am at a loss to see. St. Jerome tells us somewhere 
 that much hair on the head is only the fashion 
 of dandies, barbarians, and military men " luxurio- 
 sonim, barbaronmi, et militantium;" so that I think 
 he would have preferred the diminution of real, to the 
 superaddition of factitious, hair. In fact our practice, 
 which, after all, is but a matter of discipline, is based 
 upon very ancient canons, regarding the growth of 
 hair in ecclesiastics. As to your comparison of the 
 tonsure with the shaving of all the hair, practised by 
 those employed in the rites of Isis, be so good as 
 to consult their meaning, as explained by Synesius, 
 and then you will see the diiference. 
 
 I find I am getting involved in too detailed a con- 
 troversy for my time and occupations ; so that I will 
 content myself with one or two more points, leaving 
 the case in my reader's hands. For I believe that in 
 a court of law, when you have disproved the accuser's 
 
 f Page 47.
 
 288 LETTERS TO 
 
 testimony on several points, you prove him unworthy 
 of credit in the rest. 
 
 You are greatly offended with the inscriptions over 
 Catholic churches, which, after Middleton, you com- 
 pare with those of heathens ; and your eulogist in the 
 Times decorated his columns with your comparative 
 list (p. 33). The grounds of your dislike amount to 
 this, that we, choosing to write in Latin, go to pure 
 models, and prefer good words and forms to barbarous 
 or corrupt ones. Truly this is a monstrous delin- 
 quency, worse than the clerk of Chatham's, whom 
 Jack Cade hung for " setting of boys' copies, and 
 having a book in his pocket with red letters in it." If 
 you choose to consider it as a matter of taste, I am 
 with you. I would go farther to copy a pair of good 
 old leonine verses with rhyme in the middle and end, 
 than to take down the chastest inscription by Morcelli 
 or Schiassi ; and gladly would I, that the reformers 
 had not, by their derision of the simple style used in 
 the Church, introduced that overweaning taste for 
 classical Latinity, of which you justly complain. 
 Though I fear we do not agree even here ; for you call 
 the beautiful and moving hymn Dies Tree, an abomi- 
 nation ! (p. 94.) But to make it a crime to use the 
 same words as the Romans did in the dedication of 
 a temple, while we write in the same language, is 
 placing us in a sad dilemma between heathenism and 
 barbarity. Yet I find that in the dedication of your 
 churches to saints, which is, after all, a more serious 
 matter than the forms in which it is done, the words 
 used by the pagans are to be read ; the church is styled 
 cedis, or templum ; God is Opt. Max. as Jupiter was ; 
 the saints are called Divus ; the building is said to be 
 sacred to them; and I find all your Latin writers 
 who affect elegance, making use of these and similar
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 289 
 
 word swithout scruple. Yet no one has called them 
 heathens. 
 
 But, Sir, it would have been well for you to have 
 verified your master's quotations before you repeated 
 them; for you would not have found one of them 
 correct. The first, though I see no harm in it, I do not 
 believe exists in Boldonius or elsewhere ; the second 
 happens only to be like a phrase in Cicero, which 
 surely is no sin, and contains, besides, in the original, 
 a clear distinction between God and the saint; the 
 third is garbled and dismembered ; the fourth, com- 
 posed by Polo, is quoted by Boldonius only to be 
 criticised in the severest terms, as a most unjusti- 
 fiable imitation of a pagan form ! Beware, Sir, how 
 you receive too implicitly the gifts of such men as 
 Middleton, 
 
 KCIKOU yap c'cipoe <Iip ovr\aiv OVK 
 
 But I fear that, however we may change our phrase, 
 it will be difficult to escape the censure of learned 
 travellers. Eor you will doubtless remember the fact 
 of one among that class, who dedicated his travels to 
 a very zealous Protestant baronet, h proving us to be 
 idolaters from our calling the Blessed Virgin, on our 
 churches, Deipara, which he translated, equal to 
 God. However, to make some amends to you for 
 having thus destroyed the interest of your inscrip- 
 tions, I will give you a new one in their place, 
 exceedingly popish, but at the same time very 
 ancient. It was found two or three years ago in the 
 ruins of Ostia, and is, I believe, as yet inedited. 
 
 ANICIVS AVCHENIVS BASSVS V C ET TVRRENIA HONO 
 RATA C E EIVS CVM FILIIS DEO SANCTISQVE DEVOTI p 
 
 This Anicius Bassus, who puts up a public inscription 
 
 Euripid. Med. 625. h Sir E. luglis. 
 
 i TJ
 
 290 LETTERS TO 
 
 to tell us that he, his wife, and children, were devout to 
 God and the saints, lived about three hundred and 
 eighty years after Christ, and was no mean person- 
 age, having held the office of proconsul of Campania, 
 as appears from his numerous inscriptions in Gruter, 
 Muratori, Fabretti, and others ;* neither was he very 
 much under the influence of papal rule, for he is 
 mentioned in ecclesiastical history as having, with 
 Marinianus the patrician, most calumniously accused 
 Pope Sixtus ; upon whose full justification his goods 
 were confiscated by Valentinian. So that this union 
 of the saints with God in a common inscription, must 
 have been the effect neither of ignorance nor of papal 
 tyranny, but of universal belief and practice. 
 
 But what shall we say to the chapels and oratories, 
 and still more the crucifixes and images, seen on the 
 wayside in Italy, and more frequently in the land of 
 the heroic Tyrolese ? Your wrath is greatly inflamed 
 against these high places of Popery, as you call them 
 (p. 32) ; for my part, I hold them to be among the 
 most beautiful and touching characteristics of the 
 country. I well remember one evening, toiling along 
 the sides of Etna, over a black field of lava, without 
 a single object around that could cheer a wearied 
 traveller ; not a tree nor shrub, not a hut nor other 
 sign of human habitation ; not a star in the heavens, 
 nor a reflection of twilight smiled upon our dreary 
 road. But before us, at a distance, was one bright 
 gleam, a brilliant point of steady light, which seemed 
 the fairer for the gloomy desolation which surrounded 
 us ; and long we journeyed, conjecturing what that 
 beacon could denote, whether the hovel of a peasant, 
 or the watch-fire of the shepherd, till we stood before 
 
 * Gruter, 1090, 20 (AN9YIIAT. KAMHAN.) Murat. 467, 7; 
 Fabretti, p. 100, n. 225 ; p. 261, 120.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 291 
 
 it, and found it to be the lamp which some poor, but 
 pious, neighbour had lighted before a Madonna in a 
 niche on the wayside, on whose countenance it shed, 
 amidst the solitude and silence of the place and time, 
 a mild and cheering brightness. My companion, 
 whose religion differed from mine, could not help 
 observing how exquisitely beautiful and benevolent 
 this simple act of rustic religion then appeared to 
 him, and how cheerless the rest of the way would 
 seem, after we had turned our back upon the Ma- 
 donna's lamp. And in every part of the country, to 
 see the little rustic altars, with their tribute of flowers, 
 exhaling a cloudless incense before them, and their 
 fading garlands hung around, cannot but make one 
 feel how completely, in the mind of the simplest 
 peasant, the ideas of the holy and the beautiful are 
 essentially united ; and how their duty to God and 
 His saints seeks to manifest itself with them, pre- 
 cisely as the affections of a child would be shown to 
 the memorials of a departed parent. 
 
 In England too, Sir, there is no lack of images and 
 representations of men upon the wayside ; there are 
 the King's head, and the Queen's, the Turk's, and the 
 Saracen's, set up at convenient distances beside the 
 road, to invite the poor peasant to rites more unholy 
 than a prayer to saints ; which, as they pass, they do 
 not merely, what you think so wrong, " pull off their 
 hats," but they draw from their purse their wife and 
 children's food and maintenance ; whereby they are 
 invited, not to such abominations as " crossing them- 
 selves, or genuflecting," but to go in and join Bac- 
 chanalian orgies, where their time, and morals, and 
 health, are all wasted away. But woe to this happy 
 land, if ever, instead of these pictures and images by 
 the wayside, shall be seen those of Christ crucified, or 
 
 u2
 
 292 LETTERS TO 
 
 of the angel announcing His incarnation to His 
 Virgin Mother ; such a change would be frightfully 
 superstitious ! Woe to its people, if ever they shall 
 be seen reminded of good and holy thoughts by their 
 emblems on the road, and heard to whisper a prayer 
 as they pass an oratory by the way, rather than pay 
 homage to the symbols of immorality and debauch ! 
 But, Sir, if we are all to have some images or pictures 
 on the roads, give me the Tyrol, with its crucifixes, and 
 its brave peasantry, with their beads in their hands 
 when they go to work, and I will leave you those 
 English representations, in which doubtless your zeal 
 sees nought superstitious and unholy ; and those who 
 worship there, in whose conversation, as they pass 
 along the road, you will surely find nothing to blame 
 as a prayer to saints, or a thought about their 
 existence. I am, &c. 
 
 LETTEE THE FOURTH. 
 
 SIR, The specimens of your inaccuracies given 
 in my last letter, will be sufficient, I natter myself, 
 to put you and your readers on their guard against 
 too implicitly believing often-repeated tales. I will 
 trouble you only with a few more reflections, and 
 they shall be moreover very brief. 
 
 Throughout your work, you assume it for granted, 
 that there is a system of premeditated deceit carried 
 on by the priesthood to which I belong ; that there is 
 amongst us a desire and a constant effort to keep the 
 people under subjection, by the invention of miracles 
 or of dogmas, of ceremonies or of commandments, 
 just as tDur ends or our circumstances may best appear
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 293 
 
 to require. Were this true, we should, of course, 
 deserve that society and mankind should scout us 
 from the face of the earth. To me further information 
 on this important point would be highly interesting ; 
 for if any one has a right to claim initiation into all 
 the mysteries of his caste, I think I have every reason 
 to suppose that I ought to have heen made a craft- 
 master in mine. Having received most of my edu- 
 cation in the very heart and citadel of its influence ; 
 having been deemed sufficiently qualified to prepare 
 others for this dark ministration, and to instruct them 
 in all the arts they must exercise ; having been 
 honoured, however unworthily, with several com- 
 missions implying a confidence in my stanchness 
 and fidelity, I should imagine I am intrusted with 
 the whole secret of our power, and all the happy 
 resources which you attribute to us, for preserving 
 and extending our spiritual dominion. I cannot 
 therefore but think it strange, that you should know 
 so much more about our principles and doings than 
 has ever been intrusted to me, or than I have been 
 desired to teach to others of the same profession. For 
 the way, and the only way, in which I, or those who 
 have learnt with me, were taught by our good and 
 learned masters to gain and keep our influence over 
 men, was by outstripping them in good works, and 
 endeavouring to show forth, in practice, the doctrines 
 which we inculcate, by ever living up to the obli- 
 gations we have taken upon ourselves, and by never 
 being slack in the duties of our ministry. 
 
 As to miracles, it is true we were taught to believe 
 in them ; and if we therein resemble heathens, you 
 might have made your parallel still more complete,
 
 291 LETTERS TO 
 
 for we believe them precisely for the same reason 
 which they assign : 
 
 ov^iv TtOTf. (jxiiverai 
 
 We believe, like them, in the omnipotence of God, and 
 see no authority for supposing that His arm is short- 
 ened. I know not whether your admiration of 
 Middleton carries you to the extent of admitting the 
 principles of his Free Enquiry ; if so, you of course 
 maintain that the only way to get rid of Catholic 
 miracles is, to consign all the fathers of the Church 
 to the same doom, of being considered impostors and 
 forgers of wonders, to deceive the people. If so, I 
 once more thank you for the good company in which 
 your reasoning compels you to place us. If you 
 excuse them, at the expense of your master, you 
 overthrow the whole foundation of your argument, 
 by allowing miracles to have continued in the Church 
 after the apostles' times; and I should be glad to 
 know whence came, and where is to be found, the 
 decree which put an end to the interference of God's 
 power in His own works. 
 
 But while we are thus taught to believe in miracles 
 generally, somehow or other we have been always told 
 to be very much upon our guard against admitting any 
 case, without the minutest examination ; and I have 
 ever observed the extremest caution used by persons 
 in high office about such as were reported; and 
 I have known instances of spurious or imaginary ones 
 being most severely exposed and condemned, in the 
 most public manner. You know as well as I do, that 
 no Catholic is bound to believe any of the miracles you 
 record, and I dare say you will find many who dis- 
 
 k Pindar, Pyth. x. 77.
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 295 
 
 believe them all. In fact, I think Catholics are quite 
 as hard to convince of the truth of any miracle as 
 Protestants; and yet they remain good Catholics. 
 For my part, all my reflection and study have led me 
 to doubt the truth of that principle which Voltaire 
 adopted from a heathen philosopher, that incredulity 
 is the beginning of wisdom. I have never observed in 
 those persons, who, so soon as they hear of any ex- 
 traordinary manifestations of God's power, take their 
 untruth for granted till they be fully proved, any other 
 demonstrations of a strong mind, or nervous reason. 
 On the contrary, I have generally noted, that those 
 who scoff at such things, and make a boast that they 
 are not easily convinced, are in fact only endeavouring 
 to shroud ignorance and weakness behind this small 
 display of unbelief, and desirous to gain the character 
 of an esprit fort with the slightest possible risk. I 
 am not ashamed to own, that, believing as I do in the 
 promises to faith and prayer not having been with- 
 drawn or weakened, and in God's exercise of His 
 power, when required in favour or in honour of His 
 Church ; when I hear from persons whose characters 
 I fully know, and who, I am satisfied, could have no 
 motive or desire to deceive me, of some such work of 
 power, whereby the goodness of God has been displayed 
 in favour of those who trusted in Him, and where the 
 worst consequences of a mistake could only be my 
 having blessed Him for His care of those who love Him, 
 and having felt a passing glow of virtuous emotion 
 through my soul, my first impulse is to believe and to 
 receive such a recital ; and, neither building faith nor 
 resting proofs upon it, I preserve it as a seed of hope, till 
 something more occurs, either to give it further life, or 
 to wither it where it hath been cast. And as when we 
 throw into the garden's soil many seeds together, we are
 
 296 LETTERS TO 
 
 contented if but a few spring up and yield us fruit ; so 
 am I, if, of many such facts, some are more fully 
 verified, and ripen into proof; whereas, if I rejected 
 all, I prohably should have the joy of none. And if 
 you would read the beautiful preface of the philoso- 
 phical Gorres to the exquisite Life of Klaus von der 
 Eliie, written by his good and amiable son, you would 
 see how rational and how reasonable is the course 
 which I pursue. 
 
 But among all your declamations against the Catholic 
 priesthood, there is one, the wickedness of which recoils, 
 in my idea, so signally upon yourself, one which I 
 can with such difficulty believe could have been uttered 
 by any one whose mind habitually loved to dwell on 
 the holy and the good, that I cannot believe any 
 sincere friend of your religion will help abhorring any 
 defence of it, which could require such blasphemous 
 expressions. I allude to the indecent way in which 
 you speak of the adoration paid by us to the Blessed 
 Eucharist, where we believe the true Body and Blood 
 of our Redeemer to be present (p. 66). You may 
 differ from us in belief, but only infidels have, in 
 general, ventured to scoff and rail at any worship 
 which is intended for the true God and His adorable 
 Son. If a Socinian, disbelieving in the Incarnation, 
 were to speak as you do of our Lord, when a helpless 
 infant in the flesh, or were he to say, in parallel 
 language, that no people ever thought of their God 
 being put to death, before the Christians, you would 
 not think his difference of belief would justify him in 
 such unseemly levity. The same is your case ; for the 
 belief of Christ's presence in the Eucharist is that not 
 only of Catholics, among whom have assuredly been 
 in our times, and are, men of the soundest philoso-
 
 JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 297 
 
 phical minds, but of the Lutherans, and of the most 
 learned divines of the Anglican Church. 
 
 You do not believe yourself, nor the sect, whatever 
 it may be, to which you belong, possessed of infallibi- 
 lity; and therefore you may be wrong in what you 
 now hold, even according to your own principles. You 
 should not, consequently, rail at what you one day 
 may discover to be true. And even if this grace 
 never should be granted you, if you should feel your- 
 self immovable in every article of your present creed, 
 I would exhort you to remember, that even the 
 archangel Michael, when contending with the evil one, 
 " Durst not bring against him a railing accusation," 
 as your version renders it, or as the Vulgate more 
 strongly and literally words it, " a judgment of blas- 
 phemy." (Jude 9.) There is a taint and a leprous 
 defilement left on the soul of him who uses words of 
 blasphemy, however right the hypothesis on which he 
 grounds them ; there is an unchasteness of mind in 
 the indulging of thoughts even regarding error, which, 
 if spoken of the truth, would be insulting to God's 
 awful majesty ; and, therefore, would not an archangel 
 defile himself by the use of such rebuke, even to the 
 accursed fiend. But to his conduct, the apostle 
 opposes those who "speak evil;" or, as the Vulgate 
 renders it once more, " who blaspheme those things 
 which they know not" (v. 10). Take heed which of 
 these courses you follow; and learn, first, to make 
 yourself acquainted with the subjects that you handle, 
 before indulging in unchristian language ; nay, even 
 then refrain from using it. 
 
 I must now draw these letters to a conclusion, not 
 from want of matter, nor from a desire to pass over 
 several other topics of your book ; but because, I trust, I
 
 298 LETTERS TO JOHN POYNDER, ESQ. 
 
 have done sufficient in the two first to overthrow 
 the entire groundwork of your theory ; and in the two 
 last, to prove what credit is due to your specific asser- 
 tions. Things which appear strange, or even wrong, 
 to the uninitiated, are beautiful when their true origin 
 and meaning are understood; or, as the divine poet 
 beautifully expresses it, 
 
 " Yeramente piu volte appajon cose 
 Che danno a dubitar falsa matera, 
 Per la vere cagion che son nascose." Purgat. xxii. 
 
 And I shall be satisfied, if this correspondence shall 
 lead any of its readers to further inquiries regarding 
 the character of our ceremonies, as well as of our 
 dogmas. I am, &c.
 
 AUTHOEITY 
 
 HOLY SEE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW of July, 1838.
 
 [This essay may appear to have outlived any interest that it 
 originally possessed; for it refers chiefly to a contest carried on 
 beyond the Atlantic, now many years ago. But it may not be with- 
 out its moral. The conflict between the Brazilian ministry of 1834 
 and the Holy See, wherein the latter was menaced with the separa- 
 tion from its communion of a vast empire, if it did not relinquish its 
 rights in the institution of bishops, and yet remained unmoved, may 
 serve to prove how absurd is the idea that the successors of St. Peter 
 will flinch from the performance of their duty, at the threatful bidding 
 of any temporal power.]
 
 AUTHORITY 
 
 OF THB 
 
 HOLY SEE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 1. Ensayo sobre la Supremacia del Papa, Sfc. Essay on the Supremacy 
 
 of the Pope, especially with regard to the Institution of Bishops. 
 By the Rev. Dr. Joseph Ignatius Moreno, Archdeacon of the 
 Metropolitan Church of Lima, Author of the " Peruvian Letters." 
 Lima, 1836. 
 
 2. Panegirico de la esclarecida Vlrgen Santa Catalina de Sena, Sfc. 
 
 Panegyric of the glorious Virgin Saint Catherine of Sienna. By 
 
 Dr. D. Miguel Calixto del Corro, published principally for 
 
 the purpose of inspiring a mortal hatred of the monster Schism, 
 and of convincing all men of the necessity of obedience to the 
 Sovereign Pontiff, for the maintenance of true Catholicism, and 
 the obtaining of life eternal. Buenos Ayres, 1837. 
 
 3. Reflexoes imparciaes sobre a Falla do Ti'ono e as respostas das 
 
 Camaras Legislative de 1836. Impartial Reflections upon the 
 Speech from the Throne, and on the Addresses in reply from the 
 Legislative Chambers o/"1836. Rio de Janeiro, 1837. 
 
 4. Resposta do Provincial dos Franciscanos do Rio de Janeiro, fyc. 
 
 Answer of the Provincial of the Franciscans of Rio de Janeiro to 
 the Questions, treated in the Memoir sent with a Message from the 
 Government, for his Opinion. Rio de Janeiro, 1837. 
 
 5. Memoria sobre o Direito da Primazia do Sober ano Ponteflce Ro- 
 
 mano, Sfc. Memoir upon the Right of Primacy of the Sovereign 
 Roman Pontiff", in the Confirmation and Canonical Institutions of 
 all Bishops. Translated from the French. Rio, 1837. 
 
 6. Selecta Catholica. No. 8. Rio, 1837. 
 
 THE learned author of the first work on this list 
 remarks, that amongst those who take up his hook, 
 there will he some " who, valuing only what comes 
 from Paris or London, will throw it aside for no other
 
 302 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 reason but that it is a work written at Lima, and 
 containing no curious narratives, no naming theories, 
 and no capricious novelties in matters of religion, 
 philosophy, politics, or finance." (P. xiv.) To us 
 these are the very circumstances that particularly 
 Create an interest in his writings, and in the others 
 now lying before us. To find, in works published 
 beyond the wide Atlantic, the very faith that is taught 
 not only in London or in Paris, but in Home itself, 
 free from the slightest trace of that novelty which is 
 impressed upon every institution in the new states of 
 South America, defended and illustrated with a learn- 
 ing, a zeal, and a generosity which would do honour 
 to any country in Europe, is to us really refreshing, 
 and a source of sincere gratification. Gladly as we 
 should hail such works, if published in Paris or 
 London, they come to us with a special charm, from 
 the distance they have travelled. 
 
 Authority is not generally supposed to act in a ratio 
 inverse of distance from its centre ; especially that 
 which has no fleets or armies to support it, but only 
 the influence of moral arguments and feelings. That 
 Great Britain, mistress of the ocean, and the Tyre of 
 modern nations, should keep in subjection countries 
 remote as the antipodes, can scarcely be matter of 
 astonishment ; her thousand prows not only bear, but 
 can enforce her commands. And yet the more dis- 
 tant parts of her transmarine possessions have more 
 than once given proof that, when consciousness of 
 strength has reached its proper pitch, there will be a 
 tendency in them to break the connecting link, the 
 cord, so to speak, which supplied the vital energy 
 from the circulation of the mother country, and to 
 assert an independent individuality of existence. But 
 the Sovereign Pontiff, His vicar, whose kingdom is
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 303 
 
 not of this world, unarmed with temporal power, 
 beyond the narrow limits of his states, without 
 recourse to spiritual weapons, for with one grand 
 exception, the thunderbolts of the Church's anathemas 
 have been laid up for many days in her arsenals, 
 he maintains undisturbed his sacred dominion from 
 east to west, and need not fear its overthrow, either 
 from the caprice of rulers, or from the growing inde- 
 pendence of spirit in distant nations. We believe we 
 are correct in asserting, that the separation of the 
 Spanish dependencies from their mother country, was 
 hailed by biblicals, missionary societies, and other 
 brokers in religious stock, as producing a new and 
 favourable market for their wares. Bales of bibles, 
 and chests of tracts, were poured in with every fresh 
 supply of Birmingham hardware or Manchester 
 prints; and every commercial envoy had a vis-d-vis 
 on his voyage in the shape of a religious agent. 
 Toleration that is, the free importation of all the 
 brawling sects that tear one another to pieces in Eng- 
 land was confidently anticipated ; and a country just 
 cleared of monasteries could not but be considered in 
 prime condition for a crop of presbyterianism or bible 
 reading. 3 But seriously speaking, appearances fore- 
 
 a At a meeting of the Bible Society in September, 1824, the 
 Protestant Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (Ryder) is reported to 
 have " congratulated the meeting upon the prospect now opening to 
 their view in Columbia ; and contrasted the progress ivhich the society 
 icas now making in that newly-formed government, with the spirit of 
 bigotry and persecution that disgraced the first introduction of 
 Christianity among that people. The consequence was, that despo- 
 tism, civil and religious, had covered that land, and impaired her 
 moral energies had made it the seat of superstition the very fast- 
 ness of Papal power (cheers) ; but the storm had at length subsided, 
 and they were now permitted, under the guidance of Him, 'who 
 guided the whirlwind and directed the storm,' to spread through that 
 country the glorious tidings of ' peace on earth, and good will towards
 
 304 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 boded not well for religion. The Holy See, with 
 every other European power, hesitated to break its 
 harmony with Spain, for the recognition of the 
 embryo republics, which disputed more among them- 
 selves than with the parent land. The succession of 
 bishops was almost, if not entirely, interrupted, and 
 Spain claimed the right to name to the vacant sees, 
 while the revolted provinces refused to accept of its 
 nominees. The hatred towards Spain caused the 
 banishment of many clergy and religieux, who were 
 natives of that country; and thus the supply of 
 ecclesiastics was become very scanty. 
 
 It was natural to expect that, while affairs were in 
 this condition, some would be found to re-echo, in the 
 western hemisphere, those doctrines of religious inde- 
 pendence which, in some parts of the eastern, had 
 been considered a part of the code of political libe- 
 ralism. And no doubt to many who understand not 
 the spirit of the Catholic religion, an ardour for civil 
 freedom, with an equal zeal for subjection to a foreign 
 pontiff, may appear an anomaly. The objections 
 made by the See of E-ome to the repeated applications 
 for bishops, so long as the struggle continued between 
 the parent country and its dependencies, was naturally 
 displeasing to the latter ; and a party arose, that 
 desired to see the Churches of South America es- 
 tablished on the model of the schismatical one at 
 Utrecht, paying merely a nominal submission to the 
 successor of St. Peter. These dangerous principles 
 were fanned from without. The restless politician, 
 M. de Pradt, addressed the Mexican government, 
 
 men.'" (Cheers.) In a part of the report read at this meeting, it is 
 said that the fields of South America are " already white for the 
 harvest." See report of the meeting quoted from the Morning 
 Chronicle, in Cobbett's "Weekly Register, September 18, 1824*.
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 305 
 
 while it was treating with Rome for the appointment of 
 bishops, exhorting it to make such a concordat with the 
 Holy See, as should leave it for the future indepen- 
 dent in the election and institution of bishops, and in 
 the government of the churches ; and should the 
 Holy See refuse, as was naturally to be expected, then 
 to make every protestation of fidelity and union, and 
 proceed to nomination without its concurrence. In 
 this wicked proposal another unfortunate member of 
 the same school, the Canon Villanueva, went farther 
 still. "For, in a work of which thousands of copies 
 were disseminated over all the new states, he denied 
 even the necessity of the preliminary step recom- 
 mended by De Pradt ; and amidst a torrent of abuse 
 against the popes, and a futile attempt to show that 
 they have never held themselves bound by their 
 concordats when made, advised the infant republics 
 to assert their ecclesiastical, together with their 
 political, freedom. 
 
 Fortunately, good sense, as well as sound religious 
 principles, ruled in the councils of the states ; not one 
 swerved from its duty. They preferred waiting with 
 patience till time and circumstances should allow the 
 Vicar of Christ to give bishops to their widowed 
 churches ; nor were they long disappointed. So soon 
 as the hold which Spain had on her colonies was 
 reduced to protests and protocols, in spite of all 
 opposition and resistance on the part of the former, 
 the Holy See proceeded to treat with the latter for 
 the filling up of vacant sees. By degrees, Chili, Peru, 
 Mexico, the Argentine republic, and the other states, 
 have been supplied with pastors ; the Jesuits and 
 other religious orders have been reinstated, and the 
 entire continent, essentially Catholic, is firmly knitted 
 
 x
 
 306 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY' SEE 
 
 in sympathies, as in belief, with the rest of the 
 Church. 
 
 It is chiefly to answer the calumnies of Villanueva 
 and Pereira, that the first work on the list at the 
 head of our article was written. The ponderous and 
 inaccurate quarto of the latter author, 11 had been 
 translated from the Portuguese into Spanish, at Lima, 
 in 1833, but was received with little or no encourage- 
 ment by the public. Don Jose Ignacio Moreno has 
 done the work of refutation solidly and efficaciously. 
 His volume is only a second part, though complete in 
 itself, to a first Essay published six years earlier, 
 treating on the great question of the supremacy, which 
 we regret we have not been fortunate enough to pro- 
 cure. We own that we have been so agreeably sur- 
 prised by the portion now before us, as anxiously to 
 desire a perusal of the preceding. In the difficulty 
 under which we necessarily labour of procuring 
 accurate information on the ecclesiastical affairs of 
 those distant countries, our views have been very 
 limited, respecting the state of theological science 
 there. The perusal of this work has completely set 
 us at ease on this subject. We are quite sure that 
 our brethren, the clergy of the New World, will not 
 need assistance from Europe to fight their battles 
 against infidelity, heresy, or any system of error, 
 however artful. Whatever crisis, moral or political, 
 may arise in those states, however the safety, the 
 unity, or the rights of the Church may seem threat- 
 ened, we feel confident that its interests are in good 
 and able hands, which will support it as zealously and 
 
 b Demonstra9ao Theologica, Canonica, e Historica do Direito dos 
 Metropolitanos de Portugal, para confirmarem e mandarem sagrar os 
 bispoa suffraganeos. Lisboa, 1769.
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 307 
 
 as efficaciously as they have done during the past. 
 Whatever learning or ingenuity on the part of cor- 
 ruption and error may be imported from Europe, 
 whether in the shape of Protestant tracts or of Jan- 
 senistical treatises, there will be no need of sending 
 them the antidote after the poison ; the soil will 
 produce it powerfully and abundantly on the spot. 
 The author of the work before us has manifestly the 
 command of a good library of theological literature, 
 and knows how to use it. To a close and sound, but 
 still a clear and simple reasoning, he unites an accu- 
 rate and extensive knowledge of all that ecclesiastical 
 history can furnish, towards solving the important 
 question of which he treats. "We must, however, 
 content ourselves with presenting to our readers only 
 a very summary and imperfect outline of his work. 
 
 After having briefly explained the state of the 
 question, he proceeds to lay down what he calls his 
 fundamental proposition, in these words : " The right 
 of instituting or confirming bishops, according to the 
 constitution of the Church, belongs exclusively to the 
 popes; and from his supreme authority flowed, as 
 from its proper source, that which was at one time 
 exercised, with his consent, by patriarchs, primates, 
 archbishops, and metropolitans, in and out of councils" 
 (p. 7). This proposition is proved in two chapters, 
 in the first of which the Pope's right of giving 
 canonical institution is shown to be a necessary 
 prerogative of his primacy; and in the second the 
 derivation of that right to inferior authorities is 
 demonstrated. Here arises an important inquiry into 
 the meaning and intention of the fourth and sixth 
 canons of the Council of Mcea, which our author 
 treats in three long chapters, full of learning, and 
 
 x2
 
 308 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 excellently arranged. The third chapter in particular, 
 in which the right claimed and exercised by the popes 
 to confirm the bishops of different countries, is fully 
 proved, is at once well ordered, and abounds with 
 interesting and convincing materials. 
 
 The next question is, Were the popes justified in resu- 
 ming, or reserving to themselves, the right of instituting 
 bishops, when the necessities or good of the Church 
 required it ; and do they deserve, for having done so, 
 the charge of spoliation or usurpation made against 
 them by Pereira or Villanueva ? (p. 172.) This point 
 is treated by our author with great ability and an 
 accurate knowledge of canon law. He next examines 
 the motives which not only justified the Holy See 
 in resuming the exercise of its original rights, but 
 compelled it again to reserve to itself the confirmation 
 of bishops. He insists principally, and we think justly, 
 upon the necessity of this practice, to secure the liberty 
 of the Church. For without it, the most unfit characters 
 might have been thrust into sees ; nor were chapters 
 often sufficiently strong to cope with the temporal 
 power which not unfrequently supported usurpation. 
 
 The next question is of a more delicate and compli- 
 cated character. Do the concordats entered into by 
 the See of Rome with sovereign princes, deprive them 
 of their right of institution ; or is the former so bound 
 by them as to be allowed, under no circumstances, 
 to suspend or revoke them, without the imputation of 
 breach of faith ? (p. 208.) This we regard as one of 
 the best portions of our author's work, whether we 
 consider the question of right, or the historical exami- 
 nations to which it gives rise. In the first chapter 
 upon it, he fully confutes the specious theories of Van 
 Espen, on this question : "On whom does the right of
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 309 
 
 nomination devolve, in case the sovereign, who, hy con- 
 cordat, exercised it, is incapacitated from using it?" 
 In the second, he shows that the concordat is essen- 
 tially in the form, not of an equal pact between the 
 two parties, but of a concession from one to the other. 
 For the right in them, secured to temporal princes, of 
 naming to vacant sees, is in truth granted and com- 
 mitted to them by the sovereign pontiff, while that of 
 confirming or instituting, which is reserved to the 
 latter, is already his own inherent prerogative. The 
 calumnious accusations against various popes, in which 
 Villanueva indulges, are completely confuted. 
 
 The remaining portion of the work applies more 
 particularly to the circumstances in which the new 
 states of South America are, or were, placed. Por 
 the fourth question is, how far a want of communica- 
 tion between the Holy See, or a refusal on its part to 
 appoint bishops, can authorize metropolitans to pro- 
 ceed to nomination ? (p. 256.) The fifth discusses 
 whether bishops, so appointed, would exercise valid 
 acts of jurisdiction or not ? (p. 306.) The last ex- 
 amines what would have to be done in an extreme case 
 of impossibility of recurrence to the See of Peter 
 (p. 318). On all these points the same soundness of 
 views is displayed, with the same abundant application 
 of historical precedents. The work concludes with 
 copious biographical notes upon the different authors 
 confuted in its course. 
 
 The composition of the work, without being in the 
 least shackled with scholastic forms, partakes of that 
 distinctness, method, and closeness, which the old 
 school education was so admirably calculated to give, 
 and the absence of which is so plainly felt in modern 
 works on controversy and philosophy. We close it
 
 310 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 with sincere respect for its author, and a hope that 
 it has received the encouragement, in his own country, 
 which it deserves. The first section or volume, pub- 
 lished like the second, at Lima, was soon reprinted at 
 Buenos Ayres, and was highly applauded by the 
 Valparaiso and Santiago papers, as well as hy bishops 
 and clergy. The sentiments of the learned arch- 
 deacon are thus proved to be in accordance with those 
 of his fellow-countrymen, applying the term to the 
 inhabitants of different states, but of one continent. 
 When a publication entitled " An exact Memorial" 
 (Memorial ajustado), suggesting similar views to those 
 confuted by him, appeared at Buenos Ayres, it was 
 most ably confuted by a layman, Dr. Tomas Manuel 
 de Anchorena, in an opinion dated March 22, 1834. 
 And even before this, the Chamber of Justice of 
 the Republic of Chili, in giving the exequatur to 
 the bulls for the consecration of the bishop of 
 Penco, Snr. Cienfuegos, had rejected and confuted its 
 opinions. 
 
 While the republican states of South America had 
 shown themselves wisely ruled in what regarded eccle- 
 siastical affairs, at a very dangerous period of their 
 history, the empire of Brazil had not shown a 
 similar discretion. What was impiously suggested to 
 the former has been actually attempted in the latter, 
 but only to give opportunity for a noble triumph 
 to the Church, and for a splendid demonstration of 
 public opinion in favour of its rights. All the other 
 pamphlets in our list refer to this state, at least 
 indirectly; and we shall endeavour to present our 
 readers with an account of their matter, assisted by 
 other original sources of information, which are at our 
 command. 
 
 c See their testimonials, given p. 458 of the second volume.
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 311 
 
 Brazil, which is governed by a minor/ has a stronger 
 right than any constitutional state, under ordinary 
 circumstances, to exonerate itself on its ministers, for 
 the foolish not to say irreligious course which it 
 exposed itself to the danger of running. Indeed, we 
 cannot hut observe how, in modern times, every attempt 
 to quarrel with the Holy See on the subject of its 
 rights, especially in episcopal appointments, has been 
 the work of favourite ministers who have grown all- 
 powerful, rather than the sovereigns whom they 
 served ; more the effects of private spites and grudges, 
 than of princely ambition. The infamous Carvalho, 
 marquis of Pombal, in Portugal, Tanucci at Naples, 
 Campomanes and Urquijo in Spain, Kaunitz at Vienna, 
 are lamentable examples, in the course of half a century, 
 of the mischiefs which the corrupt principles or base 
 passions of a minister may bring down upon the Church 
 of his country, under the shelter of weak and easily- 
 deluded minds. We are willing to believe that the 
 conduct of the Brazilian ministry arose rather from an 
 unwise hope of intimidating the Holy See, than from 
 any serious intention of proceeding to the extremities 
 which threatened, in the affair whereof we are going to 
 treat. Our materials will be drawn from the third 
 tract quoted above, the " Impartial Reflections on the 
 Speech from the Throne," which we shall afterwards 
 see has received the approbation of the Brazilian 
 public. 
 
 The Regency of that empire, upon a vacancy of the 
 see of Rio Janeiro, we believe in 1833, proposed to the 
 court of Rome, as a fit person to fill it, Dr. Antonio 
 Maria de Moura. The Sovereign Pontiff refused to 
 
 d [In 1838. It is by no means intended to apply expressions of 
 censure used in this article to the present government of that 
 empire.]
 
 312 AUTHORITY OP THE HOLY SEE 
 
 ratify the choice, or give the bulls of canonical institu- 
 tion to the elect. With respect to the personal character 
 of the individual named and refused, we pretend to no 
 knowledge. There were sufficient grounds in his 
 avowed opinions to justify the conduct of the Holy 
 See. The annual report of the Minister of Justice, 
 May 10th, 1836, acknowledges that there was " some 
 canonical impediment in the nominee, (and who 
 amongst us," adds the author of the pamphlet, " is 
 ignorant of this fact ?) but of the sort which it is 
 customary to dispense with." Further on he owns that 
 the candidate held some points of Doctrine " at vari- 
 ance with the Holy Father." The Minister of Justice, 
 two days later, attributed the objections to opinions 
 given by Dr. Moura contrary to the discipline of the 
 Church. Any Catholic will consider these reasons 
 sufficient in all conscience to justify a demur on the 
 Pope's part ; and whoever understands the jealousy 
 with which the supreme executive power of the Church 
 watches over the integrity of its faith in the most 
 distant provinces, will not be surprised at the noble 
 and unyielding conduct displayed by its present chief 
 ruler. 
 
 The Regency seemed determined from the beginning 
 to make this a trial of strength between the civil and 
 ecclesiastical powers, and to see how far it would 
 be possible to make the latter sacrifice its scruples, and 
 even principles, to the desire of preserving good under- 
 standing with the former. In the annual report of 
 the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Coutinho, to the 
 Chambers, in 1834, he thus explains the state of the 
 contest : " Dr. A. M. De Moura having been named 
 bishop of the diocese of llio Janeiro, on sufficient 
 grounds, a delay has occurred in expediting the bulls 
 in the usual style. But the Imperial Government
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 313 
 
 hopes, that in virtue of new instructions sent to its 
 agent at Rome, they will shortly be expedited ; as 
 becomes the dignity of the empire and the individual 
 interests of the court of Rome" Here is no intention 
 or desire manifested to remove the canonical grounds 
 of objection to the individual chosen, nor to satisfy the 
 Holy See that its scruples concerning his orthodoxy 
 were unfounded. The dignity of the empire required 
 that the ecclesiastical authorities should implicitly 
 yield to its dictates, however opposed to justice and 
 religion ; otherwise the interests of the Holy See 
 should so suffer as to subdue its resolution, and force 
 it to submission. 
 
 They little knew the See of Hildebrand who 
 reasoned thus. Negotiations upon such principles 
 necessarily failed, and the ministry had recourse to 
 stronger measures. In the report for 1835 the matter 
 is again reported in the following terms : "As yet 
 the Holy Eather has not ordered the expedition of the 
 bulls giving institution to Dr. Moura, named bishop 
 of Rio by the Regency, in the name of his majesty the 
 emperor. The Imperial Government having shown its 
 sincerest and liveliest desire to treat with becoming 
 politeness and respect the Holy See, is firmly per- 
 suaded that his Holiness, considering the serious 
 consequences which the refusal of these bulls will 
 bring after them, will not fail to yield to the energetic 
 representations made to him by our minister, and to 
 the ultimatum of our government" Before proceed- 
 ing to explain what these measures were, which could 
 not fail to produce the desired effects, we must not 
 omit a clear proof now given, that so far from wishing 
 to smooth away difficulties and remove the conscien- 
 tious scruples of the Holy Father, it was the inten- 
 tion of the regency to force his consent in spite of them.
 
 314 AUTHORITY OE THE HOLY SEE 
 
 His Holiness, anxious on his part to make every becom- 
 ing step towards conciliation, had, in the mean time, 
 sent instructions to his internuncio at Rio, to ask for 
 such explanations from Dr. Moura himself as might 
 allow him to accede to the wishes of the ministry. The 
 report just quoted was made in May ; and on the 10th 
 of June, before the papal minister had addressed 
 himself to Dr. Moura, the latter received an official 
 note from Sr. Alves Branco, foreign minister, to the 
 effect that, " the Imperial Government having learnt, 
 that the charge-d* affaires of the Holy See had 
 received orders to ask an answer or explanation from, 
 him (Dr. Moura), the Regency, in the name of the 
 emperor, declared to him, that it would be very 
 displeasing (muito desagradaveT) to it if he agreed to 
 such a. demand." To which the episcopal candidate 
 answered in a manner which proves how worthy he 
 was of being the nominee of such a ministry ; he said 
 " that no such application had been made to him by 
 the internuncio ; but that if it had, it would have been 
 useless, as he would never have taken so indiscreet a 
 step as to answer it, covering himself thereby with 
 ridicule in the eyes of his fellow-citizens." This 
 conduct proves how far conciliation was remote from 
 the views of the party ; for from the earliest ages the 
 right of the Roman pontiff has been acknowledged, 
 to ask explanations of an elected bishop, on points 
 of faith. Thus, early in the sixth century, Pope 
 Agapitus refused to confirm Anthimus, of Trebizond, 
 elected to the see of Constantinople, because he 
 refused to sign the formulary of faith enjoined by 
 Pope Hormisdas on the bishops of the east, and even 
 deposed him from the see he held. 
 
 But let us see what were the energetic representa- 
 tions made by the Brazilian government to the Holy
 
 . IN SOUTH AMERICA. 315 
 
 See. They consisted of one of the most ridiculous, 
 and at the same time one of the most indecent pro- 
 ductions of modern diplomacy. For as to the latter 
 characteristic, it is described by the able author of the 
 Impartial Reflections, as " launching forth a quantity 
 of words, phrases, and sentiments, gross, unbecoming, 
 injurious, schismatical, heretical, and irreligious ; 
 thus not only offending the venerable grey hairs of 
 the illustrious aged chief of the outraged Roman 
 court .... not only the supreme ruler of the uni- 
 versal Church, the shepherd of the Catholic flock, the 
 head of the religion and Church of Brazil, but like- 
 wise offending sometimes the dignity and honour of 
 all the Brazilian nation and its government, which 
 thus appears to degrade itself by employing the vilest 
 and most miserable means, in its most delicate and 
 important transactions" (p. 24). This may appear a 
 severe censure ; but it is fully borne out by compari- 
 son with the ridiculousness of this piece of diplomatic 
 intercourse. The deputy, Sr. Vasconcellos, asserted 
 in the Chamber, that the note presented by the 
 Brazilian minister to the papal cabinet was a copy 
 and parody of Lord Strangford's note to the Sublime 
 Porte, of August 11, 1823. This assertion appeared 
 too absurd to be believed : the very idea that a Catho- 
 lic power, in addressing the Holy See, should have 
 chosen as its model the strong remonstrance of a 
 Protestant to a Mohammedan state, and yet talked of 
 having used becoming reverence in its intercourse, was 
 monstrous ; while the poverty of invention in the 
 government that could condescend to so paltry an 
 imitation, was absolutely ridiculous. Hence even the 
 author of the Reflections declares that the answer of 
 Sr. Lirnpo de Abreu, given two days after, that he 
 could not consider such a misapplication possible,
 
 316 
 
 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 appeared to him quite sufficient. Afterwards, how- 
 ever, he procured Meisel's Cours de Style Diplo- 
 matique, Paris, 1826, in the second volume of which 
 he found Lord Strangford's note, " and with utter 
 dismay, astonishment, and pain, found how true the 
 charge of plagiarism was." The two notes were 
 written in French, so that the comparison may be 
 more easily made. The following are extracts from 
 the two : 
 
 Note from the Brazilian Minister 
 to the Holy See, dated 23rd Sep- 
 tember, 1835. 
 
 " II semble done que se soit la 
 volonte du Saint-Siege qui a fait 
 naitre la crise ou il se trouve a 
 1'egard du Bresil, et cette volonte 
 ne pent avoir d'autre base que 
 1'erreur. 
 
 " Le Saint-Siege est dans 1'er- 
 reur s'il croit pouvoir, en gagnant 
 du temps, exercer a la longue la fa- 
 culte negative dans la nomination 
 des Eveques du Bresil. Dans la 
 crise actuelle, vouloir gagner du 
 temps par des moyens dilatoires, 
 c'est perdre sans espoir de retour, 
 des chances que d'autres combi- 
 naisons ont fait naitre, mais 
 qu'elles ne sauraient reproduire. 
 
 " Le Saint-Siege est dans 1'er- 
 reur s'il doute de 1'unite des vues, 
 d' intentions, et de voeux, qui pre- 
 side aux determinations du Gou- 
 vernement du Bresil ; s'il doute 
 de 1'Assemblee Legislative, la 
 Chambre des Deputes, la pre- 
 miere a reconnaitre en principes 
 et en termes formels la justice des 
 reclamations faites en vain depuis 
 plus de deux ans aupres du Saint- 
 
 Notefrom Lord Strangford to the 
 Ottoman Porte, dated \\th of 
 August, 1823. 
 
 " II semble done que ce soit la 
 volonte de la Porte qui s' oppose 
 au retablissement des relations de 
 bienveillance reciproque, et cette 
 volonte ne peut avoir d'autre base 
 que 1'erreur. 
 
 " La Porte est dans 1'erreur si 
 elle croit ameliorer sa position en 
 gagnant du temps. Dans la crise 
 ou se trouve 1'Empire Ottoman, 
 vouloir gagner du temps, c'est 
 perdre sans espoir de retour des 
 chances que d'heureuses combi- 
 naisons ont fait naitre, mais 
 qu'elles ne sauraient reproduire. 
 
 " La Sublime Porte est dans 
 1'erreur si elle doute de 1'unite 
 des vues, d'intentions, et de voeux, 
 qui preside aux determinations 
 des cours alliees ; si elle doute de 
 I'unanimite de toutes les puis- 
 sances, 1'Angleterre, la premiere 
 a reconnaitre en principes et 
 termes formels la justice des 
 reclamations de la Eussie contre 
 les innovations, les vexations, et
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 317 
 
 Siege, pour eviter une rupture qui 
 d'ailleurs devient inevitable. 
 
 " Le Saint-Siege est dans 1'er- 
 reur s'il croit inepuisable la pa- 
 tience de la Eegence au nom de 
 S. M. 1'Empereur D. Pedro II. 
 
 " Le Saint-Siege est dans 1'er- 
 reur lorsqu'il s' imagine que son 
 interet a faire valoir des preten- 
 sions exageres n'a pas des bornes. 
 C'est en insistant avec raideur et 
 hors de saison sur des preroga- 
 tives consenties dans les temps 
 obscurs par 1'ignorance et 1'in- 
 teret des princes, que le Saint- 
 Siege court le risque de voir 
 annuller celles meme sur les- 
 quelles se reposent aujourd'hui 
 ses relations avec le Bresil." 
 
 infractions, auxquelles le com- 
 merce et la navigation sont 
 exposes. 
 
 " La Sublime Porte est dans 
 1'erreur si elle croit inepuisable la 
 patience de 1'Empereur de Eussie. 
 
 " La Sublime Porte est dans 
 1'erreur lorsqu'elle s' imagine que 
 son interet a faire valoir ses pre- 
 tensions a la charge de la Eussie, 
 lui commande de differer le reta- 
 blissement de ses relations ami- 
 cales avec cette puissance. C'est 
 en insistant avec raideur et hors 
 de saison que la Porte court le 
 risque de voir annuller celles 
 meme sur lesquelles se reposent 
 aujourd'hui ses relations avec la 
 Eussie." p. 23. 
 
 The stupidity of this burlesque, particularly in , 
 paragraph the third, is heyond measure, where, for 
 " the unanimity of the allied powers," we have 
 substituted, " the unanimity of the Brazilian Govern- 
 ment ;" as if the Pope had ever founded his delay in 
 making out the bulls upon any divisions in the govern- 
 ment. Such were the energetic representations of 
 the Brazilian cabinet ; its ultimatum was worthy of 
 them. It was, that if his Holiness did not yield to its 
 demands within the term of two months, the Brazilian 
 empire would separate itself from the communion of 
 the Church of Borne. The result was what might 
 have been anticipated by any but the framers of 
 the " energetic representations." Before the expira- 
 tion of the appointed term, the Pope replied, that it 
 was out of his power to accede to the nomination 
 made for the diocese of Bio. 
 
 This declaration of the Sovereign Pontiff, was
 
 318 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 communicated to the Brazilian public in the speech 
 from the throne in 1836, which forms the theme 
 of the Impartial Reflections. The portion of it 
 which relates to this matter is couched in the 
 following terms : 
 
 "I.I cannot conceal from you, that his Holiness, after two years 
 spent in reciprocal explanations, resolved not to accept the presenta- 
 tion of the bishop elect of this diocese. 
 
 " 2. The government has on its side law and justice ; but his 
 Holiness obeys his conscience. After this decision, the government 
 considered itself exonerated from using farther condescension with 
 the Holy See ; without, however, being wanting in the respect and 
 obedience due to the Head of the Universal Church. 
 
 " 3. In your hands it is " (addressing the Chambers) " to free the 
 Brazilian Catholic from the difficulty, and, in many instances, the 
 impossibility, of begging (mendiar) at such a distance, relief which 
 ought not to be refused within the empire itself. 
 
 " 4. So holy is our religion, so well calculated the system of eccle- 
 siastical government, that being reconcilable with every system of 
 civil government, its discipline may be modified for the interests of 
 the State without ever compromising the essentials of religion itself. 
 Notwithstanding this collision with the Holy Father, our amicable 
 relations continue with the court of Rome." 
 
 The object of these paragraphs is sufficiently appa- 
 rent, and the fallacies of which they are composed are 
 but slightly disguised. The ministry had made a 
 vain, boastful threat against the head of the Church. 
 To use the expression of the primate of Brazil, in the 
 senate, they had inscribed the circle of Popilius round 
 the apostolic chair, and declared, that either he must 
 confirm their nomination in the space of two months, 
 or see that empire separated from the Holy See. So 
 far as threatening, or, to use a plainer and more 
 expressive word, so far as bullying went, they were 
 perfectly competent ; but the successor of St. Peter, 
 having refused the first alternative, the ministers had 
 recourse to the legislature for assistance in carrying
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 319 
 
 into effect their menace, and severing the country from 
 the papal communion. They suggest the necessity of 
 making such provisions as will enable the subjects of 
 Brazil to dispense with recourse to Rome (par. 3). 
 This refers to matrimonial dispensations, as we shall 
 have occasion to show. They desire, moreover, that 
 the discipline of the Church should be so modified as 
 to meet the awkward position into which their 
 blundering conduct had cast the government ; that is, 
 that bishops named by them should be consecrated 
 and instituted without farther confirmation (par. 4). 
 
 The two objects of these two paragraphs are clearly 
 explained by the light they receive from the fourth 
 pamphlet on our list, containing the excellent answer 
 of the Franciscan provincial, Erei Antonio de Sancta 
 Mafalda, to a request presented to him, September 1, 
 1836, that he would give his opinion on a memoir 
 forwarded to him at the same time. The substance of 
 this document, he writes, may be reduced to three 
 articles : 
 
 " 1. Can bishops, named by the government, be legitimately in- 
 vested with possession of the bishopric, and with episcopal jurisdiction, 
 solely in virtue of such nomination ? 
 
 " 2. Are matrimonial impediments dispensable by the authority, 
 which, on the bishop's demise, exercises his jurisdiction ; such as the 
 vicar capitular, or administrator of the see ? 
 
 " 3. Can a bishop, so named, have right to any part of the episcopal 
 revenues, under either of these titles ?" 
 
 To each of these queries, which evidently embody 
 the more covert suggestions of the speech from the- 
 throne, the reverend provincial answers clearly, solidly, 
 and withal most prudently. Throughout his reply 
 there is not the remotest allusion to passing events, 
 but the cases are treated abstractedly, as though no 
 application of them could be intended. He candidly 
 states the opinion of canonists who differ from him,
 
 320 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 and solidly confutes them. He learnedly discusses the 
 canons of councils and constitutions of sovereign pon- 
 tiffs, on the necessity of confirmation, and concludes 
 against Osorius, that in no case, without the guilt of 
 usurpation and the danger of schism, could a bishop 
 named by a government, empowered to this act by 
 concordat or usage, presume to exercise any act of 
 jurisdiction, without having first received approbation 
 and institution from the Holy See. On the subject of 
 dispensation he is more reserved, in consequence of 
 the conflict of respectable divines, and the variety of 
 provisions made by the popes for different emergencies. 
 Still his opinion is not such as to favour the desires or 
 intentions of the government. The reply to the third 
 query results from the answers to the preceding. No 
 bishop elect can have a claim to more emoluments than 
 he whose place he occupies, that is the vicar capitular, 
 not the bishop. 
 
 On this side the ministry were manifestly foiled. 
 But our object in quoting this document here, was not 
 so much to demonstrate this point, as to unmask the 
 desires and views of the government in the speech 
 from the throne. As to the fallacies which it contains, 
 the author of the Impartial Reflections has admirably 
 laid them open. Many of his remarks we have already 
 incorporated in our narrative. For instance, to prove 
 that ministers did not, and could not, believe that law 
 and justice were on their side, as they assert in par. 2, 
 he quotes the declaration of ministers given above, 
 that canonical objections existed against the approba- 
 tion of the individual elected, and their having never 
 proposed other motives for pressing their point, beyond 
 the honour of the empire and the interests of the Holy 
 See. But the best proof of the conscious falsehood of 
 the assertion, that law and justice were on the side of
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 321 
 
 the government, results from the conferences held 
 between ministers and the papal resident, in which 
 the former declared, "that in truth the nomination 
 had not been a good one ; that the government would 
 not make such a one again ; but that being made, it 
 must be maintained !" Impart. Reflect, p. 10. 
 
 The most important and interesting part of the 
 subject yet remains. How was this appeal to the 
 Legislature received by the Chambers and by the 
 public ? As if to prepare for themselves a greater 
 disgrace, the ministers, as we have seen, boasted to 
 the Pope of the unanimity of the legislative assembly, 
 in supporting their views of the contest between him 
 and them. The result sadly belied their pretensions. 
 
 The Chamber of Deputies replied as follows : 
 
 " The Chamber laments the state of collision with the Holy See 
 in which the Imperial Government is placed ; and hopes, that without 
 injury to the royalties of the crown, or compromise of national 
 interests, the government will provide, that our relations with the 
 Head of the Universal Church shall not be altered ; and therefore 
 considers that, for the present, it is not competent to take any other 
 measures." 
 
 The Senate answered in these terms : 
 
 " It is painful to the Senate to learn, that the delicate conscience 
 of his Holiness does not allow him to approve the presentation of a 
 bishop of this diocese. Still the assurance which your Imperial 
 Majesty gives of the continuance of amicable relations with the court 
 of Eome, the respect and obedience which T. I. M. protests (as was 
 to be expected) to the Holy Father, as visible head of the Universal 
 Church, give the Senate well-grounded hopes that the prudence and 
 wisdom of T. I. M. will employ such mild measures as, without 
 impairing the dignity of the nation, will reconcile these differences. 
 The Senate thus does not consider itself called upon to propose at 
 present efficacious measures to maintain the dignity and rights of 
 your Imperial Majesty's throne." 
 
 To understand better the sense of these answers, it 
 must be noticed, that the real state of the question 
 
 i Y
 
 322 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 had never been laid before the Chambers. Excepting 
 the annual reports above quoted, in 1834 and 1835, 
 most of the members could know little or nothing 
 about it. It was the publication before us which fully 
 opened their eyes and those of the public. Ministers 
 had made the emperor declare, that law and justice 
 were on one side, and only private scruples of con- 
 science on the other. On this ex parte statement 
 alone, they had to form a judgment. And yet the 
 violent, extreme views of the ministry were so trans- 
 parent through the measured phrases of the speech, 
 that both houses declined acceding to its wishes. 
 They naturally desired, that the dignity of the Crown 
 and the interest of the nation should be preserved, in 
 a case where they were unhesitatingly assured that 
 law and justice supported them. But even then they 
 manifestly disapproved of the past conduct of the 
 ministers, and refused to support them in their future 
 projects. They regret that any discord should have 
 taken place, and reject the idea proposed in the speech 
 (par. 4), of modifying the relations between the empire 
 and the court of Borne. They decline taking into 
 consideration the matter placed in their hands by the 
 Regency, declaring themselves incompetent to take 
 cognizance of it at present. This was all virtually 
 disapproving the course proposed by the executive, 
 especially when joined with the express desire that 
 mild measures should be employed, that is, measures 
 of an exactly opposite character from those hitherto 
 pursued. The debates in both chambers confirm this 
 view. In the Deputies, a motion was negatived for 
 going into a more detailed and specific examination 
 of the measures suggested in the speech : and the 
 speeches of many senators and deputies were eminently 
 Catholic. The rights of the Holy See were ably pro-
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 323 
 
 tected, without an accurate acquaintance with the 
 facts of the present case. 
 
 Two expressions in the addresses to the throne gave 
 rise to considerable discussion. The first was the 
 epithet delicate applied to the Pope's conscience, 
 because the Portuguese word melindroso was equivo- 
 cal, and might appear to bear the signification of nice 
 or precise. But the marquis de Marica, of whose 
 character we have formed a high estimate from the 
 perusal of his Maximas e Pensamentos, fyc. (Eio de 
 Janeiro, 1837), well remarked, that no one would for 
 a moment imagine that a grave assembly like the 
 senate, treating of so delicate a matter, could apply 
 the word in an offensive sense to the Pope. The other 
 expression was, "for the present" inserted in the 
 addresses by the committees which prepared them in 
 both chambers. Some thought that it might seem 
 to hold out a threat against the Holy See, as though, 
 on some future occasion, the Chambers might proceed 
 to farther extremities. This interpretation, however, 
 was overruled, and the phrase was understood to 
 imply nothing more than that, as matters stood tlien, 
 they saw no ground for interference to defend the 
 honour of the state. 
 
 The voice of the legislative body manifestly con- 
 demned, from the outset, the precipitate and indecent 
 conduct of ministers, and admitted the rights of the 
 Holy See to use its liberty, of approving or not, the 
 nomination made : and this before the entire case 
 had been made public. But the appearance of our 
 pamphlet, and especially the publication in it of the 
 Strangford-Brazilian note, produced a louder peal of 
 that popular opinion, which all along had warmly 
 espoused the side of ecclesiastical independence 
 against ministerial tyranny, and had approved the 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 Pope's objections to the imperial nominee. In the 
 Jornal do Commercio, of Saturday, May 20, 1837, 
 we have a full report of a debate in the Chamber of 
 Deputies, which turned upon the foreign policy of 
 ministers. Sr. Carneiro Leao censured its conduct in 
 exchanging the residents at Home and Lisbon, 
 because, he said, " after the publication of a note 
 from the former minister to the Holy See, of a nature 
 to discredit Brazil with every court of Europe, it did 
 not seem a proper moment for promoting him to the 
 rank of envoy-extraordinary or minister-plenipoten- 
 
 tiary, to a court at which there were delicate interests 
 to maintain." Sr. Limpo de Abreu, the champion of 
 ministers on a former occasion, again rose in their 
 defence. With respect to the note, he said he did not 
 pretend to defend it, though he did not consider it a 
 sufficient motive for striking the writer off the diplo- 
 
 v matic list. Again, he repeated, he would not attempt 
 to justify it, but still he thought there was a mistake. 
 The occasions of Lord Strangford's and. of the Bra- 
 zilian government's negotiations were too dissimilar to 
 allow the supposition that one copied the other's note. 
 The only resemblance consisted in the expressions, 
 " the Ottoman Porte is mistaken," and " the Holy See 
 is mistaken" (laughter). Sr. Calmon then rose, and 
 commenced with these words : " Sir, Heaven grant 
 
 .me on this occasion the marvellous sang-froid, the 
 
 inimitable disembarrassment, with which the noble 
 ex-minister of Foreign Affairs has just defended the 
 note to the Grand Turk, which one of our diplomatic 
 agents has addressed to the Holy Father. I will 
 speak of this affair presently." In fact, after other 
 matters, he reverts to this. 
 
 " The noble deputy (Carneiro de Leao), speaking of one of our 
 envoys who addressed to the Holy See a note nearly copied from that
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 325 
 
 which Lord Strangford presented to the Ottoman Porte, asks why he 
 lias been removed to Lisbon. I will venture to give the explanation 
 he desires. He was removed I beg pardon, he was promoted for 
 this very reason, that he had treated the Holy Father as the Grand 
 Turk had been treated. I cannot persuade myself that that diplo- 
 matist, an able man, would have been guilty of so wretched a pla- 
 giarism, and have insulted the head of the Church, without being 
 
 put up to it by government I characterize the plagiarism as 
 
 wretched, because if the style of the English ambassador suited the 
 representative of the civilization and power of Europe in addressing 
 the sultan of Constantinople, certainly the same style (and even more 
 exasperating and more insulting in some sentences) could not be- 
 come the representative of a Christian nation addressing the Supreme 
 Pontiff. Gentlemen, the history of this note is disgraceful to Brazil. 
 I know that when the court of Rome received it, the Holy Father, 
 justly hurt, ordered it to be communicated to the diplomatic body 
 resident in Borne, which, if not the most influential, is, at least, the 
 best-mannered court in Europe, and exacted from Voltaire himself 
 the praise of high breeding. The diplomatic body expressed to his 
 Holiness the feelings of disgust which the unbecoming character of 
 that note had produced in its members ; and I know, likewise, that 
 the Hanoverian minister, who indirectly represents his Britannic 
 Majesty, was peculiarly emphatic in expressing his condolence at the 
 proceedings of our envoy. This individual was placed in a false 
 position at Rome, and found himself acting alone." 
 
 The honourable deputy continued some time longer 
 commenting most severely upon the insult to the 
 Holy See; but we have given sufficient of his 
 speech, which received no answer, to show how far 
 the ministers could carry out their boastful threat, of 
 pushing the war against the Holy See with an undi- 
 vided Chamber of Deputies. 
 
 But the people were, in fact, against them. The 
 liberal paper, O sete d'Abril (the 7th of April), in its 
 number for May 27, 1837, republishes, in Portuguese, 
 the two celebrated notes, heading them with the 
 direction, " For Sr. Limpo d'Abreu, the member who 
 denied the identity or close resemblance of the two 
 notes." But in an extraordinary number, dated
 
 326 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLT SEE 
 
 July 10, we have a bolder and stronger expression of 
 the horror which the projected schism produced in the 
 public mind. It consists in a correspondence, which, 
 in addition to its own observations, has been the 
 means of communicating to us a long extract of the 
 Echo, a Lisbon paper, deprecating, in the strongest 
 terms, the schismatical conduct of the Portuguese 
 government. The correspondent writes as follows : 
 
 " The object [of the Lisbon question] is almost the same as is dis- 
 cussed here by the Catholics on one hand, and by the partisans of 
 schism on the other ; but as the latter will not yield to the authority 
 of the Holy Church, but, on the contrary, contumaciously persist in 
 enslaving the Spouse of Christ, contemning her most sacred disci- 
 plinar laws, &c., it is necessary to persist in the glorious endeavour 
 to beat back schism. Much should I wish to apply the deplorable 
 state in which Portugal is placed, to that into which Brazil is in 
 danger of falling through the determined obstinacy and notes of our 
 Strangfords, who respect the Vicar of Jesus Christ as they do the 
 Grand Turk; but I must leave this Turk to the prudent and 
 enlightened reader." 
 
 "We beg the reader's attention to the expressions in 
 this extract which treat the conduct of the Brazilian 
 ministers as an attack on the independence of the 
 Church ; because, while at variance with some vulgar 
 ideas, they place the dispute in its proper light. It is 
 not uncommon to consider the subjection of the Catho- 
 lic Church, as established in different nations, to the 
 Supreme Pontiff, as a certain degree of restraint and 
 slavery. It is, in fact, the only true security for its 
 independence. It has seldom been in free govern- 
 ments that so much jealousy has been felt of the close 
 connection of the hierarchy with Home. Perhaps the 
 countries which allow this to the greatest extent are 
 the United States, the British Empire, Belgium, and 
 South America. On the other hand, Austria, Spain, 
 and some petty states of Italy, not to speak of Pro-
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 327 
 
 testant, or other absolute monarchies, have for years 
 exhibited great jealousy of Roman interference ; and 
 if the Church in France, in spite of the free insti- 
 tutions of the country, finds itself hampered and 
 trammelled by the civil power, she has to thank the 
 Bourbons, who so generously asserted the privileges 
 of the Gallican Church, that she might be more com- 
 pletely under the sway and pressure of the civil 
 power. 6 But, by having the supreme control in 
 ecclesiastical aifairs in the hands of a foreign spi- 
 ritual authority, that can wield it without fear of 
 those who look more to political than to religious 
 interests in their appointments, the Church can never 
 completely become the slave or tool of any temporal 
 rulers. The Brazilian public, and its organ the press, 
 have taken this view of the matter ; and their attach- 
 ment to liberty has made them just and impartial in 
 its distribution. They wish the Church to be inde- 
 pendent of the political party that happens to govern 
 the state ; and they feel that only the independence 
 of the papal voice, in approving or rejecting its nomi- 
 nees, can effect this great object. On the other hand, 
 we have constant complaints from the High Church 
 Protestants of improper promotions to the bench, 
 and of Socinianism itself having been enthroned upon 
 
 e [In revising this essay for republication in August, 1851, the 
 writer feels how strangely some expressions in this paragraph will 
 sound. England has just returned to the re-enactment of penal laws, 
 especially coercive of intercourse between the Holy See and its 
 spiritual subjects ; while Austria has, not unfastened, but broken in 
 pieces, all fetters put upon the Church ; and Spain has, by a noble 
 concordat, restored free action to the episcopate, and to the Holy 
 See. France, too, has changed its form of government, and the 
 Church has gained in liberty and lawful influence. Great Britain 
 has thus shown itself the only country that retrogrades in religious 
 freedom.]
 
 328 ATJTHOEITY OF THE HOLT SEE 
 
 it. The crown names, and issues its commands to 
 the primate to consecrate, who being himself but a 
 subject, has no power to resist. He gives institution, 
 therefore, to a person whom he considers disqualified 
 for the high office of a bishop. "Were he co-ordinate 
 with the nominating power, he might refuse. f The 
 case of Bio Janeiro is not a solitary one even in this 
 pontificated The present pope refused canonical 
 institution in Prance to the Abbe Guillon for having 
 held communion in divinis with Gregoire, though 
 named by the king of the French to the see of 
 Beauvais, in 1831. The king was consequently 
 obliged to name another; and M. Guillon having 
 given satisfaction to the Holy See, was created bishop 
 in partibus. The same pontiff has refused to con- 
 firm the nomination of some Polish bishop, made by 
 the Russian autocrat. His predecessor, Leo XII., 
 denied institution to a nobleman named by the grand 
 duke of Tuscany to the see of Massa and Populonia, 
 he having been found at his examination deficient in 
 requisite learning. 11 He likewise refused to sanction 
 
 f The reader will find grievous complaints against the dangers and 
 mischiefs of the present system of nomination to bishoprics in the 
 Anglican Church, by looking at the Church of England Quarterly 
 Review for January of this year, No. v. pp. 116, seqq., where the 
 Church is energetically summoned to assert its rights, and clamour 
 (p. 118, note) for the repeal of the prsemunire which impends over 
 the head of any bishop refusing to consecrate the nominee of the 
 crown, i. e. of its minister. The writer, however, throws himself into 
 one needless alarm, to wit, that the ministry might choose a Catholic, 
 and, of course, oblige the archbishop to consecrate him under pain of 
 imprisonment and loss of chattels. "We should like to know what 
 Catholic would consent to receive consecration at his Grace's hands. 
 
 * [Of Gregory XVI.] 
 
 h All the bishops appointed in Italy and the adjacent islands are 
 examined at Home in theology and canon law, by a board of cardinals 
 and divines appointed for that purpose.
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 329 
 
 the nomination of Don Pr. Nicolao de Almeida to a 
 Portuguese bishopric, in consequence of errors con- 
 tained in a work which he had published. In every 
 instance, and in many more during the pontificates of 
 Pius VI. and Pius VII., the civil power gave way, and 
 named unobjectionable candidates. In the case of 
 Brazil, where the rulers were not disposed to yield, 
 the popular voice interfered, and insisted upon 
 the preservation of ecclesiastical liberty. Purther 
 extracts from papers now before us will satisfactorily 
 prove this. 
 
 The Diario do Rio de Janeiro for May 31, 1837, 
 writes as follows : " In this paper we have several 
 times treated of the question regarding the Bulls of 
 the bishop appointed for Bio de Janeiro, and always 
 so as to show that his Holiness was in the right. 
 This truth, which we once maintained in spite of 
 many prejudices to the contrary, has now convinced 
 every intelligent mind, the parliamentary tribune, 
 the periodical press, and powerful writings of an 
 apologetic character, have happily combined to pro- 
 claim it, being in unison with the voice of the people, 
 so ennobled in the old adage, ' Vox populi vox Dei.' 
 What remains is, that the illustrious patriot now at 
 the head of judicial and foreign affairs, of whom we 
 have always held the highest opinion, will at once put 
 an end to this unfortunate question, in such manner 
 as to merit the blessings of all good men in his 
 country, whose consciences have for a long time been 
 kept in a state of distress and agitation." The paper 
 then recommends the Impartial Reflections, giving a 
 very full analysis of the work. 
 
 The Jomal dos Debates of May 20, 1837, writes as 
 follows : " The reappearance of Sr. Manoel Alves 
 Branco in the ministry, while yet are pending the
 
 330 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 negotiations with the court of Rome, wherein he most 
 grievously compromised the dignity of the Brazilian 
 name, appears to us a fact as impolitic as it is con- 
 trary to the interests of the nation. The note of 
 September 23, 1835, addressed to the Holy See hy 
 Sr. Alves Branco, while secretary of foreign affairs, is 
 a subject of eternal disgrace to the Brazilian govern- 
 ment .... This note, in addition to being a wretched 
 and ridiculous plagiarism, wounds, in an indecent and 
 brutal manner, the dignity of the head of the uni- 
 versal Church, the venerable pastor of the Catholic 
 flock." It then gives the two notes. In its number 
 of May 31, it gives a long extract from the Impartial 
 Reflections, approving its sentiments. 
 
 The Semanario do Oincinnato, a Rio weekly paper, 
 devotes its leading article of June 3 to the same 
 subject, under the head of " The Government and the 
 Holy See." After some preliminary observations 
 relative to the Impartial Reflections, the writer pro- 
 ceeds as follows : " "We agree with the author of this 
 work, that the government has displayed little pru- 
 dence in treating this delicate aifair. 1 It either 
 recognises the existence of a right in the Holy See to 
 confirm bishops, or not. If the first, why does 
 it persist in requiring the Pope to act unfaith- 
 fully with his own conscience, and, through fear of 
 menaces, give a forced consent ? If the second, why 
 was the business at all submitted to the consider- 
 ation of the Holy See ? " The writer then states the 
 arguments of the ministerial party. " No doubt," he 
 continues, " Brazil likewise has the power to separate 
 itself, as some desire, from the foundation-stone 
 
 1 We may note that the expression here used, is precisely the 
 same as gave rise to a debate in the Senate, "este melindroso 
 negocio;" here, certainly, it is not used contemptuously.
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 331 
 
 of the Church established by Christ ; but this is not 
 the question: the point is, whether that power be 
 based upon justice, or only upon arbitrariness and 
 violence. On justice, no, most certainly ; for the 
 Church of Peter is the mother of all Christianity, as 
 has been satisfactorily proved by great writers." The 
 article proceeds to vindicate the absolute right of the 
 Holy See to approve or reject all nominations to 
 bishoprics, and then closes as follows : "We conclude 
 by entreating the government to look at this business 
 in its proper light, through its duty towards the Holy 
 See, and the advantage to the nation, which desires 
 to continue Roman Catholic. Let no one be so 
 mistaken as to say that nothing will be gained by 
 this. Putting aside the compliance with duty, the 
 peace of men's minds will be secured. k By a contrary 
 course, most sensible evils will come. If the experi- 
 ment would not be so fatal, we should tell them to 
 try it, that they might be undeceived. But no. We 
 desire to be always Roman Catholics." 
 
 To conclude these testimonials of the public press, 
 the Jornal do Commercio, which we before quoted only 
 as reporting the debates on the matter, in its paper of 
 May 30, 1837, adds its suffrage to the general voice, 
 and pronounces a warm and merited encomium upon 
 the little work before us. It approves of all its views, 
 and of the tone in which it is written, and concludes 
 in these words : " Would to God that the business to 
 which it relates may at last be concluded, to the 
 
 k Many readers will perhaps be surprised to learn that the writer 
 sends ministers to this country to learn the mischiefs of a separation 
 from Borne. We, on our parts, were glad to see this bold disclaimer 
 of an opposite theory, and to .find a newspaper acknowledging, or 
 supposing, a higher standard of national happiness than industrial or 
 financial prosperity.
 
 332 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 mutual satisfaction of the Holy See and of Brazil. 
 This is what all good men must certainly desire !" 
 
 The decided Catholic tone of so many organs of 
 public opinion has, we acknowledge, delighted us. 
 There is something generous in this vindication of an 
 authority situated several thousand miles distant, 
 and having itself no means to repel on the spot the 
 assaults made against it. And it is very encouraging 
 to find strong religious convictions thus impressed 
 upon that class of publications, which generally study 
 to catch the light topics of ephemeral gossip, or to 
 amuse subscribers by trifling anecdote, rather than to 
 engage their attention and interest for such grave and 
 truly important matters. 
 
 Our readers will perhaps wish to know whether the 
 public sense of right and justice has triumphed so far, 
 as effectually to bar the nomination made. To Dr. 
 Moura's credit, it must be said, that when the quarrel 
 was pushed so much beyond discretion by the ministry, 
 he desired, and proceeded, to tender his resignation ; 
 and so endeavoured to cease being an object of strife 
 and discord between his country and the Holy See. 
 But the government would not consent to accept this 
 sensible offer, determined as it was to push the con- 
 test to extremities. A change of ministry having 
 occurred, this offer was, we believe, acceded to. The 
 objectionable nomination has, therefore, been with- 
 drawn ; although as yet the see of Bio de Janeiro 
 remains vacant and under administration. 
 
 There are yet three works cited at the head of our 
 article, which have not been referred to ; and as we 
 did not mean to place them there merely for display, 
 we proceed very briefly to notice them. The title 
 of No. 2, which we have given at length, will suffi- 
 ciently explain our motive for joining it to the others.
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 333 
 
 It is an echo of the sentiments of the Brazilian public 
 from beyond the boundaries of its empire, and the 
 reach of political jealousies or interests. To those 
 acquainted with the biography of St. Catherine of 
 Siena, the occasion of publishing an encomium of her 
 virtues will not appear unsuitable to the object proposed 
 in the title. That most extraordinary saint, whose 
 writings enter into the rank of classics in Italian 
 literature, devoted herself at a tender age to the 
 extirpation of schism, with wonderful success ; and 
 convinced Pope Gregory XI. that it was the divine 
 will he should return from Avignon to Home. The 
 writer has, therefore, added to his sermon an appendix 
 of twenty-eight pages, in which he warmly insists 
 upon the necessity of preserving ecclesiastical unity, 
 through an unbroken communication with the Apostolic 
 See. In 4, he proceeds to treat of the conduct of 
 the Brazilian Government ; expresses his astonishment 
 at the blindness of those that conducted it, and gives 
 unqualified praise to the archbishop of Bahia (the 
 Primate), to the dean and chapter of Bio, and to the 
 apostolic delegate, all of whom have acted the part 
 which the Church expected from them, in their re- 
 spective capacities. The remaining portion of the 
 appendix contains, in a similar strain, an earnest and 
 learned vindication of ecclesiastical independence. We 
 applaud the zeal, the learning, and the sound principles 
 of the author. 
 
 The "Memoir upon the Bight of Primacy" is a 
 translation from the French of Monsig. Hirn, bishop 
 of Tournay, who distinguished himself on occasion of 
 the memorable Council of Paris, convoked by Napoleon 
 in 1811. This translation was most seasonably made 
 and published : it was read with avidity, and produced 
 a change in the sentiments of many, who before had
 
 33i AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE 
 
 weighed the matter less seriously. It is an additional 
 proof of the interest which the public took in this 
 religious discussion. 
 
 The last work which we have placed at the beginning 
 of our article, is the eighth number of a religious 
 journal carried on at Rio ; and, though bearing a Latin 
 title, written in Portuguese. We should have been 
 glad to possess more numbers of the series, as it 
 is impossible from one to form a correct judgment of 
 its views or principles. However, when we see the 
 greater portion of this taken up with the Encyclical of 
 the present pope to the bishops of Switzerland, in 
 1835, directed against the usurpations of the ecclesi- 
 astical rights by the civil legislature of several cantons, 
 we cannot for a moment doubt, that the spirit which 
 presides over the compilation of the journal is soundly 
 Catholic. The rest of the number is taken up with 
 an account of the missions of Paraguay, and religious 
 selections in prose and verse some of the former 
 from Challoner. 
 
 We have derived no small satisfaction from the 
 perusal of these various works, and from the exami- 
 nation of the great practical questions to which they 
 refer. They have led us to feel more than ever that 
 the true basis of religion is in the hearts of the people, 
 rather than in the heads of their rulers ; and that, 
 however useful and satisfactory it may be to see 
 these respecting and publicly honouring the hierarchy, 
 or lending it the moral weight of their avowed con- 
 victions and religious zeal, its holiest interests become 
 endangered in proportion to the degree of actual inter- 
 ference which is allowed them in its affairs. Spain and 
 Portugal are lamentable instances of this truth. The 
 people remain unalterably fixed in their attachment to 
 the ancient faith, while their rulers have conducted the
 
 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 335 
 
 one country into the gulf of schism, and the other to 
 its verge. In spite of every prohibition, daily recourse 
 is had to Rome from the clergy of Portugal, for 
 faculties, where, their own superiors being intruders, 
 are not empowered to grant them ; and from the laity, 
 for dispensations and privileges beyond the jurisdiction 
 of local ecclesiastical authorities. In Spain it is the 
 same, though there, in fact, no breach has taken place 
 with the Holy See. Within these few weeks, we have 
 read with pleasure, that the municipal authorities of 
 one of the principal Christino cities (Valentia) have 
 put a stop to the labours of the Bible-and-tract-men, 
 who were taking advantage of the confusion to sow 
 tares in the field of Christ. And the papers of that 
 party applauded this decisive conduct of the magis- 
 tracy, observing that, in the present disturbed state of 
 Spain, religious dissension and warfare would indeed 
 be the finishing stroke to their country's misery. We 
 have it from undoubted authority, that during the 
 last month one commercial house alone paid into the 
 Roman Dataria, in the course of ten days, 30,000 
 dollars, as fees in ecclesiastical affairs. The money 
 and the business connected with it came from Madrid, 
 with the full knowledge and consent of persons high 
 in the Christino interest. And we have no doubt that, 
 sooner or later, when the political troubles of the two 
 countries cease, the Catholic religion and its holy 
 Church will recover their proper influence, and the 
 hearts of the people will rejoice to see peace of 
 conscience and quietness of government once more 
 restored. 
 
 There is something singular in reading the sincere 
 lamentations uttered by almost all the writers we have 
 reviewed, over the blindness of these their parent 
 countries, and their sincere remonstrances with them
 
 336 AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SEE, ETC. 
 
 at having allowed the bane of schismatical feeling to 
 poison their political struggles. It is a solemn but a 
 pleasing thing, to hear a voice from across the ocean, 
 teaching the duty of spiritual obedience to nations 
 that stand almost under the shadow of Peter's throne ; 
 the voice of republics and of free constitutional 
 monarchy (but lately considered outlaws and rebels), 
 boldly reproving the Most Catholic and Most Faithful 
 Monarchies for swerving from fidelity to the Catholic 
 Church. We hail its sound with joy, as one note 
 in that grand accord which the unity of faith and the 
 communion of love, throughout the universal Church, 
 raise on earth ; the only meet symbol, as it is the 
 echo, of the harmony of a sublime sphere.
 
 PAPEE 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL OKGANIZATION. 
 
 From the DUBLIN KEVIEW/OT Aug. 1842.
 
 [This essay would scarcely have been thought worthy of repub- 
 lication, but for the recent establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy 
 in England. It will show the writer's views on the subject nearly 
 ten years ago ; and how little idea there was of interfering with the 
 laws of the country by ecclesiastical enactments. Nor has he found 
 it necessary to modify a single sentiment then expressed. This paper 
 was written during a journey to Rome, and was, therefore, less full 
 than the subject required.]
 
 A 
 
 PAPER 
 
 ON 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 AET. VII. Concilia Provincialia, jBaltimori Jialita, ab Anno 1829 
 usque ad Annum 1840. Provincial Councils, held at Baltimore, 
 from 1829 to 1840. Baltimore, 1842 : pp. 208. 
 
 THE volume before us comes like a voice across the 
 ocean, from "the far west;" a voice in which are 
 mingled sounds of reproach and of encouragement, 
 something that makes us look on the past and present 
 with humiliation, and on the future with hope. In 
 1791, Dr. Carrol, bishop of Baltimore, was the only 
 Catholic prelate in North America. In that year he 
 held a diocesan synod : about twenty priests attended 
 it ; and in its five sessions, held in due form, many 
 wise and edifying decrees were made, the utility of 
 which the American hierarchy acknowledge in their 
 provincial synod of 1829. At the close of the council, 
 the bishop announced his intention of requesting 
 from the Holy See the erection of an additional 
 diocese, or the nomination of a coadjutor. In 1810, 
 being now archbishop, he held a species of provincial 
 convention, rather than synod, with his three suf- 
 fragans. In 1829 the first formal provincial council of 
 Baltimore was held ; the fourth met in 1840. At it 
 twelve prelates of the United States assisted : several 
 bishops were wanting, from vacancies of sees, or other 
 
 z2
 
 340 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 causes. These synods are conducted with aft the 
 formalities prescribed by the Pontifical ; begun by 
 their proper prayers, carried on in sessions, and 
 divided into public and private congregations, and 
 terminated by the usual acclamations, by the issue of 
 synodical statutes, and by application to the Holy See 
 for favours, enactments, or instructions, such as the 
 assembled prelates think expedient for the general 
 good. The acts of the synod, here briefly described, 
 including the diocesan synod of 1791, form the con- 
 tents of the work before us, one of those local 
 contributions to the great repertory of Catholic disci- 
 pline and Catholic piety, the Acta Conciliorum, which 
 do so much honour to the Church dispersed; form 
 splendid proofs of its thorough unity ; are glorious 
 demonstrations of its vigour and energy, in its most 
 distant and most infant portions ; and are the great 
 pledges and security of the wisdom, the prudence, the 
 zeal, and the holiness, as well as the unanimity, which 
 would reign in a general council, should the Uni- 
 versal Church be again convoked. Bishops thus 
 trained in their provinces, could not fail to do their 
 duty effectively on the wide arena of an oecumenical 
 synod. The provincial synods of Baltimore will in 
 time take their place with those of Orleans or Toledo 
 in ancient times, or of Milan, under the sainted 
 Charles, in more modern days, and be a monument 
 of the immense progress made, in the course of a few 
 years, by the Catholic Church in that country. These 
 considerations naturally reflect themselves back upon 
 ourselves. "Whatever difference there may have ex- 
 isted between Catholic North America and England 
 a few years ago, on the score of ecclesiastical liberty, 
 maybe said to be now fully removed, and we may there- 
 fore ask ourselves the question : Are we approximating
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 341 
 
 to a similar state of ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION ? 
 If not, whence conies it ? The expression which 
 we have just used may easily be misinterpreted. The 
 thoughts of many readers will probably at once turn 
 to the long and warmly-debated question of the re- 
 establishment of a regular hierarchy in England. It 
 may be thought that we intend to discuss this impor- 
 tant matter ; it will in fact be considered the principal 
 point in an article designated as this is. Now, it 
 is better to prevent all disappointment at the outset, 
 by a clear and explicit declaration of our sentiments 
 and intentions. "We leave, therefore, to every one his 
 own opinion on the subject of ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment ; assuring all, that what we intend to urge on 
 our Catholic readers will not be much affected by 
 their either desiring a hierarchy, or not. But our 
 own views are as follows : first, we consider the form 
 of ecclesiastical government under which we are, as 
 necessarily a temporary and transitory one, preparatory 
 to a settled and normal state ; secondly, we are not, 
 on that account, anxious for changes, or desirous of 
 hurrying matters ; but, possessing the greatest confi- 
 dence, not merely in the personal character of those 
 who, by God's appointment, govern vthe Church, but 
 .still more in the guidance of that Holy Spirit who 
 rules her destinies, we are willing to leave, with 
 affectionate reliance, to their judgment to whom the 
 decision belongs, every question of time, and mode, 
 and extent, which such organic changes involve ; 
 thirdly, we are disposed rather to inquire what is our 
 duty at present, and how its discharge may influence 
 the future. Such, therefore, is our purpose now. 
 Every one has his own ideas on the benefits that 
 would result from such arrangements as he would 
 prefer. But when such arrangements cannot be
 
 342 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 obtained, few occupy themselves with thinking how 
 far the same benefits might be secured without them. 
 "We easily imagine that certain results would be 
 consequences of a given plan, and take no pains to 
 procure them independently of it : nay, we will say 
 more ; what seem consequences may be antecedents, 
 and the best ones too for securing what we so much 
 desire. Let us come, therefore, to the point. Let us 
 suppose that the Holy See thought the time come, to 
 bestow upon England the advantages of an ecclesias- 
 tical hierarchy. It is of course believed that impor- 
 tant benefits would flow from the institution. We 
 trust this would be the case. But would the benefits 
 result from the mere name ? from the translation of 
 our bishops from sees in partibus infidelium to titles 
 within our island ? from the change of designation 
 which our clergy would receive ? Would there be a 
 spell in the term diocese which district has not ? in 
 the name of parish, beyond that of mission ? 
 
 " Write them together, this is as fair a name ; 
 Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ; 
 "Weigh them, it is as heavy." 
 
 But our hopes are built, and justly, not on mere 
 changes of titles and names, but on the new organ- 
 ization which our ecclesiastical state would receive, 
 the greater regularity which would be given to its 
 operation, the greater definitiveness communicated to 
 its laws, the more perfect uniformity stamped on its 
 operations. Now, we may fairly ask, could not many 
 of these advantages, for such they undoubtedly are, 
 be attained without waiting for any great change? 
 Do they not depend in great measure upon ourselves ? 
 Further, would they not, in a future contingency, 
 depend mainly upon our own efforts to secure them ? 
 Would not that new organization, those new combi-
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 343 
 
 nations, have to be the fruit of great energy, great 
 application, great patience, and, what is still more 
 important, great sacrifices on our parts ? They would 
 not spring up like flowers under our feet, beneath the 
 magic of a new ecclesiastical nomenclature. They 
 would have to be weighed, studied, discussed, ar- 
 ranged, almost, in some instances, created. They 
 would have to occupy the time and thoughts of more 
 than one person ; and no small share of intellect and 
 learning would be necessary for the purpose. Now, 
 what pledge or assurance have we, that at any future 
 period we shall be more fit, or more ready, to take all 
 that trouble, than we are now ? If the advantages 
 which must result from a more perfect ecclesiastical 
 organization than we possess, do not animate us to be 
 at the pains of procuring it, so far as may be com- 
 patible with our actual state, who can tell us, that, upon 
 a modification of that state, we shall set vigorously to 
 work to institute such a new, complete, but withal 
 more complicated, system ? 
 
 Again, we will ask of such as anxiously long for 
 the time for maturing our ecclesiastical constitution 
 into the ordinary form of Church government, how 
 we are most likely to hasten the period ? Is it not by 
 showing all things, as well as ourselves, prepared for 
 the change ? by exhibiting the machinery already 
 at work, which will then be immediately necessary ? 
 by proving ourselves equal to the new demands that 
 will then be made upon us, not by promises, but by 
 acts ; not in the future, but through the past ? We 
 trust, then, to be pardoned all seeming presumption, 
 if we enter more in detail into this interesting topic, 
 so naturally suggested to us by the American volume 
 before us. The Catholic public has kindly granted 
 us hitherto its confidence ; and has not disdained to
 
 344 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 listen when we have boldly spoken of its wants and 
 duties. "We have come forward courageously in 
 defence of truth ; we have devoted ourselves sincerely, 
 fearlessly, and perseveringly to the controversies of 
 the age ; have endeavoured, however imperfectly, to 
 unravel their intricacies, and to open their novel 
 features to the notice of our brethren. In fine, we 
 have conscientiously striven to discharge our public 
 duty in all that regards the external relations of our 
 Church ; and we will fearlessly rely upon credit being 
 given us for the sincerity of our motives and the 
 disinterestedness of our zeal, if we now venture to 
 address ourselves to the more delicate topic of our 
 own internal organization. "We may individually be 
 unworthy of notice as of name ; we might, if we 
 followed our own inclinations, leave to better hands, 
 to hands that we would kiss with veneration, the 
 handling of such a theme ; but we feel that, as 
 intrusted by the Catholic public with a certain com- 
 mission to record the feelings, the exigencies, and the 
 great movements of the times, and to make our 
 publication the repertory of the important religious 
 questions of our stirring day, we should be wanting 
 in our duty were we to shrink from respectfully, but 
 plainly, stating what we believe no time should be 
 lost in performing. And we will add, that in what- 
 ever we may write that shall seem to savour of 
 censure, we sincerely include ourselves ; and that if 
 we use the conventional form of the first person 
 plural, it is not here that we may escape individuality 
 under the shelter of a vague generality, but because 
 likewise we wish to be included in whatever of blame, 
 as well as of hopefulness, the subject before us may 
 suggest. With this proviso, we proceed to illustrate 
 in detail the general observations already made.
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 345 
 
 It is clear, that in Catholic countries the laws 
 whereby ecclesiastical administration and ecclesias- 
 tical usages are regulated, are of a fixed, stable, and 
 uniform character. 4 In other words, there exists in 
 those countries a code of laws, recognised by all 
 parties. This code is known as the CANON LAW. It 
 is generally understood, that were a change to take 
 place in our hierarchical constitution in England, we 
 should become subject to this ecclesiastical legislature; 
 and this no doubt would be a decided advantage. And 
 at first sight it may appear a simple matter at once to 
 enter into possession of it. They, however, who have 
 only taken a little pains to examine the form of that 
 code, will pronounce very differently. The canon 
 law, consisting of various collections of ecclesiastical 
 laws; as the Decree of Gratian, the Decretals, the 
 Extravagantes, &c., is an indigested mass of decisions 
 of various ages, of unequal authority, on every 
 possible religious subject, and not unfrequently of an 
 apparently contradictory tenor. It is true that digests 
 are not wanting, in which the various decrees are 
 classified under proper titles, and collected together 
 from the different parts of the code ; but even these 
 collections occupy, with such brief annotations as are 
 quite indispensable, several folio volumes. It is no 
 trifling study to go through these, and become master 
 of their contents. Nor will the reading of " courses" 
 or text-books, intended for schools, supply their place. 
 These may be very useful ; but canon law will never 
 be known without attention to the corpus juris itself. 
 
 a [It must, however, be observed, that in almost every Catholic 
 country, the action or application of this code is modified, restrained, 
 or defined, by concordat. But these limitations, or variations, are 
 themselves definite, and give the rules by which ecclesiastical matters 
 are to be regulated.]
 
 346 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 One might as well talk of being a lawyer after having 
 read Blackstone, without knowing anything of the 
 statutes at large. Now let us suppose ourselves 
 placed in such circumstances as would require the 
 decisions of the canon law to he our guide, can we 
 say that we are ready to apply them ? that we should 
 not be taken by surprise, and have then to begin a 
 very complicated, and very irksome, duty ? 
 
 But let us come more home to our purpose. If 
 ever the canon law did come into force (according to 
 the common supposition), by a modification of our 
 Church government, a serious difficulty, unconnected 
 with any actual ignorance on our parts at present, 
 would present itself. The whole body of that legis- 
 lature has been framed under, and in contemplation 
 of, circumstances totally different from those in which 
 we should have to apply it. It supposes the Roman 
 law to be in activity (not to say that it consequently 
 supposes an acquaintance with its decisions) ; it sup- 
 poses a co-operation on the part of the state, the 
 recognition of independent ecclesiastical tribunals, the 
 free exercise of religion and of ecclesiastical functions, 
 the proper and legalized existence of provision for all 
 clerical offices ; in one word, it supposes the enforcers 
 and the subjects of the code to be living under a 
 Catholic government, and, alas ! such a government 
 as hardly a single Catholic state now presents. To 
 reduce, therefore, the canon law to practice in this 
 country, a most important discrimination and separa- 
 tion would have to be made in its provisions ; that is, 
 a division into what would, and what would not, be 
 compatible with our then actual position, as subjects 
 of a Protestant state, which will not recognise a single 
 ecclesiastical act, save through the process of secular 
 forms, and the sanction of temporal enactments. Now
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 347 
 
 in all this it is manifest that we could have but little 
 assistance from others ; that the study, necessary 
 to make such a division, must he domestic, and 
 peculiarly our own. b For it would soon he discovered 
 that the points on which Catholic governments 
 chiefly prevent the free execution of canonical decrees, 
 would he those in which we might most completely 
 observe them. For instance, the election and con- 
 firmation of bishops is, in almost every Catholic 
 country, now regulated by a concordat, which takes 
 the nomination out of the hands of chapters, and 
 vests it in the crown. "We should not, we trust, ever 
 have to submit to such fetters ; but the very indiffer- 
 ence of our government to our interests would leave 
 us unshackled in regard to this most important 
 matter. Yet, how numerous, complicated, and most 
 delicate are the various provisions for the cases which 
 may arise in this part of Church discipline ! The 
 questions lately discussed in reference to the arch- 
 bishopric of Cologne may well satisfy us of this. 
 Now here we should derive but little benefit for our 
 guidance from the practice of other countries, but 
 must study for ourselves. 
 
 This is one example out of many which we purposely 
 pass over ; the more so as others will arise in the 
 course of our discussion. The conclusions to which we 
 must come are obvious. First, how do we expect to 
 get at once at the practical knowledge which may one 
 day be required from us, of such grave and difficult 
 matters ? Will any new light be vouchsafed us ? or 
 
 b [The " Statutes of the Diocese of Digne," by its late bishop, 
 Mgr. Sibour, now archbishop of Paris, were compiled by him for the 
 express purpose of bringing into harmonious action the ecclesiastical 
 and civil laws. It was a work of a character similar to this (not then 
 published) that was suggested in the text.]
 
 348 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 shall we then begin to study, digest, and prepare, when 
 we shall have to conclude, to know, and to apply ? Is 
 it not better to have all that prepared beforehand ? or 
 shall there be found no authoritative exposition, appli- 
 cable to our country, of the code which will have to 
 govern us ? Will private judgment have to decide the 
 interpretation and applicability, and application of the 
 various decrees ? If so, what shall we have gained 
 towards a definite, clear, and uniform system of govern- 
 ment ? But, secondly, will that study and labour be 
 more urgent and proper then than it is now? We 
 answer, scarcely ; for it must be want of acquaintance 
 with the body of law contained in the canon law that 
 suggests the idea, that it would come into force for the 
 first time, upon the establishment of a hierarchy. We 
 have seen that it would be applied even then only in 
 part. Now the same consideration is as true now. It 
 is, even now, in part applicable. And what security 
 have we that we shall, in a future contingency, take 
 more pains to see how it is to apply, than we do now ? 
 For we are certainly overlooking the advantages which 
 an ecclesiastical organization on the principles of canon 
 law, so far as it is possible, would confer on us. This 
 code may be considered under two aspects. It contains 
 decisions and principles supposing a hierarchical consti- 
 tution ; but it likewise contains many more that are 
 independent of it. It has much that applies to 
 chapters, prebends, parishes, metropolitans, and suf- 
 fragans ; much that refers to judicial examinations ; 
 witnesses, testaments, &c. ; the former of which is not 
 now, and the latter perhaps never will be, applicable 
 to us. But it likewise has much that relates to the 
 episcopal and priestly duties, in matters belonging to 
 their primary and sacerdotal functions, and much that 
 appertains to their relation with their flocks, which it
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 349 
 
 would be most useful, most religiously beneficial, to 
 have even now brought out, well known, and established 
 as practical principles. And if this be neglected by 
 us at present, will not future calls for precision be 
 as likely to be overlooked ? 
 
 By way of illustration, let us take the subject of 
 benefices and presentations. Supposing a hierarchy to 
 exist, it is highly improbable, that, for many years at 
 least, its appointment would lead our faithful to alter 
 their plan with regard to ecclesiastical endowments. 
 Very few more of these would, in consequence of such 
 a measure, be invested with the conditions required by 
 the canon law, to constitute a benefice properly so 
 called, or conferring the rights secured to such a 
 provision. In fact, we see insuperable difficulties to 
 it ; especially in our present arrangements for clerical 
 education. Whatever application, therefore, of canon 
 law, may be at some future time requisite, or expedient 
 on this subject, may be, nay is, as requisite at present. 
 What is the consequence of our want of this ? Why, 
 that during the last twenty years and more, we have 
 been agitated by the repetition of the same disputes 
 regarding the jus patronatus, and right of presenta- 
 tion; harassed by the same discussion of the same 
 texts, the same assertions, and the same denials ; and 
 scandalized, too often, by the same unseemly conduct 
 towards ecclesiastical dignity and authority, such as 
 has been lately exhibited towards one of our prelates, 
 the model of every ecclesiastical virtue, in a pamphlet 
 wholly unfit to be further alluded to, on a question now 
 pending of presentation. How much should we not 
 have gained for the very prevention of evil is gain 
 had we known, upon authority to which all would 
 submit, what was the extent to which the definitions 
 c [The late saintly Bp. Mostyn.]
 
 350 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 of the canon law would be considered applicable to our 
 state, and what were the practical rules whereby the 
 rights of the bishop and the patron could be respectively 
 determined. We should not then have seen the most 
 contradictory expositions of the same matter of ecclesi- 
 astical discipline, still less the offensive and degrading 
 legal arguments employed, whereby the functions of a 
 successor of the apostles are brought down to the level 
 of a mere conventicle preacher, and the rule over God's 
 altar treated on equality with the rights of a speculator 
 in meeting-house buildings. Now, if we have already felt 
 the serious inconvenience of such a state of uncertain 
 legislation, and are likely to feel it again long before we 
 have a hierarchy, nay, if we shall be no better off in 
 regard to this matter, even when a hierarchy exists, 
 why wait for a future indefinite period, and not at once 
 proceed to secure to ourselves that complete organ- 
 ization in this regard, which need not be delayed ? 
 
 What, then, our readers will perhaps ask us, is our 
 practical remedy ? For it would be mere supercilious- 
 ness on our part to blame, and make no suggestions 
 for an improvement. We answer, then, let a small but 
 active commission be appointed, by proper authority, 
 approved even, if necessary, by the Apostolic See, 
 composed of persons of acknowledged prudence, saga- 
 city, learning, and application ; so situated as to have 
 access not only to the best works, but still more to 
 living and experienced authorities, well versed in the 
 condition of our country, its laws and customs. Let 
 them, with unwearied diligence, go through the whole 
 body of canon law, sifting every decree, and culling 
 thence whatever is now, or may hereafter be, applicable 
 to us ; consulting actual practice, especially in coun- 
 tries situated similarly to our own, and exemplifying 
 with proper cases whatever might give rise to doubt or
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 351 
 
 perplexity. "We do not see much difficulty in executing 
 such a plan ; very few years would suffice for maturing 
 it, and giving us its fruits. 
 
 Hitherto we have spoken entirely of the canon law ; 
 the same may be said of every other element of 
 Church government. The American collection before 
 us naturally suggests one. We must wait, it is true, 
 for a hierarchy, before we can hope to hold a provincial 
 council ; but there is no need of waiting till then for 
 diocesan synods. Benedict XIV. in his classical work 
 on this subject, has clearly laid down and proved, that 
 vicars apostolic are as fully entitled to hold them as 
 bishops in ordinary. Now, though far greater would 
 be the benefits of a provincial or national convention 
 of bishops, there can be no doubt that those resulting 
 from local councils (which moreover would be the best 
 preparation for more general ones), would be immense, 
 far beyond what can be supplied by any other substi- 
 tution. There the clergy, with their bishop at their 
 head, would be parties to all the statutes passed, would 
 subscribe to them at the foot of the altar, after the 
 solemn sacrifice had there been offered up to implore 
 the light of the Spirit of Truth on their deliberations 
 and decisions : these would have a serious weight upon 
 their minds, in consequence of the sublime and vene- 
 rable prayers which would have sanctioned them, and 
 the sacred character of the entire assembly. The sta- 
 tutes thus framed would secure to each district at least 
 decision, uniformity, and clearness of proceeding, upon 
 points now left vague, doubtful, or of private judgment ; 
 in other words, there would be a compact ecclesiastical 
 organization in each district, and it would not be difficult 
 afterwards to bring all these well-ordered parts into a 
 homogeneous and harmonious unity. 
 
 The same may be said of other ecclesiastical forms,
 
 352 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 not as yet adopted, but as practicable with us as 
 in Catholic countries ; nay, almost of every form of 
 ecclesiastical proceeding which the Church in her wis- 
 dom has thought proper to define and to insert either 
 in her Ritual or her Pontifical. We can hardly conceive, 
 for instance, the form of visitation prescribed in the 
 latter to be observed without its proving a perfect 
 guarantee for the decency of God's holy place, and the 
 perfect order of all that remotely or immediately 
 appertains to His worship. It would relieve the local 
 pastor of the often painful and invidious duty of 
 reproving his flock for their neglect on this score, and 
 of appealing to their charity and generosity ; and it 
 would soon be a matter of ambition to deserve the 
 commendation, rather than the blame, of the superior 
 authority. In like manner, why should not all the 
 formalities required by the laws of the Church re- 
 specting the erection of confraternities, nay, even of 
 religious houses, be observed, proper petitions made, 
 deeds and charters granted, and the privileges and 
 rules be sanctioned by the proper authorities of the 
 Church ? Surely in all these and many other matters, 
 there exists no obstacle to a proper ecclesiastical 
 organization now ; and whatever advantages we might 
 later hope for, may be at once possessed. 
 
 If we descend to matters of more current use, the 
 same reasoning will apply. Any one who goes into 
 the chancery of a bishop ruling over a small diocese 
 in a Catholic country, and sees for how many indi- 
 viduals it furnishes unceasing occupation, some of 
 them obliged to have taken the highest degree in 
 theology or law, will conclude that the system of 
 ecclesiastical business there followed must go very 
 much into detail; and so in fact it does. Though 
 much that is there done would not be wanted with us,
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 353 
 
 yet there is much to be advantageously copied. We 
 may instance the exact manner in which all that 
 relates to matrimonial dispensations is transacted and 
 recorded ; not to speak of ordinations, faculties, &c. 
 Of course we presume that all such matters, belonging 
 as they do to a department of offices beyond our 
 sphere of observation, are accurately attended to ; but 
 we believe it is in a more private and less official form 
 than abroad. The same attention paid to the forms 
 prescribed in the Ritual (so far as our unhappy 
 circumstances will permit), in the discharge of even 
 secondary duties, would soon complete a system of 
 ecclesiastical organization, such as would secure to us 
 at once many blessings and advantages now contem- 
 plated as with a prophet's eye, and sighed for as 
 though yet shut up in the womb of futurity. 
 
 But there yet remains a great difficulty to meet. 
 We surely are not so blind as to imagine that great 
 advantages can ever be purchased without corre- 
 sponding sacrifices. Are we ready on all hands to 
 make them ? If not, shall we be, when the time 
 comes for which many look ? Is not this a case in 
 which we may fairly argue prOspectively from the 
 present ? The more perfect system of ecclesiastical 
 organization which we contemplate will require, come 
 when it may, a surrender of conveniences, privileges, 
 and cherished advantages. The transaction of busi- 
 ness will involve trouble, more attention to minute 
 forms, more reading and writing and consulting, than 
 we have perhaps been accustomed to. Some delays, 
 too, may occur ; and what before could be done, so 
 to speak, off-hand, will have to go through a pre- 
 scribed routine. All this may be irksome; but no 
 good will ever be done without such provisions. 
 Again, can it be the serious idea of the Catholic body, 
 
 2 A
 
 354 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 that a hierarchy can be granted while those who 
 constitute it are left in their present condition ? "We 
 have no hesitation in saying that it would be almost 
 unbecoming in the Holy See, to appoint bishops who, 
 through the apathy or poverty of their flocks, are 
 constrained to have committees to appeal on their 
 behalf to public charity. Without a proper, at least 
 a decent provision for the necessary exigencies of a 
 hierarchy, it is folly, we think, to expect it. Even 
 Australia has run before us in the race, we have no 
 doubt in no small part, on this very account. And 
 surely such a provision should be made at once, and 
 not have to be thought of when it is urgent. Nay, 
 the want of it will be a main obstacle to the idea of a 
 change of system being ever entertained. That pre- 
 liminary organization which we have most imperfectly 
 and hurriedly described in this article, requires, 
 moreover, that whatever may at a future period be 
 necessary, should be set about at once. 
 
 Our proposal is simple. Let us set to work, clergy 
 and laity, to secure to ourselves as many of the advan- 
 tages of a hierarchical organization as our present 
 state will admit of. Let us make ourselves " a 
 Church " as nearly as our past sufferings and present 
 destitution will allow. Let us eagerly seize on all 
 present blessings, as the best means of deserving 
 and of qualifying ourselves for greater and future 
 ones. No doubt much has been done for the material 
 renovation of our state. We have gathered together 
 the scattered stones of our profaned sanctuary, and 
 have builded them up into a second temple, inferior 
 to the first, but still not without its glories. The fire 
 has been rekindled upon the altar ; the priests have 
 sounded again their trumpets, and proselytes have 
 crowded to the solemnity. But the rule of the Holy
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 355 
 
 City is not yet restored ; the republic of God is under 
 temporary provision of government ; its priests and 
 rulers have not yet been fully ordered, classified, 
 or made able, with full efficacy, to display the beauties 
 of their ministry. This is what we now want. Let 
 us show our separated neighbours that within our 
 Church remains at all times an indestructible energy, 
 a sap of life, which can make a withered trunk put 
 forth branches, a chance-scattered seed grow up into 
 a mighty tree ; that we can not only erect beautiful 
 temples to the God of our fathers, but soon construct, 
 in compact unity of design, a living, holy, and powerful 
 Church. 
 
 2A2
 
 THE 
 
 FATE OF SACEILEGE 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW /or Sept. 1846.
 
 THE 
 
 FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 ART. IX. The History and Fate of Sacrilege. By SIB HENRY 
 SPELMAN. Edited in part from two MSS., revised and corrected, 
 with a continuation, large additions, and an Introductory Essay. 
 By two Priests of the Church of England. London : Masters, 
 1846. 
 
 WE have long been looking out for this republication 
 of Sir H. Spelman's posthumous work, and it appears 
 at a moment which seems to us most propitious. It 
 is not indeed likely that the holders of old Catholic 
 Church property will become alarmed, and restore 
 their ill-gotten possession to us again ; for, as we 
 shall see, but few descendants of the original grantees 
 of Church property now hold it; and it would be 
 difficult to expect such a sacrifice from those who 
 have gained it through purchase, or other indirect 
 modes. a It is not, therefore, from any idea that 
 Sir Henry Spelman's fearful tale of judgments upon 
 Church despoilers, will awaken slumbering consciences 
 to restitution, that we are glad to see his work 
 printed in a popular form, and with such valuable 
 additions. If we calculate upon any gain from it, it 
 
 a We have, however, known several instances lately, where property 
 lias come into Catholic hands by purchase or inheritance, where a 
 portion of it, consisting of impropriation of tithes, has been settled, or 
 spent, upon religious objects. The former is, however, the only true 
 way of dealing with it with security.
 
 360 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 is rather from the- hope that sensible and religious 
 minds will reason thus : If God by such visible 
 judgments punishes those who destroy, plunder, 
 or profane places, things, or persons once consecrated 
 to Him and His poor, is it not reasonable to hope that 
 He will bless those who redress such sacrilegious 
 violence, and repair, restore, or newly give what is 
 needful for religious and charitable purposes ? 
 
 But independently of such considerations, we think 
 that the republication of this work will necessarily 
 prove useful. It will disgust people more and more 
 with that terrible event in English history, the horrors 
 of which have been gilded by the name of Reforma- 
 tion ; and some will ask themselves, can that have 
 been God's work, which was conducted by the whole- 
 sale commission of a crime, which till then had been 
 rare in Christendom ? Can that have been His work, 
 which throughout was a systematic plundering of 
 whatever had been dedicated to Him ? Can that have 
 been His work, which brought down vengeance from 
 Heaven upon all who shared it ? In truth, the more 
 the public mind is informed on the real history and 
 character of that revolution and rebellion against God 
 and His Church, the more will it be led to abhorrence 
 of the ungodly event, and sympathy for all that 
 it overthrew. Eor our parts, we sometimes ask our- 
 selves with no small amazement, what is there now 
 left for men to cling to in that event, or to justify to 
 them the name which they give it ? The antiquarian, 
 like Mr. Paley or Mr. Neale, loathes its profane and 
 sacrilegious destruction of sacred edifices and holy 
 things ; the liturgist, like Mr. Maskell, deplores the 
 abolition of ancient offices, and the presumption 
 of abrogating the " apostolic canon of the Mass ; " the 
 ascetic sees nothing but loss in the overthrow of all
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 361 
 
 mystical devotion and feeling worship ; the friend of 
 charity regrets the ruin of those institutions by which 
 the poor were succoured and instructed, and a refuge 
 was opened to repentant or afflicted, spirits ; and 
 the theologian laments over the imperfection and 
 deficiency of the new formularies of faith then 
 sanctioned, over the indefiniteness of belief which 
 they have introduced, the heretical doctrines which 
 they tolerate, and the removal of the safeguards of 
 truth which they have affected. In fact, what did 
 the Reformation change, which sensible and devout 
 men would not give much to get back ? Truly, it is 
 hard to say ; but we believe that the gains, which 
 any but very violent Protestants would reckon, 
 would be mostly negatives. We would defy any one 
 to state the smallest amount of positive good, which 
 it brought into the English Church. 
 
 But to pursue this subject would lead us far astray; 
 we will resume, therefore, our present matter, by 
 repeating, that Sir H. Spelman's " History of Sacri- 
 lege " will do good to the truth, by giving additional 
 evidence of the frightful amount of execrable crime 
 which formed an essential part, instrument, and 
 development of the Reformation. 
 
 The editors have enlarged the original work by 
 much additional matter, and they have also illustrated 
 the text by careful collations ; but their most valuable 
 improvement on the old editions consists in their 
 preliminary essay, which occupies nearly one hundred 
 and thirty pages. The object of this is to prove in 
 a more systematic form, what Spelman's work aims 
 at doing at once by evidence. It is as the counsel's 
 speech premised to the calling of witnesses. Without 
 some such introductory dissertation, the full force of 
 Spelman's reasoning would not have been felt by
 
 362 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 many readers ; and in this age of little faith, objec- 
 tions might, and would probably, have been raised 
 against it, which it was prudent and wise to anticipate 
 and solve. Yet for us, such a course must be un- 
 necessary. Were any one to write " The History and 
 Pate of Murder," there is not a single reader, we are 
 convinced, who, on taking it up, would not be 
 prepared to find it contain a series of facts, all demon- 
 strative of the wonderful pursuit of the murderer 
 by divine justice, and of the strange and unexpected 
 ways in which it has often overtaken him. The most 
 astute lawyer, and the most obtuse peasant, would 
 equally agree, how much there is clearly provi- 
 dential in the detection and punishment of this 
 crime ; so that the proverb, " Murder will out," is 
 almost as much a legal aphorism as a homely saying. 
 Now, they who hold sacrilege to be an enormous 
 crime (and no one who has read Scripture or learnt 
 his Catechism can believe otherwise), will be equally 
 prepared to find it punished by God in some signal 
 way ; at least will easily yield to the evidence of 
 facts, that the case is so. Again, whoever believes in 
 Providence, and in its punishment of crime, will as 
 naturally expect that the chastisement will be of a 
 peculiar character for this offence ; because experi- 
 ence, and the common consent of men, concur in 
 admitting such an allotment of peculiar judgments 
 for peculiar transgressions. Some of these are 
 inherent in the sin ; but others present no necessary 
 connection with it, yet still are clearly analogous and 
 appropriate. 
 
 Thus a sinful addiction to mere sensual enjoyment 
 and the gratifying of animal appetites, will lead to the 
 destruction of the power of indulging them will con- 
 sume the frame, destroy vigour, form, complexion,
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 363 
 
 bring an early decrepitude and disease into the limbs 
 and the vitals, and, in quaint phrase, soon make " a 
 wreck of the rake," as a warning to others not to 
 run upon the same rock. "What demonstration do we 
 require that " pride will have a fall," or, in more 
 sacred phrase, that "pride goeth before destruction, 
 and the spirit is lifted up before a fall?" (Prov. xvi. 
 18.) "Who would ever be surprised at being told that 
 one, who had been hard-hearted to the poor, a harsh 
 and oppressive landlord, and an extortioner, was come 
 himself to want, and was brought down to humble 
 himself to obtain his bread ? or who thinks it other 
 than a most probable story, that the pirate, who cut 
 away the bell from the Inchcape rock, should himself 
 be shipwrecked on it ? or that a man who had amassed 
 wealth by cheating his clients, or by plundering his 
 wards, or by usurious contracts, should see it clean 
 melt in his hands like snow, and flow away like water 
 in a sieve, approving the sayings of all ages, " Male 
 parta, male dilabuntur;" and "ill-gotten, ill-spent." 
 
 Now, if the fate of sacrilegious men be shown, 
 through history, to be such as by natural analogy, as 
 well as by religious principles, seems to present an 
 appropriate and well-proportioned punishment of their 
 crime, we cannot see how any one can refuse to con- 
 sider it as a punishment from God, unless he either 
 deny at once that there is such a crime, or that 
 Providence ever interferes to inflict chastisement. 
 
 And first, as to the appropriateness of the punish- 
 ment. Let it be observed, that a punishment will be 
 the more appropriate, in proportion as it better defeats 
 the objects of the crime ; and that, not merely on the 
 principle of retributive justice, but as a warning to 
 others, who will be deterred from committing the sin, 
 if they see that it hinders, instead of promoting, what
 
 364 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 they desire by it. Thus, as we have seen, unjust ac- 
 quisition will have its righteous retribution in poverty 
 and want. Sacrilege may be divided into two classes, 
 according to the principle which suggests and directs 
 its commission. It may be an act of sudden violence, 
 the momentary work of passion ; sacred places may be 
 profaned, and holy things broken, destroyed, or carried 
 off by a licentious soldiery in war, whether through 
 rage, or through covetousness ; and persons conse- 
 crated to God may be ill-treated in anger, or through 
 revenge. To this class of sacrilege, resulting from an 
 evil passion, committed under its passing influence, 
 belong most of the sacrileges of ancient times such, 
 in fact, as preceded the Reformation. But well may 
 Spelman, on coming to this period in his history, 
 exclaim : " I am now come out of the rivers into the 
 ocean of iniquity and sacrilege" (p. 131). For then, 
 for the first time, was witnessed systematic sacrilege, 
 sacrilege by law, by principle, coolly calculated, un- 
 flinchingly executed, not cloaked over with excuses, but 
 plainly avowed, justified, boasted of as a good work ; 
 sacrilege universal in its character, not allowing any 
 one possible branch or form of the crime to be over- 
 looked; embracing saints, cardinals, bishops, priests, 
 clerks, monks, friars, nuns, the sick and the poor, the 
 aged and the child; cathedrals, abbeys, monasteries, 
 convents, chantries, hospitals, schools ; taking hold of 
 manors, glebes, farms, buildings, rights, rents, and 
 every possible species of property ; seizing and appro- 
 priating, and turning to profane use, everything sacred, 
 iron- work, and stone-work, and wood- work, roofs and 
 bells, altars and church furniture, shrines, tabernacles, 
 holy vessels, and plate of every kind ; plundering and 
 confiscating, breaking, burning, razing, wresting, mur- 
 dering by violence or by course of law. No person,
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 365 
 
 no place, no thing, no mode was overlooked, through 
 which sacrilege could be committed. But this fully- 
 planned and fully-executed villainy clearly was not 
 the fruit of an outburst of passion : it had a purpose 
 and an end. The king and his counsellors wished and 
 intended to enrich themselves, and to leave to their 
 children and their families for ever the broad lands 
 and rich treasures accumulated through ages in the 
 Church. They fully designed to " build up their own 
 houses," with the stones of the sanctuary; to make 
 their descendants rich with the spoils of the temple. 
 Now, whatever additional punishment, in body or 
 mind, in goods or reputation, it may have pleased 
 God to inflict on the authors of such sacrilegious 
 rapine, this we ought not to be surprised at finding a 
 general consequence, the total frustration of the hopes 
 and purposes of the crime. We may expect, as a 
 natural chastisement of such calculating, covetous 
 spoliation as here took place, the overthrow and ruin 
 of such families, or the loss to them of their ill-gotten 
 wealth, or hereditary disturbance in their succession. 
 
 A priori, such is the punishment of the Reformation 
 sacrilege, which we might reasonably expect ; and at 
 any rate, if facts lead to the observation of such 
 results, we shall at once see their fitness. Again, 
 looking at the positive law, as the popular and 
 universal conviction respecting the almost inevitable 
 punishment of murder (which, being a social crime, is 
 generally effected by providential delivery of the per- 
 petrator to human justice), accords exactly with the 
 divine award, " Whosoever shall shed man's blood, his 
 blood shall be shed" (Gen. ix. 6), so will the experience 
 of past ages and of the present time, that sacrilege is 
 a plague-spot on the family of the original criminal, 
 and a canker to his inheritance, be easily pronounced
 
 366 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 in harmony with the awful declaration of God, who 
 adds to the first of His commandments, that He is 
 "mighty and jealous, visiting the sins of the fathers 
 upon the children unto the third and fourth gene- 
 ration.' 1 (Exod. xx. 4.) Now, it is against this 
 commandment so guarded, that the crime of sacrilege, 
 whether considered as an act of grievous covetousness 
 (" which is a serving of idols") or as a direct offence 
 against God's honour and worship, and a rebellious 
 attempt to rob Him of what has once been given Him, 
 is committed. 
 
 Nor will it suffice to show, that in some particular 
 instances this punishment has not occurred, any more 
 than a few, or even many, cases of unavenged murder 
 will weaken the conviction derived from daily ex- 
 perience. And yet the very small number of exceptions 
 in the case of sacrilege ought rather to confirm our 
 argument. The active researches of the editors of 
 Spelman' s work have led them to the conclusion that 
 only fourteen families yet hold abbey lands in direct 
 succession to six hundred and thirty original grantees ! 
 And, even in some of those, the curse of strange 
 misfortunes has accompanied the line to our days. 
 
 It was a consideration of this sort, which, in fact, 
 led Spelman to write his work. He lived within eighty 
 years of the guilty epoch, and could thus more easily 
 trace the history of the original acquirers of Church 
 property. Having himself experienced nothing but 
 misfortune from the possession of a sacrilegious estate, 
 of which he was at last glad to be rid, b he commenced 
 
 b Giving the history of sacrilege in Blackborough and Wrongey 
 Abbeys, he thus mentions himself among the losers by it : " Sir JEL 
 Spelman, a great loser, and not beholden to fortune, yet happy in. 
 this, that he is out of the briars ; but especially that thereby he first 
 discerned the infelicity of meddling with consecrated places." 
 P. 193.
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 367 
 
 an examination on a limited scale. He drew a circle 
 from a house near his own, with a radius of twelve 
 miles. This contained twenty-five abbey sites, and 
 twenty-seven gentlemen's parks. He found that, while 
 not one of the latter had changed families, every one 
 of the former, except two, had changed them, " thrice 
 at least, and some five or six times" (p. Ixxxix). 
 
 Here is another example given by Heynerus, in his 
 Apostolatus Benedictinus. He took, in one part of 
 England, 260 families which had received part of the 
 Church spoils ; and, on the other side, twenty gen- 
 tlemen, to whom Thomas, duke of Norfolk, left 
 legacies of 40 a year out of his own estate. Every one 
 of the latter had a son "nourishing in his father's 
 inheritance," while not sixty of the king's grantees 
 had transmitted their estates to their children (p. xcii). 
 
 The editors of the work before us have taken great 
 pains to collect what we may call the statistics of 
 sacrilege. They have examined the different averages 
 of possession by individuals and by families, of lands 
 that formerly belonged, and of lands that have 
 never belonged, to the Church. The following are 
 their results : 
 
 Church lands. Family estates. 
 
 Average possession in years by each individual... 17 23 
 
 a family 38 70 
 
 The figures in the second column are purposely 
 understated. 4 
 
 It is impossible to read the two appendices, in which 
 the fate of the families who first received grants of 
 abbeys is detailed, and not be struck with the literal 
 
 c In Warwickshire, the averages are 15 years for an individual, 
 and 27 for a family. 
 
 d In one hundred of Kent, the average possession of a family is 
 208 years.
 
 368 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 fulfilment of God's threats. Many of the original 
 possessors died childless ; of several we read, " extinct 
 in the third generation," " extinct in the fourth 
 generation;" and of others we may easily compute hy 
 the dates, that it was about the same period in their 
 descents that they received their final blow. In others 
 each generation presents a series of misfortunes and 
 premature deaths ; while many astonish us by the 
 total failure of issue, where, according to human pro- 
 babilities, there should have been a numerous offspring. 
 As an awful example, we will quote the history of 
 Charles, duke of Suffolk : 
 
 " This despoiler of thirty monasteries was married four times. By 
 his first wife he had no children. By his second, a daughter, Mary, 
 married to Lord Monteagle, by whom she had three sons, of whom 
 two died without issue ; bhe third left issue only a daughter, and in 
 him the title became extinct. By his third wife the duke had issue 
 one son, created earl of Lincoln, who died at an early age, and two 
 daughters. Frances married Henry, duke of Suffolk, who was be- 
 headed, 1554 ; and by him she had, 1. Lady Jane Grey, beheaded. 
 2. Lady Catharine Grey, married Henry, Lord Herbert, who divorced 
 her, and then Edward, earl of Hertford, beheaded. 3. Lady Mary 
 Grey, married to Martin Keys, and died without issue. After the 
 execution of her husband, Frances Brandon married Adrian Stokes, 
 and appears by him to have had no issue. The duke's third daughter, 
 Eleanor, married Henry, earl of Cumberland, and by him had two 
 sons, Henry and Charles, who both died young; and Margaret, 
 married to Henry, earl of Derby. By his fourth wife the duke had 
 two sons, who both, in turn, succeeded ; and died of the sweating 
 sickness in one day, July 14th, 5 Ed. VI. A more remarkable 
 instance could scarcely be found, wherein, in the next generation, a 
 man's name has been clean put out." Appendix ii. 
 
 But not only the original seizers of Church lands 
 have been thus punished, but the Divine attainder 
 seems to attach itself to the property, and to follow it 
 even into hands comparatively innocent. The extraor- 
 dinarily broken and interrupted descent in families
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 369 
 
 that hold it, is truly wonderful. Thus, in the Russell 
 family, instanced by Tanner, as an exception to the 
 general rule ahout the transmission of ecclesiastical 
 lands, we find that in ten generations the eldest son has 
 succeeded to his father only thrice. And in the same 
 family there have been four violent deaths (not in the 
 field of battle), two within the last six years (p. 312). e 
 Our readers will allow us to introduce here an 
 illustration of "the law of succession" in sacrilegious 
 families ; because it applies to a part of England, once 
 rich in noble abbeys and splendid churches, and one 
 that has not been much referred to by the editors of 
 Spelman. We allude to Yorkshire ; and we will insert 
 the very words of the letter, which, at our request, 
 conveyed the information. We can only add, that we 
 have every reliance on the integrity and the accuracy 
 of our informant. 
 
 "I have a friend in this neighbourhood, and his name is . 
 
 He is a magistrate, and a gentleman of very extensive reading, and 
 of great research in books \vhich treat of times long gone by. 
 
 " One day, whilst I was telling him of the immense advantage 
 which England, in better days, had reaped from her monastic insti- 
 tutions, he asked me, if I were aware that families enjoying that 
 property had never been able to retain it for three successive 
 generations ; that is, father, son, and grandson. I answered, that 
 I had never paid attention to the subject as far as succession was 
 concerned. ' Then,' said he, ' let me tell you, that I myself have 
 paid very great attention to it : and I have never been able to dis- 
 cover one single solitary instance of any family possessing the monas- 
 terial property for three successive generations of father, son, and 
 grandson ; and I defy you,' added he, ' to produce an unbroken line 
 of three generations.' 
 
 " I replied, that, ' whatever might have been the case up to the 
 present time, there was, at this moment, every appearance of a 
 regular succession in father, son, and grandson, at Kirklees Hall, 
 near Huddersfield. Sir George Armitage, the present possessor, has 
 
 e [In 1846.] 
 i 2B
 
 370 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 one foot in the grave. His son is ready to succeed him, and that son 
 
 has healthy male issue.' ' Time will show,' said Mr. . And 
 
 time did soon show : for the eldest son fell ill, and went to the grave 
 a month or two before his father ; and thus the regular succession 
 
 was broken. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 " On a re-perusal of your letter, I gather that you want information 
 concerning families in this immediate neighbourhood. At Nostell 
 Priory, possessed by Mr. Winn, there has been no regular succession 
 from father to son and grandson, since the monks were most cruelly 
 and most unjustly deprived of it. 
 
 " The present Lord Eitzwilliam, who possesses monasterial pro- 
 perty, and who resides about sixteen miles from this place, has lost 
 his eldest son. 
 
 " Sir Edward Dodsworth (formerly Smith), who possessed the 
 monasterial property of Newland, has died without lawful issue. 
 
 " Temple Newsham, about ten miles from hence, has, I believe, 
 passed from family to family, without ever having a grandson." 
 
 The writer of this letter further corroborates these 
 statements, by the striking fact, that in our royal 
 succession since the sacrilegious spoliation of the 
 Church, no sovereign has been succeeded by a grandson 
 on the throne. 
 
 "We must refer our readers to Spelman's work itself, 
 for further and more varied evidence of the visitation 
 on families of their forefathers' sacrileges. But there 
 is one example of a gigantic attempt to build up a 
 house on sacrilege in our times, so utterly brought to 
 nought, that we think it should not have been over- 
 looked. We allude to Napoleon, who started indeed 
 on his career as the restorer of the hierarchy and peace 
 of the Church, and so prospered for a time. He set 
 his foot upon the necks of princes, and gave their 
 dominions to his brethren, and even to his " servants." 
 The family of Bonaparte might at this day, according 
 to human calculation, have occupied the thrones 
 of Prance, Spain, Holland, Westphalia, and Italy, 
 and in each royal branch a family would have existed,
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 371 
 
 with nephews to spare, for a future succession. But 
 he stretched out his hand to forbidden spoil ; he 
 thought to enrich his empire by the wealth conse- 
 crated to God ; he scrupled not to incur the indig- 
 nation of Him who scared Attila f from his intended 
 sacrilege, by plundering the shrine of the Apostles ; 
 he pillaged the vast treasures of the " Holy House" 
 of Mary ; nay, he laid violent hands, like Herod, on 
 Peter himself in the person of his saintly successor. 
 From that hour, all went wrong with him ; his 
 imperial fortune forsook him ; his eagles were struck 
 down ; his treasure melted away ; he became a won- 
 der and by-word to all nations. But his family 
 projects, the great aim of his life, beyond everything 
 else failed him. His own line soon became extinct ; 
 and of his brothers, one after the other has dropped 
 off in banishment, almost in obscurity, has left no 
 sons that can make the name known to another gene- 
 ration ; and if what we hear be true, of the utter 
 wreck of all their vast fortunes, no one can tell how, 
 the sentence is pretty nearly carried out upon this 
 grand scheme of sacrilegious aggrandisement. And 
 what was Napoleon himself but the scourge of God, 
 upon those princes, who had just before set the 
 example of plundering the Church, and dissolving its 
 religious establishments ? And may not he beware, 
 who now occupies his throne, and in some sort 
 inherits the desire to secure his family upon it, 
 through many princely alliances, so long as St. Gene- 
 vieve cries out for vengeance, for altars profaned and 
 saints turned out, to give place to the most worthless 
 villains that ever pretended to mock at God ; so long 
 
 f The form in which the Holy See protects its rights, is by telling 
 their invader, "SS. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli indignationem se 
 noverit incursurum." 
 
 2B2
 
 372 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 as the episcopal dwelling in his own capital is allowed 
 to remain a waste, and the Church is bound down in 
 fetters, and the mouth of her shepherds is gagged ? g 
 One terrible calamity, the plague of the striking of 
 the first-born, 11 has already pointed out the stain of 
 sacrilege, and has avenged the plucking down of the 
 cross and the profanation of holy temples, which 
 marked the accession of the dynasty. 
 
 We should be glad to see an abridgment, at least, 
 or the substance of Spelman's work translated into 
 foreign languages, especially in those countries of 
 Europe where the work of desecration is not yet fully 
 perpetrated. What gain has Spain had, or Portugal, 
 by the spoliation of the Church, and the sale of 
 ecclesiastical property? We have elsewhere shown, 
 how ruinous they have been to the government of 
 Spain ; it were well to prove to purchasers that they 
 are equally so to them. In fact, in both countries, 
 men are beginning to see this ; and examples are by 
 degrees showing themselves, and becoming noted. We 
 have been told by those who know the countries, that 
 persons of large wealth who have purchased freely 
 Church-lands have soon come to want. One rich West- 
 India merchant has been particularly mentioned. And 
 we were told of one young man, who had purchased 
 in Portugal a religious house and garden, and turned 
 it into a place for holiday amusement, who was soon 
 found on it slain by his own gun ; whether by accident 
 or design could not be discovered. 
 
 e [The thunderbolt has since fallen. But if justice can be appeased, 
 or great public errors expiated, the piety, resignation, and truly royal 
 virtues of widow and children under trial may have power and merit 
 to obtain both mercies.] 
 
 h The first-born of Egypt were struck, because Pharaoh sacri- 
 legiously hindered God's people from going forth to the desert to 
 sacrifice to Him.
 
 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 373 
 
 Before concluding this article, we cannot refrain 
 from saying a few words upon one species of sacrilege, 
 that committed by violence against persons conse- 
 crated to God; because the examples given by the 
 editors all refer to Protestant clergymen, whose 
 priestly character we of course deny ; but violence to 
 whom would be the sin of sacrilege in those who 
 believed them to possess it, or intended, in them, to 
 insult it. 1 
 
 We will, therefore, supply two instances of signal 
 vengeance upon this species of sacrilege in our own 
 country. Every one knows how cruelly and brutally 
 the clergy were treated, during the Irish Rebellion 
 as it is called, by the soldiery, or Protestant authori- 
 ties, into whose hands they fell. It is not many years 
 since the late Sir W. B. was canvassing for his 
 election, and went into a shop, we believe a book- 
 seller's, to ask for votes. The tradesman was an old 
 man, and the canvasser and a friend who was with him, 
 asked him if he remembered the bad times, and if they 
 were as bad as they are represented. The old man 
 replied, that he remembered them well, and that they 
 were much more evil than they were thought ; " and 
 Sir W.," he said, " I well remember your uncle had a 
 priest tied up to the triangles and severely flogged, 
 till the blood ran on the stones. And years after, I 
 saw your uncle lying dead on the same spot, having 
 fallen out of the window, and dashed his brains out 
 on the same stones on which he had shed that blood." 
 We need not say with what feelings the persons thus 
 addressed rushed from the house. We have this 
 narrative from an eye-witness. The following is from 
 
 1 Upon this principle we explain the punishment of sacrilege in 
 heathen times. Those who committed it were judged by their own 
 law.
 
 37-1 THE FATE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 a gentleman of known probity and patriotism, who 
 has taken great pains to collect and verify the facts. 
 "We believe he has drawn out a full narrative of the 
 awful occurrence. 
 
 During the same eventful period, a yeoman in the 
 Protestant army shot a priest dead with a pistol. 
 Some time after, he blew out his own brains with the 
 same weapon. A brother of his secured the pistol, 
 and some years later committed self-murder with it. 
 Their mother now got possession of the fatal instru- 
 ment of divine vengeance, and flung it far into a 
 deep pond. There was still one surviving brother, 
 and he, as if impelled by some stern fatality, never 
 rested till he had fished it up again unknown to his 
 mother. He scoured it clean, and made it fit for use. 
 He kept it by him till his hour was come; when he 
 inflicted on himself the same fate with it as his 
 brothers had done before. Perhaps modern medical 
 jurists will call this by some learned name ; they may 
 say it was an "epidemic monomania;" we will ven- 
 ture to be sufficiently old-fashioned to call it THE 
 
 CURSE OF SACRILEGE. 
 
 Only one word more. The shop-windows of London 
 have long been full of chalices and ciboriums, and 
 other sacred vessels, the sacrilegious spoils of Spain. 
 A blessing will alight on those and their houses, who 
 have rescued them at whatever cost from further 
 desecration, and have restored them to their proper 
 place and use. But as to the many who have covered 
 their side-boards with them, and like Balthassar, 
 display them to their guests on their days of sensual 
 feastings, we will only say to them, "ipsi viderint."
 
 ON 
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW for Nov. 1842.
 
 ON 
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 ABT. VI. 1. The Garden of the Soul Derby, 1842. 
 
 2. Catholic Hours; or, the Family Prayer-Book. Third edition. 
 
 1841. 
 
 3. The Catholic's Manual of Private Devotion. Third edition. 
 
 1839. 
 
 WHILE preparing to lay before our readers such 
 remarks as the publications before us suggest, a 
 twofold scene presents itself to our imagination. 
 
 On the one side, we seem to ourselves to behold 
 a venerable sanctuary, be its country and character 
 what it may ; whether the dark and awful precincts of 
 the holy house at Loreto ; or the silver crypt in which 
 St. Charles Borromeo lies enshrined; or one of our 
 own ancient pilgrimages, the chapel of St. Cuthbert or 
 St. Thomas, restored to its ancient beauty and splen- 
 dour. Around the object of common veneration are 
 scattered various suppliants ; not marshalled into ranks 
 by vergers' wands, but, as greater earnestness or greater 
 humility, as pious curiosity or desire of concealment, 
 prompts, nearer or more afar ; some in the bright glow 
 of burning tapers, or of sunbeams streaming through 
 richly-stained window ; some half- veiled in the myste- 
 rious shadows of clustered pillars or secluded nooks. 
 There we see the Belgian matron, hooded and cloaked 
 in her dark flowing drapery, a breathing, but motion- 
 less figure a living Van-Eyck ; on another side we
 
 378 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 have the German peasant, with arms outstretched, as 
 though on a cross, in deep and earnest supplication ; 
 further back we find the Swiss pilgrim, leaning on his 
 staff, as, rosary in hand, he kneels with hoary head 
 and flowing heard howed lowly down ; and in front of 
 all, and pressing on nearer to the shrine, the Italian, 
 in the bright attire of the Abruzzi, kneeling as though 
 reclining backwards, in the attitude of Canova's Mag- 
 dalen, with her hands clasped upon her knees, and her 
 glowing upturned face streaming with tears. 
 
 On the other side is another scene. The altar and 
 its appurtenances are finished in the best style of most 
 approved upholstery ; the tightly-fitted carpet is well 
 covered, to secure its holiday freshness ; the marbling 
 and graining are unexceptionable in colour and in 
 varnish. Here, too, are worshippers ; ,the Parisian 
 dame reclining on her tall chair priedieu, with her 
 silver-mounted prayer-book, the English seat-holder 
 surrounded by all the luxury of worsted-worked 
 cushions, and morocco-bound books of devotion. 
 
 It is far from our intention to make any invidious 
 comparison between the actors in the two scenes : or 
 even to insinuate that the second class may not be as 
 devout and as fervent as the first. On the contrary, 
 habit has so much influence on even our most sacred 
 duties, that we believe that the people first described 
 would be as unable to pray, and be as cold in their 
 supplications, were they placed amidst the soft accom- 
 paniments of the others' prayers, as these would be if 
 dropped down, alone and unsupported, on the cold 
 pavement of an old Gothic church. But somehow or 
 other, the eye and the thought seem to find a spectacle 
 more akin to the avowed purpose of both scenes, in 
 the outward bearing and appearance of those who 
 compose the first. If the painter desired to represent
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 379 
 
 a fervent suppliant, he certainly would look on it for 
 his models : if a poet wished to describe the prayerful 
 outpourings of an afflicted heart, he would make them 
 be expressed in its outward forms : nay, if the preacher 
 or moralist should seek to stir up his hearer or reader 
 to a fitting observance of devotional duties, he would 
 surely draw his imagery, and illustrate his meaning 
 from the same source. We, indeed, are not artists nor 
 poets ; neither are we intending to deliver a homily 
 upon such sacred topics. "We are only poor critics, 
 anxious not to blame but to correct ; and therefore, in 
 all that we have said, we have only wished to present 
 our readers with what we conceive to be accurate 
 types of two species of prayers, and two classes of 
 prayer-books now in use amongst us the ancient, or 
 liturgical, and truly ecclesiastical, and the modern, 
 multifarious, and unauthoritative. In the former are 
 combined all the powerful and the beautiful, the deep 
 and the sublime, the holy and the poetical, which 
 minds and hearts, gifted by heaven with little less 
 than inspiration, could mingle together. The spirit of 
 celestial harmony pervades their words, and combines 
 their phrases, and weaves them into sentences and 
 strains of marvellous art. In them we admire a rich 
 and mellow tone, an almost playful variety, now 
 passing from the grave to the cheerful, as if by a 
 sudden burst, then descending gradually from the 
 sublime to the familiar, with no loss of dignity. Every- 
 thing is heart-felt, soul-deep : the sob of contrition, 
 the De profundis of the spirit, comes from the inner- 
 most caverns of a hollow, sorrow- worn breast; the 
 song of thanksgiving, its Te Deum, springs blithe and 
 light from quivering lips, as if to carol among heavenly 
 choirs. The voice of ancient priests must needs, one 
 would think, have been of a rich and solemn modu-
 
 380 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 lation, now unknown on earth, to have had such 
 beautiful sentences allotted to it to utter; and the 
 multitudes who answered must have made a sound like 
 to the noise of many waters, to have inspired such 
 responses. What a fitness in the selection of every 
 versicle; what refinement in the choice of allusions 
 and illustrations; what exquisite taste in the appli- 
 cation of Holy Writ to every want ; what simple and 
 natural, yet most sublime poetry pervading every office, 
 even where metre is excluded ; what a noble elevation 
 of thought and expression in the more didactic portions ! 
 There is a fragrance, a true incense, in those ancient 
 prayers, which seems to rise from the lips, and to wind 
 upwards in soft, balmy clouds, upon which angels may 
 recline, and thence look down upon us, as we utter 
 them. They seem worthy to be caught up in a higher 
 sphere, and to be heaped upon the altar above, at 
 which an angel ministers. 
 
 In them we look in vain for that formal arrange- 
 ment, that systematic distribution of parts which 
 distinguishes our modern prayers. We never have 
 petitions regularly labelled and cut to measure ; and 
 yet nothing can we want that is not there asked for. 
 What seems at first sight almost disorder, is found, on 
 examination, to be a most pleasing variety, produced 
 by most artless, yet most refined, arrangement. They 
 lack the symmetry of the parterre; there seems to 
 have been no line and compass used in laying them 
 out; the flowers are not placed according to a rigid 
 classification; but they have the grandeur, and the 
 boldness, and withal the freshness of a landscape ; 
 their very irregularities give them beauties, their 
 sudden transitions effect ; and their colours are blended 
 in a luxurious richness with which no modern art can 
 vie. They partake of all the solemnity and all the
 
 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 381 
 
 stateliness of the places in which, they were first 
 recited : they retain the echoes of the gloomy cata- 
 comb, they still resound with the jubilee of gilded 
 basilicas, they keep the harmonious reverberations of 
 lofty groined vaults. The Church's sorrows and her 
 joys, martyrs' oblation, and confessors' thanksgiving, 
 anchorites' sighs, and virgins' breathings of love all 
 are registered there. He that would muse over a skull 
 hath his Dies Ira ; she that would stand at the foot 
 of the holy Rood, her Stabat Mater; and they 
 that would adore in concert before the altar, their 
 Lauda Slon. 
 
 Nor hath the Church at any time lost her power of 
 prayer, her mastery over the harp of David; but 
 silent and almost unstrung as it may for a long space 
 appear, she hath only to attune it when she lists, and 
 strike it, and it brings forth the same sweet, soothing 
 notes as at the beginning. Every new service or 
 prayer which she has added to the Pontifical or Ritual, 
 dissolves into the mass of more ancient compositions, 
 so as to be undistinguishable, and blends with them, 
 as a new ingredient in " the sweet confections of the 
 apothecary," 3 equal to the rest in savour as in virtue. 
 Every modern office, like those exquisite ones of the 
 Passion which she has added to her Breviary, over- 
 flows with the same delicious poetry, the same balmy 
 unction as the ancient services. And as to prayers 
 emanating from the hearts and pens of holy contem- 
 platives in the Middle Ages and in later times, we 
 may truly say that they thoroughly partake of the 
 Church's spirit, breathe her thoughts, in fact, are but 
 sweet waters drawn off through private channels from 
 her pure stream. St. Bonaventura and St. Bernard, 
 and many like them, in those golden times of devotion, 
 
 8 Eccles. xxxviii. 7.
 
 382 PRATER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 proved how completely men might be the tongues, so 
 to speak, of the Church, and express her holiest 
 feelings ; the Jesu, dulcis amor meus of St. Francis 
 Xavier ; the Sume Domine, et suscipe universam liber- 
 tatem meam of St. Ignatius ; the Ante oculos tuos of 
 Urban VIII., which is hung round the confession 11 
 of the apostles in Home; and many other such 
 private prayers, contain in them more pith and 
 feeling than much longer compositions of modern 
 times. 
 
 But to these we must now turn. The so-called 
 Reformation, wherever it fell, blighted all warmth 
 and tenderness, and introduced a totally new system 
 of prayer. We know that some persons, enamoured 
 of the services of the Anglican Church, find great 
 aptness and beauty in their very barrenness, and con- 
 sider it a fitting expression of the state of mourning 
 in which that establishment put itself, or was put, on 
 its separation from unity. We own we cannot take 
 this view, for which no historical evidence can be 
 offered. It was the dry puritanism of the times that 
 influenced the compilers of its service-books. It was 
 the shadow of the Geneva gown and cap that hung 
 over them, a baneful nightshade, a joy-killing upas- 
 tree to all devotion and cheerful piety that came 
 within reach of its heartless influence. The prayer- 
 book kept a sort of meagre breviary service in the 
 morning and evening prayer; but every hymn and 
 antiphon was lost, and the beautiful alternation of 
 cheerfulness and solemnity, the mixture of the didactic 
 and the lyric, found in the day offices, was totally 
 swept away. In the communion service, too, the 
 peculiar beauties of the old liturgies, to which we will 
 
 b [The place where a martyr's relics repose iu a Basilica.]
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 383 
 
 in due time advert, disappeared; and their places 
 were supplied by comparatively dry and cold prayers, 
 and exhortations. 
 
 Now it has seemed to us as though some of the 
 leaven which, while it fermented, soured the sweet 
 bread of old devotion among our neighbours, had 
 unfortunately slipped in among ourselves. For, the 
 imperfections which we find in Protestant prayers we 
 feel we may to some extent charge upon many of our 
 own compositions. It appears to us as though most 
 of our modern English prayers came too much from 
 the head. Not that the heart was wanting in those 
 who composed them far are we from thinking so ; 
 but they feared to let it play ; they put it in fetters, 
 they bound up its feelings too much, lest they should 
 turn imprudent. The consequence is, that they bear 
 a certain reasoning, argumentative air, that smacks of 
 a sadly controversial age. If we may venture to use 
 such a phrase, we memorialize the Almighty instead 
 of praying to Him. Our supplications for forgiveness 
 seem to be not so much the cry of a culprit, who 
 throws himself on his knees, before the Judge in whose 
 hands lies his fate, as a petition to the throne for 
 commutation of sentence. Everything is admirably 
 arranged, every extenuating circumstance earnestly 
 pleaded ; motives of mercy powerfully adduced : but 
 there lacks the tear, and the sob, and the language 
 of the contrite, that is the crushed, heart ; the con- 
 fusedly mingled throbs of terror and hope, of sorrow 
 and love. 
 
 So it is with our other prayers. Our thanksgiving 
 expresses how we ought to be most grateful to God, 
 wonders how we can forget His benefits, and begs 
 that we may never cease to remember them. But 
 it breaks not out at once into a canticle ; it sings
 
 384 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 not forth spontaneously ; " Cantemus Domino, gloriose 
 enim magnificatus est ; " it seems to be a duty, not a 
 movement of the heart. Our expressions of love are 
 likewise so constructed. They adduce the reasons 
 which we have for loving our Creator, our Father and 
 Redeemer ; they acknowledge the imperfection of our 
 charity ; they express, in fine, that we do love how- 
 ever inadequately. But there is not always in them 
 the fervour of love overflowing the heart and lips, in 
 glowing, affectionate, impassioned addresses ; we find 
 not in them the surpassing sweetness of the " Jesu 
 dulcis memoria" or the concentrated outbursts of love 
 divine which many short sentences of the saints 
 contain. There are quatrains, nay lines, in the poems 
 of St. Erancis of Assisium, that express the ardour of 
 a loving heart beyond what any modern, elaborate 
 prayer has done. And why ? simply because they 
 speak as one does who loves. Our modern prayers 
 have no wings ; they creep with us on our own low 
 sphere ; they bear us not up to the empyreal, whither 
 we wish prayer to raise us : we feel not among angels 
 and saints as we pronounce them. And if they soar 
 not with us, neither do they always warm us here 
 below. They are as green wood placed upon the altar ; 
 not like the perfumed cedar of the olden forms, which 
 set it in a blaze, and rose gloriously upwards. 
 
 "We trust we shall not be deemed censorious in 
 writing thus. But we feel that it is just to give some 
 illustrations or exemplifications of what we say. We 
 might at once refer to the prayers for Sundays, of that 
 truly pious and learned divine Gother, as fully 
 bearing out all that we have said. Long argu- 
 mentative prayers will be there found in abundance, 
 admirable as instructions ; but far too heavy and 
 dry for ordinary faithful. Let us, however, select
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 385 
 
 a very short prayer given in almost all our prayer- 
 books : 
 
 " PBATEE AFTEB MASS. 
 
 " Accept, O most gracious God, this our service ; whatever by 
 Thy grace, we may have performed with diligence, in Thy clemency 
 regard ; and what we have done with negligence, mercifully pardon, 
 through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen." 
 
 Nothing is here wanting ; the prayer is complete, 
 and, no doubt, excellent in all its parts. But it is a 
 collect in form, and is cold in its present place, com- 
 pared with more ancient liturgical compositions. It 
 does not say : " we are unprofitable servants." It 
 assumes that our work may, in part at least, have 
 been well performed. Compare, now, the following 
 concluding prayer from a Syriac liturgy : 
 
 " Grant me O God that grace of Thy Holy Spirit, which Thou 
 vouchsafedst to Thy holy disciples in the upper chamber on Mount 
 Sion, and on Mount Olivet ; nor take it from me, either in this 
 world, or in the next. For from Thee is every good and perfect gift. 
 O Light of lights, Creator of the world, Thee we adore, Thee we 
 glorify now and for ever, unto endless ages ! Farewell in peace, O 
 altar most holy ! may I in peace return to thee again ! The victim 
 which I have received from thee be to me the forgiveness of my 
 debts, and the pardon of my sins, and obtain for me to stand before 
 the judgment-seat of Christ, without debt or shame ; for I know not 
 whether I shall ever offer up sacrifice upon thee again!" 
 
 But before this is a splendid hymn of thanksgiving 
 alternately sung between the priest and the deacon, 
 which we would willingly transcribe, did space permit. 
 It shows the joy and exultation with which the 
 Church gave thanks for her most precious gift. Let 
 us rather take another point of comparison. Prom 
 the edition of the " Garden of the Soul," as from 
 several preceding editions, there has been excluded a 
 very long morning exercise, in which all the proper 
 
 c Assemani Cod. Liturg. torn. v. p. 225. 
 
 2 c
 
 386 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 topics of such a prayer were systematically included. 
 With similar good judgment, several other such 
 prayers, for sickness, indulgences, &c., have been 
 omitted. For, though excellent in many respects, 
 they had the fault to which we have so often alluded, 
 of being heavy, long, and formal. Some of the even- 
 ing prayers in the various manuals before us we think 
 liable to the same objections. It is not necessary 
 to refer individually, because we fear they all labour 
 under the disadvantage which we desire to notice. 
 This we must beg to go about in our own way. 
 
 There can be no doubt that, while the ancient 
 Christians had their thoughts constantly turned 
 towards God, in private prayer, the Church took care 
 to provide for all the regular and necessary discharge 
 of this duty, by her public offices. These were not 
 meant to be holiday services, or mere clerical duties ; 
 but the ordinary, daily, and sufficient discharge of an 
 obligation belonging to every state and class in the 
 Church. It never was understood that besides the 
 public offices there should be certain long, family or 
 private prayers, as necessary to discharge the duty of 
 morning and evening spiritual sacrifice. For all that 
 was right on this score, she took care to provide ; and 
 where she has done this, we may be sure of its being 
 done beyond hope of rivalry. Unfortunately, those 
 offices have, for the most part, been reduced to a duty, 
 discharged by the clergy in private, and have thus 
 come to be considered by us as a purely ecclesiastical 
 obligation superadded to, not comprehending, the 
 discharge of ordinary Christian duty. One is apt to 
 forget that Prime is the Church's morning prayer, 
 and Complin her evening devotions. Yet so the two 
 manifestly are. But what greatly helps to make us 
 overlook this fact, is, that we have been accustomed to
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 387 
 
 consider morning and evening prayers as necessarily of 
 a specific form, composed of certain definite acts of 
 devotion, arranged in a formal order ; and have lost 
 sight of that model, which characterizes all the offices 
 of the Church ; and is and must be far the most 
 perfect. Let us observe the principal difference 
 between the two classes of prayers. 
 
 1. It will at once strike us, that the modern ones 
 are almost entirely composed for recital by one person. 
 That this is not with a view to private devotion, 
 appears from the few responses which are introduced, 
 just sufficient to show that congregational, or family, 
 worship, as it is called, is intended. Yet the great 
 body of assistants must be mere listeners, while one 
 person recites a long series of prayers. Every one 
 knows how difficult it is to keep up prolonged atten- 
 tion under these circumstances, how easily the mind 
 wanders and is fairly lost, till recalled mechanically 
 by a response. Now this shows the advantage of fre- 
 quency in such interruptions ; nay, how expedient it 
 would be to have them come in, almost every moment. 
 Such is precisely the form of the Church offices. In 
 the more solemn liturgy, or mass, where the principal 
 actor is the priest, having a ministry exclusively his, 
 the rest must be content to join their prayers mentally 
 with his, or rather with the sacred rite performed 
 by him. And so in some other functions, wherein the 
 priestly character alone has efficacy to act. But in all 
 other daily Church offices, the service is essentially 
 choral ; all join, in nearly equal parts ; psalms, 
 hymns, versicles, antiphons, belong to the entire 
 company of fellow-worshippers. All therefore become 
 equally sharers, equally interested, in the holy exer- 
 cise ; and the attention is kept alive, or easily recovers 
 itself. Surely this is a great advantage, and gives at 
 
 2 c2
 
 388 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 once immense superiority to the ancient, over the 
 modern, form of prayer. 
 
 2. The Church offices are always full of life and 
 cheerfulness. This, in fact, seems to be a marked 
 characteristic of the Catholic Church ; she ever prays 
 in hymns, making " a joyful noise to God with 
 psalms." Even when she mourns, she must have her 
 song, attuned in a deeper key, but still enlivening 
 sorrow itself with hope. Eor about two months in 
 the year she suppresses her Alleluja : for a fortnight 
 at Passion-tide she withdraws in part her Gloria 
 Patri ; but only for three days, the three most solemn 
 days of the year, does she silence the hymns in her 
 office. Yet even then "she does not banish them from 
 her liturgy. On Maundy -Thursday she sings them 
 at the consecration of the holy Chrism, and in the 
 procession to the sepulchre, even on Good Eriday she 
 intones the sublime " Pange lingua gloriosi lauream 
 certaminis ;" breaking in with most tender effect upon 
 the pathetic reproaches against the Jewish people. In 
 this spirit, she has not a single portion of her seven- 
 fold daily office, without its hymn to open, or close, it. 
 And surely this course is most wise, and considerate 
 towards our poor frail humanity, which stands in 
 constant need of such appliances for support in 
 spiritual duties. They break the monotony which 
 might otherwise ensue ; they raise the tone of voice 
 and mind above the pitch of ordinary conversation, 
 and, if attuned to notes, they prevent weariness, and 
 freshen the spirits. Moreover they shed a poetical 
 charm over the entire exercise, making prayer a 
 pleasing and welcome occupation. This character may 
 surely be imparted to family devotions ; or rather we 
 should say ought to be. Eor St. Paul seems to have
 
 PRATER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 389 
 
 these principally in view when, treating of homely 
 duties, he exhorts the Ephesians to speak to them- 
 selves " in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, 
 singing and making melody in their hearts to the 
 Lord " (Ephes. v. 19) ; and when he tells the Colos- 
 sians, still more pointedly, to "teach and admonish 
 one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual can- 
 ticles" (Coloss. iii. 16). A cheerful giver God loves, 
 and the natural joyfulness of mutual love, a common 
 hope, one faith, and trustfulness in the same pro- 
 tection, should shed a heam of sunny brightness over 
 the domestic expression of these feelings. And yet, 
 such lightsomeness, we fear, does not prevade our 
 devotional forms : they are mostly of a darker hue ; 
 there is sometimes even a melancholy complexion in 
 them, a thoughtful, anxious expression, rather than 
 a buoyant, hopeful, smiling look. In this respect 
 surely the Church is right. 
 
 3. Another difference, and one closely connected 
 with the last, consists in the absence from the one of 
 that orderly and systematic arrangement, which seems 
 to be so carefully studied in the other. There can be, 
 we think, no doubt, that the difference results from 
 the poetical character of the former, and the prosaic 
 form of the latter. In the Church offices, every- 
 thing is prayed for that ought to enter into the exer- 
 cises for which they are intended; but they being 
 composed of " psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles," 
 most beautifully selected, the various petitions run 
 blended through the entire office, according as the 
 various portions of the chosen parts express them. 
 This prevents weariness ; it is like a variety of modu- 
 lations in music, full of passages through various keys, 
 with occasional apparent and momentary dissonances,
 
 890 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 that only give zest to surrounding harmonies. On the 
 other side, our modern devotions have each petition, 
 and each act of virtue, accurately distinct ; no room 
 is left for a varied play of feeling ; there are no con- 
 trasts, no light and shade. The former is the language 
 of nature, the latter that of art. An analysis of 
 what we consider the morning and evening devotions 
 of the Church, will easily show us how fully every- 
 thing necessary enters into their composition, though 
 no artificial arrangement is made. 
 
 In Prime, for instance, after we have placed our- 
 selves in the Divine presence, by the preliminary 
 prayer, "Aperi Domine," and asked God's grace, 
 " Deus in adjutorium," the day opens with a beautiful 
 hymn, in which we beg to be preserved from sin 
 throughout the day, place our senses and hearts under 
 the Divine protection, and beg that at evening we may 
 look back upon an unsullied day, and sing thanks- 
 giving for its many blessings. 4 Can anything be more 
 
 d A translation of this beautiful hymn, from a source not easily 
 accessible to all, may not be unacceptable to our readers, as no 
 translation has appeared in any of our prayer-books : 
 
 " HYMN. 
 
 " Jam Lucis Orto. 
 " The star of morn to night succeeds, 
 
 We therefore meekly pray, 
 May God in all our words and deeds 
 Keep us from harm this day. 
 
 " May He in love restrain us still 
 
 From tones of strife and words of ill, 
 And wrap around and close our eyes 
 To earth's absorbing vanities. 
 
 " May wrath and thoughts that gender shame 
 
 Ne'er in our breasts abide, 
 
 And painful abstinences tame 
 
 Of wanton flesh the pride ;
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 391 
 
 appropriate, more complete, more beautiful, than 
 this ? Can any modern substitution answer as well ? 
 The hymn is succeeded by three psalms, which never 
 vary, as others do, day by day, which are often added. 
 The first of these (the 53rd in the Vulgate, and 54th in 
 the Hebrew) expresses, in strong and feeling language, 
 the dangers of temptations which await us, the wiles 
 and violences of spiritual foes who will assail us, calls 
 strongly for protection, and triumphantly proclaims 
 confidence in God's power and mercy, grounded upon 
 experience of past goodness. To this feeling cry 
 succeed good resolutions for the day, promises to 
 observe the judgments, the law, the commandments 
 of God, to prefer them to riches, to make them our 
 happiness ; and, intermixed, are fervent prayers for 
 grace to do so, acknowledgments of our inability and 
 helplessness without it, and a great reliance upon the 
 kindness of our heavenly Father. And all this is not 
 set forth in cold orderly phrases, but in the glowing 
 language of inspiration, in its richly varied imagery, 
 and expression. Eor this portion of the office consists 
 of two sections of the 118th (or 119th) psalm. This 
 is followed by an exclamation of honour and glory to 
 the God of heaven, succeeded, with sublime abrupt- 
 ness, by a most humble earnestly repeated entreaty 
 
 " So when the weary day is o'er, 
 
 And night and stillness come once more, 
 Blameless and clean from spot of earth, 
 We may repeat, with reverent mirth, 
 
 " Praise to the Father, as is meet, 
 
 Praise to the only Son, 
 Praise to the Holy Paraclete, 
 
 While endless ages run. Amen." 
 
 [This hymn is copied from an unfinished translation of the 
 Breviary, which had been begun a few years ago at Oxford, and 
 was in part printed.]
 
 392 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 for mercy to His Son. Then comes (except on festi- 
 vals) a series of versicles calling for many graces and 
 blessings through the day ; and, after this, the con- 
 fession of our sins, with its prayer for forgiveness, 
 ending with the proper prayer of the service, begging 
 of God, that, as He has brought us to the beginning 
 of a new day, He would watch over us in it, preserve 
 us from sin, and direct all our words, thoughts, and 
 actions, to the performance of His law. When Prime 
 is chorally performed, a very appropriate and very 
 beautiful addition is here introduced. The martyr- 
 ology for the day is read, that is, a condensed 
 account of those saints who, on the present day, glori- 
 fied God by their martyrdom, or found it their 
 happiest day in a blessed death, or otherwise honoured 
 it by some great act of holiness. We thus have a 
 series of models placed before us for imitation ; we 
 have recalled to mind and suggested to us, as topics of 
 meditation, the actions, varying every day, of mortals 
 like ourselves, who had pleased God and gained Him 
 (for, to a mind read in their lives, the recurrence of 
 their names will recall the memory of their peculiar 
 merits) ; the communion of saints is individualized, 
 so that we seem, for the day, to walk with a definite 
 company of them, who keep special festival with us, 
 they in heaven, we on earth ; and, finally, we have 
 special patrons thus allotted to us, who, that day, have 
 us especially commended to them by the Church's 
 commemoration of them. And hence the lesson of 
 the Martyrology is concluded by a prayer, said even 
 when the lesson is dispensed with, for the intercession 
 of the Blessed Mother of God, and all the saints, 
 whose death was precious in the Lord. Again, the 
 cry for mercy is raised, and thrice repeated ; for holy 
 importunity is one of the Church's privileges. To
 
 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 393 
 
 this is added a beautiful versicle and response for the 
 divine direction of all our day's work, and another 
 collect, as beautiful as the former one, and to the same 
 purport, placing our bodies and hearts, our senses, 
 speeches, and actions under God's safeguard and 
 guidance. Then comes a short chapter or lesson 
 from Scripture, as a text whereon we may meditate 
 during the day, it being selected with reference to the 
 ecclesiastical season of the year, or the day's festival. 
 This very incomplete analysis may suffice to turn 
 the attention of those who are not obliged or accus- 
 tomed to follow the Church offices towards these 
 beautiful forms of prayer. We will now venture to 
 give a briefer outline of the evening service or Complin, 
 better known among Catholics. The opening blessing 
 expresses the truly Christian view of evening devotion. 
 The analogy between sleep and death, and the danger 
 of passing from one to the other, by a sudden visi- 
 tation, naturally suggest a double preparation the 
 advantage and justness of lying down on our beds as 
 though it were in a coffin, of retiring to rest as if we 
 might possibly not wake again on earth. We pray, 
 therefore, to God, to give us "a quiet night, and a 
 holy death noctem quietam et finem perfectum" 
 Then, as the first preparation, we humbly confess our 
 transgressions, and ask for pardon. The psalms fol- 
 low, always unvaried. The three first are strongly 
 and feelingly descriptive of confidence in the Divine 
 protection. The expression of this sentiment, in 
 such energetic and feeling tones, is surely the best 
 means of imploring and securing that safeguard. 
 But intermingled are other expressions of thank- 
 fulness, both for temporal benefits, 6 and for spiritual 
 
 e " Multi dicunt quis ostendit nobis bona," etc.
 
 394 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 deliverances ; f of reproach for our daily folly and 
 vanity, 8 and secret repentance, before retiring to 
 rest, for the day's frailty and failings. 11 The fourth 
 psalm' is a lively and beautiful call upon those 
 who, in discharge of their ministry or religious 
 duties, will watch the night in God's house, to 
 praise Him on behalf of us who slumber, and draw 
 down blessings upon our helpless state. How appro- 
 priate this invitation in a Church wherein so many 
 communities of men and women rise every night to 
 sing the praises of their Lord, and where, in almost 
 every town, the faithful watch before the blessed sacra- 
 ment exposed to adoration ! Then comes the hymn, 
 that never-failing support to waning attention, or 
 fainting devotion ; asking more clearly for protection 
 during our rest; and followed up by the apposite 
 chapter or text, which appeals to God for His care, on 
 the ground that we are His living temples, on whom 
 His sacred name has been called down. Then, in 
 alternate verse and chorus, we commend our spirit 
 repeatedly into the hands of the Lord God of truth, 
 who hath redeemed us, and beg Him to guard us as the 
 apple of His eye. The allusion which the dying words 
 of our Saviour thus applied, naturally suggest, to the 
 final yielding of our spirit into the hands of our 
 heavenly Father, is instantly taken up, and the canticle 
 of Zacharias, " Nunc dimittis" humbly, but cheerfully, 
 expresses our readiness to depart from this our banish- 
 ment, whenever it shall please God to call us. And 
 
 f " Verumtamen oculis tuis considerabis, et retributionem pecca- 
 torum videbis," etc. 
 
 8 "Filii hominum usque quo gravi corde," etc. 
 
 h " Quae dicitis in cordibus vestris in cubilibus vestris compungi- 
 mini." 
 
 1 "Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum." Ps. cxxxiii.
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 395 
 
 thus does the opening idea of our twofold preparation 
 beautifully return to close the service. A prayer is 
 added (" Visita quasumus"), too well known as an 
 essential part of all our evening devotions to require 
 any particular description. An anthem or hymn to 
 the Blessed Mother of God, closes the public portion 
 of the service. 
 
 Such are the evening prayers which the Church has 
 drawn up for her children ; and, for our part, we can 
 wish for nothing better. We know not where an 
 improvement could be suggested; and, therefore, we 
 see not why anything should have been substituted for 
 them. One or two circumstances seem to indicate, 
 with sufficient clearness, that the two offices which we 
 have analyzed were intended by the Church for the 
 purposes described by us. Eor instance, Prime com- 
 mences as Complin closes, by the Creed, in addition to 
 the usual prayers, the Our Father and Hail Mary ; as 
 though to begin and finish the day by the public 
 profession of our faith. But further we may observe, 
 that, while in every other hour of prayer, the collects 
 and responses vary according to the festival, those of 
 these two offices never change, for season or day, but 
 have manifestly a reference, not to a specific com- 
 memoration, but to a standing and daily duty. Their 
 character is thus quite distinct from the others, and 
 shows them intended for a different use. Why should 
 not this use be restored? Why should they not 
 become the standard devotions of all Catholics, whether 
 alone or in their families ? Why may we not hope to 
 have them more solemnly performed, chanted even, 
 every day in all religious communities, or, where there 
 is a sufficient number of persons, even in family 
 chapels ? Thus would be more truly exemplified that 
 resemblance to the Church in the Christian family,
 
 396 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 
 
 which St. Paul intimates, when he speaks of the 
 Church that was in the house of an individual.* 
 Surely, if in other respects the resemblance will hold, 
 it should not he despised in this, that the family 
 united in prayer should speak the very language of 
 the Church ; should observe the forms of devotion 
 which she has herself drawn up and approved ; and, 
 as in good discipline, in spiritual affection, in com- 
 munion of good works, in mutual encouragement to 
 virtue, so likewise in the regularity and in the order of 
 prayer, assimilate itself to those religious communities 
 which, in every part of the Christian world, praise 
 God in her name, and under her especial sanction. 
 We strongly suspect, that many who will join the 
 Church, will hail with joy every such return, however 
 imperfect, to the discipline and practice of the ancient 
 Church ; they will warm to us the more in proportion 
 to our zeal for the restoration of its discipline. 
 
 It is impossible not to observe how decidedly partial 
 the Church is to the Breviary form of prayer on all 
 occasions ; for she imitates it in most of her other 
 devotions, by composing them of a psalm and anti- 
 phon ; then generally the Kyrie eleison, Our Father, 
 and a certain number of versicles, followed by one or 
 more prayers. Such is the form of the preparation 
 and thanksgiving for mass ; the Itinerary, or prayers 
 for a journey, for clerks ; the grace for communities ; 
 the Asperges ; the close of the great Litany ; and many 
 others. 1 And this form seems to us by far the most 
 
 k Coloss. iv. 15. 
 
 1 This form has been adopted in the " Prayers for the Conversion 
 of England." "We have before us a little book entitled " Prayers on 
 the building of a new Church," in Latin and English, in which the 
 same form has been observed, but with sufficient irregularities to 
 indicate want of long experience in the compiler. For instance, the
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 397 
 
 perfect for any prayers, especially such, as are to be 
 recited by many in concert. We do not think that 
 the Psalms can be too much used in our devotions. 
 Not to say that they are the language of inspiration, 
 they contain almost every possible petition, and the 
 expression of every feeling from the loftiest joy to 
 the deepest sorrow which can enter into our solemn 
 intercourse with heaven. They should not be confined 
 to great and public offices ; they should be familiar to 
 us as " household words ;" they should be employed in 
 fulfilment of St. James's counsel : " Tristatur aliquis 
 vestrum ? oret. jEquo animo est ? psallat." m In 
 whatever temper our minds may be, there will be some 
 one at least of those sacred melodies which will har- 
 monize with it, accord its jars, soothe its fretfulness, 
 calm its anxieties, cheer its gloom, console its sorrows; 
 or, if it have not sunk below trustfulness and hope, 
 enliven its serenity, or depress its eagerness, and com- 
 pose the whole soul to that just standard of Christian 
 peace which soars not in pride, and sinks not in 
 despondency. It is not Saul alone, nor only his evil 
 spirit, that hath felt the mildening and calming in- 
 fluence of David's harp ; many hearts, troubled like 
 that of St. Augustine at Milan, have been lulled to 
 religious calm by the powerful psalmody of the Church. 
 No composition from man's hand can ever bear such 
 frequent repetition as these divine hymns ; they are 
 ever fresh to the heart, as the solemn tones in which 
 the' Church utters them are to the lips and ears : both 
 are calculated for daily, nay, for hourly use, without 
 
 little chapter is redundant, there being no hymn. [The author of 
 this little work has since become a Catholic, and a priest ; and has 
 proved himself a thorough appreciator of the beauties of the Catholic 
 ritual.] 
 
 m Jac. v. 13.
 
 398 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 danger of either losing its peculiar charm. The clergy 
 have them, indeed constantly in their mouths, by the 
 recital of the divine office ; hut, from there being 
 a very small portion of them in our ordinary prayer- 
 books, and from the want of suggestions for their use 
 in OHr bibles, we fear many of our laity are prevented 
 from becoming as familiar with them as they ought. 
 At any rate, the composers of prayer-books might, we 
 think, advantageously follow the method adopted by 
 the Church, and give to their devotions more of the 
 form which she manifestly prefers. 
 
 We may be thought, perhaps, to have expressed 
 ourselves strongly on the subject of modern prayers, 
 as though of too argumentative and unpoetical a 
 character. Do we, then, think that such a quality 
 ought to be excluded from all petitions ? By no 
 means : for we hold that the Church herself has given 
 us the most beautiful possible models of such prayers, 
 as she has of everything else that belongs to religion. 
 We would, then, divide the prayers of the Church 
 into two classes, one which primarily and essentially 
 is of a lyrical, poetical character, and one which bases 
 our petitions upon some premise or ground, expressed 
 in language simple, though not unadorned. The 
 former class occupies by far the greater portion of 
 the Church offices, the latter is chiefly confined to the 
 collects and other very short prayers. Nothing can 
 be more perfect in structure, more solid in substance, 
 more elegant in conception, or more terse in diction, 
 than the collects, especially those of the Sundays 
 and of Lent. They belong essentially to the tra- 
 ditional deposits of the Church, being found in the 
 oldest sacrarnentaries, and ordos. It is evident that 
 their symmetrical structure is the result of a rule or 
 principle ; so well is it always observed. Eor each is
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 399 
 
 almost invariably composed of two parts, which may 
 be called the recital and the petition. The first con- 
 tains either a declaration of our wants, general or 
 individual, temporal or spiritual, or a plea, for mercy, 
 or for a favourable hearing. Or, it may be itself a 
 prayer ; only preparatory to a more specific and 
 important request. In this first portion, nothing 
 strikes one so much as the noble and appropriate 
 terms in which the Deity is addressed, and the 
 sublime greatness with which His attributes are 
 described. What can be more majestic than such 
 expressions as these : " Protector in te sperantium 
 Deus, sine quo nihil est validum, nihil sanctum;" or 
 " Deus virtutum, cujus est totum quod est optimum ;" 
 or " Deus innocentia? restitutor et amator ;" or "Deus 
 a quo bona cuncta procedunt ?" There is, in fact, 
 hardly a collect in which some singular beauty of 
 thought, some happy turn of phrase, is not to be 
 found. The connecting link between this preamble 
 and the petition which follows, is often of the most 
 energetic and most earnest character, being, in fact, 
 the pith and core of the prayer itself, that which 
 makes it a prayer ; and though confined to three or 
 four words, is varied with wonderful richness in almost 
 every collect. The petition itself is ever most solemn, 
 devout, and fervent ; often containing a depth of 
 thought which would supply materials for a long 
 meditation. There is no commonplace ; but, whether 
 the request refer to public, or to private, blessings, it 
 is conceived in terms so distinct and appropriate, as 
 to give it a character of originality and beauty. The 
 collects, for instance, in Lent repeatedly pray against 
 the same dangers of the season, remissness in its 
 painful duties, or mere formal observance of them, 
 without the interior spirit of humility and mortifi-
 
 400 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 cation. One of the two collects of each day is almost 
 sure to allude to one or other of these topics; yet 
 the variety which runs through them, is surprising. 
 The petition appears new every time it is repeated, 
 from the happy change in the phraseology. They 
 are like variations in music upon a simple theme ; 
 more striking, however, than such variations usually 
 are, because they never degenerate into long or 
 complicated modifiations of the original strain. The 
 last is as simple as the first. If any one thinks that 
 these prayers, so easy to appearance, require no great 
 power to imitate them, let him try to compose a few, 
 and he will soon find their inferiority to the old 
 ones ; he will see that it is far from easy to put so 
 much meaning into such a small compass, and still 
 more difficult to come up to the beauty and greatness 
 of thought generally condensed in the ancient form. 
 
 These prayers we consider as the true models, the 
 most perfect specimens of reasoned, unimpassioned, 
 prose prayers. They are necessarily short, and occupy 
 but a very small share in the Church offices : far the 
 greater part is composed in a much loftier, warmer, 
 and more poetic strain. We are not now speaking of 
 the hymns or psalmody which enter into them, but of 
 the bulk of the prayers composed expressly for the 
 immediate service, to which they belong and refer. 
 The poetical character which pervades these noble 
 offices may be viewed in two different lights, as 
 exhibited in the construction of single parts, or in 
 the general .combination of these into a whole. Of 
 the former, almost every office of the "Pontifical" 
 affords striking examples. The consecration service 
 for a bishop, for instance, is conceived in a lofty strain 
 of thoughts and expressions that makes it perfectly 
 lyrical. Take the following passage, after mention
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 401 
 
 has been made of the sacerdotal robes prescribed by 
 the Almighty in the old law. " Illius namque sacer- 
 dotii anterloris habitus nostraB mentis ornatus est; 
 et pontificalem gloriam non jam nobis honor com- 
 mendat vestium, sed splendor animarum. Quia et 
 ilia, quse tune carnalibus blandiebantur obtutibus, ea 
 potius quse in ipsis erant intelligenda poscebant. 
 Et idcirco huic famulo tuo, quern ad summi sacerdotii 
 ministerium elegisti, hanc qusesumus, Domine, gra- 
 tiam largiaris ; ut quidquid ilia velamina, in fulgore 
 auri, in nitore gemmarum, et in multimodi operis 
 varietate signabant, hoc in ejus moribus actibusque 
 clarescat. Comple in sacerdote tuo ministerii tui 
 summam, et ornamentis totius glorificationis instruc- 
 tum, coelesti unguenti rore sanctifica." 
 
 The action is here suited to the words. The solemn 
 chant of this beautiful prayer (for it is set to notes 
 that add majesty and pathos to the words) is inter- 
 rupted. All kneel, the hymn of the Holy Ghost is 
 intoned, and continued by the choir, while the sacred 
 chrism is poured upon the head of the bishop elect. 
 Nothing can be bolder, or, we should almost say, 
 sublimer, than this sudden break, and the intro- 
 duction into it of the choral music of the hymn : 
 after which the preface continues, actually alluding to 
 the previous sentence, " Hoc Domine copiose in caput 
 ejus influat ; hoc in oris subjecta decurrat ; hoc in 
 totius corporis extrema descendat ; ut tui Spiritus 
 virtus et interiora ejus repleat, et exteriora circum- 
 tegat." This explanation of the symbol is strikingly 
 beautiful as it is bold ; the prayer that the material 
 unction applied only to the head should flow over 
 and into the entire frame, is resolved into a 
 petition that the invisible unction of the Holy Spirit 
 may pervade the entire man. The way is thus 
 
 2D
 
 402 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 opened for more specific petitions, and these are 
 in the loftiest style. We have only room for a few 
 sentences : " Ahundet in eo constantia fidei, puritas 
 dilectionis, sinceritas pacis. Sint speciosi, munere 
 tuo, pedes ejus ad evangelizandum pacem, ad evan- 
 gelizandum bona tua. Da ei, Domine, ministerium 
 reconciliationis in verbo et in factis, in virtute sig- 
 
 norum et prodigiorum Tribuas ei, Domine, 
 
 cathedram episcopalem, ad regendam Ecclesiam tuam 
 et plebem sibi commissam. Sis ei auctoritas, sis ei 
 potentia, sis ei firmitas." n Then, after a concluding 
 sentence, is intoned and sung the Psalm (cxxxii.), 
 " Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren 
 to dwell in unity." Seldom is this sublime prayer 
 chanted or uttered without deep emotion. The 
 
 n " For the attire of that former priesthood notifies to us the 
 ornaments of the mind; and sacerdotal glory is not now recom- 
 mended by the grandeur of robes, but by the beauty of the soul. 
 For even those things which then flattered the carnal sight, claimed 
 those inward qualities which they signified. Wherefore, O Lord, we 
 beseech thee to bestow upon this thy servant, whom thou hast chosen 
 to minister to thee in the dignity of high-priest, that whatsoever in 
 those mystical garments was implied by the glitter of gold, the spark- 
 ling of jewels, and the varied richness of embroidery, may shine in 
 his morals and deeds. Achieve, in thy priest, the completion of thy 
 ministry ; and, after clothing him with all the adornments of glory, 
 
 sanctify him with the dew of celestial ointment May this, O Lord, 
 
 flow abundantly on his head ; may it run down over his countenance ; 
 may it descend to the extremity of his frame ; so that the power of 
 thy spirit may replenish him within ; and without cover him all around. 
 May there abound in him the constancy of faith, the purity of love, 
 and the sincerity of peace. May his feet, by thy gift, be beautiful to 
 preach peace, and to carry glad tidings of good things. Give to him? 
 O Lord, the ministry of reconciliation, in words and in deeds, in 
 the power of signs and wonders. Bestow on him, O Lord, the 
 episcopal chair, to rule thy Church, and the flock committed to him. 
 Be Thou unto him authority : be Thou his power, be Thou his 
 strength."
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 403 
 
 present pontiff once performed the consecration of 
 two bishops ; but has declared that this function was 
 too overpowering to his feelings to be ever repeated 
 by him. There is nothing in our modern prayers to 
 come near to such fervid, such poetical, yet such 
 majestic effusions. Yet this is only one part of a 
 service filled with other passages equally noble and 
 equally beautiful. What follows immediately is of 
 the same character, and the prayers at the close, such 
 as the one recited when the mitre is put upon the 
 head of the elect, are even richer in imagery and 
 diction. To this must be added the ceremonial that 
 accompanies the entire service, independent of the 
 heavenly sacrifice into which it is interwoven ; and 
 we hesitate not to say, that no human genius could 
 have devised a rite, to which every art that deals 
 in the beautiful, whether in form or diction, or sound, 
 or thought, has been brought to contribute its choicest 
 charms. If our Anglican neighbours can trace a 
 manifestation of some divine agency in the preserva- 
 tion among them of some portions of the old liturgy, 
 and can see in their prayer-book a proof of ecclesiastical 
 life, for their establishment, what must the Catholic 
 think of his Church ; the services of which, compared 
 with theirs, are as a golden tabernacle, richly jewelled 
 and enamelled, wrought out in all the delicacy of the 
 finest chiselling, and designed on the grandest scale, 
 in all the exquisiteness of pure old feeling, placed 
 beside the flat tablets of the Creed and Decalogue, 
 in dead blue and pale gold, over a mahogany com- 
 munion table ? 
 
 Time and paper would fail us, in attempting merely 
 to name the splendid passages, which every page, 
 
 [Gregory XVI., who consecrated the present Cardinal Altieri, 
 and the late Monsig. Traversi, his own professor in youth.] 
 
 2D 2
 
 404 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 opened at random in the same book, presents to us. 
 Catholics, in general, learn "far too little of it; and 
 we hesitate not to say, that he who knows it not, 
 cannot have any idea of half the grandeur of his 
 religion. Why, there is not a place, or a thing, used 
 in the worship which he attends, upon which there 
 has not been lavished, so to speak, more rich poetry 
 and more solemn prayers, than all our modern books 
 put together can furnish. When he hears the bell, 
 which, swinging in its tower, summons him to mass, 
 he perhaps scarcely knows that a consecration has 
 blessed it, couched in diction which is literally 
 splendid, and expressed by symbolical rites full of the 
 deepest meaning and the finest feeling. What an 
 idea would he not conceive of the consciousness of 
 power which the Church-Catholic possesses, if he had 
 heard her commit to that brazen herald of her offices, 
 power to dispel, by its deep-toned voice, " the enemy's 
 fiery shafts, the thunderbolt's stroke, the hailstone's 
 crash, the tempest's destruction ?" How lofty would 
 her estimate appear of the holy influence which 
 everything connected with her services should exer- 
 cise, when even this their iron-tongued harbinger 
 has a blessing on it, prayed for in such terms as these ? 
 
 " O Grod, who didst order, that by the blessed lawgiver Moses, thy 
 servant, there should be made silver trumpets, which when the priest 
 during the time of sacrifice should sound, the people warned by their 
 sweet notes should prepare to adore Thee, and assemble for the 
 sacrifices ; by the clang whereof encouraged to battle, they should 
 overthrow their enemies' designs ; grant, we beseech Thee, that this 
 vessel prepared for Thy holy Church, may be sanctified by the Holy 
 Ghost, so that by its stroke the faithful may be invited to their 
 reward. And when its melody shall sound in the ears of .the people, 
 may the devotion of faith increase within them : may all the snares of 
 the enemy, the clattering hail, the furious whirlwind, the impetuous 
 tempest, be driven afar : may hostile thunders die away, and windy 
 blasts subside into gentle and wholesome breezes. The strength of
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 405 
 
 Thy right hand cast down all spirits of evil ; that hearing this bell, they 
 may tremble ; and may fly from the banner of the holy Cross of Thy 
 Son, which hath been painted upon it, that banner to which every 
 knee bendeth of things heavenly, things earthly, and things infernal, 
 and every tongue confesseth, that our Lord Jesus Christ himself, 
 having swallowed up death in the ignominious cross, reigneth in the 
 glory of G-od the Father, with the same Father, and Holy Ghost, 
 world without end. Amen."P 
 
 What the Church does for the bells which send her 
 invitations to her distant children, she does with even 
 more feeling and beauty of thought and expression, for 
 
 P Or even in a higher strain, as follows, which we gladly give in 
 the original : " Omnipotens dominator Christe, quo secundum carnis 
 assumptionem dormiente in navi, dum oborta tempestas mare contur- 
 basset, te protinus excitato et imperante dissiluit ; tu necessitatibus 
 populi tui benignus succurre ; tu hoc tintinnabulum Sancti Spiritua 
 rore perfunde ; ut ante sonitum illius semper fugiat bonorum inimicus j 
 invitetur ad fidem populus Christianus ; hostilis terreatur exercitus ; 
 confortetur in Domino per illud populus tuus convocatus ; ac sicut 
 Davidica cithara delectatus desuper descendat Spiritus Sanctus : atque 
 ut Samuele agnum lactentem mactante in holocaustum regis aeterni 
 imperii, fragor aurarum turbam repulit adversantium ; ita dum hujus 
 vasculi sonitus transit per nubila, ecclesiae tuae conventum manus 
 conservet Angelica, fruges credentium, mentes et corpora salvet pro- 
 tectio sempiterna." 
 
 The same feeling runs through the following beautiful prayer, by 
 which the water is blessed, to be employed in the blessing of the 
 bell: 
 
 "Benedic Domine hanc aquam benedictione caelesti, et assistat 
 super earn virtus Spiritus Sancti ; ut cum hoc vasculum ad invitandos 
 filios sanctae ecclesiae prgeparatum, in ea fuerit tinctum, ubicumque 
 sonuerit hoc tintinnabulum, procul recedat virtus insidiantium, umbra 
 phantasmatum, incursio turbinum, percussio fulminum, laesio tonitru- 
 orum, calamitas tempestatum, omnisque spiritus procellarum ; et cum 
 clangorem illius audierint filii Christianorum, crescat in eis devotionis 
 augmentum, ut festinantes ad pise matris ecclesiae gremium, cantent 
 tibi in ecclesia sanctorum canticum novum, deferentes in sono prae- 
 conium tubae, modulationem psalterii, suavitatem organi, exultationem 
 tympani, jucunditatem cymbali; quatenus in templo sancto gloriae 
 tuae suis obsequiis et precibus invitare valeant multitudinem exercitus 
 Angelorum."
 
 406 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 every portion of the sacred edifice, in which her own 
 small still voice speaks to their hearts. Prom floor to 
 roof-tree, from lintel to altar, from aisle to aisle, bless- 
 ings are scattered, like flowers of heavenly brilliancy 
 and hue, on the day of their consecration. It is 
 indeed a pity that every Catholic cannot, once at least 
 in his life, witness this holiest ceremony. When per- 
 formed with that quiet accuracy and calm dignity 
 which should characterize every Church function; 
 when all the attendants know exactly their places and 
 their offices ; when all the necessary preparations have 
 been made, and all the many accessories provided in 
 good taste ; when the processions are decorously 
 ordered, the music is thoroughly ecclesiastical, and 
 the chanted portions are solemnly given, the entire 
 ceremony is more like a vision of Patmos, than an 
 earthly scene. But we are forgetting that the prayers 
 are our proper theme; although, to say the truth, 
 they are, in this instance, so worked up with action, 
 and this is so grand, so tender, so mystical, so awful, 
 that they cannot justly be considered apart. The con- 
 secration of the church and the altar are so blended, 
 and their beautiful prayers run so admirably into one 
 another; the function is carried, with such variety, 
 over every part of the sacred edifice, outward and 
 inward, and is interspersed with such exquisite expres- 
 sions of feeling, that the. whole forms a sacred drama, 
 full of stirring interest and movement, and sustained 
 by the noblest forms and diction. When the relics of 
 martyrs are introduced, in the middle of the service, 
 and greeted first with such anthems as this: " Surgite 
 Sancti Dei de mansionibus vestris, loca sanctificate, 
 plebem benedicite, et nos homines peccatores in pace 
 custodite;" and afterwards, when borne into the 
 church on the shoulders of priests, and followed by
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 407 
 
 the people, are welcomed by several such apostrophes 
 as the following: " Ingredimini Sancti Dei, prsepa- 
 rata est enim a Domino habitatio sedis vestree : sed et 
 populus fidelis cum gaudiis insequitur iter vestrum, ut 
 oretis pro nobis Majestatem Domini: Alleluja;" we 
 have the communion between the ancient and the 
 living Church, and between the militant of all times 
 and the triumphant, so vividly and so feelingly brought 
 home to us ; we are so affectionately associated with 
 those glorious martyrs, whom we are burying with 
 honour . " beneath the altar of God," q and whose 
 radiant spirits we must believe to be hovering over 
 us and taking part in our holy service, that the very 
 spark of Catholicity must have been extinguished 
 in the breast, that glows not with warm, yet most 
 tender, emotions, in assisting at the function. 
 
 But once more we are allowing ourselves to stray. 
 Prom the variety, then, of magnificent prayers, with 
 which this service abounds, we will select one, which, 
 though long, will allow us to mark some of the most 
 distinguishing characters of the ancient liturgical 
 prayers. It is the concluding prayer of the blessing 
 bestowed upon water mingled with other ingredients, 
 to be used in the consecration of a church. 
 
 " Be hallowed, through God's word, heavenly stream ! be hal- 
 lowed, O water pressed by the footsteps of Christ ; thou, pent within 
 mountains, canst not be imprisoned, dashed amidst rocks canst not 
 be broken, and spread over the earth, art wasted not ! Thou bearest 
 up the dry land, carriest the weight of mountains, and yet art not 
 crushed ; thou art treasured in the heaven's summit ; thou, poured 
 out on every side, washest all, and needest not to be thyself cleansed ! 
 Thou, for the Jewish people in its flight, art congealed to a solid 
 mass ; and, again dissolved into foaming billows, destroyest the tribes 
 of the Nile, and with thy furious current pursuest the hostile band : 
 thus at once salvation to the faithful, and to the wicked a scourge ! 
 
 i Apoc. vi. 9.
 
 408 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 Thee the rock struck by Moses rendered up ; nor couldst thou lurk 
 within its caserns, when the majestic command ordered thee to come 
 forth ! Thou, embosomed in clouds, dost gladden the fields with 
 fertilizing showers ! Through thee is poured out, for bodies parched 
 with heat, a draught delicious at once and quickening : thou, bounding 
 through the earth's hidden veins, furnishest her vital spirits, or her 
 prolific nutriments ; lest, inwardly scorched and withered, she should 
 languishing refuse her appointed produce ! Through thee the begin- 
 ning, through thee the end exults ! Or rather it cometh from God 
 that we should know not thy boundaries : yea, rather Tfiy boundaries, 
 O God Almighty ! whose glorious works we knowingly proclaim, 
 Avhile we celebrate the praises of thine element : THOU art the 
 author of all blessing : THOU the fountain of salvation ! Thee there- 
 fore we entreat suppliantly, and pray ; shower down upon this house, 
 in abundant streams, Thy blessing : liberally bestow every good gift ; 
 prosper it, protect it : destroy the demon of evil deeds, appoint an 
 angel of light for its friend, its administrator, its protector. This 
 house, begun in Thy name, finished with Thy help, Thy blessing 
 strengthen, that it may long endure. May these foundations deserve 
 Thy safeguard, the roofs Thy covering, the doors Thine entrance, the 
 interior thy presence ! Make the firmness of these walls, through the 
 light of Thy countenance, be for the welfare of men." 
 
 Here the bishop marks the door with the sign of the 
 cross, and continues : 
 
 " Be the unvanquished cross planted on its threshold ; may both 
 the doorposts be inscribed with the declaration of Thy favour ; and 
 in the abundance of Thy mercies, may there be given to all who visit 
 Thy house, peace with plenty, sobriety with modesty, superfluity 
 with charitableness. All unquiet and calamity fly far hence ! "Want, 
 plague, disease, weakness, and the assaults of evil spirits, retreat 
 before Thy coming ; that the grace of Thy visitation, poured out in 
 this place, may overflow its boundaries, and stream through its 
 surrounding courts : that this cleansing flood may find its way into 
 every nook and crevice, and so there may ever reign here the cheer- 
 fulness of peace, the kindness of hospitality, abundance of produce, 
 reverence for religion, and plenteous means of salvation. And unto 
 the place where Thy holy Name is invoked, let an ample supply come 
 of all good things, let all temptations to evil be put to flight ; and may 
 we be worthy to have with us the Angel of peace, chastity, charity, 
 and truth, who may ever preserve, guard, and defend us !" 
 
 What an elevated tone is this for prayer ! how full
 
 PRATER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 409 
 
 it is of confidence ; how copious and accurate, yet how 
 fervent and enthusiastic are its expressions I But we 
 wish to note some marked and very strong peculiari- 
 ties in our Church prayers, which widely distinguish 
 them from modern compositions. It is remarkable, 
 then, how grandly the Church, in her solemn offices, 
 deals with all visible and sensible substances, and 
 enters minutely into their qualities, extracting from 
 them the richest materials for mystical allusions and 
 applications. She seems so to contemplate nature 
 throughout, as subservient to grace, the outward 
 world as ruled for the sake of the spiritual, she reads 
 God her Pounder and Benefactor, so clearly in every 
 property of matter, finds such motives for religious 
 gratitude in every disposition of the physical laws, 
 that she truly raises this lower sphere, through its 
 alliance with faith, into a region of purer and holier 
 existence, where the direct splendour of the Divinity 
 is the sun that warms, and fructifies, gives life and 
 growth. Throughout the preceding prayer, the pro- 
 perties of water seem to be rather marvellous preroga- 
 tives, than natural attributes ; it is represented as a 
 live and busy, power, exercising a spontaneous and 
 free agency, a conscious principle : by the intermixture 
 of its physical qualities, with its providential uses in 
 the course of God's dealings with man, both seem to 
 be reduced to one class, and the blessings which we 
 and nature receive through this necessary element, 
 seem part of the order of grace, and only preparatory 
 for the mystical and spiritual application made of it by 
 the Church of God. The same tone of feeling will be 
 found to prevail in all other similar blessings. The salt, 
 or ashes, or wax, or oil, or other substance employed 
 in her ritual, and solemnly blessed on particular days, 
 as on Ash- Wednesday, Holy- Saturday, or Maundy-
 
 410 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 
 
 Thursday, are all treated, in the blessing appointed for 
 them, as having in their physical existence a necessary 
 connection with their intended religious uses : the bee 
 has toiled at her cheerful task, and the olive has been 
 gifted with perpetual greenness and with its rich suc- 
 culency, chiefly that Christ's spouse might be furnished 
 with what was necessary for her spiritual household. 1 
 In our ordinary prayers we speak as men involved in 
 servitude to the material world ; we find hindrances 
 and contentions, nay, mastery and tyranny in every 
 part of nature ; we feel that we are one of the race 
 condemned to stubborn tillage of an ungracious and 
 ungrateful earth; we are ever walking amidst the 
 briers and thorns that spring from our own labours ; 
 we are ever spoiling our work with the sweat that 
 drops from our brows. There is a creeping gait, a 
 hiding attitude amidst the shrubs of our vale of tears, 
 when we go to meet the God whom we have oifended. 
 The Church takes at once the bold and rightful posture 
 of one who hath been cleansed in the laver of blood 
 beyond a world's price, till she is without spot or 
 wrinkle, a holy Church ; the Spouse of Him, who 
 held the privileges of sinless man, and never forfeited 
 the rights of paradise ; of Him who, in virtue of His 
 lawful power, could command the winds and waves, 
 could strike with blight the tree that bore Him not 
 figs, and could multiply the bread of a family into an 
 army's food. She looks on the elements, whether of 
 earth or of the firmament, as engaged, nay, as held fast, 
 
 r "Alitur enim liquantibus ceris quas in substantiam pretios 
 hujus lampadis, apis mater eduxit." Blessing of Paschal candle. 
 " Qui in principle inter cetera bonitatis tuse munera terram producere 
 fructifera ligna jussisti, inter quae hujus pinguissimi liquoria ministri 
 olivae nascerentur, quarum fructus sacro chrismati deserviret." 
 Consecration of the Chrism.
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 411 
 
 in her service ; she takes the earth as her inheritance, 
 and the fulness thereof; and she commands the former 
 as a lord would rebellious slaves, as her Lord rebuked 
 the storms, nothing fearing their loud disdain, or their 
 reluctant mutterings : and from the latter she chooses 
 the richest produce, and claims it as due to her service, 
 as intended for her uses, and she gives it value and 
 sacredness, which in the natural course it possessed 
 not. She does not merely pray that it may be so : 
 but she wills that it be. Blessings are inherent in her 
 words, her supplications carry the force of a compact 
 with heaven. The bread that issues from her grana- 
 ries, and the wine that flows from her vessels, are 
 gifts too precious to be called by earthly names ; and 
 the oil from her press is fraught with a spiritual 
 fragrance, yields a light and an unction, which no 
 power in nature could have bestowed. They went 
 into her stores tributes of earth ; she has made them, 
 in very various degrees, celestial gifts. This dominion 
 over nature, which the Church so magnificently as- 
 sumes, is still further illustrated by another reflection. 
 It is, that, while thus praying apparently over one 
 small fragment or portion of a material substance, she 
 seems, through it, to bless the entire element ; it is 
 not as though she had selected a certain share for 
 herself, and left the rest to its natural profaneness : 
 but she appears to vindicate to herself the whole, 
 making it all sacred, and all subservient to holy pur- 
 poses. She keeps no distinction of times and places, 
 but brings together the most distant, in both, in the 
 lofty view which she thus takes of things. The water 
 which she is blessing is that on which the blessed feet 
 of Jesus trod, that which Moses struck from the rock. 
 In like manner, when she commemorates a day or 
 season, she seems to lose count of ages, and treats
 
 412 PRATER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 the most distant eras as though, now present. The 
 night, for instance, on which Israel escaped from 
 Egypt, and the glorious morning whereon Christ rose 
 triumphant from the grave, are both celebrated on 
 Holy- Saturday, as if centuries had not interposed 
 between the two, and between them and us. And so 
 the day of death seems ever spoken of as though it 
 were that of final doom, and the fearful imagery of 
 the latter is boldly appropriated to the former. 
 
 Do we, then, mean to say, that an unauthorized 
 composer of prayers (we do not use the epithet in an 
 invidious sense) should attempt so bold and so authori- 
 tative a tone as is used by the Church ? Certainly not. 
 But we think, that we should pray more in and with 
 the Church ; much more, that is, in her spirit, and 
 more even in her words. Her example, at least, 
 shows, that we need not be afraid of letting the more 
 vivid powers of the mind and heart have their play ; 
 that there is no danger in allowing the imagination to 
 soar somewhat above the flat ceiling above us, and to 
 roam a brief space among visions of past mercies and 
 future glories, prophetic imagery and heavenly reve- 
 lations, living with saints and angels, as St. John 
 Chrysostom so much loves to do : that we may fear- 
 lessly permit the deeper and warmer current of feeling 
 to flow, which our religion alone can unlock, to flow 
 in sorrow, in gratitude, in love, but in each, earnest, 
 tender, affectionate : and, in fine, that there can be no 
 ground for alarm, if this stream will not be pent up, 
 but must needs find a vent ; and so gush out at the 
 eyes in tears, and pour itself out from the lips in 
 impassioned expressions, in half-broken accents, in 
 hymn-like tones. We may learn, that "thoughts 
 that breathe, and words that burn," are the language 
 of prayer according to the Church's ideas and prac-
 
 PRATER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 413 
 
 tice ; and that, whether Englishman or foreigner, her 
 example should be to us a rule that allows no national 
 distinction or exception. 8 
 
 " It has also been my wish " (in this compilation) " to modify 
 those expressions of devotion, which, translated from the vocabularies 
 of more energetic nations, appear familiar and even profane to our 
 sober habits of thought, and to expunge all declarations of exaggerated 
 feeling," &c. The Family Prayer-Book, 1st ed. p. 4. The amiable 
 and pious author of this work has not inserted this passage in his 
 third edition. But the prayers composed on the principle here 
 described have remained unaltered. We should prefer the declara- 
 tion of such a principle to stand, that future readers may know it. 
 For, otherwise, they might attribute the variations in some beautiful 
 prayers to negligence rather than to design. As an illustration of 
 what we take to be the author's meaning, we will give the first part 
 of what we have always considered a very beautiful prayer, in the 
 original and in its translation. It is a prayer of St. Bonaventure 
 after communion : 
 
 " Transfige, dulcissime Domine " Inspire, most dear Lord Jesus, 
 Jesu, medullas et viscera animaD I beseech Thee, inspire into every 
 meae, suavissimo ac saluberrimo recess of my heart, and into every 
 amoris tui vulnere, vera serenaque tendency of my affections, Thy 
 et apostolica sanctissima chari- dear and saving love ; Thy true, 
 tate ; ut langueat et liquefiat Thy calm, Thy holy and apostolic 
 anima mea solo semper amore et charity : so that my soul may ever 
 desiderio Tui, Te concupiscat et long for Thee : may ever raise 
 deficiat in atria Tua, cupiat dis- itself in spirit to Thy heavenly 
 solvi et esse Tecum. Da ut anima abode : may ever desire to be dis- 
 mea Te esuriat, panem ange"- solved and to be with Thee. Oh 
 lorum, refectionem animarum grant that my soul may ever 
 sanctarum." tend towards Thee, Thou bread 
 
 of angels ! Thou refreshment of 
 holy hearts." P. 219. 
 
 Compare the two, phrase by phrase, and it will be seen that almost 
 every figurative expression has been suppressed, and the warm poetry 
 of the prayer turned into cold prose. It is as the rose despoiled of 
 its perfume, as a rich fruit from which the juice has been squeezed 
 out. We trust it does not appear " profane to our sober habits of 
 thought" to apply the epithet dulcissime in one of the "sweetest" 
 sounds of our language, to our B. Lord, the " Costa lux amantium" 
 It is far from our intention to convey reproof on the excellent author ;
 
 414 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 
 
 The prayers which we have quoted suggest another 
 source of vivid poetical feeling, which is greatly, and, 
 we believe, wrongfully, overlooked in our modern 
 systems of prayer. It was manifestly the sense and 
 conviction of those who composed the prayers of the 
 ancient Church, that we are living in a perfect atmo- 
 sphere of invisible and spiritual enemies, who disturb 
 nature, thwart the providential direction of things, 
 play foully on our imagination, trouble our peace, and 
 try to pervert our reasons. They meddle with every- 
 thing that is of use to man, and endeavour to mar its 
 purposes. They infest every place in which they can 
 tempt and seduce him from his own dwelling to the 
 house of God itself. Earth, and air, and water, are 
 equally their elements ; the first is shaken and con- 
 vulsed, the second is darkened by thunderclouds and 
 tortured into whirlwinds, the third is lashed into 
 foaming billows, by their permitted, but most malicious 
 agency. The doctrine, on this head, is clearly apos- 
 tolical ;* and that it was apprehended by the early 
 Church, in a far more lively manner than by our duller 
 faith, the writings of the fathers clearly prove. Now, 
 the Church, in all her prayers, considers herself 
 appointed to be the antagonist and vanquisher of this 
 hostile crew; and while she shows her deep and 
 earnest conviction of the difficulties of the contest, she 
 betrays no uneasiness about its results. She hath 
 power to rule and to quell these spirits of darkness. 
 Moreover, she is not alone in the conflict. Every part 
 of her offices displays her assurance, that a bright 
 circle of heavenly spirits is arrayed around her, for the 
 protection of herself and her children ; spirits who can 
 
 but we find fault with the system under which his and most modern 
 prayer-hooks are compiled. We want less fear and more affection. 
 * Ephes. vi. 12.
 
 PRATER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 415 
 
 wrestle upon equal terms with those unsubstantial 
 foes, and whose swords are tempered for their subtle 
 natures. There mingle, too, in all her religious 
 actions, legions of blessed saints, who have loved and 
 honoured her upon earth, and who now worship and 
 pray, invisible, with her children. These strong im- 
 pressions of the incessant conflict going on between 
 the enemies and the friends of God, are clearly and 
 feelingly expressed by the Church, in innumerable 
 places. The whole rite of consecration of a church 
 keeps before our eyes the efforts which will be made 
 by our invisible tempters to spoil God's work. The 
 cross is planted at the door, the walls are purified and 
 blessed, prayers are repeatedly poured out, to shield 
 the holy place and its worshippers against the fraud 
 and violence of wicked spirits. The blessings of bells, 
 of crosses, and of reliquaries, have reference to the 
 same idea. No substance is employed in any solemn 
 rite (except the Eucharistic elements, which are deemed 
 holy from their very destination), without a previous 
 exorcism or adjuration of the enemy, that he quit all 
 hold upon them, and presume not to misuse them. 
 The water, the salt, and the oil, consecrated for sacra- 
 mental unction, are all so prepared ; and the blessing 
 upon them, and upon other similar objects, is, that 
 wherever they are presented, sprinkled, or used, evil 
 spirits may be put to flight, and their malice and wiles 
 be confounded. The solemn application of this feeling 
 in the rite of baptism has been well enforced by 
 Dr. Pusey, in his Tract on JBaptism, where he regrets 
 the loss, in the Anglican ritual, of that portion of the 
 service so calculated to produce strong impressions on 
 the faithful. 
 
 There is surely a mysterious sublimity in this idea, 
 the eifect of which is most striking, and almost over-
 
 416 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 powering in these and other Church offices. The priest 
 or bishop who attentively and devoutly performs them, 
 feels himself necessarily as one acting, with power and 
 authority, against a fearful enemy ; in the name of the 
 Church he is striving against him for mastery ; he is 
 wresting from his gripe, by a strong hand, one of 
 God's creatures, which he has enslaved; or he is 
 beating off legions of dark, gloomy spirits, who flap 
 their unclean wings, and with sullen flight retreat 
 beyond the precincts from which they are driven, and 
 hovering around them, as vultures kept from their prey, 
 dare not violate the seal of Christ's holy cross placed 
 upon its anointed doors. Prayers composed to express 
 and exercise this high authority, must have a solemn 
 and most elevated tone ; the very idea must fill them 
 with poetry of the highest order. It has often struck 
 us, that " the world of spirits" has been far too much 
 forgotten amongst us ; that we think more of the two 
 visible powers in the triple confederacy of evil, than 
 of the far stronger and subtler of the three nay, the 
 master of the other two. We seem literally to have 
 renounced " the devil and all his works," by never 
 troubling ourselves about them. With the exception 
 of one or two prayers, which we have borrowed from 
 the Church office, an allusion to this state of conflict 
 is seldom met with in our devotions. We fight our 
 spiritual battles as if only with tangible foes, and, 
 consequently, with material weapons ; we arm ourself 
 with caution against danger, and with prudence against 
 temptation; we study how we shall avoid sin by 
 shunning men, how we shall escape passion by fleeing 
 from conversation ; but we forget that we have an 
 enemy near and around us, whom no foresight or 
 prudence can elude or prevent, who will bring the 
 dangers to us even in a desert, and surround us with
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 417 
 
 temptations even in a cell. The only chance against 
 him is in prayer ; but in prayer such as the Church 
 employs, full of deep conviction that what we pray 
 against is a reality and no fiction, of earnestness pro- 
 portioned to the perils to be averted, and of loving 
 trustfulness in the protection of the God of heaven, 
 who will make us walk on the asp and the basilisk, and 
 in the guardianship of those blessed spirits, who will 
 bear us up in their hands, through His commission. 
 This commerce, then, between the visible and the 
 invisible world, both for weal and for woe, we would 
 gladly see brought far more home to our every-day 
 thoughts, and to our habitual feelings, in prayer, than 
 is done in modern compilations. The weakening of our 
 faith upon one side makes it faint upon the other ; and 
 the less we are impressed with the reality of our 
 conflict with an unseen host, the less vivid will our 
 thoughts be regarding our no less invisible allies. On 
 this score, too, we think ourselves deficient. Our 
 prayers to them we mean such as enter into our 
 daily exercises seem like a formal request for inter- 
 cession addressed to beings far removed from us not 
 the cheerful and confident conversation with friends 
 close at hand, praying at our sides, and habitually 
 interceding for us. Our sense of angelic presence, and 
 of saintly communion, would be judged exceedingly 
 dull if estimated by our prayer-books. How different 
 from the joyous, the friendly, and affectionate in- 
 tercourse with those serene and kindly creatures of 
 God, which exists in the ancient liturgies of every 
 country, and in the Pontifical Ritual, and other offices 
 of our own Church. How surely their favourable 
 hearing is counted on, how confidently their protecting 
 might is expected ! or, rather, how warmly are they 
 addressed as present ; and how boldly does the Church 
 
 i 2 E
 
 418 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 take up their own song as hers ; and, joining in choir 
 with them, singing the praises of God, seem to bind 
 them to join her, supplicating mercy for herself! 
 
 One could not help heing struck most painfully a few 
 years ago, with the manifestation of this defective 
 feeling, made by attacking the Litany of Our Lady, in 
 a Catholic periodical. The chief objection seemed to 
 be the want, in it, of connection, or of continuous 
 sense, and the mystical and obscure character of the 
 epithets applied to the Blessed Mother of God. It 
 was considered that these might be particularly dis- 
 pleasing, and a hindrance, to converts or inquirers. 
 Traces of these apprehensions are, we think, observable 
 in some of the books before us, in the introduction of 
 other new litanies in her honour, with an intimation, 
 in one instance, that no doubt " converts will prefer" 
 the new form. This new form, we do not deny, is a 
 very excellent and accurate condensation of the Church 
 litany, and may serve as an admirable commentary on 
 it ; but, for devotional purposes, we should be sorry 
 indeed to see any alteration introduced : nor have we 
 yet met any convert who desired it. Again, our 
 feeling is, what the Church has sanctioned, by uni- 
 versal and constant use, let us not wish to alter ; let 
 us continue to be her children, and leave her to judge 
 what is best for us. But this litany must be viewed 
 in its proper light, and then it can give no offence. It 
 is, like so many other prayers, not in verse, like the 
 Gloria in Excelsis, for instance, or the Te Deum, a 
 hymn, a song of affectionate admiration, and, at the 
 same time, of earnest entreaty. The latter suggests 
 the frequent repetition of the cry for intercession ; the 
 former, the accumulation of enthusiastic terms and 
 poetical epithets. It is the most natural expression of 
 tender attachment, to be found in every writer, inspired
 
 PRATER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 419 
 
 or uninspired, who utters words of love. When the 
 priests approach Judith, after the victory due to her 
 valour, they thus address her : " Tu gloria Jerusalem, 
 tu Ia3titia Israel, tu honorificentia populi nostri." u In 
 the Canticles such expressions do not surprise us : 
 " Surge, propera, arnica mea, columba mea, formosa 
 mea, et veni." x Or, coming nearer to our case, we 
 need only quote St. Cyril of Alexandria, to have 
 authority for what we say. Hear him apostrophize 
 the Blessed Mother of God, in the following terms : 
 " Hail, Mary, Mother of God, venerable treasure of 
 the entire Church, inextinguishable lamp, crown of 
 virginity, sceptre of true doctrine, indissoluble temple, 
 abode of Him who is infinite, Mother and Virgin . . . 
 Thou through whom the Holy Trinity is glorified; 
 Thou through whom the precious cross is honoured ; 
 Thou through whom heaven exults; Thou through 
 whom angels and archangels rejoice; Thou through 
 whom evil spirits are put to flight . . . Thou from 
 whom is the oil of gladness ; Thou through whom, 
 over the whole world, churches were planted ; Thou 
 through whom prophets spoke ; Thou through whom 
 apostles preached ; Thou through whom the dead arise ; 
 Thou through whom kings reign, through the Blessed 
 Trinity." 7 Now here is a litany not unlike that of 
 Loreto, and we have only to say, Pray for us, after 
 each of the salutations, to have a very excellent one. 
 This intercalation would surely not spoil, nor render 
 less natural, or less beautiful, that address of the holy 
 patriarch. It is evident that, in it, he is more of the 
 enthusiastic poet than of the wary orator. The litany, 
 too, is not a studied prayer, intended to have logical 
 connection of parts, but, as we have already stated, is a 
 
 Jud. xv. 10. * Cant. ii. 10, 13, 14. 
 
 y Homil. in Neator. Oper. torn. v. p. ii. p. 355, ed. Aubert. 
 
 2 E 2
 
 420 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 
 
 hymn of admiration and love, composed of a succession 
 of epithets expressive of those feelings, the recital of 
 which is broken into, after every phrase, by the people 
 or chorus, begging the prayer of her to whom they are 
 so worthily applied. It is poetry of that class which 
 an Oriental would not unaptly compare to a string of 
 loose pearls, each beautiful in itself, but more beautiful 
 from the manner in which it is matched by its fellows ; 
 and the whole collection appearing richer from the 
 absence of a more artful and stiffly-connecting setting. 
 Nor, in this sort of poetry, does one think of analyzing 
 coldly every phrase, struck off, as it may be, by a fervid 
 imagination in the warmth of feeling : certainly even 
 remote analogies will often supply metaphors to affec- 
 tion ; nor would it be easy to submit to severe tests 
 some of the expressions of St. Cyril. At the same 
 time we will venture to say, that there is not one 
 term in our litany, which does not admit of the happiest 
 and fullest application to its exalted subject. 
 
 It may be said, that we have selected our instances 
 of the Church's prayers from more recondite sources, 
 and from offices which can be witnessed, or even read, 
 by a comparatively small number of the faithful. This 
 is truly so ; and we have therein been led by a sufficient 
 motive. We wished to show, though necessarily in a 
 very imperfect manner, that there are valuable stores 
 of devotion not near as much known as could be 
 wished. We would have the Bitual and the Pontifical 
 in great part made accessible to the laity by good 
 translations ; we would have their services commented 
 upon, both by word and writing. They could not 
 fail to be brought to a deeper sense of their own 
 duties and of their own wants, by frequent meditation 
 on the baptismal, matrimonial, and other services of 
 the one ; they would be inspired with more serious and
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 421 
 
 more exalted ideas concerning the worship of God and 
 the sacred character of His ministers, were they made 
 familiar with the magnificent forms of consecration, 
 employed in the dedication of places and things to His 
 service, and of ordination, whereby His priests are 
 gradually introduced to the sublime offices of the 
 sanctuary. 
 
 But whatever we have said, till now, of any other 
 Church services, will be more strikingly applicable to 
 the sublimest of them all, her liturgy, or the mass. 
 This is far too copious a subject to be treated cursorily, 
 or by way of illustration. We have not been sur- 
 prised, that, in latter years, there should have prevailed 
 a much greater use than formerly, of the missal as a 
 prayer-book, and that even it should be found expedi- 
 ent to print, in other books of devotion, the "Ordinary 
 of the Mass." This feeling, on the part of the faith- 
 ful, shows their sense of the superiority of the Church 
 prayers over any substitutes for them. Nor, in fact, 
 can any human genius hope to attain their beauty 
 and sublimity. In these two qualities, the mass 
 differs from all other offices in a remarkable manner. 
 It has not merely nights of eloquence and poetry, 
 strikingly displayed in particular prayers, but it is 
 sustained throughout in the higher sphere, to which 
 its divine purpose naturally raises it. If we examine 
 each prayer separately, it is perfect ; perfect in con- 
 struction, perfect in thought, and perfect in expression. 
 If we consider the manner in which they are brought 
 together, we are struck with the brevity of each, with 
 the sudden but beautiful transitions, and the almost 
 stanza-like effect with which they succeed one another, 
 forming a lyrical composition of surpassing beauty. If 
 we take the entire service, as a whole, it is constructed 
 with the most admirable symmetry, proportioned in
 
 422 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 
 
 its parts with perfect judgment, and so exquisitely 
 arranged, as to excite and preserve an unbroken 
 interest in the sacred action. No doubt, to give full 
 force and value to this sacred rite, its entire cere- 
 monial is to be considered. The assistants, with their 
 noble vestments, the chant, the incense, the more 
 varied ceremonies which belong to a solemn mass, are 
 all calculated to increase veneration and admiration. 
 But still, the essential beauties remain, whether the 
 holy rite be performed under the golden vault of 
 St. Peter's, with all the pomp and circumstance 
 befitting its celebration by the sovereign pontiff, or in 
 a wretched wigwam, erected in haste by some poor 
 savages for their missionary. What can be more 
 appropriate than the opening psalm and humble con- 
 fession of sin by priest and people, the former yet 
 standing at a distance from the altar, feeling himself 
 unworthy to approach ! Then comes the Introit, 
 which seems intended to be the key-note to the whole 
 service ; which, being one in its essence, yet adapts 
 itself to all our wants, whether of propitiation or of 
 thanksgiving, whether of evils to be averted or 
 blessings to be gained. Sometimes this introductory 
 verse is loud and joyous, " Gaudeamus omnes in 
 Domino ;" sometimes low and plaintive, " Miserere 
 mihi Domine quoniam tribulor;" in the paschal 
 solemnity, the Alleluja rings through it all, like a 
 peel of cheerful bells ; in Passion-tide, even the 
 " Gloria Patri" is silent, and it falls melancholy and 
 dull ; when a saint is commemorated, the nature of 
 his virtues and his triumphs is at once proclaimed ; 
 if it be a festival of Our Lord, the mystery which 
 it celebrates is solemnly announced. The chord, thus 
 struck, at the opening of the service, returns at given 
 intervals, as if to keep up the tone throughout. At the
 
 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 423 
 
 Gradual, the Offertory, and the Communion, the verses 
 read are in perfect harmony with it ; and having, 
 moreover, a corresponding, and even deeper echo in 
 the Collects, Gospel, and Preface, one feeling is pre- 
 served, suited to the devotion which the liturgy, in 
 its essence and main purposes invariable, is intended 
 secondarily to excite. The Kyrie eleison, that cry 
 for mercy, which is to he found in every liturgy 
 of East and West, seems introduced as if to give 
 grander effect to the outburst of joy and praise which 
 succeeds it in the " Gloria in excelsis ;" it is a 
 deepening of our humiliation, that our triumph may 
 be the better felt. That hymn itself is full of 
 beauties; the best demonstration of which is, that 
 no composition ever lent itself more perfectly to the 
 musician's skill ; none ever afforded better play to 
 the rich and rapid succession of every mode, gay and 
 grave ; none better supplied the slow and entreating 
 cadence, or the full and powerful chorus. In the 
 simple Gregorian chant, or in the pure religious 
 harmonies of Palestrina, it is truly the " Hymn of 
 Angels." 
 
 We should feel ourselves wholly unequal to the task 
 of pointing out the excellence of the prayers which 
 occupy the essential portion of the liturgy, from the 
 Offertory to the end. It has often struck us, that one 
 single word could not be changed to advantage in any 
 one of them ; that there is more meaning compressed 
 into a small space than in almost any other com- 
 position which we know ; and that everything is said 
 which could be required or desired. All the prayers 
 connected with the Offertory are remarkably short ; 
 but they are full of vigour and of feeling ; there is 
 in them a most heavenly and sublime simplicity, a 
 mild and tender pathos. When the priest, having
 
 424 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 completed his oblation, bows himself down upon the 
 altar, and humbles himself in contrition of heart, as 
 unworthy of his ministry, then with a noble confidence 
 rises erect, lifts his hands and eyes to heaven, and 
 solemnly invokes the God who dwells there, saying : 
 " Veni Sanctificator, omnipotens seterne Deus," and in 
 His name blesses the sacred gift, there is an awful 
 grandeur in the rite; an assurance of its efficacy 
 in heaven as on earth. It seems as though the priest 
 instantly retired, in order to make way for Him whom 
 he had so powerfully called down to bless his offering, 
 and went to seek still greater purity of hands and 
 heart, so to return to his ministration more worthy 
 to "hear the words of praise" which the Church, in 
 concert with holy angels, is about to sing in her 
 hosannas. The prefaces are all perfect in substance 
 and in form ; there could not be a more splendid 
 introduction, with the hymn which closes them, to 
 the divine rite that follows. Here we must pause : 
 because the subject becomes too sacred for our pen ; 
 the ground upon which we are about to tread is holy, 
 and the shoes must be loosed from the feet of him 
 who will venture upon it. To speak worthily on it, 
 requires language and a mood far removed from the 
 humble office which we are exercising. We stated, 
 at the outset, that we were not going to read a homily 
 upon prayer, but only to act the ungrateful part of 
 critics. "We therefore content ourselves with saying, 
 that those who would wish to learn how prayers may 
 or should be composed, should meditate long and 
 deeply upon these apostolic prayers, which have 
 nothing beyond them save God's inspired word. 
 
 In all that we have written, we should be sorry 
 to be interpreted as casting blame upon the compilers 
 of our modern works of devotion. This was far
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 425 
 
 removed from our intention. Of the authors whose 
 collections stand at the head of our article we cannot 
 hut speak with respect. One is a layman of exem- 
 plary life, and zealously attached to the holy religion 
 which he professes. On the plan which he has 
 pursued we may differ, hut without any diminution 
 on our parts of kindness and respect. Another is 
 a veteran grown grey in the battles of the Lord, one 
 whose ready pen has seldom been laid down in the 
 cause of truth and piety, and who, by an acquaintance 
 with Protestant theologians rare on our side, has 
 furnished succeeding controversialists with many new 
 arms. Of the third, the truly venerable, learned, and 
 saintly Dr. Challoner, it would be both unjust and 
 ungrateful, were any English Catholic to speak in 
 terms other than of profound admiration and sincere 
 respect. He has alone furnished us with a library of 
 religious works, the privation of which would create 
 a void, not easily to be filled up by many other men's 
 writings. The catechism from which we learnt the 
 first rudiments of our faith, that by which we early 
 became acquainted with sacred history, or versed 
 in controversial discussion, the prayer-book with 
 which we have been most familiar, the meditations 
 which have afforded daily instruction to us in families 
 and in communities, many of our most solid and 
 most clear works of controversy, the charming records 
 of our fathers in the faith, the missionary priests, the 
 martyrology of our ancient Church, and many other 
 works, we owe to this really great and good man ; and 
 we know not what we should have done, or what 
 we should have been, without them. He supplied, in 
 fact, almost the entire range of necessary or useful 
 religious literature for his Catholic fellow-country- 
 men ; and that at a time when such a supply must
 
 426 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 have been truly as a boon from heaven. Yes, and at 
 a time when such works were not published without 
 some personal risk and danger. Par be it from us, 
 immensely inferior as we feel ourselves, in every good 
 quality, to this holy bishop, to impair his honour or 
 speak disparagingly of his merits. Our only surprise 
 and regret is, that we Catholics of this country have 
 never thought of expressing our obligations to him 
 by some monument to his memory, now that we 
 may safely proclaim our feelings as well as our 
 religion. 1 
 
 But while we are grateful for all that we have 
 received, we may be forgiven if we ask for more. 
 Holy desires may grow ; and what satisfied their 
 yearnings in their weaker state, may not be sufficient 
 food for them in their strength. And we believe 
 sincerely that the longings of our people after the 
 higher spirit of devotion, is, and has for some time 
 been, on the increase. Devotions, formerly but little 
 known and practised, are becoming, thank God, 
 familar to us, as to the rest of the Church. We may 
 instance the Rosary, that favourite tribute of sympathy 
 to God's blessed Mother, from her affectionate chil- 
 dren, which is every day coming into more general 
 use. Other devotions we could name, which evince a 
 growing love for the tenderer and more moving class 
 of religious emotions. These we want to see supplied 
 with wholesome and nutritious food, and not left to 
 pick up, where they can, either a scanty or an 
 unsound diet. It has appeared to us that our present 
 
 z [I feel it a duty to say, that time and observation have only 
 confirmed this my estimate of Bishop Challoner's great merits and 
 virtues. And this I do, as a protest against the unjust, and uncalled 
 for, censure cast upon this exemplary prelate in the Bambler for 
 June, 1851, p. 491, note.]
 
 PRAYER AND PRATER-BOOKS. 427 
 
 books answer not this craving. The passion, for 
 instance, of our Lord, is but insufficiently presented 
 to the mind and affections. Its merits and the bless- 
 ings it purchased are fully expressed, sense of grati- 
 tude clearly impressed ; but the moving and piercing 
 scenes of that great mystery do not occupy that 
 prominent place which we humbly think they ought. 
 The reciter of our ordinary prayer is not conducted 
 by them to the foot of the Cross ; Calvary is not the 
 mountain on which we usually pray. Yet never was 
 soul trained to sublime virtue and tender piety, 
 without much sitting on that hill of sorrows. For 
 we may ask, might not a person, day after day, recite 
 the prayers which form our ordinary exercises, without 
 having his thoughts vividly turned towards those 
 affecting scenes, which should form the theme of 
 daily meditation ? And, if so, is there not an impor- 
 tant want to be supplied ? Nor would there be 
 difficulty in supplying it. The writings of St. Bernard, 
 St. Bonaventure, Thomas a Kempis, and many 
 modern contemplatives, would furnish abundance of 
 materials. It is true that separate works, containing 
 prayers on this and other particular subjects, may 
 be procured ; but the great body of persons do 
 not think of such devotions, unless they be brought 
 before them in their ordinary books, and as connected 
 with their usual prayers. The introduction of them, 
 and of more prayers to the B. Sacrament, and to the 
 holy Mother of God, would help to add expression of 
 greater feeling to our devotional stores. 
 
 After all, this world is dry and weary enough to be 
 as a desert to a religious soul. There is little enough 
 of heart in its ordinary transactions, to make one 
 long for some place in which ours may be allowed 
 freely to expand. "We have no recurrence of sacred
 
 428 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 representations and symbols to keep constantly awake 
 our more sacred feelings ; no crucifixes on the way- 
 side, no saints at the corners of the streets. "We have 
 little or nothing (with few exceptions in some favoured 
 spots) of the dignity and majesty of religious func- 
 tions; few of us can witness those moving cere- 
 monials, or attend at those especial services of stated 
 seasons, which work so powerfully on the soul, and, 
 for a time at least, elevate it to noble thoughts, 
 or melt it to tenderness. We have scarcely any of 
 those appliances which abound in Catholic countries, 
 that rouse habitual apathy, or kindle up confirmed 
 lukewarmness ; such as spiritual retreats, or missionary 
 preaching. Nay, we are worse off than all this. The 
 holy sacrifice, the liturgy of our Church, is not 
 accessible to many of us as a daily service ; distance, 
 or want of time or of opportunity, may prevent our 
 attending it ; even the house of God, and the adorable 
 Treasure which it contains, cease to be to us a home, an 
 ever-lighted hearth at which our natural chillness may 
 be daily warmed. On what, then, have we to rely for 
 religious fervour, for affectionate devotion, for all the 
 variety of earnest, of deep, of tender feelings towards 
 our God and Eather, towards our Saviour and Judge ? 
 Why, almost exclusively on our prayer-books. Their 
 contents are the fuel by which the fire of habitual 
 piety must be kept up, and the flame of heavenly 
 charity daily enkindled. And these prayers are to be 
 recited, too, under every disadvantage ; while kneeling 
 probably against a chair or the bed which we have 
 just left, without a crucifix or pious image before us, 
 or any other religious association that can call up the 
 idea of a place dedicated to God ; or, perhaps, in the 
 very room in which we have all just enjoyed our 
 evening meal, and jested and laughed, or quarrelled,
 
 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 429 
 
 or talked over harassing cares and worldly vexations 1 
 Should not our prayers be very pleasing and inviting, 
 and, at the same time, very warm and inspiring, 
 to serve this twofold purpose, of cheering the 
 barrenness of this vale of tears, and of keeping alive 
 the fire of heaven in our souls ? If this world is 
 a dry and heartless waste (" fructu vacuum, floribus 
 aridum," as the Church so beautifully describes it), 
 surely our " Garden of the Soul," our " Paradisus 
 Animae," should be in proportion a green choice spot, 
 a well-watered pleasaunce a " hortus irriguus," 
 wherein everything should contrast with the brier- 
 bearing land of exile without. The plants that grow in 
 it must be ever living, ever fresh, ever blooming; and 
 withal most varied in hue, in shape, in fragrance, and 
 in produce. Whether we seek the melancholy shade, 
 or love to bask in the sunny light of heaven, there 
 must be found the same serene atmosphere, the same 
 holy calm; the darkness of the one must inspire 
 no despondency or dejection ; the sparkling beauties 
 of the other must not dazzle, or make us forget our 
 low condition. The blessed feelings which it inspires 
 should rise as incense in the morning up to heaven, 
 and descend as soft dew upon the soul at evening. 
 The tree of life, ever fruitful, ever quickening, should 
 be planted in the midst, the Cross of our Lord, our 
 refuge in affliction, our staff in weakness, and our 
 chastener in over-joy. There should be a choice of 
 prayers for every state, for every season, for every 
 circumstance ; but in every case the same fervour, 
 the same tone of affection, of confidence, and of 
 earnestness, should prevail. Our hearts should burn 
 as we recite them ; our souls should be associated 
 with the blessed spirits above, while our lips utter 
 only earthly words. The prayer-book, in other words,
 
 430 PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 
 
 should only be the suggester of prayer ; it should 
 form the artificial wings upon which the affections 
 rise, till they reach that sphere in which they are 
 buoyed up without further support, and look on the 
 Sun of Righteousness, and the Eye of Heaven, in a 
 region wherein words need not be uttered. 
 
 [When this article was written, it was impossible to foresee how 
 many of the desires expressed in it would be granted by a merciful 
 Providence. Within the few last years, admirable prayer-books have 
 been supplied us, some translations, others compilations, rich with all 
 the devotions approved or recommended by the Church. Excellent 
 translations, too, of the ecclesiastical hymns, and many new can- 
 ticles, have been published. But, besides these, a great number of 
 smaller prayer-books, for particular seasons, or special devotions, have 
 appeared. 
 
 The faithful, too, have now become familiarized with many, then 
 scarcely known, forms of prayer, and objects of piety. Thus the 
 Passion of our adorable Lord has been brought before them by the 
 Stations, the three Hours of His Agony, devotions to the Precious 
 Blood, and the wounds of our Saviour. His tender and loving mer- 
 cies in the most Holy Sacrament have been commended to the hearts 
 of Catholics by more frequent benedictions, and especially by the 
 forty hours' exposition. Devotion to the B. Mother of God has been 
 greatly increased by rosary confraternities and associations, by the 
 " month of May," and greater observance of her festivals. 
 
 We must add, that " missions " and " spiritual exercises," then 
 almost unknown to our faithful, have become almost universal. And 
 surely we shall admit that we have great mercies to be thankful for 
 to God, flowing upon us from the tide of conversion, which has so 
 much contributed to procure these benefits.]
 
 ON 
 
 NATIONAL HOLIDAYS 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW for May, 1843.
 
 ON 
 
 NATIONAL HOLIDAYS. 
 
 1. A Plea for National Holydays. By LOED JOHN MANNERS, M.P. 
 
 2. Tableau des Fetes Chrctiennes. Par M. LE VICOMTE WALSH. 
 
 Paris, 1837. 
 
 WE think it must be considered a bad symptom in 
 any body, whether natural or politic, when that which, 
 ordinarily and by others, is taken as sustenance, has to 
 be prescribed as medicine. There must be something 
 sadly out of order in a poor peasant's health, when the 
 physician orders him wine, and not a bitter potion ; 
 his stamina must be gone, his constitution undermined, 
 his frame worn out, when what his richer neighbour 
 considers but a common drink, he has to sip by 
 measure, as a cordial and restorative. Nay, even a 
 peasant from Italy or Spain would wonder at such a 
 nostrum ever being proposed ; for he has all his life 
 been accustomed to drink it at every meal. In other 
 words, his vineyard produces it for him each year in 
 abundance ; and he has no idea of it as a rarity or a 
 prescription. Now just as much would he wonder at 
 the idea, that Church festivals or holydays are in any 
 Christian country prescribed as a cure for moral evils, 
 and require to be made subjects of legislative enact- 
 ment. Not more naturally does the vine yield its 
 glowing and refreshing clusters, to cheer his bodily 
 sense, than does religion, such as he conceives it, 
 
 i 2 F
 
 434 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 inspire the feelings which suggest, and determine the 
 occasions which provide, recurring days of sacred 
 festivity, of wholesome relaxation, and of innocent 
 cheerfulness. A religion without festivals is, in fact, 
 an anomaly in the annals of the world. Jew or 
 heathen, Christian or Mohammedan, Scandinavian or 
 Hindoo no one that ever professed a religion (till 
 Protestantism arose), ever heard, or thought, of a 
 system of religious belief or practice, wherein days 
 more hallowed than the rest, did not, from time to 
 time, break upon the monotony of the year, arouse 
 some peculiar feelings, and bring to mind, either in joy 
 or mourning, some sacred event, or some memorable 
 person, by peculiar rites, and by special commemoration. 
 Christmas -day and Good -Friday, the alpha and 
 omega, it is true, of all that is written in the Book of 
 Love, the Ecce venio and the Consummatum est of the 
 divine advent, form the entire sum of festivals in the 
 Anglican Church ; the abhorrence and abolition of two 
 holydays were, and are, the only step to be descended 
 from her, to reach the low level of Puritanism, on this 
 point. But between these two, and even beyond them, 
 how many mysteries that deserve contemplation, how 
 many acts of mercy and love that call for affectionate 
 remembrance ! For, beyond the two boundaries lie, the 
 solemn Annunciation of the Son's Incarnation, and its 
 accomplishment on the one side, and on the other, the 
 Ascension, which crowned the work of redemption, and 
 reopened the gates of heaven. Fortunately for the credit 
 of modern religion, the Resurrection, and the Descent 
 of the Holy Spirit occurred upon the Sunday : or we 
 may almost venture to say, they would have been passed 
 over with little love. How many opportunities are 
 thus lost for cultivating the religious affections, and
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 435 
 
 drawing the heart, from time to time, towards higher 
 aims, and holier desires, than the every-day occupations 
 of life inspire ! How great a power has been sur- 
 rendered of refreshing languid faith, and stirring up 
 the expiring embers of divine love in the souls of men, 
 by this abandonment of so natural and so beautiful an 
 institution ! But to look at the matter more religiously, 
 how many means of grace have thus been forfeited ! 
 For who can doubt, that as in the Old Law, so likewise 
 in the New, God has his seasons of peculiar mercies ; 
 whether such as sackcloth and ashes, fasting and 
 mourning, bring down, or such as the festive song and 
 spiritual joy of His spouse invite Him to pour out ? 
 This feeling, too, is as natural to every religious system 
 (with the exception already made) as that man should 
 exhibit his varied feelings at such stated occasions. In 
 fact, the two ideas united, form the basis of the Chris- 
 tian cycle of festivals. This rests, on the one hand, 
 upon the natural and religious conviction that it is 
 man's duty to show his sympathies with the mani- 
 festations of God's kindness, whether directly or 
 indirectly bestowed ; and on the other, upon the assu- 
 rance received, that such expression of such feelings 
 is pleasing to God, and draws down new blessings. 8 
 
 The Catholic calendar is, in fact, but the almanack 
 of the " new heavens and the new earth," which the 
 Lord of Mercy hath created for Himself and us. It 
 faithfully represents to the Christian soul, the annual 
 
 * " Quamvis enim nulla siiit tempora, quae divinis non sint plena 
 muneribus, et semper nobis ad misericordiam Dei, per ipsius gratiam 
 prsestetur accesaus ; nunc tamen ornnium mentes majori studio ad 
 spirituales proiectus moveri, et ampliori fiducia oportet animari, 
 quando ad universa pietatis officia, illius nos diei, in quo redempti 
 Biimus, recursus invitat." St. Leo, serin, iv. de Quadrag. 
 
 2r2
 
 436 NATIONAL HOLTDAYS. 
 
 course of the " Sun of Righteousness " b passing through 
 His cycle of love, to warm and to cheer, to nourish 
 and give growth, to " the planting of His right hand," 
 in the vineyard of His Church. Little for our sakes, 
 and weakly, does He appear, and as though scarcely 
 showing Himself above the horizon, in the bleak 
 winter wherein he begins his giant course, 6 revealing 
 Himself more in infant promise than in Godlike might. 
 Then soon He acquires brightness and strength, 4 to 
 attract the eyes of nations from afar and bring them 
 to His glorious Epiphany. Still lasts the winter, and 
 runs into the promising, but as yet dreary spring, 
 bringing down penitential clouds and tearful dews 
 upon the dry and stubborn land, which stronger in- 
 fluences of fertilizing grace alone render salutary ; e 
 and the more cheerful season that will follow, begins 
 already to have its harbingers, giving promise of joy, 
 
 b " Censors paterni luminis 
 
 Lux ipse lucis et dies." Per. iij. ad Mat. 
 
 " Splendor paternse glorise, 
 De luce lucem proferens, 
 Lux lucis, et fons luminis 
 Diem dies illuminans." Fer. ij. ad Laudes. 
 
 c " En clara vox redarguit 
 Obscura quaeque personans 
 Procul fugentur somnia, 
 
 Ab alto Jesus promicat 
 * * * 
 
 Sidus refulget jam novuin 
 
 Ut tollat omne noxium." Hymn for Advent. 
 
 d " Tu luinen et splendor Patris." Hymn for Christmas. 
 
 e " O Sol salutis, intimis 
 Jesu refulga mentibus 
 Dum nocte pulsa gratior 
 Orbi dies renascitur." Hymn for Lent.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 437 
 
 in the very sorrow which, prepares it. f A sorrowful 
 eclipse and dark overshadowing of the heavenly lumi- 
 nary will first come, and then the paschal Sun shall 
 shine forth in the fulness of His gladdening radiance, 
 drying up the tears that have flowed, 8 and ripening the 
 seed that hath heen scattered as they streamed. And 
 now his beauty and power, far from declining, seem 
 rather to grow, as festival after festival unfolds the 
 increasing glories of Him whom we have thus figura- 
 tively described, till He attains His zenith, by ascending 
 to the right hand of His Father, there culminating 
 above things heavenly as earthly , h and shedding down 
 holy and sublime energies upon man, through His 
 descending Spirit, at Whitsuntide, 1 and through the 
 mystery of love on the feast of His body. k Prom this 
 
 f " Dies venit, dies Tua, 
 
 In qua reflorent omnia." Ibid. 
 
 8 " Paschale mundo gaudium 
 Sol nuntiat formosior, 
 Cum luce fulgentem nova 
 Jesum vident apostoli." Easter Hymn. 
 
 k " Ascendis orbes siderum, 
 
 * # * 
 
 Mundi regis qui fabricam 
 Mundana vincens gaudia." 
 
 Hymn for Ascension-day. 
 
 1 " Jam Christus astra ascenderat 
 
 Reversus unde venerat 
 
 * # * 
 
 Sanctum daturas Spiritum. 
 
 * * * 
 
 De Patris ergo lumine 
 
 Decorus ignis almus est." Hymn for Whit-Sunday. 
 " Verusque Sol illabere 
 Micans nitore perpeti ; 
 Jubarque Sancti Spiritus 
 
 Infunde nostris sensibus." Per. ij. ad Laudes. 
 k Corpus Christi Day.
 
 438 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 highest point the outward manifestations of His splen- 
 dour seem to decline, yet so that His course is marked 
 out to us by representation, at given intervals, of His 
 more terrene glories, in the commemoration of His 
 Transfiguration, 1 in the Exaltation of His Cross, and 
 in the celebration of His title as Redeemer, 11 till we 
 are brought to the close of the sacred year, and begin 
 again the mystical expectation of His Advent. 
 
 The extracts, which we have thrown into the margin, 
 will sufficiently illustrate this idea of our blessed 
 Lord's being the unsetting sun and lamp of the city 
 of God, whether earthly or heavenly. Like the visible 
 luminary, His course, though unceasing and un- 
 varying, is thus marked for our observation by certain 
 periods of seeming change, which distinguish both as 
 set on high, " for signs and for seasons, and for days 
 and for years." p The one gives to the earth its seed- 
 time and its harvest, its pruning- season and its vintage, 
 its balanced equinoxes and its contrasted solstices, each 
 calling up its emotions of hope or gratefulness, of 
 anxiety or resignation, of public merriment or domestic 
 
 1 " Lux alma, Jesu mentium, 
 Dum corda nostra recreas, 
 Culpse fugas caliginem ; 
 * * * 
 
 Tu dulce lumen patriae 
 Carnis negatum sensibus, 
 Splendor paternae glorise." 
 
 Hymn for Transfig. (Aug. 6). 
 ra " Crux splendidior cunctis astris!" 
 
 Antiph. for Exalt, of the Cross (Sept. 14). 
 n " Jesu voluptas cordium 
 Et casta lux amantium." 
 
 "Hymn in festo SS. Eedemptoris (Oct. 22). 
 
 The Manichees, as St. Augustine tells us, foolishly as wickedly, 
 took the visible sun to be our Lord. 
 P Gen. i. 14.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 439 
 
 mirthfulness. The other, too, gives its seasons and its 
 days, its Lents, its Easters, and its Whitsuntides, its 
 Octaves and its Advents, and its special days, that 
 mark the passage of one holy season into another 
 transitions of feeling, but wherein all is hallowed, all 
 is spiritualized. Bright and glorious break forth over 
 all the earth, those days of marked solemnity, steeping 
 in a flood of brightness, spire and cupola, palace and 
 cottage, city and hamlet. Gloriously streams their 
 radiance through the storied windows of cathedral and 
 abbey church, chapel and chantry ; cheeringly steals 
 its mildened ray through the narrow casement of 
 the recluse's cell, and plays joyfully on his crucifix and 
 Madonna, and makes the very skull upon his table 
 seem to smile. Clouds may on that day cover the 
 face of heaven, and thick mists may hide the visible 
 sun ; but the joy of a thousand hearts, and the song 
 of a thousand tongues will prove, that there is a source 
 of light and warmth, placed far beyond the reach of 
 such obstructions. 
 
 Yet must this glorious Sun dwell in a firmament 
 worthy of His career. He must have His well- divided 
 zodiac, through which to move that golden zone 
 which girds Him of saint s q who " shine like the 
 stars unto all eternity."' Nor would it be difficult to 
 allot to each of its twelve divisions the name or sign, 
 whereby it should be known and ruled ; seeing that 
 every month of the Christian calendar (save one sor- 
 rowful month, which yet has in it the solemn com- 
 memoration of Gabriel's announcement of salvation) 
 has presiding in it one or more of those chief saints of 
 
 i "Beatus quoque Joannes in Apocalypsi vidit Filium hominia 
 praecinctum zona aurea, id est, Sanctorum caterva." Pontif. Rom. 
 in ordin. Subdiac. 
 
 r Dan. xii. 3.
 
 440 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 the new law, who preached it with the witnessing of 
 their hlood the apostles of the Lamb. For to them 
 St. Paul, and afterwards the Church, applies what is 
 said of those visible heavens, through which the 
 created sun walks his stately course, and which tells 
 the glory of God to all the earth. 9 And each of these 
 bright luminaries is surrounded by others of lesser 
 brightness ("for star differ eth from star in glory >n ) ; 
 here shining in single brilliancy, like Stephen or Law- 
 rence, there grouped in varied constellations, mothers 
 martyred with their seven children, captains slaugh- 
 tered for Christ with their legions, and holy abbots 
 massacred with their communities. 11 Mingled with 
 them are bright and shining lights of holy doctrine and 
 saintly example, 1 that took their place after them, but 
 are scarce less brilliant, filling up the glories of that 
 firmament towards which we are to raise our eyes, and 
 completing its adornment ; while myriads of nameless 
 stars, clouds, as they seem, of witnesses pour them- 
 selves out like a milky stream, across the heavenly 
 expanse, leaving no blank or crevice in its golden 
 vault/ 
 
 Through this glorious and splendid field, He, who 
 " hath set His tabernacle in the sun," goeth forth " as 
 a bridegroom from his bridal chamber," to run. " His 
 going out is from the end of this heaven, and his 
 
 8 " In omnem terram exivit sonus eorum, et in fines orbis teme 
 verba eorum." Ps. xviii u l ; Rom. x. 18. 
 
 1 1 Cor. xv. 41. 
 
 u " Quid igitur per Orionas, nisi Martyres designantur ? qui ad 
 
 faciem coeli quasi in hieme venerunt Orionas ergo coelum edidit, 
 
 cum S. Ecclesia martyres misit." S. Greg. Mor. lib. ix. c. xi. 
 
 x " Isti itaque sunt astrorum spiritualium ordines, qui dum summis 
 virtutibus eminent, semper ex supernis lucent." Ib. 
 
 y " Quot sunt ergo bona prsedicantium, tot sunt ornamenta ccelo- 
 rum." Id. Horn. xxx. in Ev.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 441 
 
 circuit even to the end thereof." 1 And, ever as He 
 moves, will be seen at His side, when His rays are not 
 so bright as to quench every other splendour, one 
 other star, brilliant as a gem, the morning-star of 
 hope, the evening-star of peace and calm, the load- 
 star of the pilgrim and the mariner, the cynosure of 
 hearts inflamed with the love of the holy and the pure. a 
 Throughout His course He imparts, as He passes, 
 celestial influences to these glorious beings, which 
 they benignly shed upon their subject dominions, 11 
 each on the land, or city, or individual, that owns his 
 ruling sway, when in that happy conjunction. Some- 
 times the day awakens joy through kingdoms and 
 provinces ; gives simultaneous impulse to the swell of 
 every organ ; and makes every grey tower through the 
 land to shake with its joyous peal, and lights up every 
 countenance under the same beam of gladness. Or 
 the ray only tips with light the modest spire of some 
 hamlet church, and wakens to secluded festivity the 
 sturdy inhabitants of a sheltered dell, to honour the 
 saint scarce known beyond its precincts, the recluse 
 whose cell gave name to the humble village and its 
 church, or the martyr who there shed his blood, and 
 left his bones to consecrate its altar. Such we believe 
 to be the true idea of the ecclesiastical calendar: it 
 commemorates the mercies of God; sometimes more 
 splendidly manifested in the mysteries of salvation, 
 sometimes more condescendingly in the wonderful 
 virtues of the saints. The same principle sanctions 
 either class of festivals ; God alone is worshipped, 
 God alone is supplicated ; but we love that the honour 
 
 z Ps. xviii. 
 
 a " Ave Maria Stella !" See St. Bernard, Horn. ii. super Missus est. 
 b " Thou hast made us to our God a kingdom, and priests, and 
 shall reign on the earth." Rev. v. 10.
 
 442 NATIONAL HOLTDAYS. 
 
 and the prayer should ascend conjointly with the 
 smoke of angelic censors, and with the fragrance of 
 saintly phials. All this feeling is natural to a Catho- 
 lic, and so to speak, indigenous to Catholic countries ; 
 it is only the spontaneous expression of belief in the 
 communion of saints. It leads to the great division 
 of festivities or holydays, a division which, being 
 overlooked by the nobleman who has called public 
 attention to the subject, we deem it necessary now to 
 notice. 
 
 The Christian religion confirmed, ennobled, and 
 sanctified every good natural feeling, and consequently, 
 love in all its branches, beginning with the domestic 
 affections, and gradually widening through social and 
 national attachments, to universal philanthropy, or 
 love of kind. But more than this, the Church, in 
 and through which this religion was established, was 
 ordered in perfect charity, 4 in that principle of unity 
 and communion which distinguishes it from every 
 other body, that makes pretension to its privileges. 
 While this communion is Catholic or universal, the 
 intercommunion whereby it is outwardly manifested, 
 has its degrees or circles, narrower and wider, but 
 each connected with those within, and spreading, as it 
 were, from them by a natural expansion. There must 
 be expression given to these various degrees of love 
 by the religion which hallows them; there must be 
 evidences put forth of this living communion, accord- 
 ing to its fitting scale of intensity, by the Church 
 which maintains it. In domestic life, nothing so 
 evinces communion between the members of one 
 family, as their participation in the same feelings, 
 whether of joy, or of sorrow, as their feasting and 
 
 c Itev. viii. 3 ; v. 8. 
 
 d " Ordinavit in me charitatem." Cant. ii. iv.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 443 
 
 their mourning together. The scattered individuals 
 belonging to it will flock from distant parts to a family 
 banquet, at some birthday commemoration, or some 
 domestic festivity ; and they will hasten also to pay 
 the last tribute of sorrowful regard to a departed 
 relative. 
 
 And in like manner, the Church will have her 
 various degrees of religious intercommunion exhibited 
 by festivals, in which more or fewer join, according to 
 their various rights. 
 
 1. She is the Church Catholic ; she unites together 
 all her children throughout the world upon certain 
 great and solemn occasions, commemorative of uni- 
 versal benefits, or universal benefactors. Her great 
 feasts are among her most certain and pleasing evi- 
 dences of the universality of her communion. They 
 prove how the hearts of millions dispersed can beat in 
 unison, and how magnificent must be the sway that 
 can give them a common impulse. One cannot be 
 surprised that the early pontiffs were so intolerant of 
 the Q.nartodeciman error, which led to variation in the 
 day of observing Easter. It may seem to those who 
 understand not the value of unity, to have been a 
 harsh severity to repress this difference of discipline, 
 coming apparently from so high a source. The 
 admirers of national peculiarities and privileges, in 
 ecclesiastical observances, may even regret such inter- 
 ferences. But the Church knew her real privileges 
 better. She felt that it would never do to allow the 
 most jarring feelings to be dividing her children on such 
 a day, to have some singing Alleluja, while others 
 were crying Miserere, some triumphing with the 
 newly-risen, and others weeping with the expiring, 
 Saviour. Such discordant sounds could not blend as 
 they rose to heaven ; and there there could be no
 
 444 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 mixed festivity : both could not have an echo : the 
 twenty-four elders could not divide, and one half 
 attune their harps to a joyful, and the other to a 
 more plaintive, strain. Hence on this point the 
 Church was ever inexorable ; she hath no regard to 
 minor proprieties, hut looks to unity. By us in one 
 hemisphere, Easter may justly he considered as rightly 
 placed in the opening of the cheerful spring ; its joys 
 come with those of nature, its songs with the renewed 
 carolling of birds, and its rich hangings and bright 
 vestments with the new clothing of the trees and 
 
 O 
 
 fields, beyond the splendour of Solomon in his glory ; 
 but to the new churches of the South it falls sorrow- 
 fully upon an uncongenial autumn, with searing 
 leaves, and darkening skies, and decay and loss of 
 all natural loveliness. And so, likewise, how many 
 thoughts moving to love, do we find in the winter 
 celebration of Christmas, the long dreary night, the 
 pinching cold, the sighing wind in Bethlehem's stable, 
 which must be lost to the Christian beyond the 
 equator, obliged as he is on that day to seek shelter 
 beneath his banana or cocoa-tree from the scorching of 
 a vertical sun. But all this matters not ; unity is a 
 consideration far beyond all such secondary proprie- 
 ties : and they who have not the privilege of looking 
 on those stars, which crowned angels when they 
 announced, " Glory to God and peace to man," must 
 be content to forego such pleasing associations, for the 
 sake of a sublimer and more important end. These 
 great and universal festivals, then, are declarations of 
 religious unity, they are even among the visible bonds 
 and ties, which hold together the vast community of 
 the Church. They are not, it is true, its essential 
 elements, they form not the stones whereof the 
 goodly pile is built up, nor yet the cement nor the
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 445 
 
 brazen cramps by which they are held fast together ; 
 but they are as finely moulded and richly carved 
 string-courses, that run round the entire edifice, and 
 show unity of design, and while they add grace and 
 beauty, in truth as to the eye, bind compactly together 
 the more solid parts. 
 
 And in fact, the belief of the universal Church in 
 the incarnation and divinity of the eternal Word, in 
 His death and resurrection, in the divinity of the 
 Holy Ghost, in the real Presence, in the supremacy of 
 St. Peter and his successors, in the intercession of 
 saints, in the glory of the blessed Virgin, and in the 
 efficacy of prayer for the departed faithful, are not 
 more strongly proclaimed to the world by her formu- 
 laries of faith, than they are by the festivals, which 
 her children everywhere observe, in commemoration 
 of these persons or doctrines. They stir up faith, 
 which otherwise might become forgetful, to the con- 
 sideration, one by one, and more markedly, of each 
 point ; making the whole year a practical symbol of 
 faith, in which consentient profession of particular 
 doctrines is made, by august acts of worship and 
 magnificent offices, throughout the world. 
 
 2. While unity of the more Catholic character 
 is thus expressed through the festivals of the uni- 
 versal Church, there is a narrower sphere in which 
 a closer communion exists, between the hierarchical 
 components of what is called a national Church. By 
 this, of course we do not mean independent churches 
 erected by states, but such portions of the universal 
 Church as have a separate metropolitan government, 
 whereof several may, on national or even geographi- 
 cal grounds, be united together. Thus the two arch- 
 bishops of England, and their suffragans, used to 
 form a division recognised by the rest of the Church,
 
 446 NATIONAL HOLYDATS. 
 
 like to the Gallican or the Spanish Churches. It is 
 manifest that many links would bind together the 
 bishops of such a portion of the Church, distinct 
 from the bonds of Catholic communion a common 
 origin, one language, national manners and usages, 
 peculiar rites, local traditions ; not to mention many 
 other just and reasonable motives of association, 
 arising from political or social circumstances. The 
 sphere of influence of such considerations would be 
 commensurate with that occupied by merely national 
 feelings. It was natural that such religious alliances 
 as were thus formed, should lead to corresponding 
 expressions of feeling, in the language of the Church. 
 If the war-cry of " St. George for England," ringing 
 inspiringly through the English ranks, cheered on our 
 mailed barons to the charge, and nerved the arms of 
 our crossbowmen to speed their shafts, the same 
 watchword excited the pious devotion of peaceful 
 citizens at home, filled all the churches with ardent 
 votaries, thronged the village greens throughout the 
 land with candidates for rustic honours, and united 
 king and people in one prayer for the welfare of their 
 country. And so did the feast of good king Edward, 
 or of the wonder-working Dunstan, or of the glorious 
 St. Thomas, call forth national emotions of gratitude, 
 or admiration, or enthusiastic love, from the people 
 in whose memory their virtues were embalmed. Then, 
 if their feelings found but a faint response, in the less 
 solemn observance of the day across the Channel, or 
 the border, there came in its turn, over either, the 
 song of public jubilee and of national joy, for 
 St. Dennis of Prance, or St. Andrew of Scotland. 
 Nay, even to such merely national commemorations, 
 other countries would pay homage, by sending their 
 pilgrims in crowds to worship at the favoured shrine.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 447 
 
 3. A still closer bond of unity holds fast together a 
 bishop and his diocese. The Cathedral, " the Mother- 
 Church," is the centre of a more intimate com- 
 munion ; from it issue parochial jurisdiction, pastoral 
 admonition, episcopal visitation ; there is the throne 
 set of him who holds the apostolic commission to 
 impose hands, and use the weightier keys of God's 
 kingdom, in unlocking its more hidden treasures. 
 Towards it turn all eyes and hearts for direction, in 
 trying moments, in critical circumstances. But in it 
 too are sure to be laid the holy remains of some early 
 bishop or venerable martyr, the special patron of the 
 noble cathedral, and its tributary diocese. Durham 
 had its Cuthbert and its Bede, Lincoln its Hugh, 
 Hereford its Thomas, Beverley its John, Chichester its 
 Richard, - - even as now Milan possesses its Ambrose 
 and Charles, Naples its Januarius, Liege its Lambert, 
 Syracuse its Lucy, Catania its Agatha, and Rome its 
 Peter and Paul. The glories of sucli men belonged 
 to the See which they had honoured, or to the city 
 which possessed their sacred relics ; and their festival 
 was a public holyday to the entire diocese. When it 
 arrived, crowds might be seen streaming from the 
 country round, through the city gateway, and directing 
 their steps towards the noble cathedral ; the pro- 
 portions of which were calculated for such occur- 
 rences, and the joyous peal from whose massive tower 
 floated over the highest pinnacle of every secular 
 building. There the shrine of the patron saint, 
 covered with its golden palls and decked with its 
 jewelled emblems, surrounded with blazing tapers and 
 fragrant flowers, received the affectionate devotion 
 of thousands of votaries, whose knees hollowed 
 the pavement, and whose lips wore smooth the 
 marble of the tomb, through ages of enduring
 
 448 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 love. And when the venerable bishop, raising his 
 hand at the close of the solemn office, blessed the 
 silent, prostrate crowd, how truly did he feel himself 
 as the father amidst his children, secure of their 
 reverential attachment ; the more because of the 
 common devotion which thus collected them in joyful 
 festival. 
 
 4. Finally, the parish church, too, had its own 
 peculiar feast-days, its patron saints' -days, the anni- 
 versary of its dedication, and perhaps some others 
 of a local interest. It was the expression of that 
 family unity which more intimately existed, as it does 
 in all Catholic countries, between the priest and his 
 people. Those offices of love which none but he can 
 discharge for them, must lead to feelings of a more 
 familiar character. He has baptized them all, or 
 at least their children, has instructed their childhood, 
 has listened to their tale of sorrow, and has absolved 
 them in Christ's name; has administered to them 
 the sacred gift ; has attended, with kindness and 
 comforting offices, the sick-bed of their friends ; and 
 has laid their departed ones, in peace and hope, in the 
 grave. These and a thousand other duties which 
 a Catholic priest discharges for his flock, must knit 
 together their hearts, by love tempered with respect, 
 a love shared by that sacred edifice in which the 
 blessings of his ministry have been ever received, and 
 to which he imparts life and vigour. The parish 
 festival calls forth these feelings to open display ; it is 
 the people's own day, it is to their Church that the 
 inhabitants of neighbouring villages, who can spare a 
 few hours (and in a Catholic country these are many), 
 flock on that day to pray ; it is their pastor, who takes 
 the lead in the more than usually solemn offices of 
 the Church ; it is their generosity or industry that
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 449 
 
 has provided the means of giving peculiar splendour 
 to the festival. 
 
 Now, if what we have thus far written be correct, 
 we may pretty safely look for the causes which have 
 destroyed holydays in England, among those which 
 have blighted the feelings that anciently produced, or 
 secured them. Schism broke in two the union of 
 this country with the rest of Christendom ; a secular 
 policy has separated all national, from religious, 
 feelings ; the decay of discipline, and the rise of 
 commercial and manufacturing cities, have deprived 
 the episcopacy, and its seats, of influence or interest, 
 and dissent has utterly destroyed all parochial una- 
 nimity. Then error has overspread the whole ; 
 heretical doctrine has poisoned the sources of all 
 spiritual gladness ; that belief from which Christian 
 festivals must spring, those hopes towards which they 
 lead, and that charity by which alone they can be 
 nourished. These things would we have restored, 
 and the lost holydays would soon revive. 
 
 Lord John Manners seems to us to err in reversing 
 this order ; he would have the holydays be the means 
 of bringing back extinct good feelings ; we would 
 fain consider those days as their expression and their 
 result. It seems, in fact, almost as unreasonable 
 to expect that we should make our soldiers brave, and 
 our generals skilful, and our entire nation warlike, 
 and so gain victories, by ordering a series of illumi- 
 nations in cities, and bonfires all over the country. 
 People will not rejoice and make merry over nothing, 
 especially when some apparent and present sacrifice 
 is to be made for the purpose ; and we have made our 
 people in particular so very rational, that they will 
 ask, why they are to give up a day's work, and keep 
 holy day ? Now we believe it would be just as sensible 
 
 1 2 G
 
 450 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 in their eyes to reply to them, that those supposed 
 profane public rejoicings are on account of Blenheim 
 or Agincourt, as to say that the Church festivals, 
 which they are ordered to keep, are in honour of 
 St. George, or St. Edward. We believe that thousands 
 of voices would cry out ; " Why should I lose a day's 
 good work and wages, in honour of those persons, 
 whom I know [may we add, and care ?] so little 
 about ? " The great work to be achieved is the 
 restoration to the people of those ideas and senti- 
 ments, which will make such commemorations natural 
 to them, the giving back the soul and spirit, and not 
 mere visible, but inanimate, forms. To go a little 
 more into particulars, let us begin with the narrowest 
 scale on which the attempt might be made to restore 
 the joyful festivity of olden days. It will be easier to 
 induce the inhabitants of one parish to keep festival, 
 than those of a diocese of such dimensions as the 
 English ones now are. The parish church bears 
 the name of some good old Saxon saint, say 
 St. Oswald or St. Erieswida, or of a more ancient one, 
 as St. Clement or St. George. To learn what must 
 be done in order to establish, not only in outward 
 observance, but in the hearts of the parishioners, the 
 cheerful holiness of their saint's day, we may do as 
 business-like people do in this country, in worldly 
 matters. When a man of this character wishes to 
 set up a new apparatus, whether for warming his 
 church or house, or washing, or prison-discipline, he 
 goes to a place, given in reference, where he finds 
 the machinery at work, and sees how it is managed, 
 and how it answers. So we may learn how the 
 restoration of holydays may be made, by seeing how 
 they are kept up, where they actually exist, as once 
 they did among our forefathers.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 451 
 
 If you go into a village or town in a Catholic 
 country, you may easily ascertain who is the patron 
 saint that gives a name and festival to the parish 
 church, by simply asking the first dozen children 
 whom you meet in the streets, boys or girls, their 
 Christian names. Among them you will be sure 
 to find one prevailing, which perhaps is new to you, 
 at any rate unusual; and if so, you may conclude, that 
 it belongs to some saint held in especial veneration, 
 either from the church's being dedicated to him, or 
 possessing his relics, or from his being in some way a 
 patron-saint. 6 In other words, you find that name 
 become there " familiar as household words," a part 
 of the family vocabulary in every generation. " Cor- 
 pora eorum in pace sepulta sunt, et nomina eorum 
 vivent in ceternum." The .very name is dear to the 
 people, is associated with domestic feelings, is inter- 
 woven with many tender thoughts. "When the festival 
 returns, it calls to mind the little one that received 
 that name at baptism, and is sleeping in innocence in 
 an early grave, or it is the feast-day of the grey-headed 
 old man, who can no longer go to church, but must 
 have his festival at home, when the rest return from 
 mass ; in other words, the parish festival is a family 
 
 e [Not long after this was written, I had an opportunity of seeing 
 this test applied. Arriving for breakfast at the picturesque town of 
 Carmona in Andalusia, I walked, with the other travellers by the 
 diligence, over the steep hill on which it is situated. A fellow- 
 traveller who knew the place, was our guide, and took us to see the 
 rich church of Our Lady of Grace. On our way, he informed us 
 that there was great devotion to the B. Virgin under that title. 
 " Almost every woman," he remarked, " here bears that name :" that 
 is Gracia-s ; for in Spain the particular title given to our Lady, forms 
 the name, as Dolores, Hosario, &c. " You will see," he continued, 
 "by asking the first we meet." A little girl was coming along the 
 street, and he addressed her by the name of Gracias, to which she at 
 once replied.]
 
 452 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 commemoration as well, and has an echo of joy 
 in every household. But then with the name conies 
 the history. The inhabitants of that village or town, 
 may know very little of profane history ; but if they 
 know anything, they know all about their own saint, 
 that is, or can be, known. Every year they hear his 
 panegyric; in every house they have his image or 
 picture, however rude ; his palm-branch, or his lily, 
 or his vestment declares what he was, if he have 
 no personal symbol ; every child reads in school some 
 account of him suited to a child's capacity, and 
 is taught to look to him as a model and a patron. 
 And if little is known, the very mystery lends a new 
 charm, and allows room for speculation why he 
 has been chosen as the patron ; and it is found 
 to have been either because he lived there, or 
 had some way made himself there known, or there 
 had been an immemorial devotion to him ; or if 
 everything else fail, it is at least certain that he is a 
 great saint in heaven, a glorious martyr, or a most 
 holy confessor. (Would an English peasant know 
 what these words mean ?) 
 
 Now, if you go into an English town or village, 
 and probe for your ground to build on, through the 
 superincumbent layer of ignorance and bigotry, by 
 these simple means, we suspect you will find it totally 
 wanting. You will discover multitudes bearing the 
 common every-day names ; but if you conjecture 
 a holier reason for them than that an uncle or an 
 aunt, or the parents have first borne them, you will 
 be soon undeceived. And even here you may perhaps 
 detect lurking, the baneful symptoms of dissent, 
 in the very names of the young Ebenezers and 
 Ichabods, whose biblical fathers would prefer the 
 twang of a Hebrew appellation, to the softest sounds
 
 NATIONAL HOLTDAYS. 453 
 
 in the Church's calendar. But go on, and if the 
 sexton or schoolmaster can happen to tell you to 
 whom the parish church is dedicated, seek among the 
 people for some information respecting that saint, 
 or for some ideas or feelings regarding him. We are 
 inclined to believe, that though you might find some 
 traditions yet alive about Robin Hood, in the 
 neighbourhood of Needwood, and you might pick up 
 many stories about Dick Turpin in Yorkshire, you 
 would find the people in St. Oswald's parish, or 
 St. Giles's, or St. Ives's, just as interested, or as 
 informed, about these holy persons, as they are about 
 the Hindoo mythology. And how can one hope 
 to make them rejoice and hold festival, in their 
 honour and commemoration ? 
 
 But how set about removing this obstacle ? Their 
 Church has been teaching them for three centuries 
 nothing about the saints, farther than that there 
 is great superstition and peril of idolatry, in perform- 
 ing any act expressive of active communion with 
 them, such as asking their prayers, or trusting in 
 their sympathy or protection. Their clergyman 
 has been lecturing them about the wickedness of 
 the Roman Church, in showing them any honour, 
 as derogatory to higher claims ; and has been 
 proving to them the folly of invoking them, by 
 the comfortable doctrine that they cannot hear us or 
 see us, and by implication that they care nothing 
 about us on earth. Who among them ever is taught, 
 that he has a guardian angel ever at his side, 
 watching all his steps ; or that he should look on the 
 saint of his name as a heavenly advocate, and address 
 him as such ? Who has been told to turn his 
 eyes through the perils of youth, towards the Virgin 
 Mother of his Saviour, as the special patroness of
 
 454 NATIONAL HOLYDATS. 
 
 purity and innocence ? ' And is it to be expected that, 
 all at once, they will enter with heart into any project 
 for reviving festivals, in memory of those whom they 
 have been too well taught to regard as aliens and 
 strangers, not to be approached, save by passing over 
 the yawning chasm of Popish idolatry or superstition ? 
 [Festivals, too, the very ground of which is a belief in 
 the existence of close and affectionate sympathy 
 between the inhabitants of both Jerusalems, and a 
 firm persuasion that they in heaven are pleased with 
 our joy, and return it in blessings obtained for us ? 
 Surely the whole teaching of past centuries must 
 be contradicted ; the web so artfully woven for gene- 
 rations must be unravelled; the people must be 
 taught to revere what they have despised, to love 
 what they have hated, and consequently to see that 
 they have been, till now, misled, blinded, and deceived, 
 by the very step-mother Church, which now wishes 
 to set them right. How this will be done we are 
 curious to see. 
 
 Let us for this purpose have fair and honest courses. 
 If you want to have the feast of any saint revived in 
 his parish or cathedral, let the people know all about 
 him or her. Tell them plainly that St. Hilda was a 
 nun and abbess, and by vowing perpetual virginity, 
 became more pleasing before God and man ; that 
 St. Bennet was the founder of the monks whose houses 
 were all suppressed at the godly Reformation, as being 
 hives of lazy drones, and useless members of society, 
 and that he was a truly wonderful saint, to be greatly 
 honoured for that institution ; that Venerable Bede 
 said mass in Latin, and held many Catholic doctrines. 
 It will not do to smuggle into the English Church a 
 veneration for saints and holydays in their honour, as 
 if they were some respectable ancient Protestants,
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 455 
 
 bishops in lawn, or pious ladies who taught poor- 
 schools. Let them be made known as saints ; and let it 
 be well explained what saints are : bishops who in their 
 day led celibate and mortified lives, distributed the 
 greater part of their revenues to the poor, founded and 
 endowed hospitals, built churches, and resisted oppres- 
 sion of the Church, even unto death : noble and royal 
 dames, who retired from the world into poor convents, 
 and devoted their lives to fasting and prayer, in per- 
 petual chastity, and induced many others of like 
 degree to do the same. And let the people know that 
 such things ceased in England, the moment its people 
 became Protestant, and its clergy called themselves 
 and their separated Church "Anglican;" but con- 
 tinued in " Popish" countries, in men like St. Charles, 
 St. Prancis, and St. Alphonsus, and in women like the 
 Princess Louisa, or the late Queen Maria Clotilde of 
 Sardinia, and many others of scarcely inferior rank. 
 
 If the whole truth be told to the people on this 
 matter, we feel no doubt that holydays, in honour of 
 saints, would soon revive, because the religion, which 
 can alone restore them, would be re-established. But 
 let us suppose the attempt to be made, without the 
 preparatory feelings being excited : how would the 
 practical restoration be effected ? Once more, let us 
 go to Catholic countries. The festal day of a parish 
 or diocese is as firmly established in the calendar, as is 
 any one of the greater feasts. It has its office ; its proper 
 Breviary service, probably with special hymns and 
 antiphons, certainly with collect, and lessons appro- 
 priate, sanctioned and approved by lawful authority. 
 The day belongs to the festival, if we may so speak, 
 and not the festival to the day. In the English 
 establishment there would be a difficulty in fixing the 
 day, for its meagre calendar does not contain a tenth
 
 456 NATIONAL HOLYDATS. 
 
 portion of the saints to whom, old churches are dedi- 
 cated ; and when a day was found, supposing the 
 hishop to approve it, where would its office he got ? 
 The dry every-day ferial office would have to he used, 
 in which not an appropriate allusion or reference would 
 he made to the cause of festivity. But to proceed. 
 The day, in a Catholic parish, is long established and 
 well known to all not merely to parishioners, hut to 
 neighbours all around. The lord and the peasant 
 equally look forward to it ; it is one more tie between 
 them. The former does not grudge the day's work to 
 his dependants, the other does not repine at the loss of 
 his gains : it is as the Sunday, a day calculated in the 
 general balancing of the year's occupation and profit. 
 The poor people will not starve on that day ; they will 
 have rather stinted themselves a little beforehand, to 
 honour it with better cheer ; nor will charitable doles 
 and largesses be wanting to gladden the destitute, if 
 any there be. 
 
 We saw, not long ago, an instance of how com- 
 pletely the village festival unites and gladdens the 
 hearts of all classes. Who that has travelled in fair 
 Italy, remembers not, as a vision of Eden, the shores 
 and islands of the Lago Maggiore ? Who that has seen 
 the latter from a distance, has not leaped in the 
 nearest skiff, and tried, though only for a few moments, 
 to visit them, or at least the one which most invites 
 him, " the beautiful island" as it is justly called ? 
 Among those so tempted, were ourselves : and it was 
 as lovely a day for a festival as ever nature gave to 
 southern skies, when we crossed the calm water which 
 separates that charming spot from the main land. The 
 island appears, at first sight, entirely occupied by the 
 princely palace of the Borromeos, with its enchanted 
 gardens. The bold front of the former seems to rise
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 457 
 
 sheer from the water, and the terrace-walls of the 
 latter even to slant beyond the natural boundary of the 
 land. But at one side, close to the splendid stairs 
 which lead from the lake to the fore-court of the villa, 
 is a splendid esplanade, occupied by poor, but com- 
 fortable, fishermen's huts, nestling under the shelter 
 of the lofty edifice, and among them the humble 
 parish church, now about to be beautified by its patron, 
 to which there is access from the palace. No attempt 
 has been made by the noble lords of the island to buy 
 up this patrimony of the poor, for these cottages are 
 their own little property ; nor to plant them out, as 
 an eyesore, nor to transplant them to the humbler 
 islands around, chiefly occupied by persons of their 
 rank ; but they have remained undisturbed for gene- 
 rations, the poor inhabitants holding the same relation 
 to the prince, as their huts do to his palace, that 
 of humble but independent neighbours, who share his 
 fostering and protecting care, affording the means of 
 pleasing contrasts, and the exercise of reciprocal duties. 
 As we approached the marble landing-place, we observed 
 more than usual stir about it, nor were we slow to 
 understand its cause. An elegant gondola was riding 
 in the water, with its boatmen dressed in the livery of 
 the Borromeos ; and, as we ascended the steps, we 
 were met, in frank and gentle greeting, by the young 
 count himself, with his countess and child, besides 
 whom was a large party of ecclesiastics and laymen, 
 who had been partaking of the curate's hospitality. 
 We were made welcome, and desired to call for what- 
 ever the house afforded, and invited to inspect it at our 
 leisure. This was hardly necessary ; the entire palace 
 and its gardens seemed to belong to the public ; every 
 place was thrown open, and in the occupancy of the 
 good priest and his guests, who ranged freely, as we
 
 458 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 did ourselves, through the stately gardens and cool 
 grottos of the ground-floor of the palace, perfectly at 
 their ease. It was not the season when noblemen in 
 Italy reside in the country : it was, moreover, a sultry 
 and dusty journey of forty or fifty miles from thence 
 to Milan ; but that young nobleman had made it, 
 with his family, expressly for that day. It was the 
 festival of the little parish church, and he considered 
 it his duty not to be absent from it. Who can doubt 
 that this mark of sympathy and religious communion 
 between the noble patron and his poor neighbours, this 
 act of respect to the humble parish-church and its 
 priest, would more firmly attach the people to his 
 family than perhaps more expensive acts of generosity 
 blankets, through his steward, at Christmas, and an 
 ox, roasted whole, on his coming of age ? 
 
 However, let us suppose concord so far secured, as 
 that a clergyman in England could have the squire or 
 lord on his side, in endeavouring to bring the people of 
 any extensive parish, to celebrate a new holy day. Due 
 notice is given, the saint's day is named his to whom 
 the church is dedicated cessation from work is in- 
 culcated; morning and evening service with music, 
 and the communion service, are arranged ; and village 
 sports (if inclosure acts have left room for them) an- 
 nounced. If any one rejoices, depend upon it, it will 
 be the publicans no small a portion of a village or 
 town population; but there will be sufficient that 
 grieve at the notice, to destroy everything like unani- 
 mity and cheerful neighbourly enjoyment of such a 
 day. We can easily conceive the fright, the horror, 
 and dismay which would fill the breasts, and disturb 
 the features, of pious ladies and preachers of every 
 sort ; nor can we help imagining to ourselves the 
 machinery that would be set to work to spoil the
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 459 
 
 holyday sport. For we have seen it put in motion in 
 provincial towns, to avert the calamity of a good 
 attendance on any extraordinary Catholic function. 
 First, there would be placards on the walls, and in the 
 shop-windows, of which the leading words, in unusually 
 large letters, would tell to a hasty observer the whole 
 sense : " CHRISTIANS BEWARE ! . . .POPISH SUPERSTITION 
 
 ...WORST CORRUPTIONS ... PROFANE AMUSEMENTS ... GLO- 
 RIOUS REFORMATION . . . RESISTED TO THE DEATH." Then 
 
 the Independents would choose that very day for the 
 ordination or reading in of a new minister ; Mr. A. 
 interrogating him as to his call, and Mr. B. of C. 
 reading the ordination prayer. The Methodists would 
 convoke a missionary meeting, in which a Cherokee 
 regenerated minister (known possibly when a savage, 
 as " the Great Wild-goose") will appear in his own 
 native plumage (hired, perhaps, from Mr. Catlin), and 
 address the assembly, and recount the history of his 
 conversion ; and the Baptists would convoke another, 
 in which Mr. D., with his wife, and interesting family 
 of little children, will communicate their experience 
 
 among the heathen : and the auxiliary branch 
 
 to the District Bible Society would have a 
 
 special meeting of subscribers ; and every other sect 
 would have something or other to exhibit, as fantastic 
 and as profitable as the shows of a fair. More than 
 this we have known to be done, as we have already 
 observed, to disturb a Catholic festival : enough, and 
 more than enough, to destroy all idea of happy com- 
 munion of religious feeling between the inhabitants of 
 one place ; probably enough to divide house against 
 house, and turn to bitterness, even in the heart of a 
 family, what was intended to diffuse the blessings 
 of harmony and peace. 
 
 A Catholic festival is an occurrence which puts all
 
 460 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 the place in which it is celebrated into good humour, 
 and makes it brimful of cheerfulness. Its meaning, 
 its object, and its demands are perfectly understood by 
 all, and are all of a common interest. Before its day 
 arrives, all whose duty it is, are busy in the work of 
 preparation ; but it is like the work of the bee-hive, 
 each does his appointed office, with the punctuality of 
 instinct : the choir is trained, the church decorated, 
 the altars adorned with all the richness that the place 
 affords ; the houses are put into order, wherever the 
 processions are to pass ; the confraternities make their 
 various preparations, to appear decorously and prevent 
 confusion ; the clergy dispose all things for the more 
 spiritual duties to be discharged, and for the Church- 
 offices, which will well nigh occupy the day ; and those 
 who have to look to the more secular part of the 
 festivity will not neglect it. 
 
 "When the day itself arrives, the Church is ready, 
 with all her boundless stores of spiritual ministrations, 
 calculated, not to deaden, but to raise and quicken, 
 the pulses of religious joy. Prom the first dawn 
 of day, the doors of the church are open, and open 
 not merely to the winds of heaven, but to the influx 
 of eager faithful, who know that the morning sacrifice 
 will be ready for oblation as soon as they, and that 
 the morning banquet of Christ's children will be 
 as early as the rnanna in the wilderness. There is no 
 desertion of the holy place " between services," for in 
 fact, the whole morning is occupied by a succession of 
 offices, which leave but few intervals ; and even these 
 are well filled up by the silent devotions of many 
 worshippers. Then comes the great and more public 
 function, at which all the clergy attend, and all the 
 faithful assist, with such pomp and circumstances 
 of festivity as the place admits of; and after sufficient
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 461 
 
 respite, to allow the body its necessary refreshment, 
 the afternoon offices, running prohably till late in the 
 evening, succeed, not equally, but proportionately, 
 continuing the holy joy of the happy festival. And 
 thus the more worldly demonstrations of cheerful 
 mirth, which close the day, are not its occupation but 
 its recreation, and come upon minds prepared to enjoy 
 them, with good temper and sober feelings. 
 
 But there is one almost necessary part of festive 
 observances, which the Church of England has com- 
 pletely got rid of, as well as of all else that is beautiful 
 in the Church services ; and, in her present condition, 
 cannot hope to restore. We mean religious pro- 
 cessions. " Behold that solemn procession," exclaims 
 an author, whom it is always a pleasure to quote, 
 " through the aisles of the abbey church of St. Ger- 
 main ! The holy virgins in pure white robes, like 
 very sanctity, bearing bright tapers in their hands ; 
 crowds of holy laymen, the noble and the mechanic, 
 side by side, alike humble, alike devout ; the saintly 
 students, the venerable clergy, slowly moving along, 
 singing their pensive melody through the dusky space, 
 shedding radiance as they pass along, while all around 
 them lies in deep darkness. O, it is an impressive 
 thing to mark the countenance of each one who glides 
 before you. There are some who walk, rapt like men 
 in sleep, unconscious of all around them, conversant 
 only with the internal vision, in a rapture of angelic 
 thought .... During the ages of faith, the procession 
 was considered an institution of no small importance, 
 in an intellectual and spiritual point of view. Before 
 those mystic flames, which seem to be mingled with 
 the supernal luminaries, emblems of the star which 
 never sets, it was thought that the delusive meteors 
 of corrupt passions would die away, and be no more
 
 462 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 seen. That pious crowd, still increasing as it pro- 
 ceeded, which passed on, walking in such humble 
 guise after the blessed sacrament, was in sooth a 
 sublime spectacle, as exhibiting to the eye of the 
 world a multitude of men, who sought to follow their 
 ecclesiastical king, hungering and thirsting after 
 him." f The Catholic procession is the overflowing 
 of religious joy, beyond the vessel which usually 
 contains it. It is the mystical stream which Ezechiel 
 saw flowing from the altar of the holy place, and 
 issuing abroad, through the temple gates ; deepening 
 and swelling, as it flows along, till it becomes a 
 mighty torrent, 5 bounding forward in exultation, and 
 making a joyful noise as the sound of many waters. 
 It is, in fact, the Church herself, who, not content 
 with the fainter radiation of her blessings from their 
 centre, at the shrine and the altar, goes forth to bear 
 them, and to impart them to the abodes and resorts 
 of her children. For, go into the spacious building, 
 when its long ranks of clergy, and crowds of followers, 
 have left it. You saw, but a few minutes before, the 
 vast area covered with men and women, in their 
 holiday attire, all giving abundant signs of life and 
 joy, and the altar surrounded with a goodly array 
 of ministers, vested according to their offices, richly 
 and variously, moving in fragrant clouds of incense, 
 while the atmosphere, up to the echoing vault, was 
 filled with the organ's peal and the choral song. And 
 now you find it solitary and silent, emptied of all 
 that formed its life, the many tapers burning still, and 
 the fading wreaths from the censer subsiding like 
 evening vapours, with none to enjoy the light and 
 fragrance ; and all the beauty and charms of the holy 
 building are there, but no worshipper to be enamoured 
 f Mores Catholic!, b. v. p. 92. B Ezec. xlvii.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 463 
 
 of them ; and it really seems as though the material 
 church still remained, while the spiritual is gone 
 forth. It is like the beautiful body of a saint 
 entranced, while the soul has flown afar on some 
 errand of love. And so, in fact, it is ; you hear, faint 
 and distant, the cadence of the solemn chant, now 
 sweeping fuller upon the wind, as the multitude that 
 has gone forth sings, united, in some ampler space ; 
 then dying, and only murmuring through the wind- 
 ings of streets and alleys. It is the Church of God, 
 the rival of heavenly choirs " almae Sionis semula " 
 that is diffusing blessings through the entire town or 
 village, making its narrow ways the aisles of her 
 vaster temple, the open squares its spreading nave^ 
 and the heavens, with their consenting angels, its 
 noble vault. And in place of niches and images 
 inanimate to adorn its walls, see every casement alive 
 with glowing countenances, and tuneful voices; the 
 sick man has had himself brought from his bed to 
 join the festival, now come to his very doors; the 
 aged and helpless matron is supported in the arms 
 of her children, or sits and raises her palsied head at 
 the threshold, to salute the Church's borne treasures ; 
 and the very babes exult in their mothers' arms, and 
 stretch forth their little hands in glee, as did John in 
 the womb of Elizabeth, at a similar visit. And now 
 the sounds come swelling and increasing, but wave- 
 like, as the flowing tide, till they strike once more 
 against the roof, and re-echo through the arches ; and 
 the bright successive flashes of the torches, as they 
 enter, and the stirring flood of life that spreads over 
 the pavement, and the thronging array that again 
 surrounds the altar, give back the animation, the 
 spirit, the soul, that seemed to have been sundered, 
 for a time, from the visible and material frame, restore
 
 464 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 to it utterance, and make it thrill once more with 
 stirring life and sparkling joyousness. 
 
 Now what has the Church of England to produce, 
 and send round among her people, in which they can 
 confide, or to which they will turn their looks and 
 hearts, in thankfulness and reverence, or in more 
 solemn worship, as it moves among them ? Do they, 
 who would have processions restored in her, imagine 
 that two long files of choristers and clergymen in 
 hoods and scarfs, constitute them, and would rivet, 
 long and often, the devout attention of the people ? 
 Or that flaunting banners and antique devices would 
 give a further attraction to them? Surely these 
 things may form a goodly pageant, and meet for the 
 walking-day of a club ; but they are not the essentials 
 of a religious function. Where there are ministers 
 and symbols, there must be something higher and 
 better than either, a reality to be ministered unto. 
 The Levites walk forth with their tunics and trumpets, 
 only when the Ark of the Lord moves along, and they 
 are in attendance on it. Has the Church of England 
 then the shrines of ancient saints, which priests may 
 bear reverently in their hands, or on their shoulders, 
 to remind her people that she was (alas ! is she cannot 
 say) the mother of saints, to awaken in their minds 
 the recollection of bright examples, and to excite 
 their confidence in the intercession of those, with 
 whose sacred remains they are thus associated upon 
 earth ? She that hath rifled the tombs of her ancient 
 bishops, hath scattered the ashes of her martyrs 
 to the winds, hath blotted the names of her holy 
 monks from the calendar, and hath cast into oblivion 
 the memory of her saintly virgins ? She who cannot 
 count one relic in all her treasuries (revered as such), 
 who reprobates all honour shown to any, and dares
 
 NATIONAL IIOLYDAYS. 465 
 
 not tell her people to bear them about them ? Or can 
 she presume higher, and hope to bear more solemnly 
 about, the Lord Himself of Glory, in His Eucha- 
 ristic triumph ; for such the Catholic procession may, 
 in general, be called ? She who, independent of her 
 sacramental losses, which debar her from ever possess- 
 ing the reality, may not even attempt so to honour 
 its substituted type, in the face of her own melancholy 
 decree against it ? h She who allows irreverence to 
 any amount in the administration of it, discerning 
 not in it the body of the Lord ?' No ; she has forfeited 
 
 h Art. xxviii. 
 
 1 It is but a few weeks ago that the English Churchman contained 
 a paragraph complaining of the manner in which the communion 
 service was administered in the restored Temple church. It stated 
 that the remaining sacramental bread (considered of course as duly 
 consecrated) was left on the paten on the altar-rails, till everything 
 else was cleared away, when it was taken into the vestry by a man, 
 who carried it in one hand, and a pile of cushions in the other ! And 
 yet such irreverence and sacrilege (supposing consecration) brings 
 down no censure upon its doers and abettors, beyond that of a news- 
 paper. If the bishop of the diocese believes in the real presence 
 after consecration, the least he could be supposed to do would be to 
 suspend the clergyman, dismiss the cushion-bearer, and take measures 
 for future amendment. In fact, the church ought to be placed under 
 an interdict. Yet because this church has been repaired and restored, 
 and repainted after old models, it is considered quite a demonstration 
 of return to Catholic ideas and feelings. How little they know of 
 Catholic truth who can so judge ! Alas ! these things are but as the 
 mint and the cummin, while the others, that are neglected, are the 
 weighty things of the law. Look at the ancient canons, prescribing 
 different degrees of penance for the casual spilling of a drop from the 
 chalice. The decree on this head in the canon law is there attributed 
 to Pope St. Pius I., but more probably belongs to Theodore, arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. (Dec. 3rd, P. De Consec. Dist. ii. cap. xxvii. 
 Si per neffliffentiam.') Where there has been decided negligence, a 
 penance of forty days is enjoined, besides the priest's having to wipe 
 with his tongue the place on which the precious drop has fallen. 
 The rubrics (De Defectibus, x. 12 15) specify most minutely what is 
 
 i 2 n
 
 466 NATIONAL HOLYDATS. 
 
 and lost these gifts, part of the Catholic inheritance. 
 The motives which can suggest religious festivity, the 
 means whereby it can be conducted, the objects 
 toward which it may be directed, are all bound up 
 together by that unity which, to be anything worth, 
 must be Catholic, Catholic in the widest sense, as 
 embracing in its universality heaven and earth. Only 
 through that communion of saints, which brings men 
 in the flesh into living association with spiritual 
 beings, can those feelings be stirred up, from which 
 gladsome commemorations of them, or celebration of 
 great mysteries, spring. The vesture of the Church, 
 that is, her variable ritual, sparkles as with gems, 
 some of greater cost and brilliancy, others serving but 
 for embroidery and every-day adornment ; but they 
 must seek in vain to fit them on again, and have 
 them shine, who have first rent, and then stripped off 
 her, this her seamless garment. She is as the spring, 
 and scatters flowers along her path, wherever she 
 treads ; as the season advances, new and fresh ones 
 rise beneath her feet, flowers of holiness as of loveli- 
 ness ; but it is only the dew of Hermon that can feed 
 them, the dew which only falls where brethren dwell 
 together in unity. k The attempt of an English 
 nobleman to revive them, in the national Establish- 
 ment, reminds us sorrowfully of those little gardens, 
 which children in Germany love to make upon the 
 
 to be done in cases of any accident to either consecrated species. 
 St. Charles Borromeo, in consequence of such an accident, abstained 
 for several days frotn the celebration of the divine mysteries. Surely 
 the conduct of the Catholic Church and of the Anglican cannot indi- 
 cate anything like identity, or even similarity, of belief, respecting the 
 B. Eucharist. And if only one of them can be allowed to hold the 
 real presence, Solomon's test not here of maternal, but of filial 
 affection will easily decide between their respective claims. 
 k Ps. cxxxii.
 
 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 467 
 
 graves of their departed friends, by studding them 
 over with flowers, plucked from the neighbouring 
 fields. There indeed they had roots and lived ; but 
 here they can only look pretty for a time, then fade 
 and die, to point the moral of a comparison between 
 the flower above, and the flower beneath the sod. 
 
 So will it be with holydays introduced by act of 
 Parliament, or by private speculation ; nay by that 
 Church even which has destroyed every emotion that 
 can suggest them, has quenched the sympathies, and 
 untoned the harmonies, necessary to enliven them, 
 has long disused her people to jocund sounds, and 
 cannot bring back these lost feelings without bitter 
 self-condemnation. Till she is prepared to make this, 
 she must sit under the yoke of her own forging, and 
 weep over the desolation of her own making. She 
 may exhilarate the people by a passing effort ; she 
 may throw this, her body of death, into a galvanic 
 spasm, that looks like a gambol of joy ; she may 
 mistake convulsive twitches for smiles, and a ghastly 
 glare of the eye for the rekindled flash of life. But 
 dead, heavy, and lumpish will it fall again, so soon as 
 the wires now applied to it are withdrawn ; unless 
 advantage is taken of the momentary artificial life, to 
 dart into it once more the living spark the Catholic 
 soul, which, restoring it to unity and its privileges, 
 will put the garland into its hand, and the canticle 
 into its mouth, and give it place once more among the 
 children of God. 
 
 We have said " the desolation of her own making." 
 Truly, " vise Sion lugent, eo quod non sint qui veniant 
 ad solemnitatem." 1 But who has made them mourn ? 
 No foreign invader, no princely oppressor, no plague, 
 nor famine, nor prophet's curse. But it was a part of 
 
 1 Thren. i. 4. 
 
 2 n 2
 
 468 NATIONAL HOLYDAYS. 
 
 the plan which made her a national Church, which 
 purged her, as she vaunts, from errors, and rendered 
 her more holy and apostolic ; so at least speak her 
 bishops and her legislators. It is the designed and 
 well-accomplished scheme of those who pretended to 
 be her fathers in Christ. " Dixerunt in corde suo 
 cognatio eorum simul : quiescere faciamus omnes 
 dies festos Dei a terra. " ra It was a deliberate sin, 
 and that sin must be expiated and repaired. It is in 
 the power of England and its rulers to bring back 
 once more all that is now regretted as lost ; but there 
 is only one way. ENGLAND'S FIRST NATIONAL HOLY- 
 DAY WILL, AND CAN ONLY BE, THE BRIGHT AND 
 GLORIOUS DAY WHICH SEES HER RESTORED TO THE 
 COMMUNION OF CHRIST'S CHURCH CATHOLIC. 
 
 m Ps. Ixxiii. 8.
 
 ESSAY 
 
 MINOR RITES 
 
 AND 
 
 OFFICES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 From the DUBLIN EsviEW/or August, 1843.
 
 ESSAY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 AST. XI. The Manual of Devotion. By AMBEOSE LISLE 
 PHILLIPPS, Esq. Derby : 1843. 
 
 WHOEVER views, from the outside, any building 
 which Protestant piety, no matter of what class, has 
 raised for purposes of worship, can at once divine the 
 form and arrangement which the interior will exhibit. 
 Whether church or meeting-house, it imports not; 
 whether it be a square brick building, with staircases 
 and gallery-seats staring out of long, round-headed 
 windows, or a stone edifice, that shams aisles along 
 its sides, thrusts out a mean chancel at one end, and 
 pokes up a stunted tower at the other ; when you have 
 skimmed over the outer elevation of either, you have 
 planned the inside ; you know at once that the inner 
 surface of every wall will run flatly parallel with the 
 external, that the whole body will be crammed with 
 pews or seats, and that a pulpit and communion-table 
 (or a pulpit alone) will stand where you at once 
 see and know that they must stand. This is quite 
 natural. The building must be according to the 
 religion. Monotony in the one must give monotony 
 in the other. Morning prayer and evening prayer, 
 sermon or lecture, are at best but slight variations of 
 the same theme ; Sunday service and week-day service
 
 472 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 are but trifling modifications of the same type. We 
 are amused, nearly every week, by the gravity of 
 rubrical and liturgical questions raised in Anglican 
 periodicals : what prayers should be said at the letter n, 
 and what at the f aid-stool, what at one side of the 
 communion-table, and what in front of it. To a 
 Catholic, such discussions truly appear like child's 
 play ; and we are tempted to think, how the Sacred 
 Congregation of Rites, at Rome, would smile, first to 
 see such matters become newspaper topics, and then 
 to observe the vast importance attached to them. 
 Alas ! the mysticism is fled for ever from the congre- 
 gation of such churches, which alone can give value 
 to these variations in rites ; the spiritual symbolism is 
 no longer valued, which only can stamp dignity and 
 meaning on such trifling ceremonials. 
 
 But we are forgetting that we have yet a counter- 
 part to draw to what we have represented. Look on 
 the outside of a finished Catholic church, cathedral, 
 collegiate, or parochial, and you will not conjecture, 
 with certainty, what awaits you within. The grand 
 lines will not deceive you. The cross, which the lofty 
 ridges of the towering roofs describe, tells you, at 
 once, of the sublime and awful mystery which is to 
 be there celebrated. But round it, and principally 
 round its noble head, like the glory with which the 
 Christian painter would ever encircle its prototype, 
 are clustered other minor buildings, separately and 
 minutely elaborate, richly-chased gems set in the 
 crown, each apparently the choice work of some 
 loving mind, bent upon excelling. And there run 
 forth, and along, secondary appendages, as they seem, 
 of the main building, giving scarce an evidence to the 
 outward beholder of their interior destination and 
 worth. Whence comes all this variety? Prom the
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFITCES. 473 
 
 nature of the worship to he performed within. It is 
 varied, as are all those heautiful appurtenances and 
 secondary portions of the sacred edifice. The offices 
 to be performed in them have suggested them; and 
 those offices group round the great and heavenly 
 liturgy, as those smaller and graceful sanctuaries do 
 round the majestic cross. Here is the chapel of the 
 most Blessed Sacrament, because the Catholic Church 
 keeps It with great reverence, and often brings It 
 forth to her infirm or dying children, or sets It aloft, 
 as the Lamb upon His throne, to be worshipped and 
 adored by priests and people. There is the Ladye- 
 chapel, because holy Church has especial devotion to 
 the ever-blessed Mother of God, and must have a sort 
 of family chapel, for homely pilgrimage, where the 
 pious people of the congregation may gather at even- 
 ing, and quietly say their beads, as if in Her society. 
 Here are shrines of saints, in other smaller chapels, 
 because, from time immemorial, their relics or their 
 memories have been much honoured in the place ; and 
 to give them proper estimation, and to direct atten- 
 tion, separating them from other objects, though 
 sacred, is the proper way : just as a nobleman will 
 put his masterpiece of art in a rich cabinet by itself. 
 And then you have chantries, where family sepulchres 
 are placed, and commemorations of the departed faith- 
 fully made, and where the same devout spirit, which 
 rejoiced with souls in bliss, sympathizes sorrowfully 
 with those in suffering. 
 
 But our allegory, or image, is not thus complete. 
 As any one can know and comprehend all the inside 
 of a Protestant house of worship by surveying the 
 outside, and as one cannot really understand and 
 estimate the interior of a true Catholic church with- 
 out going into it, and ranging round its parts, and, if
 
 474 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 he be a stranger, asking their uses ; so, likewise, one 
 may become thoroughly acquainted with all the 
 meagre poverty (called by its fautors, simplicity) of 
 every uncatholic worship, without the pain and mis- 
 fortune of belonging to it, and mingling in it ; while, 
 on the other hand, no man need hope ever to know, 
 understand, or value worthily, the richness and fulness 
 of Catholic devotion, in its many beautiful forms, till 
 he have passed into the interior of its divine sanc- 
 tuary, and have visited, in its spirit, all its separate, 
 but harmonizing, parts. We have, in a former article, 
 spoken of the great liturgical prayers of the Church, 
 though far from becomingly ; the little volume, which 
 we owe to the zeal and piety of a layman, of one who 
 from the outside has passed into the inside of the 
 Church, reminds us how much remains to be said of 
 those secondary and minor observances of Catholic 
 devotion, which give her a rich variety, and yet the 
 privilege of being known only by those within. 
 "Omnis gloria ejus Pilise Regis ab intus, in fimbriis 
 aureis, circumamicta varietatibus." 
 
 The feeling of the age, we know, is all for simplifi- 
 cation, for curtailing, for baring everything to its pure 
 essentials. If a machine that has been originally cum- 
 brous in its complication is reduced to half a dozen 
 wheels, it is reckoned, now-a-days, a great discovery. 
 A gardener is more proud of a tree which, cut down 
 to a few switches, nailed in painful tension to a wall, 
 bears some very choice fruit, than he is of a stately 
 trunk, that tosses its noble head of foliage in the 
 wind. The two great questions of the day are first, 
 how much of anything (except worldly goods) is 
 absolutely necessary ; and then, what is the shortest 
 and cheapest way of getting it. And this is applied 
 to religion; what are the services essential to be
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 475 
 
 attended ? what is the most simple form of having 
 them ? Let us answer : " The Sunday's Mass," and so 
 far will be conceded ; but then we shall be told, " Let 
 it be as shorn of its splendour, as meagre of attendance, 
 and as simple in ceremonial as possible. And so be it 
 with every sacrament and sacramental ; let us have all 
 that is absolutely necessary for their efficacy, but 
 suppress all that you can with safety." 
 
 It is fortunate, that the men who speak thus have 
 no power over nature, or they would be playing sad 
 pranks with her, and teaching her some very summary 
 ways and short cuts, instead of her very complicated 
 methods and slow progresses. And yet the order of 
 grace presents so many analogies to hers, that we 
 should think it might strike any man, that it is as 
 absurd and as unnatural to tamper with the spiritual, 
 as it would be with the physical, world. Each is, in 
 fact, a world of life ; each has living laws, dependent 
 upon a higher power than man's ; each refuses to be 
 trammelled by new and arbitrary ones. Take the 
 plant and its life ; upon how many small and trifling 
 things it must depend ! Try to simplify them, and 
 you will at once destroy it. Shut it up and feed it 
 with an artificial atmosphere, in which the ingredients 
 are purified of all that interferes with their justest pro- 
 portions, and you will find it sicken. Make a soil for 
 it upon scientific and chemical principles, and ten to 
 one it will, most ungraciously, refuse to grow. And 
 why ? Because its principle of life requires many more 
 things than you can seize or even estimate little, 
 imperceptible, atomic things, which will escape the 
 keenest eye. You know not what it sucks from the 
 dew-drops that sparkle on its leaves at morning, beyond 
 what the pure water from the fountain could give ; 
 you know not what healthy element it may inhale from
 
 476 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 the very mist which sometimes envelops it; you 
 know not what refreshment it may draw from the 
 hoar-frost that clothes its naked limbs in winter with 
 a mock efflorescence ; vou know not what degree of 
 
 * t> O 
 
 enrichment it receives from the grass that decays, 
 nay, from the insects themselves that die round its 
 foot. The chance admixture of some stray loam, or 
 sand, or other mineral, in the soil wherein it stands, 
 may minister to its living energies a peculiar subsidiary 
 source of sustenance and growth. Now, in a like 
 manner, the spiritual life may be kept up, and made 
 up. The many lesser ministrations of grace, which 
 seem to us minute, and of very secondary importance, 
 have their value and their efficacy in it, which now 
 escape our notice, but may one day appear as they 
 deserve. It may be a pleasing exercise of the new in- 
 telligence to be hereafter granted to the soul, for the 
 full understanding of God's mercies, to see how much 
 of its spiritual growth was forwarded, and how much 
 of its fruit matured, by these smaller means; what 
 latent strength was supplied by a blessing casually but 
 respectfully received ; what coming blight washed off by 
 the sprinkled waters which the Church had -sanctified ; 
 what measure of favour gained by an act of thoughtful 
 reverence as we passed before God's altar ; what a buffet 
 was given to the evil powers that would have ruined us, 
 by the sign of the cross imprinted seasonably on our 
 foreheads : in fine, how much of our advancement in 
 virtue was owing to our constant and devout employ- 
 ment of what others undervalue, and therefore heed not. 
 It may be said, that still we allow these things not 
 to be essential ; and therefore that there may be, and 
 are, many in the true Church, who belong to the class 
 of persons whom we blame ; and are yet no less among 
 its living members : Why, then, should they, or others,
 
 MINOR BITES AND OFFICES. 477 
 
 be urged to more ? We reply by asking : Are these in 
 general the ornaments, the flowers of the Church ? 
 They may be living plants, it is true, but are they rich 
 in spiritual fruit ? Are they fair and beautiful to the 
 eye both of the faithful and of the separated ? Is it 
 among them that we find the instructors of the 
 ignorant, the comforters of the poor, the endowers of 
 charitable foundations, the propagators of truth ? Are 
 they not invariably the cold, the worldly, or the sickly, 
 and the lukewarm Christians ? The Church of God 
 has the privilege of beauty and loveliness bestowed 
 upon her ; would she possess it, indeed, if she had none 
 but these to show ? But, thank God, she has some- 
 thing better she has souls devout, fervent, zealous, 
 and mortified; she has holy religious, active priests, 
 edifying laymen. Now, those who keep up her noble 
 claims to that prerogative, will be found ever to set the 
 highest value upon the minor observances and rites of 
 the Church will be found most careful in their use, 
 ever zealous in their defence of them. If then we see, 
 as we always shall, the higher growth in virtue, and 
 the full comeliness of holiness united with these prac- 
 tices, and going hand in hand with their application, 
 should we not cherish rather than undervalue them ; 
 increase and encourage, rather than diminish, them ; 
 uphold and vindicate, rather than abandon them to 
 obloquy and misrepresentation ? 
 
 Let us, by way of example, imagine a person who 
 has stepped beyond the frozen zone of Catholicity into 
 its more genial sphere, and has begun to feel its 
 warmth. "We speak not of place, but of mind ; so that 
 we understand by this, one who has learnt to taste 
 interiorly the abundant consolations of his religion 
 who goes to the church, not one day in the week, 
 because it is Sunday, but, if possible, every day, be-
 
 478 MINOR BITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 cause his Lord is there ; who approaches the altar, not 
 at certain stated periods, with long intervals, because 
 custom or law prescribes it, but as often as his own 
 hunger after the food that perisheth not, impels him. 
 A heartless Jansenist will perhaps say, that such fre- 
 quency will beget familiarity, and this must be jealously 
 guarded against ; and we will say, that it is exactly 
 familiarity which we desire to have, and to produce. 
 He will dwell on the epithet " tremendous," prefixed 
 to the holy mysteries, and call out for mere fear ; and 
 we will answer, "O sacrum convivium!" He will 
 intone in solemn key the little chapter, " Quicumque 
 manducaverit panem hunc indigne, reus erit Corporis 
 Domini;" and we will reply by the antiphon, in 
 gladder notes, " O quam suavis est Domine Spiritus 
 tuus ; qui ut dulcedinem tuam in filios demonstrares, 
 pane suavissimo de ccelo prsestito, esurientes reples 
 bonis, fastidiosos divites dimittens inanes." If the 
 Jansenistic reasoning prevails, there is an end to all 
 we wish to say. The " Sacrament of Love" becomes 
 rather that " of Eear ;" the banquet is changed into a 
 medicine, the staff into a scourge, the viaticum into a 
 heavy load. The poor wayfarer towards warmth and 
 light the two rays from heaven is driven back 
 amidst his icebergs again, to shiver and freeze in the 
 cold and gloomy regions of modern semi-protestantism. 
 But let us suppose that he has had courage to face and 
 go by this moody monster, and to get fairly into the 
 genial pastures of the Church Catholic, and to feed 
 fully upon its truths and feelings ; he has begun to 
 love that which makes him love, to enjoy that which 
 gives him joy. He will not easily be satisfied, as he 
 used to be. He begins to think that a means of grace 
 is at his command, which he has not sufficiently 
 attended to. Our merciful Lord has been pleased to
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 479 
 
 institute the noblest and blessedest of His sacraments 
 in a permanent form, which, allows one to possess Him, 
 in a marvellous manner, at all times. One may envy 
 the ancient Christians, and almost covet their perse- 
 cutions, on the condition of being allowed, as they 
 were, to have the Lord an inmate in the house, and 
 rising before day, partake of Him most familiarly. 
 The house of Obededom was indeed but poorly honoured 
 in comparison with theirs. But, even now, if not in 
 our own unworthy dwellings, at least in His own 
 house, we may have Him ever. If we are sick, He 
 comes to us whenever bidden ; when we are well, shall 
 we require much pressing to go to Him? Such a 
 thought seems most natural ; and whatever is natural 
 to the devout soul, has place, of course, in the Catholic 
 system : for this system is, in fact, the nature of the 
 inward and spiritual world. 
 
 No one can go into a Catholic country without 
 seeing at once this idea carried out into practice. 
 Every church that can be considered public, is left 
 open almost all the day ; cathedral, collegiate, and 
 parish churches, and often many others. It is con- 
 sidered a matter of right that they should be so. This, 
 to our minds, forms a lamentable contrast between 
 England and those countries we mean not Protestant 
 England, but what is Catholic of it. Eor truly, were 
 the churches left open in the former, merely that 
 strangers might more easily gratify their curiosity, by 
 looking through them, we might perhaps indeed plead 
 our poverty, to call it nothing worse, and say, that as 
 we have no pictures or rich marbles to show, we may 
 as well shut up our comparatively poor places of 
 worship. But the case is not so. There are plenty of 
 country churches in Erance, or Germany, or Italy, 
 which can boast of no attraction for the eye of flesh,
 
 480 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 which yet invite the passer-by to enter, and to pray. 
 And many will do so ; especially at the calm evening 
 hour, so suitable to that duty. Now, that which 
 attracts them, we possess in our poorest chapels ; and 
 if we see them not similarly visited, the fault is in 
 persons, not in things. The same Wisdom hath built 
 a house with us, adorned with the same mystical seven 
 columns ; hath spread her table, and calleth aloud from 
 her high citadel on all to enter, to come to her, and to 
 partake. So far there is no difference, then ; the 
 difference lies in the obedience to the call. We may 
 throw the blame upon the circumstances in which we 
 live, our country, and times ; but it will not do. It 
 must ultimately fall upon ourselves. The feeling is 
 not amongst us which inspires our brethren abroad. 
 It is not necessary that we should trace the matter 
 further, that we should inquire into its hidden or 
 patent causes, that we should specify where the fault 
 more particularly rests. Let us all at once bear it, 
 acknowledge it, and strive to correct. Let us in every 
 way study to make the house of God more loved, its 
 privileges more highly prized, and its treasures more 
 earnestly coveted. If circumstances will not allow us 
 to throw it open indiscriminately all day, let us, at 
 least, make it at all times accessible to the faithful, and 
 let us teach them what comfort they may find there. a 
 The terms which Catholics soon come to apply to 
 religious practices, are no unapt keys to the interpre- 
 tation of those feelings with which they are to be 
 accompanied. Thus, the familiar expression " a visit 
 to the B. Sacrament," so well understood in Catholic 
 
 a [These complaints have no longer the same justice. Many of 
 our churches are now accessible to the faithful, through the day ; and 
 they take advantage of the means of grace thus offered, to nourish 
 their piety before God's altar.]
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 481 
 
 countries and Catholic communities, contains a depth 
 of faith and of love, which long descriptions could 
 not so adequately convey. It declares at once the 
 simple, hearty, practical belief in the Real Presence ; 
 not a vague, surmising opinion, not an uncertain hope 
 that the Lord of glory may be there; but a plain 
 conviction that, as surely as a king dwells in his 
 palace, and may there be found by those who are 
 privileged to enter in ; or rather, that as certainly as 
 He Himself dwelt once in a stable, making it His 
 first palace upon earth, and was there " visited" by 
 kings from a distance, and by shepherds from the 
 neighbourhood ; that as truly as He abode in the 
 houses of His friends, and was "visited" by Nico- 
 demus for instruction, or by Magdalene for pardon ; 
 so really does He now dwell amongst us, in such 
 sort as that we may similarly come before Him, and 
 have recourse to Him in our wants. Nothing short of 
 the liveliest faith in the mystery, could have intro- 
 duced, or could keep up, this practice. But the term 
 is likewise the offspring and expression of love. It 
 implies a certain intimacy, if one may use so homely 
 a term, with him to whom it is applied. It gets us 
 beyond the dark regions of awe into those of glowing 
 affection ; it raises us up .above the crouching attitude 
 of Israel's children at the mountain's base ; nay, 
 carries us straight through the clouds and lightnings 
 at its side, to the silent radiant summit, where God 
 and man meet face to face, and discourse together as 
 friends are wont to do. Yes ; chamber devotion is 
 doubtless good; the still domestic oratory at home, 
 with its little tokens of loving piety hung around, 
 trophies often from a holier land, is very composing, 
 soothing, and devout. But the great and generous 
 thoughts of Catholic heroism are conceived, or rather 
 
 2i
 
 482 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 inspired, at the altar, where the adorable Sacrament 
 reposes ; there, depend upon it, in silent prayer, the 
 noble damsel in heart rejects the world and its 
 vanities, and plights her troth to the spouse of her 
 chaste heart ; there the young ecclesiastic, bowing in 
 meditation calm and sweet, muses on the triumphs of 
 his schoolmates, over the swords and red-hot pincers 
 of Tonquin, and resolves to share their crown of 
 martyrdom ; there, whatever is planned for the 
 Church of God, that requires earnest zeal and perse- 
 vering energy, is matured and resolved. And there, 
 too, is the heart unburthened of its daily load of sin 
 and sorrow, anxiety and distress, with a fulness of 
 feeling that comes not elsewhere ; sacrifices seem easy 
 which, in any other place, would be hard ; and the 
 Catholic soon learns to feel and utter those words 
 which are there most applicable : " Etenim passer 
 
 invenit sibi domum, et turtur nidum sibi altaria 
 
 Tua, Domine virtutum, Hex meus, et Deus meus"^ 
 
 But the idea involved in this form of devotion 
 deserves further development ; though we have 
 already in part anticipated our meaning, where we 
 illustrated it, by comparison with circumstances in 
 our Lord's earthly existence. We described Him as 
 visited in His blessed sacrament, even as He was in 
 His dwellings when in the flesh. Now the perfection 
 of true ascetic devotion, at least in its first degree, may 
 be said to consist in drawing us as close as possible to 
 our Divine Master, and enabling us to feel near Him, 
 and with Him, just as we might hope to have done, 
 had we been happily numbered among His friends 
 and familiars. But this idea we shall have a better 
 opportunity of expanding just now ; we must pursue 
 our immediate subject to its natural termination. 
 b Ps. kxxiii. 3, 4.
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 483 
 
 If the principle of private devotion among Catholics 
 be that of coming, as near as possible, to the feelings 
 in faith and love, of those who lived in our Blessed 
 Redeemer's society upon earth, the great idea and 
 principle of public worship, in the Catholic Church, is 
 to copy, as faithfully as may be permitted, the homage 
 paid to Him and His Father in heaven. With the 
 Church triumphant she is one ; and their offices in 
 regard to praise and adoration are the same. Now, if 
 we look up towards that happier sphere, we see the 
 Lamb enthroned to receive eternal and unceasing 
 worship, praise, and benediction. How beautifully 
 has the pencil of Van Eyck transferred this scene 
 to earth, in his splendid picture, at Ghent, of " The 
 Adoration of the Lamb." In it all the tribes of earth, 
 and all estates of men, united in the Catholic Church, 
 are represented as engaged in admiring, in praising, 
 and in worshipping the Lamb, that was slain from the 
 foundation of the world. And this universality of 
 homage only requires perpetuity, an unceasing perpe- 
 tuity, to make it a counterpart to the scenes which 
 opened upon John at Patmos. In the Catholic sys- 
 tem this could not be wanting. The Church would 
 not be content with opening her sanctuaries all day, 
 to such chance worshippers as devotion might lead to 
 them, even though she might know that no hour 
 or minute would elapse during which some one or 
 other, in her vast dominions, would not be engaged in 
 such exercise of prayer. She would not even leave 
 this duty of perennial homage to those communities, 
 who, distributing the day and night into various por- 
 tions, some at one hour, some at another, no doubt 
 fill up the entire space with holy services. Through 
 every season, and through every day, she would have, 
 ever going on, a direct uninterrupted worship of her 
 
 2i2
 
 481 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 Lord and Saviour, as the adorable victim on His 
 altar-throne. 
 
 For this purpose, in large towns, where there are a 
 sufficient number of churches, the entire year is 
 portioned out among them, in spaces of eight-and- 
 forty hours, an interval which has given the name 
 to the devotion of the Forty hours' ^Prayer. No 
 expense is spared, no pains neglected, to make this 
 sacred rite as solemn and as devout as possible. The 
 church is richly adorned with tapestry and hangings, 
 while the daylight is excluded, not so much to give 
 effect to the brilliant illumination round the altar, as 
 to concentrate and direct attention towards that which 
 is upon it, and make It, like the Lamb in heaven, the 
 lamp and sun, the centre of light and glory to the 
 surrounding sanctuary. After a solemn mass, and a 
 procession, the blessed Sacrament is enshrined and 
 enthroned above the altar ; at the same moment that, 
 with similar pomp, it is reverently taken down in 
 some other church. Around it is disposed, as it were, 
 a firmament of countless lights, radiating from it, 
 symbolical of the ever-wakeful host of heaven, the 
 spirits of restless life and unfading brightness, that 
 keep watch round the seat of glory above. At the 
 foot of the altar kneel immovable, in silent adoration, 
 the priests of the sanctuary, relieving each other day 
 and night, pouring the prayers of the people, as 
 fragrant odours, before it. But look at the body 
 of the church ! No pews, no benches, or other 
 encumbrances are there ; but the flood of radiance, 
 from the altar, seems to be poured out upon the 
 marble pavement, and to stream along it to the very 
 door. But not during the day will you see it thus ; 
 the whole, except during the hours of repose, is 
 covered with kneeling worshippers. Looking at the
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 485 
 
 scene, through the eye of memory, comes nearer to 
 the contemplation of a heavenly vision than aught 
 else that we know. It seems to us as though, on 
 these occasions, flesh and hlood lost their material 
 grossness, and were spiritualized as they passed the 
 threshold. Softly and noiselessly is the curtain raised, 
 which covers the door, and passed uplifted from hand 
 to hand, in silent courtesy, as a succession of visitors 
 enter in ; they who in the street just now were 
 talking so loud, and laughing so merrily, how they 
 steal in, with slow pace and gentle tread, as though 
 afraid to break upon the solemnity of the scene ! For 
 before and around them are scattered, without order 
 or arrangement, persons singly or in groups, as they 
 have entered in, all lowly kneeling, all reflecting upon 
 their prayerful countenances the splendour from the 
 altar; and as they pass among them to find place, 
 with what careful and quiet step they thread their 
 way, so as least to disturb those among whom they 
 move ; and then drop down upon their knees too, in 
 the first open space, upon the same bare stone floor, 
 princess and peasant, priest and layman, all equal in 
 the immeasurable distance between them and the 
 eternal object of their adoration. In no other time 
 or place is the sublimity of our religion so touchingly 
 felt. No ceremony is going forward in the sanctuary, 
 no sound of song is issuing from the choir, no voice 
 of exhortation proceeds from the pulpit, no prayer is 
 uttered aloud at the altar. There are hundreds there, 
 and yet they are engaged in no congregational act of 
 worship. Each heart and soul is alone in the midst 
 of a multitude ; each uttering its own thoughts, each 
 feeling its own grace. Yet are you overpowered, 
 subdued, quelled into a reverential mood, softened 
 into a devotional spirit, forced to meditate, to feel, to
 
 486 MINOR BITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 pray. The little children who come in, led by a 
 mother's hand, kneel down by her in silence, as she 
 simply points towards the altar, overawed by the still 
 splendour before them ; the very babe seems hushed 
 to quiet reverence on her bosom. The hurried passer- 
 by, who merely looks in, cannot resist the impulse to 
 sink, if only in a momentary genuflection, upon his 
 knee ; nay, even the English scoffer, who will face 
 anything else, will not venture to stalk, as elsewhere, 
 up the nave, heedless of others' sacred feelings, but 
 must needs remain under the shelter of the doorway, 
 or steal behind the shadow of the first pillar, if he 
 wishes to look on without partaking. But more 
 forward, or in the recesses of the aisles, how many 
 you will find, who have not merely entered in to pay 
 their passing evening visit, but who have spent their 
 hours in that heavenly presence, where they seem to 
 breathe the^pure air of paradise. To them it is, 
 indeed, " the'house of God, and the gate of heaven ! " 
 It does one's spirit good even to look again upon such 
 hours, through years of distance and miles of space ; 
 it recalls to mind emotions deeper and tenderer than 
 we may hope for here ; it makes one almost envious 
 of those whose privilege they are. Never shall we 
 forget the first evening that we were admitted to enjoy 
 it. It was, indeed, a sumptuous church, though its 
 rich marbles were draperied over, in one of the fairest 
 cities in Italy. But though we have since seen many 
 more costly and more spacious, it has retained in 
 our memory a charm peculiar to itself, a distinctive 
 character impressed by the solemn circumstances 
 under which we first saw it, an affection and interest, 
 which none other has been able to supplant. 
 
 But we must hasten on. As night closes in, will 
 c [Santa Maria della Vigne, at Genoa.]
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 487 
 
 there not be danger of this worship ceasing ? The 
 last visitors have retired, the sacristan is locking 
 the gates, the poor who have the privilege of asking 
 alms at the door have ceased their pious appeals for 
 it is right that charity should be exercised at such a 
 place ; and where should the lame and the blind sit to 
 ask it, rather than at that gate which of all others 
 best deserves, for the time, the title of " the beau- 
 tiful ?" Still the piety of the faithful is neither 
 exhausted nor fatigued. "While equipages are rolling 
 through the streets, conveying the worldly to, and 
 from, places of entertainment, and long after they 
 have ceased their din, there is one carriage, at least, 
 which is busy all night with a better errand ; which, 
 at stated hours, may be seen to set down at the 
 church a relay of night watchers, and to take to 
 their homes those of the preceding hour. Pious 
 confraternities devote themselves to this, as well as 
 to other deeds of piety ; and carry on the godly work 
 for centuries, night after night, without newspaper 
 advertisements, dinners, or steam excursions. 
 
 Why are we precluded from this truly heavenly 
 devotion, this angelic service? Shall it be the old 
 story "we are not ready for these things our 
 people don't understand them we are too poor for 
 such functions;" or we hesitate again to state the 
 objection " they are not essentials, they are not 
 necessary, and we can go on, as we have done, without 
 them." Yet, we may boldly say, that if any country 
 under the sun has, more than another, a want of such 
 a devotion, it is ours. Here, where, in three hundred 
 years, more churches have been desecrated, more 
 tabernacles profaned, more altars broken, more impious 
 blasphemies uttered, more sacrileges committed, more 
 perjuries pronounced against the Blessed Eucharist,
 
 488 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 than in the entire world else, since the days of Beren- 
 garius ; here where more consecrated plate, sanctified 
 by the contact of the most precious gifts, stands on 
 the tables and sideboards of princes and nobles, than 
 brought a hand to write judgment in the banqueting- 
 hall of Balthassar ; here, where alone denial of this 
 most holy institution has been made a public, a legal, 
 a national, a royal act ; here, where this Holiest of 
 Holies has been chosen as the favourite object of the 
 profanest treatment, pierced by the jeer of the scoffer, 
 beaten about in the unholy language of itinerant 
 declaimers, crowned with ignominy from pulpit and 
 platform ; here, surely, if anywhere, should loving 
 hearts conspire to atone and compensate, by holding 
 the heavenly Mystery in perpetual homage, and never 
 allowing one moment to pass, in which adoration, and 
 benediction, and glory, are not openly and solemnly 
 bestowed on It. There is, indeed, in England, one 
 community, and we believe only one, in which the 
 perpetual adoration of the Blessed Eucharist is carried 
 on. There is abroad a religious order devoted 
 exclusively to this holy purpose. But the house of 
 which we speak has obtained the special privilege of 
 uniting it to the rule of St. Benedict ; and day and 
 night, some of the sisterhood watch in prayer before 
 the altar. But this does not meet our wants. We 
 should have something more general, more national. 
 It is true that no single town could carry on the 
 devotion as it is abroad, throughout the year ; but 
 what is to prevent the entire country combining for 
 the purpose ? Could not a sufficient number of 
 churches be found (one hundred and eighty would 
 suffice, and in England there are five hundred), 4 of 
 which the congregations would agree, with assistance 
 
 d [Now, thank God, six hundred.]
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 489 
 
 perhaps from their neighbours, to bear the moderate 
 expense necessary for it, and to devote themselves, 
 according to their ability, for eight-and-forty hours to 
 watching and prayer ? The distribution of days 
 might then be made, so that the worship should 
 pass over the whole country, returning to different 
 neighbourhoods at stated intervals, so as to satisfy 
 the devotion of the faithful everywhere. If twice the 
 number of congregations would enter into it, the 
 perpetual adoration could go on in two distant places 
 at once, and so on in progression. Uniform rules 
 might be laid down ; for, in fact, there is no point on 
 which the sacred Congregation of Rites has been more 
 explicit than on this. And soon should we see the 
 devotion of the faithful towards the sacred mysteries 
 receive a new impulse, and burn up in a brighter 
 flame. "We hesitate not to say, that it would shortly 
 become a favourite form of worship ; and every one 
 would long for the time when it would return to his 
 own church or chapel, or into his neighbourhood at 
 least. "We might then indeed feel that we were 
 trying to do something towards wiping off the long 
 scores of treason and insult run up by our country, 
 and hastening the time of merciful visitation, by 
 propitiating the measure of wrath that yet remains. 6 
 
 e [Although this appeal was not responded to, when first made, we 
 may hope, as yet, to see it successful. It is, at any rate, a consola- 
 tion to have made a beginning by the establishment of the Forty 
 Hours' in London, during Lent. For three years this devotion has 
 been attended with increasing fervour, and with both consolation and 
 profit to every class of the faithful. Indeed, it is not too much to 
 say that it has transformed Lent into a season of spiritual enjoyment, 
 and has made the metropolis, during it, little inferior to a Catholic 
 city, in opportunity for religious improvement. As a further illus- 
 tration of the text, I take this occasion of adding an extract from the 
 Pastoral, by which this holy practice was introduced into London : 
 
 " As this devotion, called the Forty Hours' Exposition of the
 
 490 MINOR KITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 But even if it be not in our power as yet to esta- 
 blish this beautiful devotion amongst us, which we will 
 
 Blessed Sacrament, is as yet but little known in this country, we 
 will proceed in a few words to explain it, premising no more of its 
 history than to say, that it was first instituted at Milan in 1534, that 
 it was thence introduced into Home, through the instrumentality of 
 its great modern apostle the holy St. Philip Neri, and was formally 
 sanctioned by Pope Clement VIII. in 1592, in consequence, as he 
 says, of the troubled state of Christendom, and the sufferings of the 
 Church. f 
 
 " As a condition of the Incarnation of the "Word, an exchange was 
 made, not unequal, between earth and heaven. "We gave to it, not 
 only the spirits of the just made perfect, in the glorious choir of 
 Saints who fill the seats of fallen angels, but, in anticipation of the 
 resurrection, one precious instalment of humanity glorified, in Her 
 the spotless, who rules, in the very body, over the hosts of angels, as 
 their queen. But even higher this our flesh has penetrated, yea into 
 the very sanctuary of (rod's light inaccessible. For in the very midst 
 and centre of that dazzling radiance, towards which blissful spirits 
 bend gazing and adoring, is to be seen the gentle 'likeness of the 
 Son of Man,'s in all things resembling us. And in return, heaven 
 has bestowed on earth, not merely communion between us and its 
 happy citizens, but the permanent dwelling of God amongst us, who 
 under the name of the Emmanuel, or ' God with us,' lives ever in the 
 midst of His Church, to be the direct object of our adoration and 
 love. 
 
 " And so it comes, Dearly Beloved, that heaven worships now the 
 nature of man indivisibly united with the Godhead, and earth adores 
 the Deity, joined inseparably to our humanity, in the Person of the 
 incarnate "Word. Hence is our worship and theirs but one ; one in 
 object, one in value, one in sentiment, one, if possible, in form. For 
 so identical, throughout this communion of Saints, is the essence of 
 divine worship, that the very mode of its performance necessarily 
 becomes similar, not to say, one. So that in reading the glorious 
 visions of heaven's sanctuary, thrown open to St. John, it becomes 
 difficult to determine, whether he there beheld counterparts to what 
 the Church had already instituted upon earth, or types which served 
 her, under apostolic guidance, for the framing of her ritual. But 
 
 f Eaccolta di Orazioni, &c. Rome, 1841, p. 181. 
 8 Apoc. i. 13.
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 491 
 
 not easily believe, we cannot give too much encourage- 
 ment to what, in part, attains the same object, and is 
 
 rather would we say that the same divine instinct guided both, and 
 taught angels in heaven, and saints on earth, to adore and to love 
 with the same outward expression. And so the whole forms but one 
 Church and one worship. There is one altar in both, beneath whicli 
 the slain of Christ rest, and on which the same Victim-Lamb reposes ; 
 one censer from which prayer rises fragrant, from minister's to 
 angel's hand ; one bench of venerable elders, that sit or fall prostrate 
 in rich array around ; one choir, one song, one voice, one heart, one 
 
 " In one only respect would these services appear to differ : that 
 theirs is perpetual, uninterrupted, unceasing ; that the thrice-repeated 
 ' Holy ' echoes ever through those golden vaults, while we, only at 
 brief and distant periods, can unite in formal worship. But even 
 here the Spouse of Christ on earth would not be outdone ; and wish- 
 ful to rival the very deathless and sleepless watchfulness of those eyes, 
 that sparkle all over the Cherubim round the Throne of God, h she has 
 instituted at different periods modes of imitating the unfailing worship 
 of heaven. In early ages she taught her religious, in desert and in 
 monastery, to divide themselves into choirs, that day and night kept 
 up the praises of God in uninterrupted psalmody ; and in our days 
 (O happy and heavenly thought !) she has instituted this perpetual 
 adoration of the blessed Eucharist, of Him whom in heaven they so 
 worship, with us present as truly as with them. This it is, Dearly 
 Beloved, that we are going to introduce among you. 
 
 " But it is not your Saviour, ' as the hidden Manna' 1 of which you 
 partake, that you have here to reverence and love ; it is your Lord, 
 your God, triumphant over death for you, yet shrouding from you 
 His overpowering glory, to whom you have to pay your open and 
 solemn homage ; not enshrined in His poor tabernacle, where, be- 
 cause unseen, He is often unhonoured, but enthroned, as in heaven, 
 above His own altar, Lord of His own Sanctuary, centre of all 
 surrounding splendour, challenging, with love, deep adoration. Around 
 Him shall flame the hallowed tapers by whose pure ray the Church 
 symbolizes, however feebly, the bright Spirits that shine around His 
 heavenly throne. At His feet earth shall scatter its choicest flowers, 
 as its graceful tribute to Him that bloomed so fair from Jesse's 
 root. k On all sides shall be arrayed whatever of richness and splen- 
 
 h Apoc. iv. G. ' Apoc. ii. 17. k Isa. xi. 1.
 
 492 MINOR KITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 common to all the church THE BENEDICTION. Of 
 all the minor rites in the Catholic Church, there is 
 
 dour our poverty can collect, to adorn the chosen abode of Him, who 
 hath said: ' the silver is mine and the gold is mine,' ^ and does not 
 disdain any manifestation of our reverence. Hasten then, Dearly 
 Beloved, to bring whatever may be necessary to enrich the solemnity 
 of that happy day, when your Lord, in His kingly progress, shall 
 visit your own temple, saying, 'I will fill this house with glory,' m 
 and, whether it be splendid or lowly, shall there abide in special 
 state. Give proof to all that come there to visit Him, that you prize, 
 you cherish, you love this privilege which he bestows ; and that, like 
 Solomon and the people of Israel, you have ' gladly offered all those 
 things ' n which are requisite to its becoming, and even splendid, 
 enjoyment. And ' presently the Lord whom you seek, and the 
 Angel of the testament whom you desire, shall come to His 
 temple.' 
 
 " Oh ! then go forth with joyful hearts to meet and welcome Him ; 
 and leave Him not alone, so long as He shall condescend to dwell in 
 the midst of you. From that lofty mercy-seat whereon He hath been 
 placed, from that bright radiance in the midst of which, as a peerless 
 and priceless gem, He hath been set beauty Himself, essential Light, 
 and matchless Splendour there go forth on every side, not scorching 
 rays of glory, not burning shafts of might, but a mild and constant 
 flow of holiness and grace, which fills the entire space from roof to 
 pavement, with the very breath and air of heaven. Silent and soft, 
 as wave impelling wave of fragrance, goes forth, and diffuses itself 
 around, that savour of sweetness, that balm of life, that virtue which, 
 emanating from the sacred humanity of Jesus upon earth, healed all 
 diseases.? And from the threshold of this, His palace now, no less 
 than His temple, it will pass abroad, and spread itself on all sides, 
 till it reach your dwellings ; and, more powerful than that blessing 
 which the Ark of the Covenant (type, whereof you now possess the 
 reality) shed over the house of Obededom,i it will impart to them 
 peace and grace, and welfare spiritual and temporal. ' I will fill this 
 house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts . . . and in this place I will 
 give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts.' 1 
 
 " But now it is that you will practise that angelic worship, lost and 
 
 1 Aggeus ii. 9. m Ib. 8. n 1 Paral. xxiz. 17. 
 
 Malachi iii. 1. P Luke viii. 46. 1 2 Keg. vi. 12. 
 
 r Ag. ii. 10.
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 493 
 
 none more esteemed and loved by devout persons, 
 none more calculated to inspire true piety, and to 
 
 unknown out of the Catholic Church, the worship of pure adoration. 
 For beyond her pale, men may praise God, or address Him, or 
 perform other religious acts, but they cannot know or make that 
 special homage which His presence, as we possess it, inspires ; when, 
 without word spoken, or sound uttered, or act performed, the soul 
 sinks prostrate, and annihilates itself before Him, casts all its 
 powers, and gifts, and brightest ornaments, as worthless oblations 
 before His altar, and subjects its entire being, as a victim, to His 
 sole adorable will. When first, then, you approach the place where 
 He is solemnly worshipped, as you humbly bend your knees, and 
 bow your heads, let this deep and silent adoration be your first act. 
 Speak not in words ; forget all selfish thoughts ; repress even all eager 
 longings of your hearts ; and receive the benediction of your mighty 
 Lord in solemn stillness ; while you, reputing yourselves but dust and 
 ashes at His feet, a nothingness before Him, tender Him the homage 
 of loyal vassals, humbled as the clay before the potter, 8 as the crea- 
 ture before its G-od. Then raise up your eyes, those keen eyes of 
 Faith, which, through the veil of sacramental elements, see, as John 
 did, ' in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one like to the 
 Son of Man ; n yea, the adorable Jesus, the king of your souls ; and 
 there feast long your sight upon that sacred Humanity, which love 
 hath given Him, and with it kindred and brotherhood, and ties of 
 tenderest affection with you. And now speak to Him, but with out- 
 poured souls, with the unrestrained familiarity of warmest friendship, 
 face to face no longer with the awful Lord, like Moses or Elias, on 
 Horeb, u but with them, and Peter, and John, on Thabor,* where you 
 see Him radiant with His own light, but mild and inviting love. 
 
 " Pray to Him now for your own salvation and for that of all 
 mankind. Pray for the exaltation of His holy Church, for the happi- 
 ness and prosperity of its supreme Pastor, our dear and afflicted 
 Pontiff. Pray for the propagation of the true Faith, and the con- 
 version of all in error, and especially of our own dear country. Pray 
 that God will mercifully remove from us the scourges and judgments 
 which we have deserved by our sins, and remember no longer our 
 offences, nor those of our parents, but rather show us mercy, and 
 give to us His good gifts, but principally, His grace, holiness of life, 
 and perseverance in His holy service. 
 
 8 Isa. xxix. 16. l Apoc. i. 13. 
 
 u Exod. xxxiii. 11; 3 Eeg. xix. 11. x Ps. cxxxi. 7.
 
 494 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 draw down blessings. We know places where several 
 conversions are attributable to its solemn celebration ; 
 and others where not a little has been effected by it, 
 towards exciting a thoroughly Catholic spirit, and 
 keeping fervour alive. Abroad, its hour usually varies 
 with the season. It is made to close the day ; when 
 its labours are over, and when the time generally 
 given to exercise and recreation is ending, there are 
 
 " And then, oh ! never think of rising from before Him, without 
 thanking Him, from your hearts, for this miraculous institution of 
 His power and goodness, this sweetest pledge of His love. Adore 
 Him now again, as the Treasure of your souls, the Food of life, the 
 living Bread that cometh down from heaven, your Consoler, your 
 Strengthener, your surest Hope in life and death. Speak to Him of 
 the kindness, of the self-abasement, of the immense condescension 
 which He here exhibits ; of the untiring affection for poor man which 
 He displays, in bearing with so much coldness, ingratitude, and even 
 sacrilege, as this blessed memorial of His death exposes Him to ; of 
 the still more incomprehensible excess of love, which makes Him 
 communicate Himself daily to us, frail and sinful creatures, as our 
 food, and thus brings our very hearts and souls into contact with 
 His ! And offer Him your humble tribute of reverence and love, in 
 reparation and atonement for those scoffs, contradictions, and blas- 
 phemies to which He has long been, and is daily subject in His 
 adorable Sacrament, and nowhere so much as in this unbelieving 
 land. 
 
 " But, Dearly Beloved in Christ, confine not your devotion to the 
 time when the opportunity for this heavenly act of most solemn 
 worship shall come to your very doors. Say rather, ' We will go into 
 His tabernacle; we will adore in the place where His feet have 
 stood.' y Make this, if possible, a daily devotion throughout the 
 Lent this daily worship of your divine Saviour, in His blessed 
 Eucharist. Fear not to penetrate where His humbler temples stand 
 in the midst of His poor ; let your faith guide you beyond the range 
 of your ordinary occupations, and the beat of worldly recreations, 
 holding that spot to be the most noble, the most sacred, and the 
 most highly privileged for the time, in which He is manifested, to be 
 publicly adored."] 
 
 Matt. xvii. 2.
 
 MINOR BITES AND OFFICES. 495 
 
 few towns in which the bell of some church or other 
 does not invite those who are returning home, to join 
 in the concluding homage of the day. Nay, so great 
 a favourite is this devotion, that if several churches 
 concur in performing it the same evening, they will 
 arrange so as to satisfy the piety of the people, by 
 enabling them to attend at more than one. And so 
 great is the concourse, and so eager the devotion, that 
 nothing is more common than to see the church full 
 to literal overflowing, and the breadth of the street 
 opposite the open door occupied by a kneeling crowd, 
 who thus receive the evening blessing of the Lord of 
 glory, and make an echo without, to the pealing hymn 
 within. What a soothing, delightful end to a day of 
 toil or of anxiety ! How reconciled to its pains does 
 one feel through it ; and how prepared for the duties 
 of home does one hasten from it ! With us, this 
 service is generally joined to vespers, or afternoon 
 prayers ; and whether from the inconvenience of the 
 hour,- or from some other cause, is often comparatively 
 scantily attended. Perhaps we have not as yet made 
 our people feel sufficiently the beauty and advantage 
 of the service; perhaps it is not always conducted 
 with sufficient dignity and solemnity to impress them 
 with its importance/ But this matter belongs not to 
 us ; all that we wish or have a right to do, is to 
 direct attention to the fact, that equal interest is not 
 felt amongst us for this most beautiful act of worship, 
 as we find elsewhere. And our desire, here, as in 
 everything else Catholic, is to excite and keep alive a 
 holy rivalry, that will not allow itself to be outdone, 
 to make us look, without foolish national pride, 
 upon the advantages which others have, determined to 
 
 z [These reproaches have no longer to be made. Benediction is 
 now a most decorous, as well as a most favourite, rite.]
 
 496 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 copy, and so to gain, them. We must assume the 
 decided attitude of Catholics ; we have no longer the 
 plea of persecution ; we cannot shelter ourselves 
 under the imaginary rights of a national establishment. 
 "We belong to the Church Catholic, the Orbis ter- 
 rarum Church, unfettered and uncompromised ; and 
 our aim should be to assimilate, to harmonize, to be 
 of one spirit as of one faith of equal fervour and 
 piety, as of equal profession and creed. 
 
 As another illustration of the beauties which the 
 Church presents to our admiration in her minor 
 offices, we may take the subject of the work before us, 
 which has led us to the consideration of this topic. 
 Its purpose is to recommend the devotion so little 
 understood, nay, often so much slighted, even by good 
 people in our country THE ROSARY. It is intended 
 as a manual, or guide, for those principally who adopt 
 it, in the modified form which the Church has lately 
 approved, of the Living Rosary. In this the various 
 mysteries are distributed among different persons, 
 who thus collectively weave together that flowery 
 crown of exquisite devotion, the chaplet (sweet old 
 name, which we would gladly see revived !), that 
 decks at once the divine Son and the Virgin-Mother. 
 
 " Digna Parens Puero, digue Pareute Puer!" 
 
 For a full explanation of this holy exercise, and for 
 an account of its origin, its advantages, and preroga- 
 tives, we will simply refer our readers to the work 
 itself. It will amply repay them ; and they will find, 
 in the meditations proposed to facilitate the practice 
 of contemplation (which forms an essential portion of 
 the Rosary), much tenderness of feeling and liveliness 
 of thought, that will be at once edifying and improving 
 to them.
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 4-97 
 
 Ours is perhaps a drier task, more barren and 
 didactic, to explain the theory of the devotion itself, 
 and so remove some prejudices which we know exist 
 against it. And perhaps the season at which we 
 publish this may not be inappropriate for the purpose. 
 
 We have already observed, that a great principle of 
 Catholic devotion is the endeavouring to feel as we 
 should have done amidst the scenes which excite it. 
 The Church in her public offices suggests this idea ; 
 she takes us successively to all the great events in the 
 history of our redemption, puts us vividly into them, 
 presents us to the actors, and instils into us their 
 feelings. We need not enter further into this view ; 
 because it is probably not new to any of our readers, 
 and it belongs rather to another subject. But we may 
 observe, that the grand charm, nay, the essential 
 power of St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises that 
 treasure of spirituality, that storehouse of devotion, 
 that none can rival consists in the vivid apprehension 
 of the mysteries of God, which the very senses are 
 made, in some sort, to serve. We are told by Goethe 
 that he trained himself to look at objects with the eye 
 of the great artists; so that in a group he could 
 discern what characteristics Raffaelle, or Guercino, or 
 Michael Angelo, would respectively have seized ; and a 
 landscape he would contemplate accordingly as Claude, 
 or Salvator Rosa, or Poussin would have done, each 
 drawing from it a different picture, though all true 
 representations. And so surely, if one wish to con- 
 template the tender scene of our Lord's nativity, one 
 would gaze upon it through the eyes of those poor 
 but happy shepherds who witnessed it, and try to feel 
 and adore, humbly and lovingly, as they must have 
 done ; or one may approach it in the train of the 
 eastern kings, and, with more distant veneration, offer 
 
 i 2 K
 
 498 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 up such gifts as God has granted us. Again, if we go 
 up, in devotion, to Calvary, we may place ourselves in 
 many different positions and aspects : we may look 
 upon THE CROSS from the gibbet of the penitent thief, 
 and take comfort from words spoken towards it ; or we 
 may think of Magdalene, and gaze through her tearful 
 eyes, and feel love, not unmixed with remorse, and 
 perhaps with indignation, too, against the authors of 
 all this woe (alas ! ourselves) ; or we may stand, with 
 John, love predominating over every passion, noting 
 diligently, with the evangelical eagle's ken, every 
 minute detail of sorrow, and every marvellous mystery 
 of charity. And after the glad third day, when HE is 
 risen again, we may find many ways of taking part in 
 so joyful an event : it may be shame and sorrow- 
 stricken, like poor Peter, or with spouse-like eagerness, 
 as Mary addressed the supposed gardener. But surely 
 there is One, who had a share in these and all other 
 such scenes, through whose eyes we should all be glad 
 to view them, in whose heart we should long to feel 
 them. If in the reflection upon another's soul we 
 wish to view the occurrences joyful, dolorous, or 
 triumphant through which mercy and glory were 
 purchased for us, there is one " Mirror of Justice," 
 bright, spotless, untarnished, which reflects them in 
 their full clearness and truth. Shall we not strive to 
 look upon it ? If these events called up feelings in 
 every spectator, in one breast alone they found depth, 
 and breadth, and strength enough to do them full 
 justice. Shall we not watch and study its heavings 
 and powerful throes? The maternal heart alone 
 could contain the ocean of bitterness, or the heaven of 
 joy, which these various mysteries were fitted to create. 
 And hence the natural desire of loving souls to be its 
 associate, and to stand with its venerable possessor in
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 499 
 
 sight of all that She saw, in hearing of all that She 
 heard, in observance of all that She laid up in her 
 
 heart. 
 
 ( stramen ) , 
 
 Juxta |crucemj tecumstare ' 
 Et me tibi sociare 
 
 T f foeno 7 i j 
 In < , [ desidero. a 
 
 ( planctu j 
 
 Now this is, to our minds, exactly the object and 
 practice of the Rosary. The history of our divine 
 Saviour's life may justly be divided into four periods. 
 The first comprises His blessed birth and childhood 
 bright and joyful days, no doubt, in spite of the 
 sorrows and trials that mingled with them. The 
 second includes the three years of His public mission. 
 The third is short indeed, but full of mighty events, and 
 crowded with awful, yet most affectionate recollections ; 
 it occupies but one day a day of sadness and gloom, 
 but a day in which more was done for man than had 
 been accomplished in four thousand preceding years ; 
 the day, for which those thousands had run of reno- 
 vation of all nature, more wonderful than that of its 
 first creation. Finally, the fourth is the glorious 
 period which commenced at the Resurrection, and is 
 continuing now, and will continue without end. Of 
 these four periods, unquestionably, there is not" one 
 which is not overflowing both with instruction and 
 with appeals to our affection. But it is clear that the 
 second is more especially devoted to the first, the other 
 three mainly to the last. A triple plea of love is 
 addressed to us by them, a plea which no heart that 
 meditates on them can resist. Now, it is during these 
 especially that we ever have a witness present, who can, 
 better than any one, convey to us the becoming feel- 
 ings wherewith we should strive to contemplate them : 
 
 a " Stabat Mater gaudiosa," and " Stabat Mater dolorosa." 
 
 2x2
 
 500 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 perhaps of our Lord's public life an apostle is the 
 best evidence, on whose mind the wonderful teaching 
 of the Mount opened gradually, unfolding mysteries 
 never before heard, or whose amazed senses saw the 
 first awakening to consciousness of the rising dead, 
 and the glad bound of the released cripple, and the 
 kindling glow of the cured blind man's countenance. 
 Or we may go into the hearts of those so benefited, 
 and, spiritually applying their case to our own, try to 
 imitate their sentiments. But while a Mother watches 
 over the birthplace of Jesus, or follows His patient 
 footsteps through torments to death, or exults in the 
 triumphs which ensue, no inferior companionship, no 
 smaller measure of feeling, no lower standard of 
 appreciation will be preferred. 
 
 This is, then, the devotion which the Church of God 
 proposes to us in the Rosary ; the contemplation of 
 the mysteries of this threefold portion of our Re- 
 deemer's life, in connection and sympathy with His 
 loving Mother's feelings in each. It is essentially 
 directed to Him; being, in fact, the noblest and 
 perfectest mode of meditating on Him. There is still 
 another view of it, which, it strikes us, will facilitate 
 and endear its practice to many ; and therefore we will 
 venture to unfold it. 
 
 The Church realizes to the utmost the communion 
 of saints, by making the intercourse between earth 
 and heaven as vivid as possible. The exclamations of 
 the old Christians at the martyrs' tombs were as bold 
 and direct, as though they had been addressing the 
 confessors in prison. And the Fathers represent 
 them to their hearers, as though present to them, 
 defending their cities from visible enemies, and actively 
 interesting themselves in their welfare. It is only 
 doing in their regard what she wishes to make us do,
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 501 
 
 towards their Head and Lord give the greatest 
 possible reality to her belief concerning them. She 
 existed in the small apostolic college, and the handful 
 of disciples who enjoyed our Lord's society on earth ; 
 the pious women from Galilee, and the few, like Joseph 
 of Arimathea, formed her laity, as the others did her 
 clergy. She increased in multitudes, but she strove to 
 alter not in feeling. "What the apostles felt towards 
 their Master they continued, no doubt, to feel after He 
 was ascended the same veneration, the same love, the 
 same trustfulness, the same desire to imitate Him. 
 And these feelings they would leave as a legacy to their 
 successors ; who, in their turn, would continue to them, 
 after they had sealed their testimony, similar attach- 
 ment, similar respect. Could Polycarp fail, to the end of 
 his days, communing spiritually with the beloved dis- 
 ciple John, by passing again and again, in holy medi- 
 tation, over the many happy hours during which he had 
 heard him recount every incident witnessed by him in 
 his Saviour's life, and listened to the fervent accents of 
 charity in which they were related ? The same kind 
 of communion, only more exalted, and more deeply 
 respectful, we way easily suppose to have been kept up 
 by those who enjoyed in life the familiarity of our 
 blessed Lady. 
 
 It has often struck us, that many who, in latter 
 times, have not scrupled to use the coldest, and even 
 disrespectful, language respecting her, would shrink 
 from the idea of acting similarly towards her, had 
 they lived in her day, and had her near. When, 
 particularly, we have heard the indignation of fancied 
 zeal break from female lips against any respect being 
 paid, or devotion expressed towards her who is the 
 peerless glory, the matchless jewel of her sex, we 
 have been led to think, how differently the heart that
 
 502 MINOR BITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 gave the tongue such utterance would have felt, had 
 its compassion been claimed by the venerable matron, 
 whose bereavement of the best of sons had been 
 caused for its sake. Many who can speak unkindly of 
 her in heaven, would have melted into compassion 
 over her on earth; would have kissed with deep 
 reverential awe the hand that had lifted from the 
 ground and received into a maternal embrace the 
 same sacred body, just born and just dead the 
 infant and the corpse ; and would have deemed it a 
 privilege inestimable, if granted them, to listen, low 
 upon the ground, to her many tales of joy and sorrow, 
 glowing in her delight, and softening in her grief, 
 and exulting in her triumph. That some holy souls 
 partook of such happiness, no one can doubt. During 
 the years that she survived her Son, she conversed 
 with His and her friends, an object surely of affec- 
 tionate regard and deep veneration. And of what 
 would she discourse so willingly and so well, as of 
 Him of whom her breast was ever full ? Or, how 
 would they express their love better than by making 
 Him their theme ? How easily does the imagination 
 depict the scene of some faithful follower, like Luke, 
 anxious to have accurate knowledge of all things from 
 the beginning, making inquiries concerning the earlier 
 periods of our Lord's life ; and then listening to the 
 marvellous history most sweetly told ; how fair and 
 reverent the Archangel came, and how her heart 
 fluttered when she heard his salutation, and how her 
 soul overflowed with consciousness of unheard of grace, 
 as she accepted his errand ; how wonderfully Elizabeth 
 greeted her, and how their infants mysteriously 
 rejoiced in mutual recognition ; how that cold Decem- 
 ber night was warmed and brightened by the first 
 appearance of her godlike child, and her breast
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 503 
 
 enraptured with heavenly delights, as He thence drew 
 His first earthly nourishment ; how holy Simeon 
 proclaimed His dignity, and showed Him honour in 
 the temple ; and how her three days' tears were dried 
 up, when she found her lost Son, sitting mild, and 
 radiant with celestial wisdom, amidst the old men of 
 the law. What looks, what emotions accompany the 
 recital ! With what breathless respect is it drunk in 
 by the future evangelist ! Or, we may fancy John 
 more privileged to tread upon that tenderer ground, on 
 which both have walked together, the path of the 
 cross, on some sad anniversary, dwelling with her 
 upon each afflicting event, recalling faithfully every 
 sacred word, till she voluntarily felt over again the 
 sword of grief which had pierced her soul. And then 
 would not change the theme, and pass over to the 
 bright Sunday morning, which saw him rise from the 
 grave to comfort the sharers of His sufferings, and to 
 how He mounted before them all to His proper seat, 
 at the Father's right hand, and thence sent down His 
 holy Spirit on them ? And who would now restrain 
 her thoughts from following Him in spirit thither, 
 and casting up a wistful glance towards the resting- 
 place for which she longed, in which she saw Him, 
 her sovereign love, prepared to receive and crown her, 
 when the fulness of her time shall be complete, and 
 the perfection of her patience manifested ? 
 
 Now, a contemplative mind, deeply, affectionately 
 contemplative, not envying, but striving to copy, 
 those who had such singular happiness as we have 
 described, will find in the holy Rosary the opportunity 
 of most nearly approaching it. Looking at the Blessed 
 Mother of God as only removed in place, not in 
 affection, changed in situation, not in heart, he will 
 love to entertain himself with her, as he would then
 
 504 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 have done ; will fix his eye on her, as he discourses 
 with her, in a devout salutation and prayer, upon each 
 of those mysteries, successively, in which she had 
 such an interest. Instead of the barren and distract- 
 ing form of prayer, which some complain they find it, 
 they will thus discover in it that mine of spiritual 
 riches, and that sweetness of consolation which we 
 know all those saints have found in it, who have been 
 particularly distinguished for their piety and devotion 
 towards the life and death of the Son of God, as well 
 as towards his loving Mother. 
 
 We may be asked, is this what may be called the 
 popular understanding of this devotion, and is it thus 
 that the poor in Catholic countries practise it ? We 
 answer, it is, as far as their capacity goes. They 
 know that each decade in the rosary has reference to a 
 particular mystery, and their catechism has taught 
 them exactly to know them all ; and whenever the 
 rosary is recited in common, the contemplation of 
 each is expressly suggested. And this advertence is 
 necessary to gain the indulgences granted to the 
 devotion. They direct, therefore, their attention to the 
 proper mystery, and say their prayers in its honour ; 
 this is sufficient. Ignorant persons cannot meditate 
 as well as the more instructed ; nor do they equally 
 understand the words of prayers, or lessons from 
 scripture read to them. But their good-will and 
 fervour do more than make up for this. Happy 
 should we be, if we could plead the same excuse ! 
 What we have wished to do, is to recommend this 
 devotion to those who fancy it insipid and unprofit- 
 able ; by showing that the most spiritual-minded may 
 find in it much food, wholesome and strengthening 
 food ; most sweet and delicious too. But we must 
 likewise add, that we have another ground for loving
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 505 
 
 this devotion, and encouraging all to it, those even 
 who find it difficult to realize in practice what we 
 have said. It is because it is the devotion of the poor 
 among Catholics, the devotion of the lowly, the igno- 
 rant, the afflicted, the humble beadsmen, the pauperes 
 Christi. It is with theirs that we wish our prayers to 
 be judged, not with the Pharisees' ! We dread the 
 thought of being one day interrogated concerning 
 them, as men of education, men of information, book- 
 men, that looked down upon the poor pilgrim at the 
 church-door, who could only repeat his Paters and 
 Aves. We look with fear to being asked, what we 
 drew out of our silver-clasped, velvet-bound prayer- 
 books, that the simple old peasant at the bottom of 
 the church did not get out of her beads, which we 
 despised ? Whether we have thence become more 
 earnest, more fervent, more humble, more devout ? 
 We like not that sentence of an ancient father, 
 " Surgunt indocti, et rapiunt regnum Dei ; et nos 
 cum nostris literis mergimur in profundum." So will 
 we be pleased to be reckoned among the poor, and 
 ask to be held to have prayed with them.
 
 ESSAY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 MINOR RITES 
 
 AND 
 
 OFFICES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 PART II. 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW for June, 1844.
 
 ESSAY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES, 
 
 ART. IX. 1. The Roman Pontifical for the use of the Laity. Latin 
 
 and English. Derby. 
 2. Itinerarium Clericorum. Latin and English. 1844. 
 
 IN a former paper we claimed the attention of our 
 readers to matters of a semi-liturgical character, under 
 the title of " Minor Bites and Offices;" and we have 
 been happy to find that our hurried and almost crude 
 suggestions have not been unfruitful. Indications 
 have reached us, from many quarters, of a strong 
 desire to introduce the beautiful devotion which we 
 there described, whereby perpetual adoration is given 
 to our Blessed Redeemer in His sacrament of love. 
 We cannot indeed but hope, after what we have 
 observed, that before long, something systematic and 
 properly sanctioned will be proposed, for carrying 
 what we ventured to suggest into execution. "We thus 
 feel encouraged still further to pursue our excursion 
 into this field of ecclesiastical and devotional recrea- 
 tion ; wherein, unfettered perhaps by positive duties or 
 injunctions, we are at liberty to ramble where we will, 
 and find delight in objects left somewhat to our choice. 
 Our object, in fact, in treating of such matters, is not 
 to inculcate obligations, but to excite a love and relish 
 (if it be given us to succeed) for practices long sup-
 
 510 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 pressed amongst us, by the unnatural and pent-up 
 existence to which we have been doomed, and which, 
 being unessential or unnecessary, will not always 
 revive without an impulse. One thing ever consoles 
 us : the Catholic fire requires but little to light 
 up its flame. It may seem to have fallen low, it 
 may have sunk into the ashes, it may have dwindled 
 to a spark ; but even so, one vigorous and generous 
 breath suffices to arouse its fading energies, and 
 make it burn again, as kindly and cheeringly and 
 brightly as before. England is a sufficient proof 
 of this. A few years have seen the revival, not merely 
 of the more solemn religious offices, which the evil 
 times had forced us to suspend or greatly to obscure, 
 but likewise of many lesser observances, which require 
 more than liberty, taste and relish for such things, 
 before they can well be followed. It has been with 
 these holy practices as with the ornamental accessories 
 to the essential parts of sacred buildings. We have 
 always preserved the altar ; but it was the altar of our 
 captivity, in mourning, in abjection, in un-Catholic 
 plainness, to use no harsher word : we now begin to 
 aim at something more, at ornament, even at splen- 
 dour, to our utmost reach. 
 
 It is not, therefore, a fastidious, discontented spirit 
 that craving after more than we have had till now ; it 
 is not an innovating, factious love of change that 
 striving after much till now neglected, and resting not 
 till it is recovered. The Catholic religion aims at 
 universality in every way : it seeks to pervade all space, 
 all life ; all bodies and souls ; all manner of actions ; 
 all seasons and times. Earth and air and sea can 
 feel its power, can be bound by its charms, can hear 
 its voice. It consecrates the mountain-tops by its 
 Lavernas, its Vallombrosas, its St. Bernards ; it blesses
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 511 
 
 the hill-sides by its quiet hermitages and rural chapels ; 
 it sanctifies the valley by its noble monasteries and 
 goodly churches ; it blesses the fields with its solemn 
 procession and litany-chant, where others " walk the 
 bounds," in merry sport ; a it dedicates the new house 
 with holy aspersion and priestly blessing, where others 
 will give a house-warming with carouse and dance. 
 The ship that is launched, to see the wonders of God 
 in the deep, is prepared for its perils, not by the bottle 
 of wine broken on its bows, in mockery of " chris- 
 tening" (for so it is called), but by the Church's 
 prayers, recited by her ministers. And may not one 
 think that Venice the sea-queen held her dominion 
 by the tenure of her yearly espousals ; when the Bucen- 
 taur went forth, with prayers and benedictions, to claim 
 prosperity for her noble argosies ; when no freight 
 ever returned from the East without a column or a 
 gem, or some rich stuff, or a relic for St. Mark's; 
 when her fleets bore pilgrims and crusaders to the Holy 
 Land, or ransoruers of slaves from paynim bondage, or 
 missionary ambassadors to Tartary and China; and 
 waged holy war with the corsair and sea-robber ? For 
 in those days, sea as well as land was a province of the 
 Church's vast empire ; and if you met a galley in your 
 cruise, it bore a cross or a crescent, it was Christian 
 or infidel ; and if the former, it was proud of its privi- 
 lege and knew how to assert it. And so likewise the 
 Catholic discoverers of distant lands, where they did 
 not retain their ancient names, showed that they knew 
 their calendar, and felt reverence for holy things, by 
 those names which they gave them calling them 
 
 a " And while we walk, good hearty talk 
 
 We lads will never lack, sir." 
 
 " Beating Bounds," in Songs and Ballads for the People, by the 
 Rev. John Neale.
 
 512 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 generally from the saint on whose day they descried or 
 reached the island or promontory, or to whom they 
 felt more particular devotion. Instead of which we 
 have now the map of the world, or at least the chart 
 of ocean, studded with the names of successive first 
 lords of the admiralty, or admirals of the red or blue, 
 names often unpronounceable to foreign navigators, 
 and perhaps no less unpalatable. For the Saints were 
 common favourites, of whom none could be jealous, 
 and whose names all knew and loved. 
 
 But Catholicity is no silent worshipper. If man 
 was made gregarious, his prayer must be choral, and 
 earth and sea must fill the air with their sweet con- 
 cert, and impregnate its entire space with harmonious 
 sounds. And this in two ways. Sometimes the voices 
 of multitudes congregated together in many places will 
 rise together, as in the public offices of the Church at 
 stated times ; sometimes the faithful are invited to 
 join, each where he may happen to be found, in 
 common acts of worship. This latter form of com- 
 bined praise or prayer is perfectly peculiar to Catholic 
 devotion. But first let us say a few words concerning 
 its harbinger or proclainier the good church-bell. Of 
 all musical instruments, it is by far the grandest. 
 Solemn or deep, or shrill and clear, or still better with 
 both combined in a choral peal, it is the only instru- 
 ment whose music can travel on the winds, can heave 
 in noble swells upon the breeze, and can out-bellow the 
 storm. It alone speaks to heaven as to earth, and 
 scatters abroad its sounds, till in the distance they seem 
 to come but by fragments and broken notes. Every 
 other instrument creeps on earth, or sends its sounds 
 skimming over its surface ; but this pours it out from 
 above, like the shower or the light, or whatever comes 
 from the higher regions to benefit those below. Indeed
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 513 
 
 it seems to call out from the middle space which 
 heavenly messengers would occupy, to make procla- 
 mation to man ; condescending to an inferior sphere, 
 but not wholly deigning to soil themselves with earth : 
 high enough to command, low enough to he under- 
 stood. The Levite trumpet had something startling 
 and military in it, that spoke of alarms and human 
 passions : every other vocal instrument belongs to the 
 world (excepting, perhaps, the noble organ, too huge 
 and too delicately constructed for out of doors), and 
 associates itself with profane amusement; but the 
 solemn old bell has refused to lend itself to any such 
 purpose, and as it swings to and fro, receiving its 
 impulses from the temple of God below, talks of 
 nothing but sacred things, and now reproves the 
 laggard, and now cheers the sorrowful, and now chides 
 the over-mirthful. But how shall this be done, without 
 articulate utterance ? In no wise, certainly ; but this 
 we maintain a Catholic bell hath, but not a Protestant 
 one. This has really only one sacred or ecclesiastical 
 office to perform, and that is to call to church. It 
 may to a certain extent tell you what for ; that is, you 
 may distinguish when a laughing full-swing sort of a 
 peal of all the bells tells you it is Sunday, from when 
 a more solemn knell summons any idle children or 
 people to look at a funeral. But beyond this, we defy 
 you to say what the bell from the church-steeple tells 
 you : whether that it is the birthday of one of the 
 patron's children, or that the squire's horse has won a 
 race, or that he has won his election. Nor can you 
 determine by its sound what sort of a feast-day it is. 
 One hears as merry a ring on a Sunday in Lent, or in 
 Passion-tide, as on the most joyful festivity. Nay, 
 perhaps some week-day festival may easily slip over, 
 and the iron tongue never wag. 
 
 2 L
 
 514 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 But, as we said just now, this is very different with a 
 Catholic bell, or ring of bells. It speaks as plain as 
 words to the people. " Suonare afesta, a doppio, or a 
 semi-doppio," " to ring a festival, a double, or a semi- 
 double" are terms as definite in the language of the 
 belfry as in that of the vestry ; the steeple is as good 
 as the almanack on the subject. The vespers on the 
 preceding day tell you, from the prelude of their 
 chimes, to what class the festival will belong ; and in a 
 town with many churches, you may know, from the 
 merry babbling of the little turret, even a small chapel 
 that intends next day to claim priority in devotion, and 
 therefore precedency in rank. Then, too, you know 
 exactly that in such another the holy benediction is 
 about to be given with the Most Blessed Sacrament ; 
 yea, even amidst the din and clatter from many others, 
 that are only ringing " good night" at the Ave Maria. 
 So that you may learn when and where to turn your 
 thoughts in prayer, and join those whose hymn of 
 adoration drowns the organ's fullest notes. But all 
 the other bells, too, seem to be understood ; for you 
 see the heads of many uncovered, as they proceed 
 homeward from walk or work. Here is one of those 
 cases peculiarly Catholic to which we have alluded, 
 where the bell has another use beyond that of "a3re 
 ciere viros." It is a signal for prayer, without change 
 of place, or of attitude : of a simultaneous prayer, of 
 a short and most expressive, and most beautiful prayer, 
 THE ANGELTJS. 
 
 Whatever we said in our first part respecting the 
 devotion of the K/osary, is fully applicable to this, 
 in some respects, its abridgment. For the prayer 
 which concludes it, begs of God to " pour His grace 
 into our hearts, that we who, through an angel's an- 
 nouncement have known of His Son's Incarnation,
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 515 
 
 may through His Passion and Cross, be brought to the 
 glory of His Resurrection." Here we see the leading 
 mystery of each part of the Rosary, or rather the 
 mystery which gives character to each division, of the 
 infancy joyful, of the passion dolorous, and of the 
 after-life glorious, summarily commemorated. But 
 the rest of the prayer (which we need not describe, as 
 to all Catholics sufficiently familiar) dwells exclusively 
 on the great and fundamental mystery of our Lord's 
 Incarnation, and that in the same manner as in the 
 Rosary, with immediate reference to Her who alone 
 was, of earthly beings, the conscious witness of its 
 being wrought. As everywhere else, so principally 
 here, she cannot be disjoined from her Son, in the 
 contemplation of what He did for us. 
 
 That they who cannot "pray always" with the 
 tongue, at least should pray sometimes, seems but 
 consonant to gospel precept. Time was, when the 
 faithful came to the church at the stated canonical 
 hours, and prayed jointly and publicly. But if we 
 have seen this spirit lost, we should at least preserve 
 jealously whatever savour of it yet remains. If the 
 whole day cannot be seasoned with what would pre- 
 serve it from corruption, let it, at least, be sprinkled 
 occasionally with the salt of prayer. If the mystical 
 number of the sevenfold office cannot be preserved, the 
 no less consecrated and mysterious triad may be easily 
 observed. And such is the Angelus : a short, uniform, 
 common, and in some sense, public, but withal, in 
 many respects, a personal and private devotion, within 
 each one's reach, wherever he may be; not likely 
 to interfere with any duty, or to interrupt detri- 
 mentally any occupation ; yet having its stated hours, 
 so as to constitute it a rite or compendious office of 
 the Church. This view of it, independent of any other 
 
 2L2
 
 516 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 consideration, should make it be cherished and prac- 
 tised by Catholics everywhere. In all communities 
 this is the case. The bell at the appointed hour gives 
 the signal; and upon it, every occupation, be it of 
 study or recreation, is suspended. The solitary student 
 in his cell puts down his pen, and turns to his little 
 domestic memorials of piety, picture or crucifix, and 
 joins his absent brethren in prayer. The professor 
 pauses in his lecture, and kneeling at the head of his 
 class leads the way to their responses : the little knot 
 engaged in cheerful talk or learned disputation, drop 
 their mirth or their cunning instruments of fence, and 
 contend more pleasantly in the verses of that angelic 
 prayer. Nay, even the sport and play of youth and 
 childhood are interrupted, to give a few moments to 
 more serious thoughts. Often have we been edified 
 with this practice as followed in religious houses and 
 places of education ; and have admired the ingenuity, 
 if we may so speak, of the Church, in thus securing, 
 at least at certain intervals, the exercise of that duty 
 which cannot be too frequent. But when, further, we 
 consider the object brought before the mind in these 
 few moments, we shall better see the beauty of this 
 daily rite. 
 
 There is no mystery, perhaps, in which Grace, not 
 merely in its inward and highest nature, but in its 
 exterior and corporeal form, or in its oral expression, 
 is more admirably and amiably set forth. Yea, and 
 running through all its compound forms of speech, be 
 it gracefulness or graciousness, it is all there. Where 
 has art found a richer vein, a lovelier theme, a fairer 
 rivalry between grace terrestrial and grace celestial, 
 than in the meeting of Mary and Gabriel ? Prom the 
 first dawn of pictorial art, it has been seized upon as 
 one which lent to the pencil the fittest subject for
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 517 
 
 graceful representation. Around the angel could be 
 thrown all the charms of a heavenly nature, clothed in 
 the human form ; a benign yet majestic countenance, 
 a commanding but still a reverential mien, ease and 
 dignity not unmixed with admiration and respect. 
 For in the ancient type of this sacred mystery, we see 
 not a fantastic shape, half-clothed in flying drapery, 
 making a descent on a rolling cloud, or perched on it 
 in an academic attitude, and waving the hand with 
 significant gesture, as if about to make a set speech ; 
 but the idea that the angel was in this his errand one 
 of " God's ministers " (Qui facit ministros suos ignein 
 urentem), suggests at once that he should appear as 
 such are wont to be clothed on earth. Accordingly, 
 he is almost unfailingly represented in ecclesiastical 
 array, never in that which belongs to the celebration 
 of the most sacred rite, but either in the sacerdotal 
 cope, or the diaconal dalmatic. This conventional 
 attire at once removes the figure from all participation 
 in mere profane or fanciful representations; and ex- 
 presses the connection between the heavenly, and the 
 earthly, Church. For if the Temple that is above, is 
 shown to us as a counterpart of the visible one on 
 earth; if there be an altar there with its oblation 
 upon it, and the martyred saints of God beneath 
 (Apoc. vi. 9), whether this be type or antitype of 
 ours; it seems most natural and most consistent, to 
 preserve to the utmost the analogy thus once given ; 
 and if angels administer at that altar, as priest or 
 deacon does at this (Ib. viii. 3), to make them resemble 
 one another, in their garb, as in their office. And, 
 indeed, if in the old law, heavenly apparitions, whether 
 of angelic, or of still higher, nature, assumed the 
 Levitical attire (Dan. x. 5), we may justly attribute to 
 them now, that of the hierarchy in the law of Grace.
 
 518 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 While thus in Christian art, not merely what depended 
 upon the painter's imagination beautiful lineaments, 
 and graceful movement, but that which was conven- 
 tional and symbolical, served to give majesty and 
 comeliness to the heavenly portion of the scene ; while 
 we may easily conceive, how every effort of feeling and 
 practical skill would be directed to express becomingly 
 the harbinger of grace, the herald of salvation; all 
 this was but subservient to a sublimer and holier 
 representation of her, to whom his errand was 
 addressed. 
 
 We may easily conceive the painter, who felt his 
 subject as the old masters did, baffled by what re- 
 mains. Modern notions would lead to think more of 
 the angel, and less of the angel's queen. How beau- 
 tifully does the tradition, respecting the picture of the 
 Annunciation, in Florence, contrast with this feeling. 
 The artist had completed the rest of his task, had 
 finished his archangel's head with exquisite feeling, 
 had given to it grace and beauty more than human, 
 had exhausted all his powers ; and despaired of giving 
 expression to his conceptions of the holy Virgin, whom 
 the angel was saluting. He knew that he must sur- 
 pass all that he had done, and produce a countenance 
 more radiant with celestial charms, than even he had 
 given to the angelic messenger. In vain he tried to 
 reach the type of grace which he had framed in his 
 imagination; every effort seemed more abortive, till 
 in sheer hopelessness he gave up the task, and fell, 
 through the weariness of mind, into a slumber. But 
 when he awoke, to his amazement and delight, he 
 found the figure painted, with such dignity and beauty, 
 and in so wonderful a manner, and in so short a time, 
 that no human hand could have achieved it. Hence 
 it came, and has continued, to be considered as an
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 519 
 
 
 
 angel's work. Now, let the reader think what he 
 pleases respecting this legend, it will remain a faithful 
 record of an artist's feelings, at a time when art was 
 the handmaid of religion. It will show how pure, 
 how sublime, was the conception which his mind 
 could form of that virtue, which the angelic salutation 
 set forth, " Hail ! full of Grace I the Lord is with 
 thee!" How transcending, not merely earthly, but 
 heavenly beauty in its outward manifestation 1 Nor 
 was the difficulty only there. The heathen artist had 
 an easy mode of raising his hero or his goddess above 
 humanity, by giving the features an unimpassioned 
 beauty, which seemed incapable of interest in sub- 
 lunary concerns. But the expression of countenance, 
 which the scene under our consideration required, was 
 very different. To stamp upon the face and attitude 
 the maidenly bashfulness which startles, without loss 
 of dignity, at the unwonted approach of a visitor; 
 the humility which shrinks, without baseness and 
 cowardice, from the proffered dignity ; the radiant 
 joy, which receives, without ruffling the serenity of 
 soul, the glad announcement of salvation; to repre- 
 sent a woman superior to an angel, not merely in 
 body, but in soul, unconsciously filled with the richest 
 outpourings of Divine blessing, the handmaid in mind, 
 in dignity the queen, might well have seemed superior 
 to the power of art, even when ennobled by the highest 
 motives, and supported by the holiest inspirations. 
 Who, that has contemplated this subject as repre- 
 sented by the blessed John of Piesoli, so justly called 
 "the Angelic," has not felt that it requires a saintly 
 mind to enter into the depths of artistic, as well as 
 theological, mystery, involved in this theme ? 
 
 The same feeling which suggested the propriety of 
 giving every superiority in it to her in whom "the
 
 520 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 
 
 mystery " was wrought, in place, in character, and in 
 expression, naturally inspired the respective attitudes 
 of the figures ; the angel often kneeling as he delivers 
 his message, while the Blessed Virgin is indifferently 
 either seated, or standing, or kneeling in prayer. 
 Protestant minds are sometimes shocked at this rela- 
 tive position ; but a Catholic heart seizes its propriety 
 at once. Before the angel's errand is completed, she 
 whom he addresses has become the dwelling of the 
 Incarnate WORD, consubstantial to the FATHER, and 
 true GOD : Him there enshrined he must adore : 
 independent of her superior dignity, well worthy of 
 such reverent salutation. While all that meets the 
 eye in this scene is graceful in the extreme, every 
 other sense seems no less greeted with its corre- 
 sponding gratification. The flowering lily, which 
 almost invariably springs from an elegant vase in 
 the modest chamber, seems to diffuse a pure fragrance 
 through it, as well as to symbolize the virginal purity 
 of the atmosphere we breathe; and the scroll which 
 waves in the angel's hand, guides the ear to the 
 sounds that proceed from his lips, the gracious salu- 
 tation of her " full of Grace." 
 
 But it is time that we recall ourselves and our 
 readers, from what may seem to be a wandering from 
 our subject. We have wished to show how truly the 
 Mystery selected for a triple daily commemoration in 
 the Church, is the " Mystery of Grace," in all its 
 forms ; how it seems to combine, more than any other, 
 earthly comeliness? spiritual beauty, divine excellence ; 
 to blend together the human and the angelic, and 
 make a scene which heaven and earth may equally 
 claim, yea, deem worth contending for ; wherein every 
 hue and shape, and every sound and accent, every 
 thought and feeling, melts harmoniously into a calm
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 521 
 
 but living picture of the imagination, on which the 
 mind dwells longingly, and seems to say : " Rorate 
 co3li desuper, et nubes pluant justum." Por whatever 
 of grace is visible or sensible, seems, and is, but 
 as nothing, compared with that which is inward and 
 hidden, with that dew of heaven, which comes " like 
 rain upon the fleece," tempering the breast that 
 clothed, in humanity, the eternal WORD, with grace 
 without paragon or parallel, unlimited, unfathomable. 
 So that, well may the Church, after having made us 
 pass a few moments in lively meditation each day, on 
 so gracious a Mystery, rehearsing minutely its three 
 stages of angelic salutation, of virginal consent, and 
 of Divine operation, conclude by the prayer, " GRA- 
 TIAM Tuam, quaesumus Domine, mentibus nostris 
 infunde." 
 
 "Well might the Angelus bell have inscribed upon it, 
 " Vespere, et mane, et meridie, clamabo et annun- 
 tiabo" (Ps. liv. 18). "At evening, morn, and noon, 
 I will call out, and give the angelic annunciation." 
 Eor this is truly the order of the ecclesiastical day ; 
 and, in southern countries of more Catholic atmo- 
 sphere, of the civil. With first Vespers comes in the 
 festival ; and the Ace Maria, with its clattering peal, 
 rings in the new day. We own we like it. We love 
 not the old day to slip away from us, and the new one 
 to steal in, " like a thief in the night," upon our 
 unconscious being, at the hour when ghosts walk, 
 without power to guard ourselves " a negotio per- 
 ambulante in tenebris ;" and when nature, abroad 
 and within us, most awfully personates death. We 
 like the day to die even as a good Christian would 
 wish, with a heaven of mild splendour above, enriched 
 in hue as its close approaches ; with golden visions 
 and loved shapes, however fantastically, floating in
 
 522 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 clouds around ; with whispered prayer, and a cheering 
 passing-bell, and the comfort, that when gloom has 
 overspread all, a new, though unseen, day, has risen 
 to the spirit ; that the vigil only has expired, that so 
 the festival-day may break. Then, when we awake 
 once more to sense and consciousness, let the joyful 
 peal arouse us, with the first dawn of day and reason, 
 to commemorate that Mystery which alone has made 
 the day worth living ; and greet, with the natural, 
 the spiritual, Sun, the Dayspring from on high that 
 rose on benighted man, and chased away the darkness 
 and the shadow of death wherein he sate. Who does 
 not see and feel the clear analogy ? And who will 
 neglect, if it be brought thus to his memory, to shield 
 himself behind the ample measure of this grace, 
 against " the arrow flying in the day," in its sharp 
 and well-aimed temptations. The which, when they 
 have reached their height, and when all the holy dew 
 of morning devotion seems to have well nigh evapo- 
 rated, we need new succour, and refuge "ab incur su et 
 daemonic nieridiano." At these eventful periods will 
 the Angelus bell call out to us aloud, and make the 
 joyful Annunciation, speaking in angel's words, and 
 angel's tone, to the gladsome, to the anxious, and to 
 the weary, heart ; gladsome at morn, anxious at noon, 
 weary at eve. Truly, it was a heavenly thought that 
 suggested the appointment of both time and thing. 
 For what can chime so well with the first of those 
 feelings and its season, as the glorious news that " the 
 Lord's angel " hath brought to earth such tidings as 
 his ? what can suit the second better than to speak 
 resignation in Mary's words : " Behold Thy servant or 
 handmaid," "fiat mini secundum verbum tuum?" 
 what can refresh the third, and cast forward bright 
 rays into the gloom of approaching night, more than
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 523 
 
 the thought, that God's own. Eternal Word dwelleth 
 ever amongst us, our comforter and help ? May then 
 the day be not far distant, when at the same holy 
 times, there shall set up from every steeple, such a 
 babbling of well-toned sounds, as may represent the 
 commotion of a believing city, on hearing, for the 
 first time, the announcement of redemption from 
 its Author come within it. There be the grave old 
 men that seriously pronounce, in measured tones, 
 their glad conviction ; and there be the joyous little 
 ones that lisp and prattle, and seem to disturb by 
 their shrill din the solemnity of the event. And so 
 shall there be the lordly tenant of the massive square 
 tower on abbey-church or minster, that takes much 
 to move him from his well-poised gravity, but who, 
 when once set a-going, delivers himself of his speech 
 in deep sonorous cadences, which all must hear ; and 
 there shall be the puny occupant of the quaint small 
 turret over the cell or chantry, that jerks himself to 
 and fro most briskly, and talks most volubly to every 
 passer by. And if their chimes combine not in 
 harmony, their meaning will join in holy accord, 
 and their mingled music will echo in the depth of 
 every Catholic heart ; and the murmured prayer 
 will swell from many lips, and rise to heaven on the 
 choral peal. 
 
 But must we wait for the day ? Why not make a 
 beginning? In the first place, whenever there is a 
 bell on a church or chapel, surely it fulfils not its 
 office, if it remain silent at those stated hours of 
 common devotion. Let us ring boldly, in spite of 
 ignorant inquiries at first ; they will lead to know- 
 ledge. Let the congregation be taught to understand 
 its summons and reply to them ; and first a few, and 
 then many, will join in the delightful prayer which it
 
 524 MINOR UITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 suggests. Secondly, where this appurtenance of a 
 church is wanted, let it be procured as speedily as 
 may be, and as tuneful as possible, and let the Bishop 
 for he alone can do it be prayed to hallow and 
 anoint it, and then let it be hung up in its watch- 
 tower to ward off evil by its holy warnings. But 
 thirdly, why not go somewhat further ? There are 
 many houses and families wherein common duties are 
 regulated, as in communities, by sound of bell. Why 
 should not a voice be given to this domestic herald for 
 better purposes ? Why may not the sound of the bell, 
 at stated times, invite to spiritual as well as to corporal 
 refreshment ; and at its sound the pen might stop, and 
 the piano-forte pause, and the needle be laid down, 
 while all the family unite in the Angelus ; and those 
 who are engaged in more homely duties have a 
 momentary respite, to blend the functions of Mary 
 with those of Martha ? Enough, however : we have 
 thrown out the suggestion, and we shall not despair 
 of seeing it cheerfully adopted. 
 
 We have had so much to say of the bell and its 
 office, that other holy rites connected with it come to 
 our thoughts. It is like passing from light to shade, 
 to go from the Angelus peal to the funeral toll. Nor 
 are we sure that our readers will be inclined to admit 
 a classification, which places among " minor rites and 
 ceremonies," the solemn function whereby the Church 
 commits to their last home the remains of her children. 
 Our reason for doing so is, that it does not belong to 
 the sacramental or liturgical order'; but may we not 
 assign another very good reason for such an arrange- 
 ment do we not treat it in England as a rite of very 
 minor character ? Nothing in fact seems to us more 
 fraught with reproach than this circumstance. There 
 is hardly a point on which the feelings of our people
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 525 
 
 want Catholicizing, more than on this. Of the thou- 
 sands that die, how many ever have Catholic burial 
 in other words Christian burial ? How many obtain 
 even the poor substitute of a domestic funeral, where 
 a few grains of blessed earth are cast into the shroud, 
 instead of the whole corpse being embalmed in the clay 
 which the first solemn consecration, and the continuous 
 blessings of ages, have made a fitting seed-bed of the 
 resurrection ? And of those that are anxious, or 
 whose friends are anxious, that they should have a 
 good funeral, how comparatively small is the number 
 who are mainly solicitous .about its religious charac- 
 ter ? How few seem to care whether priest or parson 
 reads a funeral service over them, so that the thing is 
 respectable ? How few make choice of place, through 
 consideration of holiness ? How few trouble them- 
 selves about the suffrage of their souls after death ? 
 
 We ask these questions of course entirely with 
 reference to England. In Ireland it is very different . 
 We know nothing more touching than the piety of 
 the poor Irish for their dead, and their traditionary 
 clinging to the sacred places of rest of their ancestors. 
 It may be true that there have been abuses, which the 
 zeal of the clergy has now pretty well extirpated, in 
 their wakes ; there may have been occasionally 
 tumultuous scenes of party conflicts at burials, which 
 afford good materials for writers of Irish romances, 
 fonder of the frailties, than of the virtues, of men. 
 But the long and silent train that will for miles follow 
 the bier, and join in carrying it, despite of modern 
 churchyard and cemetery tempting on the way, to the 
 ruins of some abbey-church, or the green mound on 
 the site of an old chapel ; the respectful demeanour of 
 every passer by ; the carelessness about manner com- 
 pared with the solicitude about place ; the true Catholic
 
 526 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 simplicity of the tombstone inscriptions (still ever 
 running in the old form, " Pray for the soul of A. B.") ; 
 the care for a full office, and a " month's mind," and 
 an anniversary on the part of the survivors, these 
 are evidences of a Catholic land, edifying and con- 
 soling. But in England it is far otherwise ; the 
 funeral arrangements are left to the barbarism of an 
 undertaker, who generally feels about the dead as a 
 salesman does about a beast, valuing him by what he 
 can make of him ; whose sole notions of propriety con- 
 sist in the frippery and trappings of mourning-coach 
 and hearse, in plumes and scarfs, and idle pomp, and 
 hollow parade, never more disgusting than then ; and 
 whose idea of Catholic peculiarities extends not 
 beyond the hideous pewter crucifix or the portentous 
 mitre, like a pair of shears, that he displays in his 
 window. Talk to him of the holy water vat and 
 sprinkler, of the processional cross and candlesticks, 
 of the thurible and incense, all prescribed by the 
 Catholic ritual, and tell him these must be prepared, 
 and he will think that you rave, or at least know 
 nothing of the matter. But of gloves, and scarfs, and 
 hatbands, and hoods, in which he places all the 
 sanctity of burial, he knoweth all the mysteries, i. e. 
 the profits. In other words, we have learnt from our 
 Protestant neighbours to treat a funeral as a civil 
 ceremony, as a mark of respect to the bodies of our 
 friends, not as a refreshment to their souls. "Were 
 the money which is thus foolishly thrown away, put 
 by (as has been lately, and we think most wisely 
 suggested), and applied to religious purposes, a fund 
 would be formed of considerable amount, in a very 
 short time. Let the poor of Christ bear the rich man 
 to his tomb, and bless his memory for the bountiful 
 alms, which, to be such, need not be a tithe of what
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 527 
 
 would go into the vampire hands of profane and 
 scoffing mutes. Let the humble beadsman, in his guild 
 apparel, drop his prayer into the open tomb, aye and 
 with it a tear of sincere sorrow and love, for the dole 
 that is dispensed to him and his family. Let the 
 brotherhood, in which he was enrolled, meet at evening 
 to chant their vespers and their matins ; and on the 
 morrow, return to attend and sing the solemn mass, 
 and then, with torch in hand, stand round the bier 
 while the sublime absolutions are chanted, and follow 
 the remains to the grave. Let this, we say, be done, 
 but all done as it should be, with the genuine pathos 
 of a Catholic ceremonial, and we are sure the living 
 would profit by it as well as the dead, for whose benefit 
 the rite is mainly intended. 
 
 For now this brings us to our point. Very few 
 Catholics know what the burial service of the Church 
 is, and very few consequently set a proper value on it. 
 We trust, that when " the Roman Pontifical for the 
 use of the Laity " shall have been published, we shall 
 see it succeeded by a Ritual of the same form ; and 
 thus we may hope to see our people gradually familiar- 
 ized with this, and other, beautiful offices. The differ- 
 ence between the Catholic and the Protestant burial 
 service is very striking in this respect ; that the former 
 is truly a great and sublime comprehension of the 
 terrors and the hopes of the Christian's death and 
 appearance before his Judge; the latter is but an 
 instruction and a consolation for survivors ; the one is 
 full of deep and earnest pathos, the other is but a 
 formal lesson, which no doubt is very impressive from 
 the circumstances under which it is recited ; the one 
 transports the thoughts and feelings beyond the grave, 
 fixes them on the threshold of eternity, and bears them 
 up to a corresponding pitch ; while the other keeps us
 
 528 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 standing still in this world, looking as spectators at, 
 and taking hope from, another's fate. The one, 
 moreover, verifies the communion of saints, practically 
 establishing interchange of holy offices hetween the 
 living and the departed; the other pretends to do 
 nothing for them that sleep, but only turns the 
 thoughts to those on earth. How sublime the opening 
 of the Office for the Dead, "" Hegem cui omnia 
 vivunt, venite adoremus ! " "The King to whom all 
 things live, let us adore ! " How appropriate the 
 choice of the Psalms, and how happy their antiphons ! 
 How touching the lessons from Job, which, while they 
 describe the sad condition of humanity, of its pains 
 and trials, comfort us for those who have escaped them, 
 and make us long to be dissolved and to be with them 
 in Christ ! How beautifully too, the lauds themselves 
 seem to have their naturally cheerful tone veiled over, 
 with a seriousness which tempers them to that just 
 medium of Catholic feeling, distant equally from 
 melancholy and from exultation ! "We rejoice in them, 
 but it is with a calm and sober joy. And passing over 
 that more important and most sacred portion of a 
 complete funeral service, the Mass of Requiem, with 
 its sublime Dies Irce, and its appropriate suppressions 
 and modifications so suitable to the occasion, how 
 much more capable of inspiring comfort and hope 
 is the hymnal expression of these feelings in the 
 Catholic form, than the sententious and didactic 
 manner in which the Anglican attempts to do it ! 
 When the corpse is borne into the church, how 
 encouraging the song wherewith it is greeted ! " Sub- 
 venite Sancti Dei, occurrite Angeli Domini, susci- 
 pientes animam ejus; offerentes earn in conspectu 
 Altissimi. Suscipiat te Christus qui vocavit te ; et in 
 sinum Abrahse Angeli deducant te ! " Or again, as
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 529 
 
 the body is borne to the grave : "In Paradisum 
 deducant te Angeli ; in tuo adventu suscipiant te 
 Martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jeru- 
 salem ! Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum 
 Lazaro quondam paupere seternam habeas requiem !" 
 One would imagine such anthems must have pealed 
 through the catacombs, when the sacred remains of 
 martyrs and confessors were borne along them towards 
 their tombs ; so fully impressed do they seem with 
 consciousness of real sympathy between the earthly, 
 and the heavenly, and the suffering Church. But of 
 the Catholic service, the true advantage and recom- 
 mendation to the believer are, that it contains the 
 intercession of the Church for him, prayers poured 
 forth in her name on behalf of his soul ; whereas, if 
 he permit the Protestant service to be performed over 
 him (at least by choice), it is, in truth, an heretical 
 piece of worship to which he makes himself a party, 
 and at best a mark of civility to his coffin, paid by a 
 gentleman in a surplice. The latter is certainly useless, 
 but what is the former? We do not see how a 
 Catholic can seriously and conscientiously make up 
 his mind to this unorthodox ministration. We cannot 
 measure the exceeding tenuity of his Catholicity, if 
 on his death-bed he looks back with sorrow on a past 
 life, the irregularities of which he feels are far from 
 atoned for, the duties whereof he knows have been 
 but most imperfectly discharged, the hay and stubble 
 of which he sees must burn awfully before the gold 
 and silver can issue annealed from the furnace ; and 
 then coolly orders, that, after his death, his body may 
 be laid in some picturesque cemetery, or some newly- 
 built vault, by hands " which drop not myrrh," that is 
 expiation, into his tomb, and by an office in which 
 certainly God and his holy Angels can have no part. 
 
 2 M
 
 530 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 "We cannot understand a belief in, and a wholesome 
 fear of, the scouring, searching flames of God's puri- 
 fying crucible, compatible with the cold indifference 
 respecting all that the Church teaches, may send dew 
 to temper its scorching heat. .But the true Catholic 
 must u wish even after death, as in life, to belong to the 
 Church of Christ. He wishes to see his last hours 
 surrounded and defended by her holy succours, by the 
 prayers of her ministers, by the intercessions of her 
 faithful ; and, when his soul is gone to the bosom of 
 its Creator, would fain have even the clay which the 
 Waters of the Holy Spirit have purified, the Chrism 
 of Salvation consecrated, and the Bread of Life 
 nourished, in custody of her who has lovingly cared 
 for him when one of her earthly children. He can 
 understand the difference between the two faiths, the 
 real and the pretended mother, when the one sums 
 up its last office by the warrant-like declaration : 
 " Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His 
 great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our 
 dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his 
 body to the ground : earth to earth, ashes to ashes, 
 dust to dust," &c.: and the other begs of God to 
 depute one of His holy Angels to guard over the tomb, 
 and keep custody over its hallowed deposit (in beautiful 
 allusion to our Blessed Redeemer's resurrection), and 
 to preserve its dust from profanation and insult. 
 
 It is this Catholic idea which has ever instilled into 
 the true son of the Church, a feeling at variance with 
 stoical indifference, as to place of sepulture. It was 
 the desire of the ancients to be placed in death near 
 the tombs of martyrs whom they had honoured in life ; 
 and our Anglo-Saxon kings, more than others, seemed 
 glad to prepare for themselves the enjoyment of a 
 spectacle which St. John Chrysostom describes in such
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 531 
 
 glowing colours, the rising of the glorious Apostles 
 SS. Peter and Paul from their tomb on the last day ; 
 by choosing for their burial-place the porch of their 
 Basilica. It would seem to them as if some protection 
 would be granted them at that terrible moment, by the 
 holy sharers of the common cemetery, and as if the 
 sacred relics, of those who could raise the dead to life, 
 would communicate the virtue of a happy resurrection 
 of a baser dust that reposed beside them. But how 
 alien from such feelings would the modern cemetery 
 system have appeared, under which a motley heap of 
 persons, bound by no common tie of religious belief, 
 are thrown together, Christian and infidel ; adorer 
 and scoffer of the same God ; worshipper and hater of 
 the same altar ! How utterly dead the conviction, 
 how extinct the faith, that feels no shudder at being 
 thus laid, as if cut off from all communion of the 
 faithful by death, caring not for the prayer that might 
 be uttered in the Catholic churchyard, over the graves 
 of the sleepers there, or for the sprinkling of the 
 hallowed water on the sod from priestly hand ; but 
 only desirous that the pyramid or obelisk over, and 
 the neatness of the shrubs around, the tomb, should 
 attract the notice of the loungers, who go to walk 
 in the pleasant cemetery ! There is nothing more 
 wanted, especially in or near large towns, than pro- 
 vision for Catholic burial. The late investigations 
 into this matter have shown, that we are the worst 
 provided of any religious body in England with space 
 for fitting interment ; and yet we must upon principle 
 be the people who, of all others, attach meaning, 
 value, and spiritual advantage, to the place of sepul- 
 ture. It seems, therefore, a positive duty to turn our 
 thoughts seriously to this matter. 
 
 A variety of topics crowd themselves upon us, well 
 
 2 M 2
 
 532 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 worthy of being explained or illustrated. We should 
 like much to speak, for instance, on the work at the 
 head of our article the Itinerarium Clericorum 
 a beautiful little office for a journey, prescribed to 
 clerks, but not less appropriate for laymen ; or of the 
 recommendation of a departing soul, a prayer of 
 exquisite beauty as well as of touching sublimity ; or, 
 again, of the many blessings, of a house, or food, or 
 fields, or of water. To these we might add many 
 others, little known and less practised, yet well worthy 
 of being both. But while want of space compels us 
 to pass over them, we do not like leaving our subject, 
 without a few words on one rite ; for we know not 
 how else to call it, though a silent one, and, at the 
 same time, a perpetual one. Our readers will hardly 
 guess what we mean ; but we allude to the truly 
 Catholic and sound practice, of ever keeping a lamp 
 lighted before the adorable Sacrament. Into the 
 doctrine on this subject we are not going now to enter. 
 "We will content ourselves with saying, that whoever 
 will look into this part of the matter, may be not a 
 little startled, by the strong and repeated decrees, 
 which make it clearly matter, not of choice, but 
 of absolute obligation, to keep a lamp burning, day 
 and night, before the place where the blessed Eucharist 
 is reserved. How far absolute inability to comply with 
 these orders may excuse from their observance, without 
 positive dispensation, it is not for us to inquire ; but 
 of this we feel sure, that nothing short of such a 
 distressing motive can or ought. The pressure of perse- 
 cution may suspend general laws ; and an understand- 
 ing, explicit or tacit to that effect, will always exist 
 where it is found. But the Church is endued with 
 wonderful elasticity ; and upon removal of pressure, 
 however severe, and however prolonged, strives and
 
 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 533 
 
 struggles to regain her former position and bearing. 
 When, therefore, we have felt or held ourselves 
 excused, on the ground of danger, from observing 
 certain matters of discipline, such as we are treating 
 of, it seems to become a serious subject of inquiry, 
 never to be lost sight of, whether or no the time is 
 come, for resuming the exacter observance of what 
 has been suspended. Nor can the solution be very 
 difficult ; for it consists in ascertaining, whether or no 
 the causes have ceased which formed the excuse. 
 Thus, we have not held ourselves bound, for three 
 centuries, to keep a lamp before the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, because this would have only pointed It out, 
 and betrayed It, to sacrilegious foes, and brought 
 death on Its ministers and ruin on their harbourers. 
 If so, is this the case now ? Will any pursuivant or 
 tipstaff be guided, by the holy lamp before the altar, 
 to accuse us of treason or felony, or to seize and 
 profane the treasure which it honours ? Nay, will 
 even a thief be thereby tempted ? We know, on the 
 contrary, that such a light has proved a protection 
 from sacrilegious rapine. If then the pleas for 
 exemption have ceased, why has not the exemption? 
 
 " Because we are too poor to maintain so heavy an 
 expense." Our first inquiry, upon hearing such a plea, 
 naturally is, have you really, and with practical views, 
 calculated the expense of such an appurtenance of 
 Catholic worship ? Are you aware that a few shillings 
 a year would defray it? We believe there is great 
 error prevalent in this matter; and that in truth 
 there are not many places in England, where, if the 
 true spirit and meaning of the discipline were infused, 
 means could not be found to observe it. It is, in fact, 
 one of the most beautiful symbolisms in the Church. 
 This light, ever burning burning through the dark-
 
 534 MINOR RITES AND OFFICES. 
 
 ness, the silence, and the solitude, of night ; burning 
 in the glare of the most sunny day, in the most 
 crowded service, most aptly represents the unceasing 
 homage wherewith the Lord of Glory should be greeted 
 in that, His dwelling, that untiring, unfailing, wor- 
 ship which the heart should pay Him for "mercy, 
 which endureth for ever." That watchful lamp seems 
 to do our duty, and represent our affections, ever 
 glowing, ever bright, in cheerful devotion. It is 
 symbolical too of the ever wakeful homage of the 
 celestial host, who, with unclosing eye and restless 
 tongue, watch and give praise before the shrine, as 
 before the throne, of the Lamb. And it forms, more- 
 over, a just analogy with the enjoined mark of respect 
 in the old law, where the golden candlestick was 
 commanded ever to burn before the entrance of the 
 Holy of Holies. These reflections open to our minds 
 a long train of thoughts in which we would gladly 
 indulge. To do them justice, we should have to go 
 into a subject very agreeable to us, but requiring some 
 development, the symbolism of Catholic worship in 
 general, and of sacramental actions in particular. 
 While there is much attention now turned to the 
 symbolical arrangement of churches, and to the sym- 
 bolical forms of their ornaments, there is, we appre- 
 hend, some danger of overlooking the far deeper 
 mysticism of functions, ceremonies, and smaller rites. 
 Of this we have abundant proofs in the writings of 
 some late revivers of this species of lore, Anglicans, 
 who seem to think that they have made wonderful 
 discoveries in the symbolism of architecture, but who 
 fall lamentably short of the real depth of mystic 
 knowledge. 
 
 Eor the present, we will take leave of our subject, 
 strongly recommending attention to the last topic on
 
 MINOR BITES AND OFFICES. 535 
 
 which we have touched ; and hoping that before long 
 the piety of the people will not allow the reservation 
 of the most holy Eucharist to be less honoured than it 
 deserves, but will provide for every place where it is 
 permitted, the most appropriate, significant, and 
 beautiful mark of devotion and love, the lamp un- 
 extinguished in the sanctuary, the characteristic of 
 the Catholic altar, the emblem of the day-star that 
 sets not ever " ille inquam Lucifer qui nescit 
 occasum.' 
 
 b 
 
 b [The wishes, here expressed, have been in a great measure fulfilled. 
 There are few churches comparatively now, in which a burning lamp 
 does not shine before the altar of the most Blessed Sacrament.]
 
 ANCIENT 
 
 MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW for Dec. 1843.

 
 ANCIENT 
 
 AND 
 
 MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 ABT. IX. A Voice from Some, A.D. 1842. London, 1843. 
 
 WE should not have thought of noticing this small 
 pamphlet, consisting of letters lately published in the 
 English Churchman, were it not that we consider it a 
 type, a representation, of a certain class of views, 
 which we are inclined to treat with respect, though 
 sometimes, we own, it is hard to do so. 
 
 In England, we helieve we may say, that there are 
 three different systems of ideas of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The first is the true one, to which we of course hold 
 with all our souls : that the Church in communion 
 with the Holy See alone represents Catholicity, and 
 that she alone has the prerogative of heing the Spouse 
 of the Lamb, and as such " without spot or wrinkle;" 
 that they who would have truth and holiness, must 
 come into her as she is, without haggling or pre- 
 tending to make terms ; or, Donatist-like, holding out, 
 till she may choose to alter or modify herself to their 
 taste. 
 
 The second is that peculiarly happy conception of 
 Catholicity which sees all its attributes and character- 
 istics in the Anglican establishment, just such as it 
 is; which would not for the world disturb an atom 
 of existing things, would not think of transforming
 
 540 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 the lawn into the cope, or the table into an altar, 
 nor of interfering with the arrangements, domestic, 
 ecclesiastical, or civil, of the clerical body. This is 
 the comfortable theory of public meetings on religious 
 subjects, and of Church societies of all sorts ; and may 
 be considered as under the especial patronage of the 
 bench of bishops and other dignitaries. Such phrases 
 as " our truly apostolic Church," " our apostolic 
 branch of the Catholic Church," " our pure and 
 primitive Church," are its tocsins and its watchwords. 
 Par is it from our intention at present to disturb their 
 slumbers, who sleep comfortably on this system. It 
 is to the upholders of the third that we wish prin- 
 cipally to address ourselves. This is a sort of middle 
 course, not the old (we trust exploded) via media 
 system, but one which would fain have a Church 
 moulded between present Catholicity and present 
 Anglicanism. It considers the tone of the one too 
 high, that of the other too low ; and it would lower 
 the one, and screw up the other, till both accorded 
 upon a middle note. To what extent each change 
 should be carried, whether Home should relax more 
 than England strains, or whether the task should be 
 equally divided, is by no means a settled point. For 
 we suspect, lhat if those who wish for unity upon this 
 theory were asked, first to settle among themselves 
 the amount of curtailments, modifications, and changes 
 of every sort which would, satisfy them on our parts, 
 no two would be found to agree upon the exact line 
 which we must descend to, to meet the alterations in 
 an ascending direction, which they would ask from 
 their own establishment. 
 
 And now to our reason for noticing the little work 
 before us. It is the production of one belonging to 
 the last of these classes, and is characteristic of many
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 541 
 
 persons in it. Its purport is to hold the balance be- 
 tween the evil (as its author deems it) and the good, 
 which Rome presents to a two-years' observer. We 
 have heard lately of several English travellers, engaged 
 in the occupation that has given birth to these pages ; 
 of persons who go about not as formerly, to gaze on 
 the wonders of modern art, and explore and sketch 
 the remains of ancient grandeur ; but to pause, pencil 
 in hand, opposite any memorial of rustic piety, or the 
 more devout, than scientific, images on the walls of 
 the Suburra or of Trastevere, and there, to the astonish- 
 ment of passers-by, note down the rude and simple 
 rhymes inscribed under them; who enter churches 
 and basilicas, not to venerate the memory and relics 
 of apostles and martyrs that repose therein, but to 
 spy about, beside and behind the altars, to detect any 
 lurking tablet that proclaims an indulgence. These 
 memorials are carefully noted down, and published as 
 documentary evidence of the corruptions of the Apos- 
 tolic Church and See. "With such materials our author 
 has filled upwards of thirty pages ; while, as a set-off, 
 to show his impartiality, he gives us in half that 
 number, an account of the countless and boundless 
 charities of that city, which is as great in the practice 
 of the third, as it is in the mastery of the first, 
 theological virtue. 
 
 Now what is the practical conclusion to which such 
 modes of investigation, and their accompanying course 
 of reasoning, are meant to lead ? Clearly this : " Rome 
 may be the first and mother Church ; she may hold 
 all the prerogatives granted to Peter; she may have 
 right indisputable to the veneration, the love, nay the 
 obedience, of all men and of all Churches ; she may 
 be the true and rightful centre of unity, to which all 
 should cleave ; she may have been the only preserver
 
 542 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 of many great doctrines, the only deposit of many holy 
 traditions ; she may alone have nourished heroic piety, 
 ascetic fervour, virginity, mortification, the spirit of 
 martyrdom ; she may have exclusively produced down 
 to our times real saints, like St. Charles, or St. Teresa ; 
 she may unrivalled present the pattern of Christ's 
 Church in its universality and its oneness ; all these I 
 concede to her as clearly her right ; hut so long as the 
 Pope allows these doggrel inscriptions to remain on 
 the walls, and does not recall his concession of those 
 certain indulgences, I, A. B., pronounce that all those 
 claims go for nothing ; I set up my judgment against 
 that of the Apostolic Church, and, having settled in 
 my mind that these things are idolatrous, super- 
 stitious, &c., I declare that it is better to forego all 
 the privileges of communion with the Church, than 
 yield to her teaching and assurance, that they are not 
 so, or believe myself more likely to mistake and mis- 
 understand than her." Such is the conclusion shall 
 we say it ! to strain out such gnats of abuses (taking 
 them at their very worst) and justify one's self for 
 swallowing the camel of schism, aye, and with a good 
 hunch of heresy upon it ! 
 
 But, alas ! how easy it is to make for ourselves 
 excuses, when we cling to an error. These, and such 
 other topics, are put forward by many persons, as pleas 
 and reasons for their not joining the communion of the 
 Holy See, as bars to the possibility of the Anglican es- 
 tablishment's being again united to it. Let us therefore 
 come to terms. Let us suppose that His Holiness were 
 to accede to their wishes, and order an abundant appli- 
 cation of whitewash to the obnoxious localities, so as to 
 efface every inscription which any of these theological 
 tourists may consider objectionable ; were to withdraw 
 every concession of indulgences more ample than they
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 543 
 
 would approve of, and forbid by stern laws any one to 
 wish his neighbour in salutation, the blessing or prayers 
 of our Redeemer's Mother (for these form one head of 
 accusation) ; let us, in one word, assume that all the 
 grievances pointed out by the " Voice from Rome," or 
 other such works, were at once redressed does any 
 one imagine for a moment, that the English Church 
 would at once rush repentant to the arms of her 
 offended Mother, or that the crosier of Canterbury, 
 which assumes to be that of St. Augustine, would be 
 laid at the feet of St. Gregory's namesake and suc- 
 cessor ? It must be the merest delusion to imagine 
 that these are the obstacles to unity : a thousand pre- 
 judices, a thousand passions, a thousand interests, and 
 what is worse than all, but cannot be numerically 
 described an utter deadness of feeling, an insensibility 
 to the claims or importance of religious unity in those 
 who occupy high places, and a cold political idea of a 
 -Church, in her rulers, secular and ecclesiastical ; these 
 form obstacles which no concession on our part could 
 at present remove. Let those, then, who really desire 
 unity, look for it themselves and for themselves. We 
 would recommend to them the epistle addressed by 
 St. Augustine to a nun, who, being a convert, was so 
 greatly shocked at the disorders which she thought she 
 had found, or even had really found, in the lives of 
 Catholic ecclesiastics, that she was thereby tempted to 
 return to her former schism. Now that great Father 
 does not attempt to deny the truth of her allegations, 
 but strongly exhorts her not to allow these apparent 
 evils to lead her astray to a schismatical communion, 
 in which she could not have salvation. " Si enim de 
 isto sseculo exires separata ab unitate corporis Christi, 
 nihil tibi prodesset servata integritas corporis tui." 
 And further he tells her concerning those whom she felt
 
 544 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 inclined to rejoin : " Ab ea (Ecclesia) vero separati, 
 quamdiu contra illam sentiunt, boni esse non possunt ; 
 quia etsi aliquos eoruni bonos videtur ostendere quasi 
 laudabilis conversatio, malos eos facit ipsa divisio." a 
 
 The persons with whom we are dealing, cannot con- 
 sider these sayings hard from us ; for they take great 
 pains to make out our Church to be not only corrupt, 
 but idolatrous, in order to screen themselves from the 
 imputation of schism. We, in return, must deal 
 plainly with them ; and they must not be more sen- 
 sitive than they wish us to be. We know that many 
 people unfortunately adhere to the Anglican system 
 on other grounds, equally untenable, but at least not 
 unjust nor unkind to us, who would not allow the 
 imputations of this class of persons to be valid. With 
 these we are not at present dealing ; we have in mind 
 those who sit in judgment upon the Church, and rely 
 on their own partial views, for justification of their 
 remaining out of her communion. 
 
 However, we feel disposed to treat even them in 
 a more good-natured tone than some of our remarks 
 may seem to indicate ; for, really serious as are the 
 charges made against us, we can afford to be good- 
 humoured under them. This outcry about abuses, and 
 particularly about idolatry, or the peril of it, has been 
 a standing war-cry of the Church's enemies from the 
 beginning ; and we may very calmly listen to it, after 
 the indignant castigations it has received from St. 
 Jerome. Eunomius, Porphyry, Vigilantius, were loud 
 in their day, in denouncing the honour shown to saints 
 as excessive, superstitious, and idolatrous. They were, 
 in this respect, the Protestants of the earlier ages. 
 They employed the very arguments now urged against 
 us ; they spoke nearly in the same words. There is 
 a Ep. ad Feliciam, ep. ccviii. torn. ii. col. 776, ed Bened.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 545 
 
 consolation in this ; and we feel almost a pleasure in 
 having to speak on behalf of our poor and ignorant 
 brethren, as that father did in defence of " the igno- 
 rance and simplicity" of some pious men, and women 
 more particularly, in his time, when he asks, with 
 similar feelings, " Idololatras appellas hujusmodi ho- 
 mines ?" b And in order to carry out our intention of 
 keeping a good temper in our discussion, we have a 
 mind to pursue it entirely by the pleasant mode of 
 historical narration. "VVe mean to add rather to the 
 budget of facts, which the industrious collectors, of the 
 class we are dealing with, love to gather. We will try 
 to match their narratives by others no less interesting 
 or curious ; and then leave our readers to judge which 
 has the best of it. 
 
 We may imagine, if we please, some Persian gen- 
 tleman, of ancient days, going on his travels, through 
 Christian countries, with that instinctive horror of 
 idolatry, and of worship through visible symbols, which 
 became one accustomed to feed his piety only on the 
 ethereal subtlety of the solar rays ; most anxious to 
 collect all possible evidence why he should not be a 
 Christian. It is true, he understands very little of the 
 languages of the countries through which he passes, 
 and cannot be supposed to enter much into the habits, 
 the ideas, and the feelings, of their inhabitants ; but, 
 with the help of a dictionary, and a valet de place, he 
 can make his way ; and, at any rate, he can see what 
 the people do, and read their books and inscriptions. 
 What place does Christ hold in their worship ? How 
 does God appear in relation to men ? Surely, we could 
 easily imagine him struck with the prominent place 
 which the martyrs occupy in all the worship, in the 
 thoughts, and words, and feelings, of Christians ; 
 
 b Adv. Vigilant Op. torn. ii. p. 394, ed. Yallarsii. 
 , 2 N
 
 546 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 whether clergy or laity, learned or simple. Not a 
 town does he come to, but he finds the Church most 
 frequented, nay, crowded with worshippers, to he that 
 of some martyr ; while smaller oratories, in every 
 direction, are favourite places of prayer, because they 
 commemorate some other saint, or contain a portion of 
 his ashes. Not an altar does he anywhere see, which 
 is not consecrated by their relics. Before them hang 
 lamps, garlands, and votive offerings ; around them 
 are palls of silk, and richest stuffs ; their shrines are 
 radiant with gold and jewels ; the pavement of the 
 temple is covered with prostrate suppliants, with the 
 sick and afflicted, come to ask health and consolation 
 from Christ's servant : the pilgrim from afar, scrapes, 
 with simple faith, some of the dust from the floor or 
 from the tomb ; the preacher, aye, a Basil, or a Gre- 
 gory, or a Chrysostom, or an Ambrose, instead of 
 cooling their fervour, adds confidence, earnestness, and 
 warmth to it, by a glowing and impassioned discourse 
 in its favour. And if he afterwards goes and in- 
 terrogates these holy men, who, he might think, were 
 carried off by their eloquence and the heat of discourse, 
 what is their real belief, as he cannot bring himself to 
 go as far as they seem to do, in veneration of saints 
 and relics, he receives some such answer as this : 
 " What ! will you not reverence, but rather contemn, 
 those by whom evil sprits are expelled, and diseases 
 cured ; who appear in visions and foretell in prophecy ; 
 whose very bodies, if touched, or even honoured, are 
 gifted with as much power as their holy souls ; the 
 drops of whose blood, or the smallest symbol of whose 
 
 c See, inter alia, the Homilies of S. Chrys. on SS. Bernice, &c. 
 torn. ii. p. 645, ed. Bened. ; of St. Basil in xl. Mart. torn. ii. p. 149, 
 ed. Bened. ; of St. Gregory Nyssen on St. Theodorus, torn. iii. p. 580, 
 ed. 1638.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 547 
 
 sufferings, have as much efficacy as their entire bodies ? d 
 Or what will he say if one of these grave and learned 
 men shall remark to him, hy way of extolling the 
 glory and merit of the martyrs : " Perhaps, as we are 
 purchased by the precious blood of Jesus ... so some 
 may be purchased by the precious blood of martyrs ?" e 
 Surely he may, at first sound of such words, exclaim, 
 that the saints are made equal to their Lord, and that 
 this must be a sad and idolatrous departure from what 
 He may be supposed to have taught. And if he stops 
 his ears, and does not admit or accept of explanation, 
 what must we expect from him but a most mistaken 
 report ? 
 
 Again, he looks about him. At Antioch he finds 
 the church of St. Barlaam richly decorated with paint- 
 ings; but all representing the life and death of the 
 saint : Christ is introduced, but as if in illustration, or 
 by chance, into the picture/ At Nola he finds a 
 magnificent basilica, literally covered with mosaics 
 and inscriptions, full of the praises of saints, and 
 especially martyrs. g At Rome he sees the basilicas of 
 the apostles, of St. Lawrence and others, adorned with 
 similar encomiastic verses. Surely if he sends forth 
 " a voice from Borne," it will be to proclaim that, to 
 him, all this seems excessive reverence, and, if you 
 please, worship, of men, no matter how holy. We 
 should like to know how some great Father would 
 have answered him ; for that answer would just serve 
 our case at present. If he descend into the catacombs, 
 
 d St. Gregory Naz. Or. ii. adv. Julian. Op. torn. i. p. 76. Par. 
 1609. 
 
 e Origen, Exhort, ad Martyr. Op. torn. i. p. 309, ed. De la Eue. 
 
 f See the Homily, probably by St. John Chrysostom, in St. Basil's 
 "Works, torn. ii. p. 141, ed. Gamier. 
 
 e S. Paulini Op. Ep. xxxii. ed. Murat. p. 194. 
 
 2 N 2
 
 548 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 the favourite retreat of devout Christians, what does 
 he find ? Martyrs everywhere, their tombs hallow 
 each maze of those sacred labyrinths, and form the 
 altar of every chapel. Their effigies and praises cover 
 the walls ; prayers for their intercession are inscribed 
 on their tablets. He goes into the houses of believers ; 
 memorials of the saints everywhere. Their cups and 
 goblets are adorned with their pictures ; for one repre- 
 sentation of our Saviour he finds twenty of the blessed 
 Virgin, or of St. Agnes, or St. Lawrence, or the apostles 
 Peter and Paul. h What shall his "voice" pronounce 
 these ? What encouragement will it give to his brother 
 fire-worshippers to embrace the Christian religion? 
 Once more, we should have liked to see St. Jerome's 
 answer to it. 
 
 Certainly, if we had nothing remaining from the 
 early Church except the Liturgy, the ancient Chris- 
 tians would stand before us just as we do before 
 others, when they look only at our solemn worship. 
 In fact, the two Liturgies, theirs and ours, are the 
 same. An Anglican fancies that so far, and no 
 further, are we conformable to the practice of anti- 
 quity ; and he will agree with us ; unless he takes 
 objection to the prayers for the departed, and the 
 commemoration of martyrs, invariably found in every 
 ancient Liturgy, as in ours, though carefully expunged, 
 by the wicked pretenders to reform the perpetual prac- 
 tice of the Church of God those who spoke of the 
 Spouse of Christ as Pilate did of her Lord : " emen- 
 datum ergo ilium dimittam." 1 But, fortunately we 
 have plenty of other documents to show us what the 
 belief and practice of the ancient Fathers was on 
 
 h See Buonarotti's Osservazioni sopra alcuni Frammenti di vetri 
 antichi. 
 
 1 Luc. xxiii. 16.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 549 
 
 extra-liturgical matters, such as form the staple of 
 publications like that before us. We have their 
 homilies, to which we have already referred ; but we 
 have what, in this respect, is even more interesting, a 
 great body of familiar and anecdotic matter in their 
 epistles and biographies, which, more than anything 
 else, enable us to judge whether those great and holy 
 men thought and felt Catholicly or Protestantly ; or, 
 if you please, Romanly or Anglicanly. The evidences 
 of popular religion are sought now-a-days in docu- 
 ments such as would and could only be similarly 
 preserved. The conversion of M. Ratisbonne, for 
 instance, will have probably to be found, in after- 
 ages, in the letters and brochures of the present day, 
 or in some collection of edifying histories ; and many 
 of the verses and descriptions which so much scan- 
 dalize our modern traveller, will possibly fall before a 
 change of taste, or edqx vetustas ; and unless found 
 worthy of a place in the laborious collection of some 
 Fabretti or Muratori, posterity will only know of 
 them through the gleanings of curious pryers into 
 such matters for controversial purposes. In like 
 manner many of those lesser feelings, those more 
 homely sentiments and thoughts, which were inter- 
 woven with the every- day religion of the ancients, 
 those tales which simple piety recorded for edification, 
 not for evidence, are not to be sought in the solemn 
 records of public deeds, nor often in earnest treatises 
 on great dogmatical controversies, but in the un- 
 bosoming of friend to friend in familiar letters, or in 
 the narrative of private virtues and domestic histories. 
 If much of these has been lost, sufficient remains to 
 show us the great men of the Church bending from 
 Uioir doctor's chair to the warm-hearted simplicity 
 (called, in our age, credulity) of their poorest children,
 
 550 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 believing and proclaiming, with unsuspicious confi- 
 dence, tales of wonder, whereby God seemed glorified 
 in His saints ; and telling them in such manner, that 
 they form most interesting tests, for ascertaining with 
 whom their feelings and belief accorded Rome or 
 England ; trustful, faithful, joyful Rome, or doubting, 
 suspecting, moody England. 
 
 But we are not acting up to our promise. Let us, 
 therefore, come to the point. In proof that the 
 blessed Virgin is " worshipped as the mother of 
 mercies, temporal and spiritual," the author before 
 us appeals to the Baron de Bussiere's account of 
 M. Ratisbonne's conversion from Judaism, " which 
 he distinctly attributes to the immediate operation of 
 the Virgin Mary ; for he relates, that it was effected 
 by her actual appearance to him" (p. 16). Now what 
 is meant to be granted, and what to be doubted here, 
 we do not know. "We suppose no one doubts that 
 M. Ratisbonne, from a Jew, did become a Christian, 
 and has become a religious ; having abandoned home 
 and friends, and given up a long-cherished alliance. 
 Any one might as well deny that Sir R. Peel 
 is prime minister. That he went into the church 
 of St. Andrew a Jew, and came out a Christian, is 
 attested upon evidence as certain as any fact can 
 well be that of trustworthy and honest men, who 
 saw him and spoke with him before and after. For 
 the change something must account. That it was 
 a true conversion from Judaism to Christianity, with 
 great temporal sacrifices, is clear ; and such a con- 
 version must have been the work of Divine grace. 
 How communicated, is the question. The only 
 witness can be the convert. He tells us it was 
 through an apparition of the Mother of God, who 
 instructed him in the mysteries of our holy religion.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 551 
 
 Are we to believe that a person is chosen by the 
 Divine goodness for an object of a most singular act 
 of grace, at the moment that he devises and tells an 
 abominable falsehood, to rob Him of the glory of it, 
 and give it to another ; by feigning a vision of the 
 blessed Virgin ? What does the author of the " Voice" 
 mean to throw doubts on ? On the apparition, as for 
 such a purpose impossible ? Or on the consequences 
 drawn from it ? Surely not on the latter ; for if the 
 vision was true, it was right to consider the blessed 
 Mother of God, not as the source, but as the channel, 
 of a great " spiritual mercy." 
 
 If he wished to insinuate that it would be dero- 
 gatory to God's honour, or incompatible with His 
 revealed doctrines, to believe such a mode of com- 
 municating grace and religious instruction possible; 
 and, consequently, that the whole must be a figment 
 or a delusion ; we will, in answer, relate another 
 similar story, in which not a Jew, but a bishop, was 
 the party. And we will premise that we have it on 
 the best authority. 
 
 The person to whom we allude was a young man of 
 singular piety and virtue. Left young an orphan, he 
 devoted his youth to study, in a celebrated university. 
 There his assiduity in learning was only surpassed by 
 the purity and innocence of his life, which stood the 
 test of severe trials, and escaped the snares laid for 
 him by profligate companions, jealous of his virtue. 
 Having made himself master of all profane learning, 
 he entered on a course of sacred studies, under the 
 most celebrated professor of the day, and soon made 
 considerable progress. He was, however, while yet 
 young, put into orders, and even named bishop, before 
 he considered himself well enough grounded in theo- 
 logical knowledge ; though probably his humility led
 
 552 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 him to exaggerate his deficiencies. He found himself 
 quite unequal to the task of preaching the divine 
 word, and on the eve of his first undertaking this 
 duty, he lay sleepless on his bed, in agitation and 
 anxiety. Suddenly he saw before him a venerable 
 figure of an old man, whose countenance, attitude, 
 and garb, bespoke great dignity, but who, at the same 
 time, appeared most gracious and affable. Terrified 
 with this appearance, he leaped from his couch, and 
 respectfully asked him who he was, and for what 
 purpose he had come. The old man replied, in a 
 gentle voice, that he had come to calm his doubts, and 
 solve his difficulties. This declaration soothed his 
 fears, and made him look towards his visitor with a 
 mixture of joy and awe ; when he perceived that by 
 steadily pointing with his hand towards the other side 
 of the apartment, he seemed to wish to turn his 
 attention in that direction. Thither he consequently 
 turned his eyes, and there he beheld a lady of peerless 
 majesty, and of more than human beauty, so resplen- 
 dent, that his eyes could not bear the brightness of 
 the vision, but he must needs bend them and his 
 countenance down, in reverential awe. Thus he 
 listened to the conversation of these two heavenly 
 beings, which fully instructed him on the subjects 
 whereon he felt anxious, and at the same time informed 
 him who his gracious visitors were. For the lady, 
 addressing the other by name of the Evangelist John, 
 requested him to instruct the youth in the mystery of 
 heavenly piety ; and he replied, " that he was ready to 
 do even this, to please the Mother of his Lord, seeing 
 that she desired it." And accordingly he did so. 
 
 Such is our counterpart to the narrative objected to 
 by our author, respecting M. Uatisbonne's conversion. 
 Now before giving the name of our authority for this
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 553 
 
 wonderful history, or of the person to whom it refers, 
 we will only beg our reader, if not sufficiently versed in 
 ecclesiastical biography, at once to answer both points, 
 to say to what Church or religion he considers either the 
 writer or the subject of this anecdote belongs. Could he 
 believe us, if we told him that it happened to Bishop 
 Ken, or Bishop Wilson, or Archbishop Laud ; or that 
 we had transcribed it, as gravely told by some Anglican 
 clergyman in a life of any of them ? We are sure he 
 could not. The idea of a Protestant bishop's learning 
 his faith from a vision of the blessed Virgin, would be 
 deemed repugnant to every principle and every feeling 
 of the religion. But were we to tell the reader that 
 the bishop spoken of was St. Alphonsus Liguori, or 
 even St. Charles, and the narrator an Italian monk or 
 priest, he would at once allow, that such an account, 
 from such a pen, concerning such a person, was 
 perfectly consistent with the principles of both; and 
 though, if a Protestant, he might declare that he did 
 not believe the story, he would acknowledge that it 
 does not surprise him to find it in such a place. It 
 must be then a Catholic, and not a Protestant, who 
 thought or said he saw such a vision ; and it must be 
 a Catholic, and not a Protestant, who has recorded it, 
 as believing it. And so it was. The bishop who thus 
 learnt his faith was St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, only 
 little more than two hundred years after Christ ; and 
 the recorder of the vision is the brother of the great 
 St. Basil, St. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa. k This would 
 have been a nice anecdote for our ancient note-taker 
 upon the doctrines of Catholics. 
 
 We do not intend to pursue any very regular order ; 
 but just to pick up a few incidents, such as may show 
 us how our fathers in the Eaith thought, upon matters 
 
 k De Vita S. Greg. Tkaumat. Op. torn. iii. p. 545, cd. Par. 1638.
 
 554 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 whereon we are so censured. And as we have begun 
 with the saints, and the wonders wrought by them, 
 we will say a few words more concerning them. Let 
 any one take the trouble to read any of the miracles 
 recorded by St. Augustine in the twenty-second book 
 of the City of God, and let him apply the criterion we 
 have already given, of asking himself in what class of 
 modern religious writings he would expect to meet 
 with similar occurrences. Take, for instance, the 
 history which he gives of a certain poor tailor at 
 Hippo, named Morentius, who being in great want of 
 clothing, and having no means of procuring it, went 
 to the church of the Twenty Martyrs, and prayed 
 aloud that he might be clothed. Some young men, 
 professed scoffers, overheard him, and followed him, 
 jeering him, as though he had prayed to those twenty 
 martyrs for fifty-pence to buy a coat. The poor old man, 
 however, going his way, found a fish cast on shore, yet 
 alive, which he sold, and a gold ring was moreover 
 found in it, and given to him by the honest purchaser, 
 with these words: "See how the twenty martyrs have 
 clothed you." 1 Now we are pretty sure, that many 
 a poor Italian would, in his distress, do just what Plo- 
 rentius did, go to some church of the B. Virgin, or of 
 some saint, and kneeling before the shrine, pray as he 
 did. And we are equally clear that a party of English 
 Protestant youths overhearing him (the adolescences 
 irrisores now-a-days of Catholic practices), would make 
 as good a joke of the matter as did the young Hippo 
 fashionables. So that it requires little to settle the 
 dramatis persons of St. Augustine's anecdote, on 
 transporting it to modern times, and give Catholic 
 and Protestant each his part. And no doubt, either 
 an ancient or a modern collector of proofs, that the 
 
 1 Op. torn. vii. p. 668, eel. Bened.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 555 
 
 saints are made conveyors of " temporal mercies " in 
 the Catholic system, would find the history equally 
 applicable to his purpose ; with this exception, however, 
 that, as St. Augustine gives it among other proofs that 
 the Christian religion is still evidenced by miracles, 
 the ancient traveller would have turned it against 
 Christianity, as the modern one would against Catho- 
 licity ; so completely are the two identified. 
 
 Let us take a case bearing more minute comparison. 
 In a little work containing the history of the Medal 
 of the B. Virgin, commonly known by the epithet of 
 miraculous, there are many extraordinary but well- 
 attested cases of conversion of hardened unbelievers 
 through the prayers of their friends, and the appli- 
 cation of that blessed symbol, to the unconscious 
 sinner. These to flesh and blood, to the dull sense, 
 and the cold heart of the present generation, are hard 
 to believe ; and they are either silently rejected, or 
 openly scoffed at would to God it were only our 
 adversaries ! For instance, a soldier, we are told, in 
 the military hospital at Paris, is on the point of death, 
 and rejects every succour of religion. In vain the 
 sisters of charity who attend him, in vain the good 
 curate, make every effort, to bring him to a right 
 feeling, on the necessity of making his peace with 
 God. He rejects every offer ; and at last, with violent 
 oaths and brutal rage, imposes silence on the subject. 
 Reduced to extremity, the pious sisters have recourse 
 to prayer to the B. Virgin, not expecting him to 
 survive the night ; and place a medal secretly in his 
 bed. He sleeps tranquilly, and on awaking, mildly 
 sends for the curate, receives the sacraments with 
 great devotion, and dies in peace." 1 This is only one 
 instance out of many ; often they are pious relations, 
 m Notice Hiatoriquc, sLxth ed. p. 76.
 
 556 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 a daughter or a wife, that procure the grace ; in every 
 one we read of most fervent prayers poured out to 
 God and His B. Mother. Those who would join in 
 the " Voice from Rome," cannot be much edified, nay, 
 on the contrary, are likely to be shocked and scandal- 
 ized, by such a narrative. " "What efficacy can there 
 be supposed to exist in a mere symbol thus placed, 
 like a charm" [so they would say] near, or on, 
 a person heedless or unconscious of its presence ? 
 Who can believe that * spiritual mercies' will thus be 
 granted upon prayers to a saint ? We must enter 
 these down in our note-book, as the deceits or the 
 delusions of popery." 
 
 Be it so, but we must have a corresponding one to 
 enter into the tablets of our ancient inquirer, and here 
 it is : " There was a man at Calama of high rank, 
 named Martial ; advanced in years, and having a great 
 repugnance to the Christian religion. He had a Chris- 
 tian daughter and son-in-law, that year baptized. They 
 entreated him, with many tears, to become a Christian ; 
 but he positively refused, and drove them from him 
 with violent indignation. His son-in-law bethought 
 him of going to the chapel of St. Stephen, and there 
 praying for him to the utmost of his power, that God 
 would give him grace to believe, without delay, in 
 Christ. He did so, and with many sobs and tears, and 
 with the ardour of sincere devotion. Departing, he 
 took with him some flowers from the altar, and, when 
 it was night, placed them at the sick man's head. He 
 slept ; but before daybreak, he called out, requesting 
 that they would send for the bishop, who happened to 
 be with me in Hippo. On hearing of this, he begged 
 that some of the clergy might be sent for. They 
 came ; he declared himself a believer ; and, to the 
 astonishment and joy of all, was baptized. So long as
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 557 
 
 he lived, he had in his mouth the words, * O Christ, 
 receive my spirit ;' though he did not know that these 
 were the last words of the blessed Stephen when stoned 
 by the Jews. They were, likewise, his last, for he soon 
 expired." 11 Here, then, we have our parallel; each 
 part of the modern narrative has its counterpart in the 
 ancient ; and if one is to be rejected, so is the other. 
 There is, in both, an obstinate infidel, or sinner, who 
 will not be converted to God : there are pious persons 
 who pray to the saints ; there is a badge or symbol of 
 their intercession for the flower from the altar means 
 the same as the medal ; in each case it is placed in the 
 bed of the unsuspecting patient; and, in both in- 
 stances, he awakes at morning to ask for God's 
 minister, to administer a Sacrament of forgiveness. 
 Yet, the one narrative is of Prance, in the nineteenth 
 century ; the other of Africa, in the beginning of the 
 fifth (A.D. 427). How comes it that such accidental 
 coincidences should be found, with such distances of 
 time and place, save as fruits of one tree, as plants of 
 one seed, as evidences of one system? And do not 
 they who find fault with such evidences, in our times 
 and countries, equally censure them in others ; and 
 thereby place themselves in the awkward position of 
 scoifers of Christianity not of what they are pleased, 
 in the later instances, to nickname Popery ? 
 
 "We could carry on much further this comparison 
 between miracles which are considered the production 
 of modern Catholicity, and such as are recorded, with 
 perfect confidence, by ancient writers, and in every 
 instance draw the same conclusion a conclusion which 
 goes quite as far as dogmatical texts from homilies or 
 treatises, to prove the identity of ancient and modern 
 Catholicity in those matters on which the latter is 
 
 n S. Aug. lib. xxii. cap. viii. De Civit. Dei, torn. vii. p. 668.
 
 558 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 most harshly treated, as being a departure from the 
 former. 
 
 Connected with the subject, there is a point on which 
 we wish to touch, as being one of common reprehension, 
 not only in the little work before us, but in many 
 others of a similar tendency. We allude to that spe- 
 cies of partiality which seems to be shown at a given 
 time, to a particular sanctuary, in which some shrine or 
 image is found, through which God is thought to work 
 more wonderfully than elsewhere. Such, at this mo- 
 ment, is the shrine of St. Philomena, at Mugnano, or 
 the church of St. Augustine, at Home. It would be 
 easy to bring together many passages from ancient 
 writers, that show the prevalence of a similar feeling, 
 and its consequent practices; indeed the book and 
 chapter in the works of the holy doctor just named, to 
 which we have more than once referred, will furnish 
 proofs of the peculiar regard in which certain places 
 consecrated by relics (like the oratories of St. Stephen), 
 were held by him. But such feelings of veneration, 
 confidence, and attachment, towards one saint and his 
 sanctuary, are by no one so well represented as by the 
 learned, the holy, and the truly amiable St. Paulinus. 
 Pew of the Eathers let us more delightfully into the 
 secrets of the Christian life and the Christian heart in 
 ancient days, than the bishop and poet of ISTola. A 
 patrician by birth, the scholar of Ausonius (who com- 
 pares him to the ancient classics) by education, a poor 
 monk by choice and vocation, the delight and friend of 
 St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, Sulpicius Se- 
 verus, and all the great and good men of his day, the 
 admiration of the whole Church, he exhibits in his 
 letters a simplicity of faith, a tenderness of affection, 
 an innocent playfulness, a cheerfulness, and an un- 
 affected humility, which most pleasingly combine with
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 559 
 
 the depth of his devotion, and the richness of his sa- 
 cred learning. There are few of the Fathers who gain 
 more upon our every-day, and homelier feelings, and 
 make themselves more familiar with their readers than 
 he does. But throughout his works he is the servant of 
 St. Felix, the glorious martyr of Nola. Near his tomb, 
 though himself a native of Gaul, he resides, a poor 
 hermit (having sold all, and given the price to the 
 poor) and priest ; afterwards bishop of the see. To 
 celebrate the anniversaries of that saint, by poems and 
 festivities ; to build a basilica in his honour, and adorn 
 it with mosaics and verses ; to make his friends love 
 him and believe in his power, and bring them to visit 
 the shrine of his father and patron, as he styles him 
 seem his most pleasing occupations. How Catholic his 
 language, everywhere, to Catholic ears ! How Popish 
 it must sound to Protestant ! By way of example : 
 the "Voice from Borne" cries out against the following 
 occurrence, or at least the feelings it excited. A young 
 woman is run over by a cart (an empty one, but 
 Boman carts are not very light even when empty), 
 close to the church of our Lady, attached to the 
 hospital of the Consolazione, while holy exercises were 
 going on within. She escapes what every one con- 
 siders an imminent danger of death ; and the people 
 cry out " E un miracolo dell a Madonna!" This is 
 brought as a proof that temporal blessings are sought 
 from the Blessed Virgin. It so happens that St. 
 Paulinus relates a something similar accident, and 
 reasons much in the same way as those poor Italians 
 did. Fortunately, he had no English Protestants near. 
 A person of the name of Martinianus was coming to 
 him with letters, or rather with a message ; and on his 
 way from Capua to Nola, a distance of about twenty 
 miles, he met a man with mules returning home, after
 
 560 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 discharging their loads ; just as one may now meet 
 them among the Tusculan hills, after they have taken 
 wine to Rome ; so he wisely bargained for a ride, 
 which was given him cheap. 
 
 " Nactus vacantem sarcina mulum (ut solent 
 
 Jumenta revocari domum) 
 Parvo breve per iter a?re conductum sedet." 
 
 When about half way, the mule took fright and grew 
 restive. Martinianus (who had lately been more of a 
 sailor than of a horseman) was thrown, and flung to 
 a distance. But, though he fell among stones and 
 thorns, he was neither bruised nor scratched. How 
 did this happen ? St. Paulinus has no difficulty about 
 it. Had he been expressing it in prose, and in Italian, 
 he would have said, "E un miracolo di San Felice." 
 As he was writing Latin verse, he describes and 
 explains the event as follows : 
 
 " Medioque mox spatio via? 
 Muli pavore sessor excussus procul 
 
 Vectore subducto cadit. 
 In ora lapsus ora non laesit sua, 
 
 In saxa fusus et rubos 
 Nee sente vultum, nee lapide artus contudit, 
 
 Felicis exceptus manu ; 
 Qui jam propinquantem sedibus fratrem suis, 
 
 Non passus occursu mail 
 Suis periclum in finibus capessere ; 
 
 Hostem removit invidum, 
 Et hunc fidelem compotem voti, suis 
 
 Confessor induxit locis. 
 Nostrisque juxta sedibus gratum intulit 
 
 Felix patronus hospitem"? 
 
 St. Paulinus, in this poem, describes a practice yet existing 
 among English sailors, that of whistling for more wind : 
 
 " Gubernator 
 
 - Fortiores provehendis cursibus 
 Auras vocabat sibilo." v. 44. 
 P Poema xxii. 405-421, Op. col. 583, ed. Murat.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 561 
 
 St. Felix, therefore, St. Paulinus hesitates not to say, 
 prevented this poor man's being hurt, and brought 
 him safe to his journey's end ; because he was within 
 some few miles of his church, and was journeying 
 towards his client Paulinus. Surely St. Paulinus was 
 a downright Romanist 1 
 
 And so he was. For he made it a point to go to 
 Rome every year, as he repeatedly tells us, for the 
 festival of the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul ; q 
 and he was much consoled by the kindness which the 
 Roman pontiff showed him, in inviting him to Rome, 
 to commemorate the anniversary of his election. Now 
 this brings us to the point for which we first referred 
 to St. Paulinus, his attachment to one particular 
 sanctuary, and his affection to one saint, there 
 honoured. In one of his epistles to his friend Sul- 
 picius Severus (whom he had been disappointed in 
 not meeting that year in Rome), he reproaches him, 
 half playfully, but not without seriousness, for neg- 
 lecting to come and visit, as he had promised, " his 
 lord [St.] Felix," as he calls him (Dominum meum 
 Felicem). He bids him beware how he incurs his 
 displeasure, by promising a pilgrimage, and not fulfill- 
 ing it. " Scio quidem," he adds, " et in Domino meo 
 Felice viscera pietatis affluere ; sed te quseso, hoc eum 
 magis diligas et timeas, quo melior est et indulgentior 
 . . . . ut tanto magis carissimum Dei metuas offendere 
 quanto promptius dignatur ignoscere." r This surely 
 is most unprotestant, and therefore, most Catholic, 
 language. We could imagine it used by the good 
 
 i " Eomffi, cum solemn! consuetudine, ad beatorum Apostolorum 
 natalem venissemus." Ep. xx. col. 108. " Cum apostolicam solemn i- 
 tatem voti nostri, et itineris annul socius celebrasset." Ep. xliii. 
 col 254. 
 
 r Ep. xvii. col. 96. 
 
 2 o
 
 562 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 archpriest of Mugnano (St. Paulinus was not yet 
 bishop when he thus wrote) to some friend who had 
 promised to visit the tomb of his patroness St. Philo- 
 mena, and had disappointed him. Had such a letter 
 come from him, what a rich page it would have made 
 in a modern English traveller's note-book ! For want 
 of it, therefore, we beg to offer him that of the curate's 
 neighbour in place and in faith St. Paulinus. 
 
 Before shutting up the volume of his works, there 
 is another topic, allied to the preceding, which we may 
 be glad to hear him on. But we must introduce it by 
 a little domestic history, on which again we will crave 
 the reader's opinion, whether the parties in it were 
 Catholic or Protestant. 
 
 There lived in retirement, in a house of religious 
 women dedicated to God, a nun of singular piety and 
 wisdom, the sister of two bishops, both distinguished 
 for the learning of their writings, and the holiness of 
 their lives. One, the more celebrated one, was just 
 dead, and his loss was deplored as a public calamity 
 by all good men. The other, having a little leisure 
 after this event, resolved to go and visit his saintly 
 sister, whom he had not seen for many years. The 
 distance was great ; and when he was within a day's 
 journey from the place where she lived, he had at 
 night a most remarkable vision, which turned into 
 fear the hopes of the future. "Eor I seemed to 
 myself;" such is his own account, "to bear in my 
 hands the relics of martyrs, from which darted forth a 
 splendour like that of a burnished mirror held against 
 the sun ; so that my eyes were dazzled by the bril- 
 liancy of the light. Three times that night did this 
 vision come before me." a Unable to divine its mean- 
 ing, he looked forward to events to expound it. As he 
 
 s Ubi inf. p. 188.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 563 
 
 approached the monastery, he inquired about his sister, 
 and heard for the first time that she was somewhat 
 indisposed. His coming had, in the mean time, been 
 made known, and a large concourse of persons went 
 out to meet him. But the holy virgins modestly awaited 
 him in the church, and after he had prayed, and had 
 given them his blessing (they bending lowly to receive 
 it), they retired. On entering the convent, he found 
 his sister very ill in her cell ; but instead of a bed, 
 she lay upon a plank on the ground, with another for 
 her pillow. We will not detain our readers with the 
 edifying account of her words and prayers in her last 
 hours ; how she dismissed her brother when the sound 
 of the vespers' chant reached her cell, that he might 
 not omit this duty; 4 how often when she closed her 
 own sublime prayer, she signed herself with the cross 
 on her eyes, her mouth, and her breast ; and how her 
 last act was to raise her hand again to do so. u These 
 things may serve to help the reader in his judgment, 
 as to the religion of the holy persons engaged ; but 
 are not what we are seeking. The pious virgin thus 
 expires, and a religious matron, the friend of the 
 deceased, undertakes, as she had promised, to prepare 
 her holy remains for interment. We will now give 
 the words of the bishop, her brother. " Vestiana 
 arranging with her own hands that sacred head, and 
 having her hand under the neck, exclaimed, looking 
 towards me, ' See what sort of a necklace this saint 
 wore ;' and at the same time loosening a string from 
 behind the neck, stretched out her hand and showed 
 us an iron cross and a ring of the same metal, which 
 both hung, by a thin cord, over her heart. Upon this 
 I said : * Let us share this inheritance. You keep the 
 cross as a memorial ; I will be content with this ring 
 
 4 Page 192. u p age 195. 
 
 2o 2
 
 564 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 as my legacy ; for this likewise has the cross carved 
 upon its boss.' Whereupon she, looking more closely 
 at it, said to me : ' You have not made a bad choice ; 
 for the ring is hollow under the boss, and in it is 
 inserted a portion of the wood of life (the true cross) ; 
 and thus the cross engraved above, rightly indicates 
 that which lies underneath.' " x 
 
 Will any reader hesitate in deciding of what religion 
 were all the persons here engaged ? Were they 
 Anglicans ? We should be indeed glad to know, how 
 many crosses not golden ones, worn as vain orna- 
 ments outside, but of inferior metals, concealed, and 
 lying over the heart, and how many reliquaries 
 similarly placed, could be collected in the households 
 of English bishops. But look at the neck of any 
 swarthy peasant who open-breasted digs the fields, or 
 plucks the vines, of Italy, and you will find the " thin 
 cord" around it, that sustains some similar memorial 
 of Christ's passion. Nay, in either of our islands, we 
 hesitate not to say that the poor Catholic might be 
 distinguished from the Protestant by these very badges 
 the cross, or the relic, or the medal, or even the 
 ring with a cross for its posey, suspended round the 
 neck, and lying on the breast, in life and after death. 
 We have known the body of a shipwrecked Catholic 
 so recognised at once. How tightly and closely does 
 a "little thin cord" like this bind together the belief 
 and feelings of the old and modern Church, and prove 
 them still the same ! How home to the Catholic heart 
 does such a trifling incident casually recorded come ! 
 Come, how full of convictions, of encouragements, of 
 consolation ! How joyfully even can one bear to be 
 taxed with superstition, in company with the holy 
 Macrina, the sister of St. Basil, and her biographer, 
 x S. Greg. Nyss. in Vita S. Macrinae, Oper. torn. ii. p. 198.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 565 
 
 St. Gregory of Nyssa ! For these are the persons of 
 whom we have been writing. 
 
 But if those who had chosen such complete poverty 
 as this holy nun, wore but a reliquary of iron, it must 
 not be fancied that this argued any light estimation of 
 so precious a relic as a portion of the holy Cross : 
 for they that could, or might, without violation of a 
 religious engagement, would wear it enshrined in gold. 
 We have a beautiful letter of St. Paulinus upon this 
 subject. Severus had asked him for relics of martyrs, 
 for the consecration of a church which he was build- 
 ing. He replies that if he had but " a scruple of 
 their sacred ashes to spare he would send it." But as 
 he required all that he had for his own new church, 
 he sends him another present to add to the relics 
 which he must get elsewhere ; this was a particle 
 of the " divine Cross :" " Invenimus quod digne, et 
 ad basilicse sanctincationem vobis, et ad sanctorum 
 cinerum cumulandam benedictionem mitteremus, par- 
 tern particular de ligno divinse Crucis." The portion 
 which he sends is, he informs him, almost invisible, 
 but he must believe it to possess all the power and 
 virtue of the entire Cross, a present safeguard, and a 
 pledge of eternal life. "Accipite magnum in modico 
 munus ; et in segmento pene atomo astulae brevis 
 sumite munimentum praesentis, et pignus seternae 
 salutis. Non angustietur fides vestra carnalibus 
 oculis parva cernentibus, sed interna acie totam in hoc 
 minimo vim Crucis videat." The relic was inclosed 
 in a small gold tube, " tubello aureolo rem tantar 
 benedictionis inclusimus. y " When afterwards he sends 
 Severus verses for the inscriptions in his church, 
 he sends two copies for the altar ; one in case he puts 
 this particle of the holy Cross with the other relics ; 
 >' Ep. xxxi. col. 189.
 
 566 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 the other, should he prefer to keep it to wear himself. 
 The reasons which he gives in favour of the latter 
 alternative are perfectly Catholic. " If, however, you 
 would rather keep this blessed portion of the Cross at 
 hand, for your daily protection and care, lest once 
 shut up in the altar, it may not be ready for you and 
 at hand, when wanted for use, &c." z 
 
 Now we should much like to try the experiment 
 of this passage upon a well-informed Protestant (not 
 versed in ancient learning) and an ignorant Catholic ; 
 it would indeed be the experimentum Crucis. The 
 former would at once smell out popery in it, have some 
 vague figure of superstition floating in sulphureous 
 vapours about his head; but would surely not be able to 
 attach any definite, intelligible meaning to the words. 
 He certainly would not believe them extracted from the 
 letters either of John Wesley, or of Bishop Bull. Only 
 fancy Mr. Bickersteth writing such a letter ! Nay, or 
 Dr. Hook, who the other day published in the papers, 
 that if any one said he ever used the sign of the Cross, 
 he told a falsehood ! But our poor Catholic, we will 
 be bound to say, would at once feel that the language 
 was perfectly Catholic ; he would know what it 
 meant, and understand, if he had the means, how to 
 put it in practice. The queen of the French lately 
 knew how to do this, how " having such a relic 
 at hand to use it," when she took the reliquary 
 with a portion of the holy Cross from round her 
 neck, and placed it on the forehead of her dying 
 eldest son. 
 
 But it is time to pass to something else, and to 
 draw to a conclusion. The writer before us takes 
 great pains to prove, that at Rome, the people have 
 perfectly wrong ideas concerning the Divine Mysteries, 
 
 z Ep. xxxii. col. 201.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 or the Mass. All idea of a Communion, he tells us, is 
 excluded, " and it is regarded simply as a sacrifice 
 expiatory for the living and the dead. That it is so in 
 masses for the dead, no person can dispute." He then 
 goes on to say, that it is very rare for any one to 
 communicate except the priest, and insinuates that 
 only a few times a year is communion general in 
 Rome. To this assertion we must give an unqualified 
 denial. There are thousands who frequent communion 
 every week, many more frequently, and even every 
 day. And as to monthly communicants, there surely 
 is scarcely a house in the city that has not some. 
 But our traveller, very probably, like most English 
 visitors, did not know when or where to look for 
 them. Possibly before he had left his snug quarters 
 in the Piazza di Spagna, on a winter's morning, many 
 a church had been filled and emptied more than once. 
 But we wish, at present, only to attend to the 
 erroneous views which he attributes to the Romans, 
 respecting the adorable Sacrifice of the altar. He is 
 wrong in stating that "it is regarded simply as a 
 sacrifice expiatory for the living and the dead." Take 
 out the adverb, and all is right. But to bring the 
 subject before our readers, as we have done other 
 topics, we will turn to another part of the book, in 
 which he speaks about, or against, matters connected 
 with masses for the dead. 
 
 Quoting examples of privileged altars, he gives us 
 the following inscription and translation from " what 
 is called St. Gregory's cell, in his church upon the 
 Ccelian hill." " Hac in cella TT. Gregori I. Pont. 
 Max. celebratse missae animam cruciat. purgatori 
 solvunt. During the times of Pope Gregory the First, 
 masses celebrated in this cell, released a soul from 
 purgatorial torments" (p. 31). There is certainly some
 
 568 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 mistake here. The verb is in the present, and cannot 
 refer to the times of St. Gregory. We have no means 
 at hand of verifying the inscription, but we suppose 
 TT. is a mistake. But we are not sorry for it, inas- 
 much as it authorizes us to inquire whether St. Gre- 
 gory himself would have countenanced our writer, or 
 us, in our respective and conflicting views of masses 
 offered for the dead, in that very place. 
 
 He tells us, that in his own monastery, the very one 
 on the Coelian hill, there had died, three years before 
 he wrote the account, a certain monk, named Justus, 
 who having been infirmarian, had put by a trifling 
 sum of money, made by his medical practice. Coming 
 near his end, he manifested it to his brother, a layman, 
 who in his turn revealed it to the superior. The lat- 
 ter, alarmed at such an unusual violation of religious 
 poverty, carried the matter to St. Gregory. He 
 ordered the most severe treatment ; that none of the 
 brethren should go near him to comfort him in his 
 last hour, and that his body should be buried in 
 unconsecrated ground, and his money (after the 
 manner of the Egyptian solitaries in a similar case) 
 should be cast disdainfully upon the corpse. He died, 
 however, with great signs of contrition and repentance. 
 After thirty days, the holy Pontiff tells us, that he 
 thought with compassion of the punishment he had 
 incurred in the other world, and how he might be 
 freed. " Then," thus he writes, " calling to myself 
 Pretiosus, the superior of the monastery, I said to him, 
 ' Our brother, lately dead, has now been long tor- 
 mented in the fire (igne cruciatur) ; we must show him 
 some charity, and see if we can help him, and snatch 
 him thence. Go, therefore, and see that you offer up 
 sacrifice for him for thirty days, counting from to-day, 
 so that not a day be allowed to pass, without the
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 569 
 
 saving Victim's being immolated for his pardon.' ' 
 This was carefully complied with. After thirty days, 
 St. Gregory tells us that the deceased appeared to his 
 brother, who knew nothing of what had been done for 
 his benefit, and told him that till now he had been in 
 suffering, but that day was released." St. Gregory, 
 therefore, believed that the sacrifice of the mass did, 
 in his times, free souls from the torments of purga- 
 tory, and that on the Coelian hill. And, moreover, he 
 believed that there was no harm in offering up that 
 holy sacrifice many times, for the express purpose of 
 expiating the sins of the dead. 
 
 And as for the living, St. Gregory believed the 
 same. Eor in a following chapter, he gives an 
 account of an extraordinary occurrence, well attested, 
 it having happened only seven years before. Agatho, 
 archbishop of Palermo, was summoned to Rome by 
 the Pope ; and of course obeyed. On his voyage, he 
 encountered a severe tempest ; and during it, a sailor, 
 of the name of Baraca (when St. Gregory wrote, 
 a clerk in the church of Palermo), getting into a boat 
 which was in tow of the vessel, went adrift, in 
 consequence of the rope breaking. The ship itself 
 was driven ashore on the island of Ustica, and the 
 good archbishop, having waited three days, and giving 
 up the poor sailor for lost, did what alone he could 
 for him, as he supposed him dead ; " ordered the 
 sacrifice of the saving Victim to be offered up for the 
 pardon of his soul, to Almighty God." After this, he 
 sailed to Italy. What was his amazement, on landing 
 at Porto, to see the very man ! Upon interrogating 
 him, he was told that the boat in which he was carried 
 out to sea had soon capsized, but he had fortunately 
 got upon the keel. There, after long fasting and 
 
 8 Dial. lib. iv. cap. iv. Op. torn. ii. p. 468, ed. Bened.
 
 570 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 fatigue, he began to faint, when suddenly he seemed 
 to be between sleeping and waking, and a person 
 appeared to him, who gave him a morsel of bread, 
 which instantly revived him ; and a ship passing near 
 picked him up. Upon further questioning him, the 
 bishop found that this happened at the very moment 
 that the holy sacrifice was offered up for him at 
 Ustica. b 
 
 Now, our present inquiry is not whether these 
 narratives are true or not : we have not the slightest 
 difficulty in believing them ; but if those with whom 
 we are at issue choose to reject them, it makes no 
 matter as to our argument. All we have to ask is : 
 could such an accident have been believed and related 
 by a Protestant divine or bishop ? Could he have 
 consistently given it in illustration or corroboration of 
 his doctrine respecting the Church service, and its 
 application to the living and the dead ? But could 
 not a modern Catholic do so even now, without altering 
 a syllable ? Does it not agree, ad amussim, with 
 that doctrine respecting the mass, which our tourist 
 blames ? 
 
 We will only give another instance of the appli- 
 cation of the sacred mysteries to a particular purpose, 
 where not communion, but the procuring of a benefit, 
 was the object of their celebration. A certain man 
 had a country house, which he believed to be infested 
 by evil spirits. In the absence of the bishop, he asked 
 the clergy, that one of them would go there and pray 
 for the removal of the visitation. " One of them went, 
 and there offered up the sacrifice of the body of Christ, 
 and prayed most earnestly that the annoyance might 
 cease; which, through the divine mercy it did."' 
 Here was mass celebrated to obtain a blessing for an 
 
 '' Cap. Ivii. p. 469. St. Aug. ubi sup. p. 666.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 5?1 
 
 individual. In fact, the man and the priest (both 
 whose conduct St. Augustine, the narrator, approves) 
 did exactly what Catholics, nowadays, would do, under 
 similar circumstances. No Anglican clergyman, we 
 suspect, would think of performing the Communion 
 service for such a purpose. There is another Popish 
 feature about this African transaction, which may be 
 worth mentioning. This good man had procured from 
 a friend some earth from the Holy Land, from Our 
 Lord's sepulchre, and had hung it up in his room, that 
 it might be a protection to him. But, having now no 
 further use for it, " He did not wish, out of reverence, 
 to keep it any longer in his room." What did he do ? 
 Why, hearing that St. Augustine and another bishop 
 were in the neighbourhood, he asked them to come 
 over. They did so, and he told them all that had 
 happened ; and begged that the holy earth might be 
 reverently buried in some oratory. They did not 
 laugh at him, nor tell him that he was superstitious ; 
 but they complied ; and a youth afflicted with palsy, 
 having been carried to the place, at his own request, 
 walked home cured. Whether the Catholicity of the 
 learned and holy father, who seriously and believingly 
 gives this account, agrees with ours, or with that 
 claimed by the Anglican church, let any one decide. 
 
 It is now time that we close. The sort of inquiry 
 which we have been pursuing, may be considered but 
 of a secondary importance, compared with the dis- 
 cussion of grave authorities, and solemn texts. And 
 so we mean to consider it. But often minute coinci- 
 dences in trifles may do much to corroborate substantial 
 proofs. In tracing the descents of nations or of tribes, 
 the naturalist will attach importance to small resem- 
 blances. The prevalence of the same garb, or of some 
 food, or of some weapon; similarity of habits in
 
 572 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 
 
 domestic or public life, will do as much often in estab- 
 lishing the identity of some modern people with an 
 ancient race, as a mass of ethnographical and historical 
 data. And so, every incident of the private and more 
 hidden life of the ancient Christians, which unlocks 
 their daily thoughts and exposes their domestic prac- 
 tices, affords an element of comparison between them, 
 and modern aspirants to descent from them, similarly 
 decisive, though equally, in themselves, insignificant. 
 It may, indeed, be said, that a few examples such as we 
 have, without much trouble, brought together, do not 
 justify the frequency of similar practices among mo- 
 dern Catholics. To this we reply, in the words of St. 
 Jerome, when answering a similar objection, " Quod 
 semel fecisse bonum est, non potest malum esse si 
 frequentius fiat : aut si aliqua culpa vitanda est, non 
 ex eo quod ssepe, sed ex eo quod fit aliquando, cul- 
 pabile est." d But, in addition, we beg to observe, that 
 one incident that has escaped the ravages of time, 
 given as a matter of course, and as an ordinary 
 occurrence, represents a multitude of others, resem- 
 bling it, that have been lost. It is like the arrow or 
 the helmet found in the tomb of an ancient people ; 
 they enable us to reconstruct their armoury : no one, 
 for a moment, assumes that they happen to be speci- 
 mens of an unique and never-repeated model. And 
 so, who will imagine that no one but St. Macrina wore 
 a cross and relic round her neck, and that none but St. 
 Gregory Thaumaturgus ever believed in visions of the 
 Blessed Virgin, because these examples may stand 
 nearly alone in the records of their respective times ? 
 
 d " That which is good if done once, cannot become evil by being 
 done frequently ; and where a fault is to be avoided, the fault consists 
 uot in its being often, but its being ever, incurred." Adv. Vigilant. 
 p. 396.
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN CATHOLICITY. 573 
 
 Both events are narrated without surprise the stamp 
 of novelty. The same is to be said of every other 
 instance which we have given. 
 
 We may, therefore, safely conclude, that, so far as 
 we have gone into the matter, " a Voice from Rome " 
 might he raised, strongly protesting against the religion 
 of those who set up for reformers and critics of the 
 great Apostolic Church, instead of bowing down their 
 necks in docility to its authoritative teaching : a voice 
 which would rise, in murmurs, from the catacombs, 
 shaking the very ground with its mysterious utterings ; 
 which would ring, with golden echoes, from the tombs 
 of martyrs, beneath altars, against the mosaic apse 
 that overhangs them ; which would travel, on the 
 wings of Catholic faith and Catholic love, to distant 
 lands, over Alps and seas ; beat on the shores of Africa, 
 of Pontus, and of Spain ; and return from all, in the 
 indignant words of their greatest men, to confound, in 
 its thunder, the presumption of modern schism, that 
 pretends alliance with ancient Catholicity.
 
 THE 
 
 ACTIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 From the DUBLIN REVIEW for Ike. 1851. 
 
 %* This Article should have been inserted immediately after that on "The 
 Miracles of the New Testament, ' ending on page 244 of this volume. 
 
 2 r
 
 THE 
 
 ACTIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ART. III. 1. Jesus the Son of Mary; or, the Doctrine of the 
 Catholic Church upon the Incarnation of God the Son, con- 
 sidered in its bearings upon the reverence shown l>y Catholics to 
 his Blessed Mother, By Rev. JOHN BRANDE MORRIS, M.A. 
 2 vols. 8vo. London : Toovey, 1851. 
 
 2. Lettres Catholiques sur VEvangile, Catholic Letters on the 
 Gospel. By the ABBE MASSIOT. Paris: Dentu, 1851. 
 
 WHEN, some numbers back, we treated first of the 
 Parables,* and then of the Miracles, of the New 
 Testament, 1 * and showed how they could only receive 
 their obvious explanation, as instructions, through 
 the Catholic system, we felt that the same principle 
 was applicable to all that our Redeemer said or did to 
 make us wise unto salvation. To suppose that the 
 less direct teaching of the Gospel belonged exclusively 
 to the Spouse, and that the more immediate announce- 
 ment of religious truth was common property to her 
 and to her rivals, would indeed be an anomaly of 
 reasoning, whereof we should be sorry to have any 
 one suspect us. The miracle was for the unbelieving 
 multitude; the parable was for the heartless priest 
 and scribe ; for friends and dear ones were the ordi- 
 
 Vol. xxvii. b Ibid. 
 
 2r2
 
 578 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 nary and domestic actions of Christ's earthly life ; for 
 apostles and disciples were His words of eternal life, 
 the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The Church 
 that alone can claim succession, in ministry, in truth, 
 in grace, and even in history, from these, must alone 
 he entitled to appropriate to herself what was done and 
 said for them. Others may stand in the skirts of the 
 crowd, and listen ; some may even penetrate into the 
 inner circle that stands ahout Jesus, to interrogate, 
 heing doctors of the law, or to tempt, being pharisees. 
 And if, like those who were sent to apprehend Him, 
 hut remained to listen to him, they attend with sin- 
 cerity to His doctrines in parahles and in mighty 
 works, they will find them directed, as we have before 
 seen, to force them into communion with, and sub- 
 mission to, the one, holy, and apostolic, Church, in 
 which alone His teaching ends, which alone His 
 miracles illustrate. 
 
 But when the day's labour is closed, and no Nico- 
 demus comes by night, to prolong it, before our 
 heavenly Teacher retires to the mountain-top, or to 
 His humble chamber, to pass the hours of repose in 
 His rest, " the prayer of God," we see Him seated in 
 the company of the few, of the faithful, and the loving ; 
 the Shepherd of the little flock, the Father of a slender 
 household, partaking with them of their homely fare, 
 and sharing with them in their untutored conver- 
 sation. That His speeches to the multitude and to 
 the priests were clothed in noble and elegant lan- 
 guage, no one can doubt. The people admired not 
 only the wisdom, but the grace, which flowed from 
 His lips ; c the learned, like Nicodemus, conversed 
 with Him respectfully ; d and all wondered at the gifts, 
 ordinarily of education, spontaneously springing from 
 c Luke iv. 22. d John iii. 2.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 579 
 
 the mind of a reputed carpenter's son. 6 But without 
 repassing the ground trodden over in the first of the 
 articles referred to, we will content ourselves with 
 saying, that had the language, or accent, of our 
 Saviour betrayed any symptoms of Galilean rudeness, 
 the ridicule which might have been cast upon it would 
 have been too keen and too useful a weapon, to have 
 been refused by his unprincipled foes. The Jewish 
 writers are unsparingly severe upon it. But when 
 we come to contemplate our B. B<edeemer, retired 
 from the crowd into the society of His disciples and 
 familiar friends, we cannot but see Him descend into 
 the familiar dialect of His own country ; as senators 
 in Venice, or nobles in Provence, would do when in 
 the bosoms of their families. With Peter, whose 
 speech in the priest's hall made him known for a 
 Galilean/ he would converse in those homely phrases, 
 and with those local tones, which formed the language 
 of the more favoured cottage, as of the surrounding 
 dwellings, of Nazareth, and which he condescended to 
 lisp in infancy, as if caught from the sweet lips of 
 His humble Mother. For affectation must be re- 
 moved, as much as coarseness, from our estimate of 
 His character, who chose to be poor among the poor. 
 
 And thus also we come to contemplate the frugal 
 meal at which this heavenly conversation was held, 
 as corresponding in its outer form and features. Bude 
 furniture, in an unadorned chamber, rough-hewn tables 
 and stools, the wooden platter, and the earthenware 
 beaker, are the preparation for a repast, of which the 
 bread is not from Aser, g nor the wine from Engaddi. 
 Yet what a banquet 1 Here it is that the parable is 
 explained, and the want of faith censured ; that con- 
 tentions for precedence are checked, and deep lessons 
 
 e Matt. xiii. 56. f Matt. xxvi. 43. * Gten. xlix. 20.
 
 580 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 of charity and humility are taught ; that, in fine, the 
 mysteries of revelation are disclosed, and the gospel 
 seed is dropped into warm and panting hearts. 
 
 Surely then, if the Church can claim the more 
 mysterious teaching of adverse or curious crowds, as 
 all directed for her improvement, she must have as 
 fair a right to appropriate to herself that more inti- 
 mate and direct instruction, which was addressed to 
 those, whom she alone represents, and succeeds, on 
 earth. And such is the teaching by actions, and hy 
 words. To the first we shall confine ourselves in this 
 paper, reserving the second to a future opportunity. 
 
 But though we have drawn a faint outline of our 
 Lord's dealings with His apostles and friends, by way 
 of describing the scenes of familiar life in which we 
 may find instruction, in so doing we have kept before 
 us an ulterior view. 
 
 I. In fact, if " Christian" signifies a follower and 
 
 & O 
 
 disciple of Christ, one who looks up to his Master's 
 example as a perfect model, there must, and will, be 
 among those who bear that name, many that will 
 gladly copy whatever He has been pleased to do. To 
 all, this may not be given, any more than it is granted 
 them to resemble Him in His ministry, or in His 
 sufferings, or in His more spiritual prerogatives. But 
 as His type is not to be found reproduced in any one 
 of His disciples, as John came nearest to Him in love, 
 Peter in elevation and headship, Paul in eloquence, 
 James in prayer, Andrew in death; and as in later 
 times His sacramental grace lives in His priesthood, 
 His patience in His martyrs, His union of soul with 
 God in His holy virgins : so may we expect to find in 
 some class of His chosen imitators this love and choice 
 of poverty, this denudation of worldly comfort, and 
 neglect of bodily ease. Our B. Redeemer is indeed a
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 581 
 
 fount of burning light, the very sun of the spiritual 
 firmament in His Church ; and the rays that are con- 
 centrated, with dazzling intensity in Him, diverge and 
 are scattered over earth as they descend ; and one is 
 reflected back from one soul, and another from another, 
 reproducing jointly the image of Himself; but each 
 one brightly rendering back only one, though absorb- 
 ing many more. Now if one of the virtues of our 
 Lord was contempt of earthly things, and love neces- 
 sarily of abjection, it must yet be reflected upon earth 
 somewhere in His Church ; and if this virtue be found 
 only in one among contending parties, it surely will 
 form a moral note, a seal of Christ not to be mistaken. 
 We imagined, for instance, just now, this heavenly 
 teacher joining His disciples in their temperate repast, 
 entertaining them meanwhile with that word, on which 
 man lives, no less than upon bread. h Now let us 
 descend eleven hundred years in time, and travel 
 from Palestine to a more westerly region. There is a 
 cleft in a mountain's side, down which, though most 
 precipitous, and seemingly carved out by an ancient 
 torrent, rarely a drop of water flows, into whose dismal 
 avenue no songster of the grove is known to pene- 
 trate. Patched against the side of this gloomy glen, 
 and rooted in its grey crags, is a dwelling half-built, 
 half-excavated, which, at the period alluded to, had 
 just been constructed. The inmates are at meat. Just 
 enter in. Their refectory is low, dark, and damp, for 
 one part of it has its walls of rock. All else is in 
 admirable keeping : the tables and forms are scarcely 
 less rugged. And what is on the former does not fall 
 much behind. A few herbs from the impracticable 
 garden, seasoned poorly, bread of the coarsest, and 
 drink of the sourest, form the provision. At this are 
 
 h Matt. iv. 4.
 
 582 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 seated young men and old, all simply clad, of grave 
 aspect and modest demeanour. One alone is not 
 engaged as the rest. He is seated apart, and reads to 
 them that eat. Let us listen to his words, which 
 seem to rivet the attention of all, and give a dainty 
 relish to their homely food. Is it from the " E/omaunt 
 of the Rose" that he is reading? Is he reciting 
 scraps of minstrelsy, that tell of chivalrous deeds, or 
 of some high-born dame on her ambling palfrey, es- 
 corted by a gallant knight ? Something of the sort, 
 forsooth ; but sweeter, Oh ! by far ! Prom the Book 
 of books he is reading, how, in cold winter, a gentle 
 maiden rode from Nazareth to Bethlehem upon an 
 ass, attended by a poor carpenter ; and at her jour- 
 ney's end, lodged in a stable. At this simple tale, 
 behold, he who presides puts away his frugal platter, 
 and rises from his hard seat, trembling with emotion, 
 his eyes glistening with tears, his hands clasped con- 
 vulsively. What has caused this sudden outburst of 
 grief? Why, he seems to himself a base poltroon, a 
 dainty, delicate fellow, lodged gloriously, clothed luxu- 
 riously, fed sumptuously, the very rich glutton of the 
 Gospel, when he compares himself with her, who, 
 delicate, and pure as the lily bending over the snow- 
 drop, adores the heavenly Infant who has come, in 
 that hour, to share her cold and poverty. And so he 
 crouches down in shame and humility on the clay 
 pavement of his refectory, and in a low wailing, broken 
 with sobs, exclaims : " Woe is me I The Mother of my 
 God seated on the ground, and I comfortably placed 
 at table ! My infant Saviour poor and destitute, and 
 I enjoying an abundant meal I" 
 
 Now to the scripture read, this was then a com- 
 mentary, and it must be allowed a practical one. It 
 said, more plainly than the neatest print of modern
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 583 
 
 fount could convey it, that if Jesus Christ chose 
 poverty and discomfort for Himself and those whom 
 He best loved, He cannot but be pleased with those 
 who, out of dear love of Him, choose a similar state. 
 It goes on to say, that even when we have done our 
 best to copy, the divine original stands far above us, 
 and beyond our reach, and there is room left for 
 humility at seeing our distance. And so the holy 
 St. Francis, one of whose many beautiful actions we 
 have been narrating, as well as many of his com- 
 panions, had been rich, but had become poor, nay, 
 wretchedly poor, and mortified, and neglectful of self, 
 and all for God's sake. Yes, though in a cavern, clad 
 in a single tunic, girt with a cord, and feeding on 
 commonest fare, he saw enough to make him weep, in 
 the greater abasement of God made man. 
 
 A proud supercilious age will no doubt tell us, that 
 St. Francis did not rightly read the Gospel. Was 
 he wrong, then, in understanding from it, that our 
 Saviour loved and chose poverty ? Or was he wrong 
 in believing it good to love and choose what He loved 
 and chose ? If the meal which we have described is 
 not to be considered as approaching to the character 
 and spirit of the repast enjoyed by the apostolic col- 
 lege, with their divine Head, then we will agree to go 
 elsewhere to look for a parallel. "Whither shall we 
 go ? To the workhouse, with its inflexible dietary ? 
 Or to the hospital, like St. Cross, with its stinted 
 fare ? But it is the voluntary imitation of the divine 
 example, in the Church, that we are seeking ; and not 
 the compulsory fasts inflicted on others by the State 
 or the Church. Perhaps when churchmen meet in 
 hall the nearest approach to the monastic refectory 
 for example, in one of our universities, may be 
 expected the closest adaptation of necessary refection
 
 584 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 to the evangelical standard. On a fast-day, parti- 
 cularly of the Establishment's appointment, we may 
 hope to see how well it reads the gospel injunctions. 
 Beneath the well-carved, lofty roof-tree, beside the 
 emblazoned oriel, amidst the portraits of the great 
 and rich men, who have sanctified the hall before 
 then, around tables well furnished we will say no 
 more sit the ministers of a dispensation, which if it 
 be of invisible and spiritual goods, neglects not the 
 ponderable and the perceptible. Perhaps, after the 
 duties of the hour are over, one of them will wipe his 
 mouth, and proceed to evening lecture in the pulpit, 
 there to assure his hearers that, among the super- 
 stitions of popery is that of embracing a life of poverty 
 and abjection, voluntarily suffering privations, sub- 
 jecting the body by austerity : all which comes of not 
 studying the Scriptures ; as neither the example of our 
 Lord, nor the writings of Paul, give the least warranty 
 for such unnatural conduct. And he will instance, as 
 proof, the grovelling Francis, who quite lost sight of 
 his Saviour, by going on the path of poverty. 
 
 In the life of St. Gregory the Great, we read that 
 he daily entertained, and served, at table twelve poor 
 men, in honour of the twelve apostles ; and that one 
 day a thirteenth unbidden guest sat with them. " And 
 none of them that were at meat durst ask Him : Who 
 art thou? knowing that it was the Lord." 1 Now 
 were it to please that same divine Being to visit thus, 
 in visible form, the haunts of men, and seat Himself 
 at table, where most congenial to his meek heart ; we 
 are simple enough to believe that He would be more 
 naturally to be expected in that very refectory of 
 St. Francis's Career i y yet existing in that cloven 
 
 ' John xxi. 12.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 585 
 
 Apennine, near Asisi, where the same poverty and 
 frugality are still practised, than in the midst of a 
 clerical party, in the combination-room of any Uni- 
 versity college. 
 
 It may perhaps be said, that our parallel is unfair. 
 But we are driven to it, by the absence from the 
 " pure and apostolic branch of the Church established 
 in this country" of anything more likely, d priori, to 
 bear analogy with our Saviour's repasts among His 
 apostles. And we cannot forbear remarking, how, in 
 every Catholic community, the presence of Christ 
 instructing His disciples, at their common table, is 
 imitated by the reading of Scripture during meals ; a 
 practice, we believe, confined to our " unscriptural" 
 and " Scripture-hating" Church. 
 
 But our main purpose hitherto has been to show, 
 how this maligned, but only faithful Spouse, has alone 
 read her Lord's poverty as a practical lesson, has art- 
 lessly believed that it was not a chance but a choice, 
 has unaffectedly deemed it a virtue, has found it a key 
 to many otherwise locked-up treasures, a way rugged 
 and steep over Calvary to Thabor. And this poverty 
 of Christ, our Saviour, may be well put at the head of 
 His actions, as ruling, modifying, and colouring them 
 all, from His cradle to His cross. 
 
 It is not, of course, our intention, or we might 
 properly say, our presumption, to go over even the 
 principal actions of that life. We will only cull out a 
 few, and we must premise that our selection will not 
 be systematic ; only we shall begin with the beginning, 
 and choose classes or groups of actions, in preference 
 to single acts. In the early period of the divine life 
 on earth, we have necessarily to contemplate the in- 
 fluence which it had upon another person, inferior 
 indeed by far, but nearer to Him of whom we speak
 
 586 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 than any other created being. A Catholic at once 
 understands us to mean His Blessed Mother. 
 
 II. Now it has appeared to us, when contemplating 
 the early scenes of the gospel history, that her place 
 has been far from duly considered, with reference to 
 questions controversially agitated. It is true that the 
 Catholic attaches importance to all recorded con- 
 cerning her in the Gospel; and finds there proofs 
 incontestable of her virtue, her dignity, her privileges, 
 and her influence, or rather power. The Protestant 
 is, on the contrary, prone to depress, to extenuate, to 
 disattach importance from, all that relates to her ; 
 nay, he seeks to overlook it all, as merely secondary, 
 casual, and almost dangerous. Now it is surely im- 
 portant, and it can hardly fail to be interesting, to 
 ascertain what place is appointed to her by the Word, 
 and the Spirit, of God, in the twofold economy, of 
 faith, and of grace. In the earlier part of gospel 
 history we must look for our answer. 
 
 1. We shall, perhaps, a little weary our readers by 
 the course of remarks through which we must beg to 
 lead them. They will contain nothing new, and 
 nothing very brilliant. 
 
 It is clear that the historical books of the New Tes- 
 tament present a twofold aspect, as trustworthy, and as 
 inspired, compositions. Their writers used every human 
 industry and pains, to record what they believed and 
 knew to be true ; and the Divine Spirit superintended, 
 guided, secured from smallest error, and sealed the 
 work which He Himself had suggested to the writer's 
 mind. There were two excellent reasons, among others, 
 for this mode of dealing. First, those books had to 
 go forth and be examined by men who were unbe- 
 lievers, and before whom their authors came merely as 
 honest, accurate, and credible historians. They were
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 587 
 
 to be received by Pagan and Jew, and later by sceptic 
 and sophist, antecedently to any recognition of their 
 inspiration. They were to be submitted to all the 
 tests of human ingenuity, and even malice ; put on the 
 rack ; compared with every other sort of document ; 
 tried by geography, physics, history, morals; ex- 
 amined by every possible light, heathen, rabbinical, 
 Gnostic, Jewish ; tortured philologically in every 
 member of every sentence. Then the character of 
 each writer was to be investigated ; when he lived and 
 where; what were his means of knowing; what his 
 right to speak; what his language, his dialect, his 
 idioms, his peculiar turn of thought ; what his object 
 and purpose, and what his mode of attaining it ; what 
 his interest, his gain, his loss, his chances. In fact, 
 men who were called upon to give up everything that 
 human nature hugs, and evil passions stick to, on the 
 strength of certain most extraordinary facts related by 
 what seemed very ordinary people, were not likely to 
 do so upon a claim of inspiration, but would search 
 into the evidence of the facts, through the credibility 
 of their vouchers, with the sharp scrutiny of a repug- 
 nant mind. Now this inquiry must be exercised on 
 the varied elements of a human truth. The earthly 
 author must appear, if not in his infirmities, at least 
 in his peculiarities, to lend a grasp to the eager 
 searcher. Where there are no veins, no grain, no 
 colour, no separable ingredients, no penetrable point, 
 investigation is hopeless. Hence every defender of 
 the Gospels, from the beginning of the Church till 
 now, has laid hold of those coincidences with, or ap- 
 proximations to, other writers, which proved humanly 
 the perfect veracity of the inspired penmen ; and even 
 minute research has been employed, to discover appa- 
 rently trifling corroborations of particular statements.
 
 588 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Let the reader but look at the first sentence of Dr. 
 Lardner's " Credibility," and he will see how an able 
 Protestant vindicator of the New Testament under- 
 takes what we have described. The same course is 
 pursued by Catholics, enforcing the credibility of the 
 gospel history against unbelievers. 1 " 
 
 A second reason for this economy is that of its 
 becomingness. The gift of inspiration could not be 
 supposed to be bestowed on negligent or careless 
 writers. We cannot well imagine a consciousness of 
 inspiration (we do not speak of vision or revelation) 
 in one who had witnessed facts, superseding all care or 
 effort, accurately to remember what he had witnessed. 
 He did his best to render himself worthy of the mar- 
 vellous gift, by his own thoughtful and diligent 
 application to the task. He wrote as conscientiously, 
 and with as anxious a desire to give the truth, as 
 though he had no guarantee against error. 
 
 The result is, consequently, as we have remarked, a 
 double aspect under which the evangelical records pre- 
 sent themselves. First, they will bear the strictest 
 scrutiny as histories, antecedent to all proof of revela- 
 tion; so as to compel the acknowledgment of the 
 facts contained in them facts which form the basis of 
 Christianity. And this secures moral certainty to one 
 previously an unbeliever. Secondly, they have on 
 them the sacred and divine stamp of inspiration, of 
 which no sufficient evidence can exist out of the 
 Catholic Church ; and this furnishes them with super- 
 natural authority, making them be believed no longer 
 with a human, but with a divine, faith. The one 
 
 k Every course of theology will show this. E. g. Perrone, toin. i. 
 cap. iv. pr. i. ; torn. ix. par. ii. sect. i. c. i. pr. iii., where the usual 
 arguments for credibility are brought forward.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 589 
 
 makes them credible, the other infallible ; the one 
 true, the other certain. 
 
 But the surest proof that the first character per- 
 vades the gospel history is, the appeal made by the 
 writers themselves to the usual grounds of credibility. 
 These are of two classes. St. John claims the rights of 
 the first that of an eye and ear- witness. " That which 
 was from the beginning,- which we have heard, which 
 we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked 
 upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of 
 Life (for the Life was manifested, and we have seen, 
 and do bear witness, and declare unto you the Life 
 eternal, which was with the Father, and hath appeared 
 to us) ; that which we have seen and have heard, we 
 declare unto you." 1 Again, of the mysterious flow of 
 blood and water from Christ's side : " And he that 
 saw it hath given testimony; and his testimony is 
 true."" 1 And at the close of his gospel : " This is the 
 disciple that giveth testimony of these things, and 
 hath written these things." 11 St. Luke contents him- 
 self with being evidence of the second class, as the 
 accurate recorder of events carefully collected from 
 first witnesses. " Forasmuch as many have taken in 
 hand, to set forth in order a narration of the things 
 which have been accomplished among us, according as 
 they have delivered them twto us, who from the be- 
 ginning were eye-witnesses -, and ministers of the word ; 
 it seemed good to me also, having diligently attained 
 to all things from the beginning, to write to thee in 
 order, most excellent Theophilus." 
 
 And, in fact, if we diligently peruse the Gospels, we 
 shall perhaps be surprised to find, how few events are 
 
 1 1 John i. 1. n John xix. 33. 
 
 D John xxi. 24. Luke i. 13.
 
 590 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 recorded, of which the knowledge could not have come 
 from human testimony. The prayer in the garden, 
 which was unwitnessed by man, and the first moments 
 of the resurrection, perhaps form the only exceptions ; 
 hut they can, and may, be supposed to have been 
 communicated by Him, whose testimony infinitely 
 transcends that of man. 
 
 We may seem to have made a long digression, or to 
 have taken a circuitous path to our purpose. It is 
 indeed so. But we have gained these two points : 
 first, that the chain of evidence, whereby the great 
 Christian system is mainly sustained, must be un- 
 exceptionable as to strength, decision, and complete- 
 ness, without a flaw or imperfection; and secondly, 
 that the divine inspiration confirms and sanctions the 
 solidity and fitness of every link. Hence arises the 
 high position of evangelist in the order of saints. 
 St. John is styled " the Evangelist," in preference to 
 " the Apostle," because the first title is a distinctive 
 beyond the second. And no small portion of the 
 apostles' glory consists in their having been chosen 
 witnesses of our Blessed Lord's actions, to manifest 
 them to the world ; whence St. Paul hesitates not to 
 say, that we are of God's household, because we are 
 " built upon the foundation " (that is, the testimony) 
 " of the apostles and prophets." p 
 
 But whatever may have been the importance of the 
 facts or events to which they were called to be wit- 
 nesses, there was one of more importance than them 
 all, one which is the very ground-work of the Chris- 
 tian dispensation, without the certainty of which the 
 entire system falls to pieces. This is the mystery of 
 the Incarnation, as accomplished upon earth. To this 
 God willed that there should be only one witness ; of 
 P Epbes. ii. 20.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 591 
 
 all its holiest details one sole evidence. " In the 
 mouth of two or three witnesses every word may 
 stand,'" 1 except the Word of words, the Incarnate 
 Word. This must stand attested to the world for 
 ever by only one witness, and that was Mary, the 
 ever blessed. Who could tell that Gabriel came from 
 heaven, and brought her, from the Eternal Father, 
 message ? Who, that she was alarmed at his greet- 
 ing ? Who, that she hesitated to accept the proposed 
 prerogative of a divine maternity, at its imagined 
 price ? Who, that he manifested the fulness of the 
 gift, and the miraculous* agency by which it had to be 
 accomplished ? Who, her virginal consent, and its 
 concurrent effect, the Mystery of life, the Emanuel in 
 existence, a God-man in being ? Only she, the chosen, 
 exclusive partaker, on earth, of the most hidden 
 counsels of the Almighty. 
 
 Now, first, take away her contribution to the gospel 
 testimony, efface her testimony to Christianity, and 
 you find not simply a link broken, but the very fasten- 
 ing of the whole chain wanting ; not merely a gap, or 
 a break, made in the structure, but the foundation 
 gone. In the laws of belief on testimony, what else- 
 where appears unnatural is true. If you want to 
 make a structure look unsafe, you represent it as a 
 pyramid resting on its point. Yet where the number 
 of believers increases at each generation, from the first 
 source of evidence, it is clear, that a diagram repre- 
 senting this fact, and the unity of derivation of the 
 truth believed, would present this very form. Now 
 here the belief in the wonders wrought in the Incar- 
 nation, of ages and of the world, rests upon one point of 
 testimony, a unit, a single voice that of the B. Virgin 
 Mary. 
 
 i Matt, xviii. 16. 
 i 2Q
 
 592 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Again we say, cancel her testimony, and what 
 becomes of all other witnesses ? Had she not let out 
 the secrets of her breast, or in higher truth, had not 
 God's Spirit moved her, as He moved the Evangelists, 
 not to collect, indeed, but to scatter, not to inquire, 
 but to teach ; had He not thus made her the Evangelist 
 of the Evangelists, and the Apostle to Apostles ; had 
 not that same divine influence, which overcame her 
 first reluctance of purity, prevailed over her second 
 unwillingness, from humility (of which we shall treat 
 later), and compelled her to speak; the whole tale of 
 love, which fills the holiest of histories, would have 
 wanted, not only its tenderest and most affecting 
 beginning, but the very root from which its loveliness 
 and beauty spring, to circulate through it all. "We 
 should have read with wonder the account of miracles 
 most amazing, and discourses most admirable, and 
 virtues most divine ; but it would have been difficult 
 for us to separate, in our minds, this narrative from 
 what we attribute to prophets or patriarchs, had not 
 the clear, and most sweet, and consoling record of our 
 Lord's appearance on earth been preserved for us, so 
 as totally to segregate Him from the very highest 
 orders of holiness, and make Him even here " higher 
 than the heavens." And let it be remarked too, that 
 even the principal circumstances of our Saviour's 
 Nativity and early life rest exclusively upon the same 
 evidence. When St. Luke collected his narrative from 
 those who had been witnesses from the beginning, 
 Joseph was long departed, and so were Zachary and 
 Elizabeth, as well as Simeon and Anna. She only 
 who laid up all that happened in her mother's heart, 1 
 survived, witness of the journey to Bethlehem and of 
 the flight into Egypt, of the angelic messages which 
 
 r Luke ii. 19, 51.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 593 
 
 accompanied these events, and of the presentation in 
 the temple. Who else had retained in memory the 
 words so admirable, and so important to us, of Eliza- 
 beth and of Zachary ; above all, that canticle of dearest 
 interest to the Church for ever, her unfailing evening 
 hymn, the Magnificat ? It is a treasury, the mother's 
 bosom, at once capacious and retentive, in which can 
 be secured words and deeds that have passed from 
 every other mind. And so when, after forty years, 
 the early life of our Redeemer is inquired into, there 
 remains one faithful and most loving witness, to give 
 proof of what ennobled, ratified, and stamped with 
 divine evidence, every action and every word of His 
 after-life. Mary alone supplied the testimony to His 
 miraculous conception and birth, and to the fulfilment 
 of the prophecies in her pure virginal being. 
 
 But we may go further. So completely had these 
 wonderful occurrences been concealed, so well had 
 "the secret of the King been hidden," 8 that when 
 our Lord came before the public, its uncontradicted 
 opinion pronounced Him to be Joseph's son, " being, 
 as it was supposed, the son of Joseph." 1 And the 
 people hesitated not to say in His own very country, 
 " Is not this the carpenter's son ? Is not his mother 
 called Mary? and his brethren James, and Joseph, 
 and Simon, and Jude; and his sisters are they not 
 all with us?" tt And again they said, "Is not this 
 Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we 
 know? How then, saith he, I came down from 
 heaven?"* Here were valid elements of human evi- 
 dence, a strong foundation for historical assertion. 
 Had any one gone into the very country and neigh- 
 bourhood where Jesus had lived, to inquire into His 
 
 Tob. xii. 7. * Luke iii. 23. 
 
 u Matt. xiii. 55. * John vi. 42. 
 
 2Q2
 
 594 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 early history, he would have found concurrent testi- 
 mony that He was " the carpenter's son." The 
 espousals of Mary with him, would have been quoted, 
 as well as their enrolment in Augustus's census. 
 Public repute, that is, the testimony of thousands, 
 might have been powerfully alleged. And against all 
 its authority, what have we to oppose ? The simple 
 assertion of Mary. So high, so sacred, so undoubted 
 is her word, that to the Christians of all ages it has 
 sufficed to counterbalance every other source of infor- 
 mation. Surely, then, her place is the very first in 
 the order of Gospel evidences, and so in the economy 
 of faith. 
 
 Let us again consider, what gives her this position. 
 When an apologist, as writers on the evidences are 
 most unbecomingly called, wishes to establish the 
 claims of the Evangelists to our credit, antecedent to 
 the proof of inspiration, he justly insists upon what 
 they did and suffered, to demonstrate their sincerity. 
 We are most rightly shown, how every interest was 
 surrendered, every dearest affection sacrificed, pros- 
 pects, comfort, home, friends, family ; how every suf- 
 fering was incurred, every hardship courted, from the 
 discomfort of an uncertain life, to the extremity of 
 certain death ; and who, it is powerfully asked, would 
 act thus without firm conviction, and on behalf of 
 anything but truth ? And further appeal is justly 
 made to the wonders which they themselves wrought, 
 and the supernatural gifts which they displayed, in 
 attestation of their truthfulness. Now, all this being 
 most true, let us see how it influences our idea of the 
 character of God's blessed Mother. Long before the 
 three first gospels were written, very long before the 
 last of them was penned, the Apostles had given their 
 testimony to the whole world, " their sound had gone
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 595 
 
 forth into all the earth, and their words unto the end 
 of the world. " y Some of them had even sealed their 
 doctrine with their blood. And there may have been 
 some who, like Thomas in India, or Bartholomew in 
 Armenia, never used the written word, to teach Chris- 
 tianity. And no doubt each of them spoke as a 
 witness of the Resurrection, and other miracles. But 
 they were just as ready to die for the truth of much 
 which they had not seen, for the certainty of the 
 virginal conception of Mary, and the marvels of the 
 Nativity. They indeed had divine internal conviction 
 of all these facts; but they preached them to the 
 heathen and Jewish world, as witnesses. They would 
 claim therefore the same credit and authority for 
 what they taught on Mary's testimony, as for what 
 they had witnessed with their own eyes. And if any 
 one asked them what motives of credibility they could 
 give for her witnessing, they would indeed necessarily 
 be of a nature totally different from any other. To 
 her were granted no miraculous powers, no super- 
 natural gifts. To her was not accorded the rougher 
 evidence of apostolic trial and suffering. No prison, 
 no rack, no sword, save that of grief, is her appointed 
 lot. How could it have been otherwise ? She lives in 
 quiet ; she dies in peace. She had everything to gain 
 by her testimony ; it secured to her the sublime, un- 
 rivalled position of God's Mother. What then was 
 the corroboration of her testimony, which an apostle 
 would allege? Her spotless innocence, her heroic 
 fortitude, her unfailing sweetness, her peerless holi- 
 ness ; in one word, her matchless virtue. But further, 
 her participation in all the evidences of her Son's 
 mission. Every prophecy which He uttered, every 
 heavenly doctrine which He preached, every miracle 
 
 y Ps. iviii. 5.
 
 596 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 which he wrought, every grace which he displayed, 
 was witnessing to her, every time He called her His 
 mother. Whatever proved to the world who He was, 
 showed it equally what she was. Every work which 
 demonstrated Him to be the Son of God, proved her 
 irrefragably to be the Mother of God. " Beatus venter 
 qui te portavit, et ubera qua3 suxisti," z was the natural 
 expression of feeling regarding both. It was a contra- 
 diction of reason, and a blasphemy against God, to 
 suppose that she was not worthy of her high dignity, 
 her awful relationship, or rather her appointed office, 
 in the scheme of man's Redemption. 
 
 Such was the ground of credibility accorded to her 
 testimony ; one superior far to what was given to any 
 of the apostles. Let us then imagine the " glorious 
 choir" of these holy men, about to spread over the 
 whole earth to preach the Gospel, and collecting to- 
 gether the great facts, which they must proclaim, as 
 the basis of their doctrine, and to which they must 
 bear witness, even by the shedding of their blood. 
 There is as yet no written word of the New Law ; and 
 this meeting is therefore the very first source of uni- 
 versal teaching. Each one comes to pour into the 
 common fountain his jealously-guarded store, thence 
 to well forth, and flow unfailingly, as the stream of 
 tradition through the Church the life-bearing river 
 of the earthly paradise. Some bring less, and some 
 more : while those who have been born after time, 
 into the faith, receive almost with jealousy, what into 
 their eager ears, by the more favoured ones, is poured. 
 John and his brother and Peter attest the anticipation 
 of celestial glory on Thabor. The first of these alone 
 can recount, while others hang down their heads and 
 blush, what took place on Calvary, and on its rood : 
 
 z Luke xi. 27.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 597 
 
 and the last bears witness against himself, of his 
 triple denial in the high priest's hall. Nicodemus 
 has a hidden treasure which he brings out, in the 
 mysterious conference that he held with Jesus; and 
 Magdalen may be the only one to tell the history of 
 her forgiveness. But when each one has contributed 
 his all, miracles, and parables, and gracious words, 
 and wisest discourse, and splendid acts, they have but 
 furnished materials for a history of three years of a 
 life of three-and-thirty. Where do the remaining 
 thirty lie hidden ? Who holds their annals ? Who 
 is the rich treasurer of that golden heap, of blessed 
 words and acts divine ? One, only one. Let her be 
 entreated to enrich the world by participation of her 
 recondite knowledge. She comes to pour, into the 
 bright waters that flow from the apostolic fount, the 
 virginal cruse which, Queen of wise virgins, she trea- 
 sures in her bosom. Yea truly, and the lamp which 
 it feeds cannot be extinguished. A few drops indeed 
 only will she give ; for by those thirty years it may be 
 said, that she mainly was intended to profit; they 
 were her school of perfection. But every single drop 
 is most precious is as a peerless and priceless pearl. 
 "Oleum effusum nomen tuum." a The very name of 
 JESUS, that name of blessing and salvation, she makes 
 known as a divine revelation to her, and with it all 
 the promises of what He should, under it, accomplish, 
 and the proclamation of what, by it, He was declared. 
 While apostles surrounded Him to witness His won- 
 derful works, while multitudes pressed in admiration 
 to listen to Him, she hung, at times, on the skirt of 
 the crowd, or stood outside the door, the solicitous, 
 because loving, mother. But the maternal heart 
 naturally flies back to the days of infancy, which are 
 
 * Cant, i. 2.
 
 598 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 there laid up in vivid recollection. The woman will 
 most gladly remember the hour of her purest joy; 
 when she rejoiced that a man was born into the woiid. b 
 What then, if He was, the "Wonderful, God the 
 Mighty." And such are the precious, and most 
 soothing manifestations which Mary will make, for 
 the comfort of devout souls, even to the end of the 
 world. She will lay the very groundwork of the 
 evangelical narrative. Whatever gratitude the Church 
 bears towards the collectors and preservers of our first 
 sacred records, is due in signal manner to her. What- 
 ever of credibility, authority, and truthfulness is war- 
 ranted by Christian belief, to the witnesses of what 
 constitutes the basis of faith, must be peculiarly 
 extended to her. Nor may we doubt the justness of 
 her title in the Church REGINA APOSTOLORTJM. 
 
 This our obligation is further enhanced by a con- 
 sideration to which we have alluded, and which has 
 often struck us in reflecting on a passage in the Gospel. 
 May we be allowed to add, that its beauty, as well as 
 its importance, seems to us to have been much over- 
 looked. Prom Matt. i. 18 24, it is clear that the 
 angel's visit to the B. Virgin was by her completely 
 concealed. This would have seemed almost impossible. 
 It was a subject for the purest, yet intensest, joy ; for 
 an exultation of spirit that would beam forth from 
 every feature, would quiver on the lips, betray itself 
 by involuntary gestures of bliss. Then to be so 
 exalted, and not show consciousness of it; to be 
 raised above every attainable dignity, to find oneself 
 become the theme of prophecy, the fulfilment of types, 
 the term of the Old Law, the dawn of the new day, 
 the mother of the world's life, in one word, the Mother 
 of God, and not, by look, or word, hint it ; to be as 
 b John xvi. 21. c Is. ix. 6.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 599 
 
 calm, as simple, as natural, the next time she spoke 
 with Joseph, as if nothing had occurred ; this gives us 
 a truer estimate of the beauty and perfection of her 
 character, than almost anything else that is on record. 
 And further, that naturally foreseeing or knowing, as 
 time went on, Joseph's tormenting perplexity, she 
 should have preferred to hear its pain the most 
 grievous possible to her pure and affectionate heart, to 
 a manifestation of her lofty privileges, and heavenly 
 maternity, proves both a humility without parallel, 
 and a confidence in God's providence worthy of it. 
 But now, is it rash to say, that if even such strong 
 motives as were here presented did not suffice to over- 
 come her humble modesty, and induce her to manifest 
 her hidden glory, there must have been a reason 
 stronger still, to influence her, when afterwards she 
 gave minute details of Gabriel's interview, and the 
 circumstances of the divine Incarnation? And this 
 will be supplied by the same power which impelled St. 
 John, in extreme old age, to record his remembrances 
 of our Lord's discourses ; the Holy Spirit's prompting 
 to a work important for our instruction, and so for our 
 salvation. 
 
 And now we may ask, is there anything exaggerated, 
 unnatural, or repugnant to God's word, in the view 
 which we have taken of the B. Virgin's place in the 
 economy of faith ? We feel sure there is not. We 
 have then only further to ask, is this her position one 
 in accordance with Protestant ideas, or Protestant 
 affections? Would it suit the pulpit or the pen of 
 Anglican or Dissenter, Lutheran or Calvinist ? Would 
 it be tolerated even as a speculative thesis in a Pro- 
 testant university, or be proposed as a theme for devout 
 meditation by a high-church director? Take the 
 whole range of heretical feelings towards the Mother
 
 600 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 of the Incarnate Word, from brutish abhorrence (we 
 blush to write it), to formal indifference, and see 
 where her claims will fit in. But to a Catholic such 
 a position is at once natural and acceptable. He greets 
 with joy whatever tends to enhance her merits, or 
 increase her praise. He recognises her as a being 
 placed above his power of adequately doing justice to 
 either. It is gratifying, therefore, and consoling to 
 him to learn, even though it may not have struck him 
 before, that the ever holy Virgin Mother of God holds 
 a high, or the highest, place, in any relation which 
 binds her, on the one side, to the merciful counsels of 
 God, and, on the other, to those for whom they are 
 decreed. 
 
 2. And now let us proceed to inquire, what place 
 those early records of our dear Saviour's life assign to 
 His Parent in the order of grace. That she was full 
 of grace when she was chosen by God for that high 
 dignity, we have an angel's word. d That the inpour- 
 ing of all grace into the already full vessel, by the 
 incarnation itself, made it overflow, who can doubt ? 
 We have only to examine what happened, on the first 
 occasion of proof, to satisfy ourselves of this. 
 
 There must have been particular reasons, as we 
 have before suggested, for the selection of any given 
 gospel history from the abundance withheld; and, 
 therefore, it is no presumption to believe, that one of 
 the most remarkable and profitable events, succeeding 
 the incarnation, was the visitation of Mary to Eliza- 
 beth. Simply read, it is a touching record. The 
 humble condescension of that now sovereign lady 
 towards her aged relative, in travelling into the moun- 
 tains to congratulate with her, on her miraculous 
 conception, and the lowliness of respect and veneration 
 
 d Luke i. 28.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 601 
 
 with which her greeting was received, and the breaking 
 out from Mary's holy lips, of her first and last re- 
 corded canticle and prophecy, render this meeting 
 remarkable in the eyes of the most superficial reader. 
 Catholic meditation will go deeper than this. Gabriel's 
 was the first salutation of Mary, Elizabeth's the 
 second ; and in the Church's both are united and fit 
 together, and are riveted as naturally, as we are told 
 the chains of Peter at Jerusalem and at Rome were, 
 when brought into contact. " Hail, Mary, full of 
 grace, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou among 
 women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb !" This 
 might have been all spoken by one, so well do all its 
 parts cohere. And what wonder ? An archangel sent 
 from God, and a matron filled with the Holy Ghost, are 
 but different instruments moved by the same breath, 
 and must sound in perfect harmony. And hence 
 Elizabeth is the second, external witness of the in- 
 carnation, receiving knowledge of that marvellous 
 mystery from the Spirit of God. What a full and 
 overpowering sense of its grandeur, and of the dignity 
 of Mary, do not her words convey ? " Whence is this 
 to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to 
 me ? and blessed art thou who hast believed, because 
 those things shall be accomplished that were spoken 
 to thee by the Lord." 6 Suppose, three months before, 
 it had been announced to Elizabeth that her relation 
 Mary had come to see her, would it have appeared to 
 her anything astonishing ? She was the elder by many 
 years, and her husband was a priest of high rank : 
 could it have been thought a wonderful favour, an 
 unexpected condescension, that the young maiden, 
 betrothed to a carpenter, and their relation, should 
 come to pay them both a visit ? But Zachary, inore- 
 
 e Vv. 43-45.
 
 602 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 over, had been favoured by an angel's visit, a rare 
 honour in those days, when the direct word of God 
 had become precious, as in the time of Heli. f And let 
 us observe, as we pass, that the respective positions of 
 Zachary and Joseph, in relation to Elizabeth and Mary, 
 are definitely distinguished by the difference of the two 
 annunciations. In the first, the archangel Gabriel 
 appears, and conveys the tidings of a son to the future 
 father ; in the second, he brings his message only to the 
 immediate mother. But to return, Elizabeth, too, had 
 been blest by a miraculous gift, of a child in her old 
 age, of a child pre-described by the greatest of the pro- 
 phets. In the order of grace, therefore, both had been 
 signally ennobled. How much more sublime must the 
 position of the B. Virgin have appeared to them, how 
 much superior her rank, that her coming to them 
 should have been, to their minds, as a royal visit, 
 of which they could not, in any way, consider them- 
 selves worthy? Nor must it be forgotten that the 
 expression of these sentiments proceeded not merely 
 from a personal conviction, but from the Holy Spirit, 
 who spake through Elizabeth. The words which she 
 uses are worthy of special note. " Whence is this to 
 me?" In other words, "What have I, or what am 
 I, that such an honour should be conferred upon me ? 
 However favoured I may have been myself, however 
 honoured by God's choice, and God's blessing, the 
 distance between me and thee is so immense, that I 
 cannot account for this act of kindness." Then how 
 does she describe it ? " That the mother of my Lord 
 should come to me?" She was indeed the mother of 
 the Precursor ; Mary, of her, and his, Lord. Her son 
 was to close the Old Testament (for " until John was 
 
 f 1 Reg. iii. 1.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 603 
 
 the law" g ), Mary's was to give and ratify the New; 
 John was to be the sealer of prophecy, Jesus its fulfil- 
 ment; John was the herald, Jesus the King. But 
 the words " my Lord " recall to our minds a similar 
 expression, where the two ideas of the Messiahship 
 and the Godhead are united. " The Lord said to my 
 Lwd" as spoken by David, and explained in this 
 sense by Christ Himself : h " My Lord and my God," 
 as similarly applied by St. Thomas. 1 Elizabeth, then, 
 the woman "just before God, walking in all the com- 
 mandments and justifications of the Lord without 
 blame ;" k Elizabeth, the mother of the "greatest who 
 rose born of woman," 1 given to her miraculously; 
 Elizabeth, in fine, the inspired of the Holy Ghost, 
 here assigns to Mary a place immeasurably superior 
 to her own : in virtue of her prerogative as the mother 
 of the incarnate Word, the Saviour of the world, the 
 only begotten of God the Father. 
 
 We may pause to ask with whose belief about the 
 B. Virgin does this feeling of Elizabeth agree with 
 that of Catholics or with that of Protestants ? The 
 latter, as we are told in a most important work just 
 published," 1 consider her as " a good woman," perhaps 
 a holy one. But with the exception of a few more 
 ultra high-churchmen, none are prepared to exalt her 
 so completely, by right of her prerogative, above 
 every other order of sanctity, even that which the 
 word of God has pronounced " without blame." In 
 the Catholic system, on the contrary, no one will deny, 
 that this superiority is not a matter of opinion, but 
 one of universal belief; not a sentiment, but a doc- 
 trine. And it is assigned on the same ground as it is 
 
 e Luke xvi. 16. h Ps. cix. 1 ; Luke xx. 42. 
 
 * John xi. 28. k Luke i. 6. l Matt. xi. 11. 
 
 m " Jesus and Mary." By the Rev. J. B. Morris. Vol. i. p. 345.
 
 604 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 by Elizabeth, the incommunicable privilege of the 
 divine maternity. 
 
 But all that we have said goes no further than 
 allotting to the B. Virgin the highest place in the 
 order of grace ; whereas we have to inquire what is 
 her relation to the economy, or dispensation, of grace. 
 For we have remarked, that the Visitation is a fair 
 test of this. If any Catholic sentiment, respecting 
 her, give particular offence to the Protestant mind, it- 
 is one which forms the basis of confidence in our 
 devotion towards her : that it pleases God to make 
 her the channel of great spiritual graces. In reality, 
 there is nothing very unnatural in the idea, when one 
 considers that it pleased Him to give, through her, to 
 the world, the Grace of graces, the very Fountain of 
 every good gift. While the ordinary laws of nature 
 were so overruled, as that she alone should have a 
 part in this god-like work, they were so preserved, as 
 that her share should be real and complete. She was 
 the only being ever created, from whom God at any 
 time received, or took, anything. And it was that 
 humanity thus derived in truth from her," that, united 
 with the divinity, in one person, but two natures, was 
 the ransom of man, and the source of salvation and 
 grace. After this, can it be wonderful, if by the same 
 means are dispensed the fruit of that first and divine 
 Gift ? But let us see how it was in the Visitation. 
 
 Elizabeth thus addressed our Blessed Lady : " Eor 
 behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded 
 in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy." 
 It has been the unfailing tradition of the Church, 
 attested, with perhaps one exception, by every father, 
 that, in that instant, the Baptist was cleansed from 
 
 n " Misit Deus Filium suum, factum ex muliere" Gal. iv. 4. 
 Luke i. 44.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 605 
 
 original sin, and sanctified in his mother's womb. p 
 In fact, it would be repugnant to imagine conscious- 
 ness of his Redeemer's presence so prematurely granted 
 him, and a joyful recognition of Him made, without 
 this boon. For the very knowledge, thus miraculously 
 communicated, would imply conviction of sin, whereof 
 He was the Redeemer; and this could only inflict 
 pain, unless accompanied by immediate removal of 
 what estranged one from the other. The joy attendant 
 on the consciousness reveals that this took place. 
 
 St. John was thus purged and hallowed in the 
 womb; this was a fruit of redemption, and, in fact, 
 its essential result. To purchase for us forgiveness of 
 sin, to reverse the original curse, and make us once 
 more children of God, and heirs of His kingdom, were 
 the great objects which brought down the Word from 
 the bosom of His Father. Not only was this puri- 
 fication of John, before birth, a fruit of Redemption, 
 but it may be well considered the first act of our 
 Saviour's life, in application of His atonement. It 
 was indeed meet that His very first recorded action, 
 being yet unborn, should be the forgiveness of a 
 sinner. It was no less becoming that this first deed 
 of mercy and grace the forerunner of so many similar 
 ones, should be performed in favour of the Precursor ; 
 the theme of whose preaching, the burthen of whose 
 prophetic song may well be supposed to have been 
 taught him now: "Behold the Lamb of God, who 
 taketh away the sin of the world !" 
 
 Now through whose instrumentality was this first 
 act of graciousness performed, this first application of 
 the fruits of redemption made ? There was nothing to 
 prevent its taking place silently. Jeremias was not 
 
 P See the proofs collected in the work referred to, " Jesus the Son 
 of Mary," vol. i. p. 378.
 
 606 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 made aware till his mission commenced, that he had 
 received consecration before birth. q But in this in- 
 stance, God was pleased to employ an outward agency, 
 and we are told what it was. It was the voice, the 
 word of His mother. As soon as the voice of her 
 salutation sounded in Elizabeth's ears, so soon, and no 
 sooner, does the act of mercy take place. Had that 
 salutation been anticipated or delayed, by her will, the 
 prophet's liberation would have come sooner or later. 
 Her word of greeting was the sentence of his forgive- 
 ness. The pardon was our Lord's alone, the grace 
 His, the love His; but the conveyance of them all 
 was left to her; she transmitted pardon, grace, and 
 love to the exulting prisoner. 
 
 This gives us then the place assigned, by the early 
 records of our Lord's life, to His most blessed Mother, 
 in the economy of grace. It makes her the dispenser 
 of the very first grace which He bestowed after His 
 incarnation; a grace of the most sublime order, in 
 favour of his dearest saint, the friend of the bride- 
 groom. Now let us take, in conjunction with this 
 remarkable fact, another, and a parallel one. "We 
 mean the performance of Christ's first miracle at 
 Cana. Prom St. John's account it is evident, that 
 our Lord performed it in obedience to His Mother, 
 and even anticipated His appointed hour for her sake : 
 " My hour is not yet come." Heedless of this protest, 
 she feels confident that He will grant her request, 
 and orders the servants to make preparations for the 
 miracle. 1 Again we have the same principle acted 
 upon. The first temporal grace, though it required a 
 miracle, and that miracle involved departure from a 
 predetermined plan, was for her, at her request, 
 
 i Jer. i. 5. r John ii. 4, 5.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 607 
 
 through her means. The wine would never have heen 
 obtained, had she not interposed. 
 
 We may, perhaps, discover in all this a further 
 relation between Mary and the dispensation of grace. 
 The Baptist's sanctification was his mystical baptism, 
 an anticipation, by special favour to him, of what other 
 souls were to receive through the ordinance which he 
 had to announce the baptism of water and the Holy 
 Ghost. The transmutation at Cana was the symbol, 
 and the illustration, of a more wonderful change, in 
 the Eucharistic wedding-feast. Each of these pre- 
 liminary and preparatory demonstrations of power 
 was made through the instrumentality of the Blessed 
 Mary. Is this surprising ? She was the aurora con- 
 surgens, the beautiful dawn of the glorious Sun of 
 salvation. And does not the morning's brightness 
 transmit to earth the first rays, the light, the warmth, 
 the colour, the glow, the radiance of the great Orb, 
 before he shows himself? Do not all these cheering 
 qualities and appearances belong to him, yet do they 
 not reach us even before himself, through a medium 
 through which he diffuses them ? Then let us not 
 wonder (what Catholic can wonder ?) that She in 
 whom, and by whom, the Son of God would have 
 Himself brought into the world, as she came before 
 Him to announce Him, should also have gone before 
 Him to make known, and anticipate in symbols of 
 incomparable beauty, the two great sacraments by 
 which Redemption would bear the fruits of adoption 
 in the world. 
 
 Our divine Master's actions, as we have before now 
 remarked, were never purposeless. They give us prin- 
 ciples and analogies which cannot deceive us. His 
 first action especially, in a given case, may be sup- 
 posed to lay down a rule. Thus we are told how He 
 
 2 R
 
 G08 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 called His first disciples Peter and Andrew, the sons 
 of Zebedee, and Matthew. It was by a command to 
 leave all and follow Him. We do not doubt, though 
 not informed of it, that every other apostle was called 
 on the same terms. We find how He treated Mag- 
 dalen, and the woman accused before Him; and 
 nothing would induce us to believe that He ever 
 showed Himself austere or unforgiving. Nay, one 
 action of our Lord suffices to give a certain law. For 
 instance, could we doubt, after seeing His conduct at 
 Cana, that had His blessed Mother, at any subsequent 
 period of His life, asked Him for any other similar 
 favour, or exercise of power, He would have refused 
 it ? The common sense of analogy forbids us to think 
 so, with an a fortiori power ; for it would have been 
 much less to ask for a miracle when thousands were 
 being performed, than to ask and obtain a first, and, 
 in some sense, a premature, one. 
 
 Again, this argument of analogy, or precedent, 
 carries the Church always beyond this life. It is not 
 necessary to enter upon any elaborate reasoning on 
 this subject, but we may illustrate it by one or two 
 examples. We assign to the apostles their place in 
 the celestial court, by that which they occupied, in 
 relation to our Saviour, on earth. We do not compare 
 their actions with those of others, and award relative 
 merit accordingly. We do not consider whether St. 
 Francis Xavier, or St. Boniface, may not have laboured 
 more, or converted more to Christianity, than St. 
 James, whom Herod slew, so early as the year 42. s 
 We do not even give them rank by reason of their 
 martyrdom ; for St. John, who was not allowed to lay 
 down his life for Christ, holds his pre-eminence as an 
 apostle far above all martyrs ; nor would it make any 
 
 8 Acts xii. 2.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 009 
 
 difference in the place of any apostle, could it be 
 proved that he did not die for the faith. Why this ? 
 Because our Lord, by his mere choice of the twelve to 
 be His companions, and by the high commission, and 
 the powers which He bestowed on them, assigned 
 them a position above every other class of saints, and 
 this we believe to be continued to them in heaven. 
 Again, Magdalen and Martha were sisters. The second 
 preserved to the end of life an unblemished character, 
 and is honoured by the Church among her holy vir- 
 gins. She follows the Lamb in heaven whithersoever 
 He goeth. Her sister has not this privilege ; she is a 
 saint only as a penitent. Yet the Church bestows upon 
 Magdalen her higher honours, and gives to Martha an 
 inferior reverence.* Wherefore the difference ? Simply 
 because on earth our Redeemer, by His conduct, gave 
 her this rule. It was clear that He granted precedence 
 to the ardent penitent, whose love and tears had 
 blotted out every trace of guilt, before her more fault- 
 less, but less fervent, sister. It was really the parable 
 of the Prodigal in action ; the blameless son who had 
 never left home, saw the best garment prepared, and 
 the fatted calf killed, for his wandering, but rescued 
 brother. 
 
 If then there be truth in all the foregoing remarks, 
 we come to the following conclusions : That, firstly, it 
 pleased our Saviour to make His dear Mother His 
 instrument in the first conveyance of the highest 
 grace, and of the first fruit of redemption, after He 
 came on earth ; secondly, and similarly, He made her 
 the first cause and motive in the exercise of His bene- 
 
 * The Feast of St. Mary Magdalen is a double, that of St. Martha 
 only a semi-double. To the first is also accorded the Nicene Creed in 
 the Mass ; which is not read in that of any other female saint except 
 the B. Virgin. 
 
 2R2
 
 610 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ficial miraculous powers, in favour of men; thirdly, 
 His conduct being always a principle or rule, we may 
 deduce, that on other similar occasions, He would have 
 allowed her a similar privilege or right ; and, fourthly, 
 this argument of analogy does not end with His life, 
 but gives the Church a just ground of belief and 
 action, after both He and His Mother have been 
 reunited in heaven. So far, then, from there being 
 any strangeness, or impropriety, in considering the 
 B. Virgin to be an ordinary channel of grace, and 
 that of the highest order, such a view of her position 
 seems borne out by our Lord's conduct, interpreted 
 by the usual rules which we apply to it. This rea- 
 soning places our B. Lady, in the economy of grace, 
 in the same position which we have seen her occupy 
 in the economy of faith. She stands immediately next 
 to her divine Son, above every other created being. 
 
 For if we compare her power even with that of the 
 apostles, we shall find it of a different, and a superior, 
 character. They had in all fulness a double gift ; the 
 sacramental energy in its completest development, and 
 a miraculous command over nature and its laws. The 
 first was surely not comparable to the conveying 
 directly saving virtue, from the Son of God in her 
 womb, to the Precursor in Elizabeth's ; thereby not 
 only cleansing him .from original sin, but probably 
 arming him with immunity against actual trans- 
 gression, sanctifying him for his high calling and 
 spotless life. And who will surmise that it was a 
 higher gift to hold the delegated power of working 
 miracles from her Son, than to have obedience owned 
 by Him who communicated it, and to possess the 
 acknowledged subjection of Himself and all His gifts ? 
 The meaning of the words, "Et erat subditus eis," u 
 u "And He was subject to them."
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 611 
 
 came out to its full extent, in the act which closed the 
 hidden life of Jesus, the miracle of Cana. 
 
 III. When we advance into the active life of the 
 Word incarnate, every action speaks; and our diffi- 
 culty is, out of so much that is admirable, what to 
 choose as most excelling. We will take, therefore, as 
 an illustration of our principles, a series of actions 
 which, separately, may appear indifferent, but collec- 
 tively afford a meaning too striking to be accidental, 
 and yet only fitting into the Catholic system. 
 
 Our Lord selected his principal apostles from among 
 the fishermen f the Sea of Galilee. The particular 
 call of four is especially described, of the brothers 
 Peter and Andrew/ and the two sons of Zebedee. y 
 Thomas also and Nathanael, supposed to be the same 
 as Bartholomew, were of the same profession." The 
 reasons for this selection do not enter into our present 
 subject; though they are not without their interest 
 and importance. But the choice once made, it is 
 evident that our Saviour associated Himself to His 
 apostles in their mode of life, and made use of it for 
 His holiest purposes. A great part of the first year 
 of His public life was passed on the borders of the 
 Sea of Tiberias or Galilee ; and He took advantage of 
 His apostles' skill, and familiarity with the coast, to 
 move from place to place. The fourth, fifth, sixth, 
 and eighth chapters of St. Mark will show how the 
 fishermen's boat was almost His home. a It was His 
 place of sleep, b the pulpit from which He addressed 
 the people, His refuge in fatigue. d Now, connected 
 with this frequent use of the boat, are several remark- 
 able passages of His life, which, apart from their 
 
 * Matt. iv. 18. y Ib. 21. John xxi. 2. 
 
 8 Mark iv. 35 ; v. 2, 18, 21 ; vi. 32, 54 ; viii. 1014. 
 
 b Ib. iv. 38. c Luke v. 3. d Mark vi. 32.
 
 G12 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 miraculous character, present importantly instructive 
 features. Indeed it may not be superfluous to remark, 
 that in some of our blessed Redeemer's acts, the 
 miracle may be considered as secondary : that is, 
 .we may contemplate the action independently of any 
 miracle which accompanied it, and find that what was 
 wonderful was only subservient to a lesson, inculcated 
 by the action itself. Perhaps the instances on which 
 we are going to dilate will afford the best illustration 
 of this principle. 
 
 That our Saviour Himself saw, and consequently 
 designed, an analogy between the apostle's and the 
 fisherman's occupation, He Himself has deigned to 
 inform us : "I will make you fishers of men ;" e or, 
 " from henceforth thou shalt catch men," f were His 
 words, naturally suggestive of the parallel. But 
 besides this very natural analogy, there were surely 
 others, which must be considered most apt, in another 
 view. "What more like the Church, launched on the 
 ,sea of this world, and, freighted with a heavenly 
 burthen, borne forwards towards a sure harbour, than 
 the vessel laden with apostles, and bearing their Lord, 
 lashed by the angry billows, and buffeted by the 
 raging blast, tossed, shaken, distressed, almost broken, 
 yet holding on her good course, and riding fearless 
 over the wave, and through the storm ? So natural 
 is this comparison, that it has ceased to be one. The 
 " nave," or " ship," of the material church is no 
 longer so in simile ; and it is scarcely an allegory to 
 describe the visible, yet spiritual, Church, as a ship in 
 which Christ is pilot, or, as the Catholic would call it, 
 as " the bark of Peter." Eroni the rude galley carved 
 on the oldest monumental slabs in the catacombs, to 
 Giotto's mosaic over the inner gate of St. Peter's, or 
 e Matt. iv. 19. f Luke v. 10.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT J 613 
 
 4 
 
 Raffaele's miraculous draught of fishes, the symbol 
 has been continued, till a very child in the Church can 
 comprehend it. 
 
 But wherefore Peter's boat ? This it is that we 
 must see. If our blessed Saviour was pleased to re- 
 tire into a vessel, and travel by it, it was not a chance 
 one picked up on the shore, but one especially chosen 
 by Himself to attend Him. " And He spoke to His dis* 
 ciples, that a small ship should wait upon Him, because 
 of the multitude, lest thev should throng Him." g 
 
 f 
 
 What bark was this, so privileged, and so ennobled, 
 scene too of such wonderful works ? " They that go 
 down to the sea hi ships, doing business on the great 
 waters ; these have seen the works of the Lord, and 
 His w r onders in the deep. He said the word, and there 
 arose a storm of wind, and the waves thereof were 
 lifted up. They were troubled, and reeled like a 
 drunken man, and all their wisdom was swallowed up. 
 And they cried to the Lord in their affliction, and He 
 brought them out of their distresses. And He turned 
 the storm into a breeze, and its waves were still. And 
 they rejoiced because they were still ; and He brought 
 them to the haven which they wished for." h All this 
 was more literally fulfilled in the fisherman's skiff on 
 Galilee's blue waters, than ever it was in the proud 
 merchantman on its ocean path to Ophir. 
 
 There were two boats ever keeping company on that 
 inland sea, and they are so mentioned together, that 
 we can have no difficulty in determining to whom 
 they belonged. When our Lord began to call His 
 apostles, the two vessels were close to one another ; 
 He went but a few steps from Peter's to find that of 
 Zebedee and his sons, 1 At another time going to the 
 lake, He " saw two ships standing by it, and going up 
 
 s Mark iii. 9. h Ps. cvi. 23. i Matt. iv. 1821.
 
 614 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 into one of the ships that was Simon's, He desired 
 him to draw back a little from the land, and sitting, 
 lie taught the multitudes out of the ship." The other 
 ship was Zebedee's. For having given Simon a mira- 
 culous draught of fishes, " they beckoned to their 
 partners, that were in the other ship, that they should 
 come and help them." Simon then " fell down at 
 Jesus' s knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a 
 sinful man, O Lord. For he was wholly astonished, 
 and all that were with him, at the draught of fishes 
 which they had taken. And so also were James and 
 John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon's partners. 
 And Jesus said to Simon, Fear not, from hencefor- 
 ward thou shalt catch men.' " k 
 
 This remarkable passage leaves us no doubt on 
 several interesting points. Two fishing-boats keep 
 company on the Sea of Galilee. They are consorts, 
 ,fishing in company ; paranze, as they are still called 
 on the Mediterranean. One belongs to Peter, the 
 other to the zealous and loving brothers, the " Sons of 
 thunder." But we are carefully told that Jesus 
 selected the first. Such a detail was surely of no 
 great consequence in itself; and if specified must be 
 so emphatically. It was Simon's boat that our Re- 
 deemer chose. Of what interest was this to Theophilus, 
 or to the Greeks, for whom St. Luke wrote, if Peter was 
 no more than any other apostle ? Surely the mention 
 of such a circumstance implies, that it was not by 
 accident, but by choice, that his bark was taken for 
 His use by our Lord. And for what purpose ? 
 
 First, to teach from. This favoured boat is the 
 one from which the Divine Master instructs the 
 multitudes. 
 
 Secondly, to bestow on Peter the earnest of his 
 k Luke v. 210.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 615 
 
 future success, as the apostle of Jew and of Gentile. 
 It is impossible to misunderstand the meaning of the 
 allegory performed, not merely spoken. Our heavenly 
 Lord has Himself explained it : " From henceforward 
 thou shalt catch men, as plentifully and as mar- 
 vellously as, just now, thou hast caught fishes. Thou 
 shalt cast thy net into the vast and dark depths of the 
 spiritual ocean, and thou shalt draw up in them safe, 
 and lay up in thy bark, thousands, who shall bless the 
 hour of thy capture." Nor is it possible to mistake 
 the relative position of the parties in the scene. Peter 
 is the chief, the actor ; James and John are but his 
 assistants and subordinates in the work. He begins 
 it, they follow it up ; he receives the Lord's gift, the 
 blessing, the miracle ; they partake of his fulness, and 
 are enriched from his store. His stock is super- 
 abundant, his measure well shaken and running over ; 
 and they come to share it, almost to relieve him of it, 
 as it runs over into their bosoms. And hence it is 
 carefully added, that to Simon were Christ's words of 
 promise exclusively addressed. 
 
 Here we have a case where the miracle is absorbed 
 in the action. The lesson is to us more important ; 
 for the miracle is only wrought as a means to convey 
 it. But we have another miracle perfectly analogous 
 to this, wrought at a very different period of our Lord's 
 earthly existence ; after His resurrection. Between 
 the two, Peter had given proof of his frailty, even of 
 his dastardliness. John at the same time had shown 
 himself faithful, even to the Cross. Peter, however, 
 in company with him, his brother, and other disciples, 
 expressed his intention of going a fishing. " They 
 say to him, We come also with thee." Peter therefore 
 is again at the head of the party, he is the captain of 
 " the ship;" the rest are his mates and assistants, in
 
 616 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
 
 other words, his crew. They toil for the night in 
 vain ; at morning, Jesus, unrecognised by them, 
 stands on the beach, and bids them cast their net on 
 the right side of the vessel. Their obedience is re- 
 warded by a magnificent draught ; and Peter throws 
 himself into the sea, to reach his Master, whom John 
 has detected. Once more it is in favour of Peter's 
 boat and net, that the sea is compelled to give up its 
 prey ; and what makes the occurrence more personal 
 and pointed is, that it is immediately followed by his 
 Lord's charge, to feed His sheep and lambs. 1 Here 
 was the distinct fulfilment of the promise made after 
 the first miraculous draught. Simon's humility was 
 there rewarded by an assurance of future apostleship ; 
 Peter's penitent love is here crowned by elevation to 
 its headship. On the first occasion, his virtuous 
 timidity prompted him to throw himself on his knees, 
 and entreat his Lord to depart from him a sinner ; on 
 the second his penitential ardour urged him to dash 
 into the sea, and go straight to his forgiving Master. 
 Thus completely is the fishing of Peter's boat, after 
 the resurrection, the counterpart of the same action 
 before the denial. 
 
 Jesus then taught in Peter's ship, and gave to it the 
 power of gathering into its nets, the multitude of the 
 deep. But it was not always to be a calm with it ; 
 storms were to assail it, even in spite of His benign 
 presence ; storms so fierce, that they who manned it 
 were to fear, that He had forgotten them, or had 
 forgotten His power. " And behold a great tempest 
 arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with 
 waves ; but He was asleep." But He soon awoke at 
 their call ; and, reproving them for their want of faith, 
 He " commanded the winds and the sea, and there 
 1 Jolm xxi. 217.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. G17 
 
 came a great calm." ra Again we may ask, whose ship 
 was this, to which this divine favour was accorded, of 
 stilling the storm and smoothing the sea ? It is not 
 difficult to ascertain it. We are told that, " when 
 Jesus was come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's 
 mother lying, and sick of a fever; and He touched 
 her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and 
 ministered to them." At evening multitudes come to 
 be healed ; " and Jesus seeing great multitudes ahout 
 Him, gave orders to pass the water, and when He 
 entered into the boat, His disciples followed Him." n 
 It is from Peter's house that He steps into the vessel ; 
 who can doubt that it was that apostle's ? And we may 
 observe, that our Lord acts as the master of the boat. 
 He commands its services, as He afterwards did that 
 of the ass for His entry into Jerusalem. " Tell him 
 that the Lord hath need of it, and he will let it go." 
 To Peter's boat is granted this further privilege, that 
 storms may be permitted to assail it, but not to wreck 
 it, nor even to shatter it. The waves may dash over 
 it, and threaten to engulf it, all may think it is about 
 to perish, and Jesus may appear asleep, and heedless 
 of their danger. But in good time, He wakens up, 
 and his beaming eye is as the sun upon the billows, 
 and His hand waves, a charm against the blast ; and 
 the rippling waters dance, rejoice, and sparkle in the 
 light, and the soothing breeze glides playfully into 
 the sail. 
 
 If the bark represent the Church of God, where is 
 His Church ? What is there that assumes the name, 
 that has ever weathered a real storm, or rather that 
 lives in the midst of tempests, with consciousness of 
 a life that cannot fail, and of a vigour that cannot 
 abate ? Is it the stationary religion of the East, for 
 
 111 Matt. viii. 24. B Ib. 1423. Matt. xxi. 3.
 
 618 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ages water-logged and motionless, in waters dead and 
 pestilent ; neither battling with them, nor assailed by 
 them, left in unrippling, but fatal, calm; originally 
 too well framed to fall to pieces, but stripped of mast 
 and sail, and rolling heavily with the dull swell and 
 fall of the element in which it happens to be em- 
 bedded ? Por it has itself 
 
 " nor breath nor motion ; 
 As idle as a painted ship, 
 Upon a painted ocean."? 
 
 Unhonoured by persecution, not bearing even the note 
 of the world's hatred, the Christianity of Asia feeds 
 its languid life upon paynim toleration, without an 
 aspiration of hope, or an effort of charity. It sends 
 no missionary to distant regions to pluck the palm of 
 martyrdom ; it gives to the world no Sisters of Mercy, 
 no Brothers of Christian Doctrine, no active clergy, no 
 learned hierarchs, no studious monks, no zealous laity. 
 It dreams on from age to age, achieving nothing great, 
 and yielding nothing good; adding nothing to the 
 knowledge or experience of the past, and opening no 
 bright destiny to the prospect of the future. It is not 
 worth a storm, the lazy, slumbering craft. Neither 
 has it a net to cast abroad, or to draw home. It is 
 quite clear this is not Peter's boat. 
 
 Then what shall we say of a more splendid and well- 
 laden vessel nearer home, which calls itself modestly a 
 branch only of Christ's Church ? Surely there is some 
 stir, if not activity, about it ; internal commotion, if 
 not onward progress. Every modern improvement is 
 there, to hide defects, or to mend imperfections ; all 
 is trim, neat, and respectable, as on any other vessel 
 belonging to the state. And it is splendidly manned, 
 with skilful officers and a zealous crew, whose whole 
 
 r Coleridge.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 619 
 
 interest is in its prosperity. Abundance and comfort 
 are provided for all on board. But it keeps carefully 
 under the shelter of a safe shore, it tempts not the 
 storm, it shuns the perils of the deep. Its sails and 
 masts are not made for rude conflict with the wind 
 and wave, it loves the smoother waters of vicinity to 
 earth. 
 
 " Nil pictis timidus navita puppibus 
 Fidit : tu, nisi ventis 
 Debes ludibrium, cave."i 
 
 It has not the fisherman's blessing ; it draws into its 
 own compass nothing from without ; it sends out 
 quietly and decently, as a genteel angler might, not 
 as depending on it, its well-ordered tackle; but it 
 pretends not even to gain, by it, increase. Yet of 
 conflict and clamour it has enough. "Within all is 
 dissension, contention, strife. It is no wonder that it 
 does not move. If its chief commander set the sails 
 in one direction, his mate will trim them oppositely 
 on another mast. If one rows forward, the other 
 strikes backwards. And still more strange, there are 
 those who applaud, and think their bark is going 
 bravely on, because one out of twenty engaged in its 
 direction, pulls alone against the rest. This surely 
 was no more than the other, the ship to which it was 
 said "Due in altum," go out into deep waters, and 
 there face the billows, and throw into them the 
 apostolic net. It is none of Peter's boat. 
 
 And moreover these, and others, have one complete 
 disqualification : they profess not to be Peter's bark. 
 They repudiate the connection ; they are indignant at 
 being supposed to have anything special to say to 
 him. They have made their choice of another ship, 
 or of many smaller craft, but they will take particular 
 
 i Horace.
 
 620 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
 
 care that it be not his. Anything but that. Now 
 St. Mark tells us, that when our blessed Lord went 
 into the ship, where he slept during the storm, 
 " there were other ships with Him," 1 that is, keeping 
 in His wake. What became of them during the 
 tempest ? We hear no more of them. Only one ship 
 had Jesus on board, and only of it is the Gospel 
 narrative. They may have put back to harbour, they 
 may have been dispersed in the darkness ; some may 
 have been cast on shore. But we read of only one 
 that reached its destination, because only one bore the 
 sure Pilot, and the Queller of the storm; and that 
 was Peter's. 
 
 But there remains one more instance, in what we 
 may term the sea-faring part of our Saviour's mission, 
 of its connection with St. Peter's prerogatives. We 
 allude to the miracle of our Lord's walking on the 
 waters, related succinctly by St. John, 3 and more fully 
 by St. Matthew. 1 In the storm above described, Jesus 
 was in the boat, but sleeping; here he was absent, 
 but near. In the midst of the tempest He appears 
 walking on the waters. The apostles are terrified, and 
 their Divine Master reassures them. There is one of 
 them, however, bolder than the rest. As afterwards 
 he casts himself into the sea to swim to his Lord, so 
 now Peter claims the desperate evidence of walking to 
 Him on the waters. It was a test worthy of himself; 
 ever ardent, ever eager. " Lord, if it be Thou, bid 
 me come to Thee upon the waters. And he said : 
 Come. And Peter going down out of the boat walked 
 upon the waters, to come to Jesus." It was im- 
 portant, nevertheless, that he should be informed of 
 the danger into which his ardent temperament would 
 lead him. As later he would protest his readiness to 
 
 r Mark iv. 36. * John vi. 19. i Matt. xiv. 26.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. G21 
 
 die rather than deny his Lord, and yet would fail ; so 
 here it was expedient to show him, of how little avail 
 would be his own strength, where supernatural sup- 
 port was needed. Eor, " seeing the wind strong, he 
 was afraid ; and when he began to sink, he cried out, 
 saying : Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus 
 stretching forth His hand, took hold of him, and 
 said to him : O thou of little faith, why didst thou 
 doubt ? And when they were come up into the boat 
 the wind ceased." Now here are several remarkable 
 circumstances. Peter alone claims the right of walk- 
 ing upon the billows. It is not the ship that must 
 support him; it is not because he is in it, that he 
 does not perish. He has a power independent of it, 
 so to speak ; which no other apostle has. The right 
 hand of Jesus is directly his support, when fearless 
 and alone he commits himself to the troubled waters. 
 To doubt that, so supported, he has this marvellous 
 prerogative, is to be of little faith. He is allowed 
 partially to sink, that this reproof may be adminis- 
 tered to him; and, through him, to us. And then, 
 "when they came up into boat, the wind ceased." 
 Eor they go together hand in hand, Jesus and Peter, 
 the Head sublime, invisible, and divine, and the Head 
 inferior, visible, and earthly, of the Church the hand 
 of one is power, the other's is confidence ; thus linked 
 they give security. Both ascend tfye ship together, 
 from which they seemed to have withdrawn their care, 
 Master and pilot ; and to their joint presence is attri- 
 buted the calm. Can any one believe that there was 
 no connection between our Saviour's act and Peter's ? 
 That the one was not performed for the sake of the 
 other ? Did Jesus defer accompanying His disciples, 
 and follow them walking on the waters, or, instead of 
 thus passing over the narrow sea, go on board their
 
 622 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 boat half- way across, only to astonish them ? Is all 
 that relates to Peter merely secondary ? On the con- 
 trary, no one can read this passage, and doubt that 
 the whole narrative is inserted mainly for the sake of 
 the apostle's share in it. It is clearly the lesson of the 
 history. 
 
 Now let us come to our practical conclusions from 
 all that we have here put together. 
 
 1. It is evident that our Saviour, during his mission 
 in Galilee, wished, or rather ordered, that a boat 
 should attend Him, from which He preached, and in 
 which He sailed. And though His beloved disciple 
 had one at His disposal, He gave preference to that of 
 Peter. 
 
 2. Three classes of miracles are recorded, as taking 
 place in connection with the boat and its occupation : 
 two miraculous draughts of fishes, two quellings of 
 storms, and our Lord and Peter walking on the water. 
 
 3. Every one of these is wrought in favour of this 
 apostle, or his bark ; and the discourses preceding or 
 following them relate to him. 
 
 In the first draught of fishes, as we have seen, he is 
 ordered to go into the deep and cast his net ; and after 
 his successful obedience, the promise is made to him 
 that he shall take men. In other words, our Saviour 
 shows that the material action was symbolical of a 
 spiritual one; and the miracle wrought was a proof 
 or guarantee of the truth of the promise. It was as 
 though our Lord had said : " In the same wonderful 
 manner, by the same power, to the same extent, and 
 as surely as you have this day taken such an un- 
 wonted netfull of fishes, you shall in due time haul 
 from the depths of sin, misery, and ignorance, the 
 souls of men." In the second, it is Peter who has led 
 forth the apostles to their work, and again a mira-
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 623 
 
 culous capture rewards him, upon obeying the same 
 command. So completely was it his, that when "Jesus 
 saith to them, Bring hither of the fishes which you 
 have now caught, Simon Peter went up, and drew the 
 net to land;" u a net which, though overladen, was 
 not allowed to break. The other apostles had brought 
 the net to the shore, but it required the presence of 
 Peter to draw it upon land. And in what did this 
 miracle end? In nothing but the fulfilment of the 
 assurance, given him after the earlier corresponding 
 miracle. Our Lord here met his disciples, apparently 
 for only one purpose, to invest Peter, before them, 
 with the dignity of supreme Pastor. The only dis- 
 course that follows, is the thrice-repeated commission 
 to feed the flock ; and as if to show that all was then 
 ended, Jesus leads his now inducted Vicar away .from 
 the rest, for confidential discourse, by adding, " Follow 
 me." So individual was this call, that when Peter 
 would have had his, and Christ's, loved one to join 
 him, he was checked and refused by the words : 
 "What is it to thee? follow thou me." x It seems 
 impossible to reject the analogy between the two 
 passages, and not to consider one as the complement 
 of the other. In both, Peter is the distinct end of the 
 miracle, both wrought in his favour, and introductory 
 to his privileges. 
 
 In the two cases of stilling the storm, the same 
 connection with the Prince of the Apostles is to be 
 found. In his boat our Lord appears to slumber, and 
 awakes to reproach his followers generally, for want of 
 faith, or confidence in Him, and for fear that the 
 vessel could founder, in which He was pleased to 
 abide. In the second instance He seems to them to 
 be further off, to be out of the ship, and the storm 
 u John xxi. 10. * Ibid. 1922. 
 
 i 2 S
 
 624 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 goes on, till He and Peter have shown themselves 
 on board. 
 
 Finally, not to repeat what has heen so lately de- 
 scribed, Peter is taught to tread fearlessly the waters 
 alone ; and is reproved, in particular, for want of con- 
 fidence in his powers to do so, in the very words 
 addressed to all the apostles in the first storm. As 
 though it were said to him : "If the others showed 
 weakness, in doubting of their safety in the boat, thou 
 dost the same, in hesitating about thy security in- 
 dependent of it. Besides the assuring presence of 
 Jesus in the ship, thou hast His right hand supporting 
 thee, in personal safety, over the abyss. This can no 
 more swallow up thee, than it." And this assurance 
 is confirmed to him by the miracle. 
 
 We certainly do not mean to deny, that our Lord 
 may, in the course of His Galilean mission, have 
 entered other barks, besides Peter's. But this we 
 claim as proved, that the Holy Spirit has been pleased 
 to select for our special instruction, out of no matter 
 how many, those occurrences in which St. Peter is spe- 
 cially concerned. A Protestant will say : This is merely 
 accidental and secondary ; what matters it if the boat 
 were his, or anybody's else, the miracles and lessons 
 were independent of this consideration. Now a Catho- 
 lic has too much reverence to treat inspired writings 
 so. With us there is no chance, no accident, in what 
 God does, or says. We cannot consider it a mere 
 result of blind chance, that every evangelist should 
 have given us narratives of our Lord's " going down 
 to the sea in ships," and yet have, in every specific 
 instance, been careful to let us know that Peter's was 
 the chosen bark. Moreover, we cannot consider it 
 accidental, that every single miracle wrought on board, 
 should have been connected with him. If it was
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 625 
 
 matter of indifference whose the boat was which Jesus 
 took, if no lesson depended on it, why are we dis- 
 tinctly told, that there were two boats, and that he 
 selected one, which was Simon's ? 
 
 All this is unimportant to a Protestant, because it 
 bears on nothing in his system. When even he may 
 be disposed to allow, that the ship tossed by the storm 
 was an emblem of the Church, and Jesus subduing 
 the war of elements no unfit symbol of His ruling 
 presence in her, he will not see any connection with 
 the destinies of the vessel, in the presence of Peter. 
 He gives no definite meaning to those clear and most 
 dogmatic passages, in which supremacy is bestowed on 
 him. And so all the beauty and interest of a minute 
 application of each detail, which we have drawn, 
 perhaps tediously forth, is lost upon him. 
 
 But the Catholic has begun by taking in their 
 literal force, those passages in which Peter is as 
 closely bound with the constitution of the Church, as 
 the foundation is with a building. The safety of one 
 is the security of the other. He becomes an essential, 
 not an accidental part, a primary, not a secondary 
 element, in its formation. The Church of Peter is 
 also the Church of Christ, because the fold of Christ 
 is likewise the fold of Peter. These principles laid 
 down, in obedience to other positive teachings of 
 Christ, all the narratives which we have analyzed have 
 a consistent meaning, as well as a definite object. They 
 not only cohere most admirably, but they complete, 
 and illustrate, most beautifully, the constitution of 
 the Church. 
 
 According to this view, the Church is but one ; for 
 though there may be other, and stately -looking ships, 
 launched upon the ocean, there is necessarily only one 
 in which Jesus is pleased to abide ; and that is Peter's. 
 
 2s2
 
 626 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 To it alone is given assurance of safety, whatever 
 storms may assail it ; for in it alone is He, whom 
 winds and waves obey. All are safe who are embarked 
 in it, none who are without it. To it alone is com- 
 mitted the work, not only of mastering, but still more 
 of gaining, the world. It is not a rich argossy laden 
 with treasure, nor a lofty galley rowed by captives, 
 nor a fierce war-ship, bristling with instruments of 
 destruction, but a fisherman's craft, intent on filling 
 itself with living spoil, snatched from the gulf of 
 destruction. Now, when the Catholic reads all this 
 described in allegory, by our Saviour's actions on the 
 sea, and notes how exactly it fits his theory of the 
 Church, whereof Peter is the head, his faith is 
 strengthened and his heart consoled. For he dis- 
 covers a purpose in every detail, in every word ; and 
 sees that each has been registered for his sake. These 
 lesser coincidences serve to confirm a belief, based 
 upon direct teaching ; they fill up the picture, they 
 add to it colour and life. If the Catholic view is right, 
 and if Peter was meant to occupy in the Church of 
 Christ, the place which it assigns him, then every 
 smallest particle of these narratives has its signifi- 
 cance, and was studiously recorded for an important 
 purpose. Remove him from it, and there is no in- 
 tended meaning in the details of their histories ; or 
 rather, we reverently say it, they are calculated to 
 confirm, what the Protestant must consider, an erro- 
 neous system. 
 
 And not only is the Catholic strengthened in his 
 dogmatic convictions by these corroborative, and sup- 
 plementary, arguments, but he derives from them 
 most comforting assurances. It is no fancy-picture 
 that comes before him, when he thinks of the tempest- 
 tossed fisherman's bark. He looks at its trials and
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 627 
 
 its triumphs through the very mist of ages. Afar, as 
 if leaving the distant coast, its first harbour, he he- 
 holds it steering straight for the very port of the 
 earth's capital, in serenest confidence. It is not long 
 before the gates of hell let forth a blast more fearful 
 than JEolus could command from his cavern of storms. 
 The abyss is upheaved, and the might of earth sweeps 
 over it, to destroy the daring invader. 
 
 " Ponto nox incubat atra. 
 Intonuere poll, et crebris micat ignibus aether : 
 Praesenteiuque viris iutentant omnia mortem. "/ 
 
 But death from such a tempest has charms for the 
 valiant crew. On, the fearless little bark holds its 
 course ; now it is almost lost to sight in the war of 
 persecuting elements, now it crests nobly the topmost 
 wave, till we find it safe riding in smooth water. Peter 
 has been acknowledged the spiritual conqueror of 
 Rome. Yet he must not rest. After the resurrection 
 he said, " I go a fishing," and this is his occupation, 
 and his delight, till the end of time. What a glorious 
 employment it has been to him ! How his heart 
 rejoiced, much more than on taking a hundred and 
 fifty-three large fishes, when Patrick drew in his net 
 on Erin's coast, or Augustin on England's, or Boni- 
 face in Germany's deep streams, and brought into the 
 ample ship their willing inhabitants ! Nor was this 
 calm and peaceful pastime for him. High in the re- 
 gions of the north commenced a swelling surge, which 
 broke, in successive waves, over the toiling bark. Hun, 
 Vandal, Goth, and Lombard, in rapid course followed 
 each other, and seemed to overwhelm it in their turn. 
 And still the fisherman went on ; while his tempest- 
 tight skiff shook off the cataract of waters, he plied
 
 628 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 his net in its very depths, and carried from them their 
 living prey. And now again came the calm, and the 
 ocean seemed still. But soon the storm began again. 
 The rude assault of a rough, indocile age, of the world 
 of an iron chivalry, broke loose, again and again, 
 against the charmed ship of Peter. Eor centuries the 
 conflict lasted, and the gallant vessel held on its course, 
 dashing the spray from its prow. Then came a trial, 
 forgotten for ages since Arius and Nestorius divided 
 the Church. Mutiny on board, insubordination, re- 
 bellion. Treacherous crews, from its own decks, man 
 a hostile fleet ; its own skill and prowess, learnt 
 within it, are turned against it. Able foes, armed 
 with all the powers of earth, threaten her destruction, 
 and swear implacable hatred. And still the noble vessel 
 fears them not, but goes undaunted on her errand. 
 She sees them tossed to and fro by every wind, sailing 
 apart, without compass to guide them, quarrelling 
 with one another, and only combined when they agree 
 to assail her ; and she notes how they have not been 
 able to bear away with them the grace of her noblest 
 functions ; no shred of the apostolic net has been 
 allowed to be filched from her. She alone bears aloft 
 the Cross as her banner ; she alone boasts that Peter, 
 in his successor, sits at her helm ; nay, she alone dares 
 proclaim that she has Jesus Christ Himself on board, 
 as He was on the fisherman's craft on the Sea of 
 Galilee. Such is the Catholic's review of the past, and 
 in it he reads the assurance of the future. "When, a 
 year ago, this country was agitated from end to end, 
 in opposition to Catholic progress ; when the Govern- 
 ment, the Parliament, the Establishment, the Press, 
 the aristocracy, seemed combined to thwart the purely 
 ecclesiastical action of the Church ; when all that 
 clamour eloquence, insolence, and calumny, addresses,
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 629 
 
 speeches, meetings, essays, and journalism could do, to 
 raise a storm, was unsparingly and perseveringly con- 
 tinued for months, to overwhelm the new hierarchy ; 
 in what did we place our hopes, nay, our assurance, 
 that peace would return, and the Church would be 
 justified, by results, in the wise measure which she 
 had taken ? Not merely in the knowledge that such a 
 step had been long and wisely considered, not in the 
 high estimate which we had formed, of the virtues and 
 gifts of the Supreme Pastor from whom it proceeded. 
 But knowing that the Letters Apostolic which he 
 issued were given under "the Fisherman's Ring," we 
 could not be of little faith, or doubt that what was 
 thus declared to be the solemn act of Peter, partook in 
 the promises made to him, and the assurances given, 
 that his bark should not be crushed by the tempests of 
 earth. And so when pontiff after pontiff, like the 
 sixth, the seventh, or the ninth, Pius, seemed borne 
 apart from the vessel which he guided, to experience, 
 in his own person, the whole violence of the storm, 
 and walk alone over the troubled and treacherous 
 waters, never did the Catholic doubt, that the power- 
 ful right hand, in which the Psalmist trusted, and 
 which was stretched forth to Peter, would support 
 them, and guide them, and bring them safe back, if 
 necessary, to the faithful friends from whom, in body, 
 they had been torn. " Etenim illuc manus Tua deducet 
 me, et tenebit me dextera Tua." 
 
 IV* We will now briefly bring together a few pas- 
 sages, which refer to a point of secondary importance, 
 but not devoid of interest. Among the puzzling in- 
 consistencies of Protestantism is its Sabbatarian theory. 
 After protesting, in every possible way, against tra- 
 dition, and Church authority, the Protestant accepts, 
 without a murmur, the change of the Jewish Sabbath
 
 630 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 into the Christian Sunday, of which the only voucher 
 is tradition, and the only foundation ecclesiastical 
 authority. Having thus admitted perhaps the greatest 
 stretch of this power and of that testimony that exists, 
 he begins to forget that any change has been made, 
 and applies to the new day of rest, all the burthens 
 and restrictions of the old. He tries to overlook that 
 it is the first, and not the last, day of the week ; nay, 
 if he become more solemn in his speech, through in- 
 creased rigour of religious notions, he rejects the 
 profane name of " Sunday," and studiously and em- 
 phatically styles it " the Sabbath." These two terms 
 have become positively watchwords ; a Catholic never 
 uses the latter. " Sunday " sounds to his ears as a 
 day of radiance and joy ; as a day of smiles at home, 
 and laughing peals of gladness in the air ; as a day of 
 cheerful service to Him who loves a cheerful giver, in 
 canticles and hymns, and noble offices of prayer. But 
 "Sabbath" rings with Puritanism in the ears, and 
 gives the idea of drawling sounds, and sour looks, of 
 bitter theology and domestic gloom. There is no 
 balminess, no sweetness in the name. It belongs to 
 a dispensation that is dead, and to obligations which 
 the law of love has abated, or abolished. But sin- 
 gularly enough, that religious system which affects to 
 put all its faith in Christ, and to loath the Law and 
 its works, by a judicial blindness, clings to its very 
 deadest branches, and tries to find there its most 
 nutritious fruit. Having reduced all its practical 
 worship to the compass of one day, it makes that a 
 mere superstition ; it condenses, only to corrupt. 
 
 What makes this strange infatuation still more 
 amazing is, that in the New Testament, it is so clearly 
 attributed, as a characteristic, to the Pharisee. A 
 simple-minded reader of the Gospel would naturally
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 631 
 
 ask, who defended Sabbatarian strictness, our Lord, 
 or His enemies ? Who there represent the strait-laced 
 party ? It is impossible to hesitate in answering. 
 
 Not less than seven times in the Gospel history, 
 He lays down His doctrine of the Sabbath, in oppo- 
 sition to Pharisaical objections. Surely He must have 
 considered this an important question of moral and 
 ecclesiastical observance, so to expound it. But ap- 
 plying our often-repeated rule, we must conclude, 
 that, supposing our Redeemer to have never spoken 
 besides on the subject, there was a particular reason 
 for recording so many different inculcations of one 
 idea. If, on the other hand, we maintain that He 
 much oftener argued the point, we must still conclude, 
 that a strong motive led to so many repetitions of the 
 same subject, in a record so limited as the Gospel. In 
 other words, the selection of this topic seven times, in 
 picking out the materials of that sacred history from 
 a mass left behind, proves it to be one on which the 
 spirit of God was pleased, that we should accurately 
 know the divine doctrine in the New Law. It shows 
 an earnestness in guarding Christianity against a par- 
 ticular theory ; and we may safely conclude, against 
 one sure to be taught. We must therefore take 
 actual, not imaginary, systems ; and judge which 
 among them our Saviour taught, and which he ex- 
 cluded. Without entering into the details of each 
 case, we will analyze the evidence before us, and 
 reduce it to distinct heads. 
 
 1. First, therefore, we will remark, that all the 
 Gospels give more than one instance of attack upon 
 our Lord for laxity on Sabbath observance. St. Mat- 
 thew and St. Mark give two cases ; St. Luke gives 
 four, two being the same as those evangelists record ; 
 and St. John three, perfectly distinct ones. This con-
 
 632 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 currence of the inspired writers on a secondary topic 
 is very striking. 
 
 2. Of these cases, three directly accompany the per- 
 formance of miracles, three are indirectly connected 
 with miraculous works, and one relates to an ordinary 
 occurrence. 
 
 3. We will proceed with the first class. A withered 
 hand is cured in the synagogue/ This is done with 
 previous attention called to the fact of its being the 
 Sabbath day ; the Pharisees put the question whether 
 it be lawful to heal on that day ; and Jesus first 
 defends the propriety of doing it, and then confirms 
 His assertion by the miraculous cure. A man sick 
 with dropsy comes into the house of a Pharisee, where 
 He is a guest. It is again the Sabbath, and His 
 enemies "watch Him." He, this time, puts the very 
 question to them which, on the former occasion, they 
 had put to Him ; " Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath 
 day?" Again He argues the point, and performs a 
 miracle to prove His doctrine. 3 A woman bowed down 
 by an ailment of eighteen years' duration is in the 
 synagogue on the Sabbath; she does not ask to be 
 relieved; but Jesus calls her, and lays His blessed 
 hands upon her, and she is made straight. " The 
 ruler of the synagogue" (being angry that Jesus had 
 healed on the Sabbath) " answering said to the multi- 
 tude " (that is, not liking to address our Lord, with 
 whom, in reality, he was displeased, reproved Him 
 through the people, " saying), Six days there are 
 wherein ye ought to work, in these therefore come 
 and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day." b Again 
 our Lord replies, vindicating what He had done, and 
 
 z Matt. xii. 10 ; Mark iii. 2 ; Luke vi. 6. 
 a Luke xiv. 1. b Ibid. xiii. 10.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 633 
 
 beginning His answer by the significant words : " Ye 
 hypocrites !" 
 
 The next instance is also one in which the attack is 
 first made through the subject of the miracle. Jesus 
 cured a man at the pool of Bethsaida, saying to him : 
 " Arise, take up thy bed and walk." He obeyed ; 
 " and it was the Sabbath that day." Immediately he 
 was told, " It is the Sabbath, it is not lawful for thee 
 to take up thy bed." Upon discovering that Jesus 
 had given him the command, the Jews transfer their 
 hatred to Him. "Therefore did the Jews persecute 
 * Jesus, because He did these things on the Sabbath." 
 And when He again defended Himself, saying, that as 
 His Father worked until now, so He worked ; that is, 
 that as His Father, on the Sabbath, went on with His 
 beneficent work of Providence, so did He, who had 
 the same power ; the Jews only redoubled their hatred. 
 " Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to 
 kill Him, because He did not only break the Sabbath, 
 but also said God was His Father, making Himself 
 equal to God." c 
 
 After this discourse, our blessed Lord left Jerusalem, 
 where it took place, and taught in Galilee. On His 
 return to the holy city, he again resumed this subject, 
 in the following singular terms : " One work I have 
 done, and ye all wonder. Therefore Moses gave you 
 circumcision and on the Sabbath day you circumcise 
 a man. If a man receive circumcision on the Sabbath 
 day, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are 
 you angry at me, because I have healed the whole 
 man on the Sabbath day?" d Now, no miracle has 
 preceded this speech, in the Gospel narrative ; and as 
 we can hardly suppose the allusion to be made to the 
 
 c John v. 1. d Ibid. vii. 22.
 
 634 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 miracle wrought at a former visit, nor could that be 
 called " one work," for many signs had been wrought 
 between, we are naturally led to suppose, that St. 
 John, or rather the divine Spirit, considered the record 
 of this instruction more important than that of the 
 miracle. The latter was therefore omitted, and the 
 former preserved. 
 
 Again the Pharisaical spirit is roused, when Jesus 
 performs one of the most severely tested of His 
 miracles, the cure of the man born blind. He might 
 at once have restored his sight by a word or touch. 
 He preferred performing the cure, by what might be' 
 called a mechanical, or manual, labour. He made 
 clay, and therewith anointed the man's eyes. " Now 
 it was the Sabbath, when Jesus made clay, and 
 opened his eyes." This is sufficient ground with the 
 Pharisees for rejecting the miracle. " This man is not 
 of God, who keepeth not the Sabbath." 6 
 
 One more instance remains, wholly unconnected 
 with any miraculous operation ; yet three evangelists 
 have recorded it. The incident is trifling, but its 
 instruction very great. The apostles going through 
 a corn-field on the Sabbath, pluck the ripe ears, rub 
 them in their hands, and eat the grains. This me- 
 chanical operation is construed by the Pharisees into 
 a breach of the Law, and reproved as such. Our 
 Redeemer defends His disciples in the same manner 
 as He had defended Himself/ What gives particular 
 interest to this case is, that each evangelist who records 
 it, proceeds immediately to the narrative of the cure of 
 the withered hand, as though our Lord wrought this 
 miracle expressly to confirm His vindication of the 
 apostles. 
 
 4. Erom all these facts we conclude, that in seven 
 
 e John ix. 14. f Matt. xii. 1 ; Mark ii. 23 ; Luke vi. 1.
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 635 
 
 cases, two views of Sabbath observance were discussed 
 between our Saviour and the Jews ; and that in every 
 one, He represents and upholds the lenient and mode- 
 rate side, they the intolerant and oppressive. Now, a 
 similar discrepancy exists at the present day, between 
 Catholics and Protestants, and there can be no doubt 
 which party corresponds to each of the former dis- 
 putants. It may be said that zeal for the Sabbath 
 was carried to excess by the Jews, in every one of 
 these instances, far beyond what the most infatuated 
 Sabbatarian nowadays would require. We are not so 
 sure of that. We need not go back to the days of wild 
 puritanical fanaticism, for instances of extreme rigour 
 on this subject. We need not travel to old Banbury 
 for the well-known enforcement on feline propensities 
 of Sabbath observance, by making a solemn example 
 of the cat that presumed to mouse on the Sunday. 
 But we recollect not many years ago a case of death 
 from starvation at a large town in the West of Eng- 
 land, because the society from which relief was sought, 
 rigidly refused to grant it on the Lord's day. Still 
 more recently a well-known instance was publicly 
 quoted, of a lady of high rank, who in vain implored 
 conveyance by railway in Scotland, to pay the last 
 offices of affection to a dying relation, though empty 
 mail-trains passed to and fro. And we know that a 
 similar refusal was made to a Catholic ecclesiastic of 
 high dignity in the same country, when it was the 
 only means of bearing the last rites of religion to a 
 departing parishioner. Now here is Sabbatical ob- 
 servance preferred to charity ; in one instance, though 
 death might be, and was, the consequence. This is 
 carrying the principle to the full Pharisaic standard. 
 " Come and be healed on week-days." In fact, what 
 would any of the four who were purposely cured on
 
 636 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 the Sabbath, have lost by waiting till next morn- 
 ing ? After eighteen, and thirty-eight years', in- 
 firmity, one day more would not have been a heavy 
 addition : the dropsical patient could still walk, and 
 therefore could not be in any danger ; and the withered 
 hand could not be much needed on the Jewish Sab- 
 bath. Had our Lord said, in these cases : " To-morrow 
 come and I will heal you, for this is the Sabbath," 
 He would have spoken words with which Exeter Hall 
 would have rung, and given a text to be stereotyped 
 by tract-dealers, and engraved for children's copies. 
 But He says exactly the contrary always ; and we 
 find the upholders of the Sabbatical superstition, they 
 who pretend to look to our Saviour for everything, 
 carefully overlooking His- teaching on the subject, 
 suppressing His words, and running to the law of 
 fear, and its abolished rigours, nay to its exaggerated 
 traditions among the Jews, for the pattern of their 
 observance. 
 
 5. On the other hand, they tax Papists, particu- 
 larly on the Continent, with being habitual Sabbath- 
 breakers. We condemn utterly every violation that 
 is contrary to the laws of the Church ; all traffic, public 
 works, shop-keeping, and unnecessary business. But 
 we reprove no less the other extreme, which forms the 
 Protestant principle. Rest was not meant to be idle- 
 ness, and no Christian festival was intended to be 
 gloomy. One cannot fail to be struck by the strong 
 language employed by our Redeemer, when He de- 
 nounced the rule of Sabbath observance, which our 
 modern reformers have selected. "Ye hypocrites!" 
 And the charge of this hateful vice is fully justified by 
 what we read in the passages referred to. The poor 
 disciples pluck some ears of corn, "being hungry," 
 and eat them. The Pharisees immediately cry out,
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 637 
 
 " Behold Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to 
 do on the Sabbath days." 8 And then we find, that 
 " when Jesus went into the house of one of the chief 
 of the Pharisees, on the Sabbath day to eat bread, they 
 watched Him." h - Now, is not this exactly the case 
 with our modern Sabbatarians ? They always have one 
 law of observance for the rich, and another for the 
 poor. The one must not pluck an ear of corn on the 
 Sabbath, without the rich man's reprehending him, 
 and then going home to his luxurious dinner with his 
 friends. It used to be proposed to suppress all Sunday 
 cooking in public bakeries, where alone the poor could 
 have a warm meal prepared, on their only day of rest ; 
 but no Sir Andrew ever dreamt of shutting off the 
 steam of the boiler, or putting a break on the smoke- 
 jack, of aristocratic kitchens. There is something 
 hypocritically profane in the spectacle, described as 
 taking place on a Sunday at fashionable Scotch kirks, 
 of some twenty carriages at the door, with their human 
 appurtenances, waiting, for devout listeners to a dis- 
 course against Sunday travelling ! Nor have we ever 
 heard that the eloquent Boanerges ever whispered a 
 wee word of reproof to the gentle folks, for their zeal 
 to lay the burthens of the law only on the already 
 overburthened shoulders of the poor. Depend upon 
 it, he never called them " hypocrites," though that is 
 Scripture. 
 
 6. However inconsistent was the Pharisee's theory 
 of having a good dinner himself, while he was horrified 
 at a hungry poor man's rubbing the wheat-ears in his 
 hand, to eat them, our dear Lord, who looked to our 
 instruction, did not hesitate to dine with him on that 
 day. And He justified his conduct by the cure of the 
 dropsical man, who possibly presented himself with 
 s Matt. xi. 2. h Luke siv. 1.
 
 638 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 the connivance of the host ; for he, with his friends, 
 were "watching" our Lord before the cure. He did 
 not, however, despise Jewish prejudices merely to this 
 extent. He braved hatred and persecution, for His 
 views and practice regarding the Sabbath. St. Luke 
 tells us, that the Scribes and Pharisees, on account of 
 His healing on the Sabbath day, " were filled with 
 madness, and they talked to one another, what they 
 might do to Jesus." 1 St. Matthew explains, that this 
 consultation was, "how they might destroy Jesus. " k 
 St. John informsMis, that "therefore did the Jews 
 persecute Jesus, because He did these things on the 
 Sabbath." 1 This contempt for the prejudices of the 
 bigot Jews, this braving of their hatred and perse- 
 cution, for the sake of a principle on such a subject, 
 at once stamps the view of those men with the note of 
 reprobation and wickedness. One so meek as Jesus, 
 who had come to "fulfil all justice," who asserted 
 boldly, and with divine truth, that "not a jot nor 
 tittle of the Law should pass away," who attended to 
 every legal obligation, from His twelfth year to the 
 eve of His death, who would " not bruise the broken 
 reed, nor extinguish the smoking flax," so tender was 
 His tread to be on earth ; one, in fine, who was come 
 to purchase the soul of the most cynical Pharisee at as 
 dear a rate as that of His holy Mother, must have 
 considered that an evil principle, which He crushed so 
 unmercifully seven times, and which to uproot, he 
 braved the fury and hatred of the dominant party in 
 church and state. Hence the Catholic moralist well 
 understands the term scandalum pliarisaicum as op- 
 posed to the scandalum pusillorum the first of which 
 may safely be despised ; but the latter, never. 
 
 1 Luke vi. 11. k Matt. xii. 14. 1 John v. 16. 
 
 m " Pharisaical scandal," and " scandal of Christ's little ones."
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 639 
 
 7. Finally our Lord, whose example so clearly sus- 
 tains the temperate and Christian views of the Catholic 
 Church on this ritual question, lays down principles 
 conformable to His practice, which form the basis of 
 this Church's conduct. " The Son of Man is the Lord 
 also of the Sabbath ; the Sabbath was made for man, 
 and not man for the Sabbath." These two aphorisms 
 contain the whole of our doctrine and of our discipline 
 on the subject. He who declared Himself Lord of 
 the Sabbath, also said to His apostles : " All power is 
 given to Me in heaven and on earth ; as My Eather 
 hath sent me, so I also send you." n Within the com- 
 pass of this delegated power came the Sabbath ; and 
 the Catholic at once acquiesces in the transfer of its 
 obligations, by the apostles, to the Sunday. And if 
 the Sabbath was made to serve man, whereas man 
 was not created to be the slave of the Sabbath, 
 man's true interests are to be the standard, whereby 
 the Church will ever regulate her precepts'respecting 
 it. Moroseness and debauchery are equally alien from 
 her thoughts; nor could the spouse of Christ have 
 devised a mode of spending it, which makes its morn- 
 ing dull, and its evening dissipated. It could not 
 have crammed into it the spiritual duties of the six 
 other days, and so made it an iron yoke. It could not 
 have sanctified it, by excluding from it the perfor- 
 mance of even charitable works. It could not have 
 consecrated it to stupidity and sloth, by withdrawing 
 from it all innocent recreation and refreshing cheer- 
 fulness. All this would not have been considering or 
 treating the Sabbath as made for man. This can only 
 be the case where it promotes his happiness ; where it 
 instructs his mind, applies rightly his intellect, tones 
 
 11 Matt, xxviii. 18; John sx. 21. 
 i 2 T
 
 GlO THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 his feelings, by a gentle sway, to wholesome kindli- 
 ness, raises his thoughts by a noble and beautiful 
 worship, improves his social and domestic relations by 
 a more virtuous intercourse, invigorates his frame by 
 seasonable repose, mingled with temperate recreation ; 
 and, in fine, makes him live one clay of every seven of 
 his life under the chastening discipline of religion, but 
 still more under the sweet influence of God's coun- 
 tenance, felt to be more present, more benign, more 
 radiant than on other days, with an eye more watchful, 
 indeed, over evil, but more open to our better deeds. 
 This is the Lord's Day of the New Law ; this is the 
 Sunday, on which the glory of the spiritual firmament 
 reigns supreme. 
 
 y. "We opened our essay with the transactions of 
 our blessed Saviour's infancy, and we will close it with 
 the last actions of His life. We promise to be very 
 concise, 
 
 Here, as in the noblest tragedy, action becomes 
 equivalent to suffering, and our Redeemer may be 
 said to do for man, whatever man does against Him. 
 Now, to our minds, there is nothing more decisive of 
 the respective claims of Catholic and Protestant to be 
 the religion of the New Testament, than the manner 
 in which they treat its most solemn portion, that which 
 records the final act of redemption. The very essence 
 of modern Protestantism is, to regard this greatest 
 act as a mere abstraction. The mind is concentrated 
 on the sole apprehension of an accomplished atone- 
 ment, and its instrumentality by death. By a process 
 eminently selfish, the price and its purchase arc 
 transferred to the individual soul, appropriated by it, 
 and thus viewed extrancously to Him whose they really 
 are. There is no contemplation in the Protestant 
 view, it is one of mere self- application. To contrast
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 641 
 
 it with the Catholic idea, and so illustrate both, per- 
 haps a simple parable may be useful. 
 
 Let us imagine to ourselves two spendthrifts, for 
 whose debts a loving father has given bond. The day 
 of reckoning arrives, and the surety comes willingly 
 to pay the ransom. One son stands by, grateful in- 
 deed, but cold and calculating. He looks not at the 
 huge sum that is counted out, but is eagerly waiting 
 for the last coin to be told, and then exultingly cries 
 out, "I am free;" and goes his way. But there is 
 another beside him, who watches with the intensest 
 gaze every particle of the precious offering, because 
 he knows what it has cost his father to procure it. In 
 every piece he recognises the fruit of some privation 
 undergone, or some cruel humiliation endured. On 
 one he reads his father's hunger, on another his abject 
 toil. He remembers, as one portion of the store is 
 brought out, that it was gained at the expense of 
 calumny and hatred from friends ; and when another 
 is produced, that it was earned by the loss of those 
 most dear to him. At every instalment he looks into 
 his dear parent's countenance, and sees its manly 
 sorrow, and its varying emotions, as these same re- 
 collections pass over his heart ; and though the smile 
 of love is on his lips, as the last golden drachma falls 
 from his hand, at thought of what he has achieved for 
 his children, even this is but more heartrending to the 
 tender one of the two ; and he almost loses all sense 
 of his own liberation, in the anguish inflicted by its 
 price. He thinks not of himself, for love is not selfish. 
 He goes not away singing, " I am ransomed, I am 
 free," but he rushes to his father's feet, exclaiming, 
 " Thou hast purchased me, I am thine !" 
 
 Such we believe to be the true difference between the 
 Protestant and the Catholic mode of considering our 
 
 2T2
 
 (U2 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Saviour's passion. The one looks at it with an acqui- 
 sitive eye, the other with the eye of love. To the 
 Protestant it would have been the same if the simple 
 act of death had been recorded, and its preliminary 
 and accompanying sufferings had been suppressed. 
 Not one emotion would have been lost to him, any 
 more than, in his system, any advantage. What does 
 the cruel agony in Gethsemani give him ? It does 
 not redeem him. What does he gain by the welts 
 and gashes of the Roman scourges ? They do not 
 ransom him. What profits him the mock coronation, 
 and its insulting homage ? It does not save him. And 
 then what can Mary and John do for him at the 
 cross's foot ? He declares he does not care for them. 
 What matters it to him if the seamless garment be 
 diced for, or rent ? It bears no deep mystery of faith 
 to him. No : only let him secure that moment when 
 the last breath passes over the Victim's lips, and it is 
 enough for it is the atonement. 
 
 Yet all that we have briefly enumerated was suffered 
 for our sakes, and recorded for our profit. Although 
 the last piece completed our ransom, all that preceded 
 it composed the sum. For surely our divine Redeemer 
 did nought in vain, nor aught superfluously. He was 
 generous, indeed, but not wasteful. The Catholic, 
 therefore, treasures up in his heart every smallest gift 
 of love, where the smallest is immense. Prom this 
 minuteness of Catholic preception springs a sense of 
 reality, an approximation of feeling, which makes that 
 not merely vivid, but present, which is separated from 
 us by ages. On the other side is a mere hazy and 
 vague generality, merging in a conception of the mind, 
 instead of a real fact. And from this unreality easily 
 springs up a lurking infidelity, that saps the founda- 
 tion of Christianity. The mind conies to think it
 
 THE ACTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 643 
 
 unnecessary to trouble itself about .details, so long as 
 the one apprehended truth is certain. " Christ died 
 for us, no matter how," is the whole needful dogma of 
 an evangelical mind. 
 
 But there is another view from which the Protestant 
 eye habitually shrinks, but one which the Catholic 
 boldly contemplates; it is that which completes the 
 circle, by joining the beginning and the end of the 
 Gospel together, steadily uniting the incarnation and 
 the death. The first of these great mysteries receives 
 but little prominence in modern Protestantism, be- 
 cause this lacks the daring of faith, to believe that He 
 who died was the Word incarnate. And it is this 
 feebleness of belief that leads to that vagueness and 
 generalization in doctrine, which we have described. 
 Say to a Protestant, " God was struck in the face ; 
 God was scourged; God was crowned with thorns;" 
 and he dares not trust himself to look upon the doc- 
 trine. The eagle eye that can gaze upon the sun 
 belongs not to his system ; it is but a craven bird. He 
 feels himself unable to grasp the awful mystery. If 
 he deny the divinity of our Lord, his atonement is 
 gone. But he dares not contemplate the dogma 
 through its various applications, and he shrinks from 
 such phrases as we have given with a misgiving terror. 
 They sound shocking and almost profane. And thus 
 he is driven to suppress in his thoughts those detailed 
 sequels of the incarnation, and dwell upon only ob- 
 scure perceptions of two doctrines, which he has not 
 heart to firmly combine. Socinianism thus becomes 
 the refuge of a vacillating attempt at faith. 
 
 The Catholic Church is a stranger to this wavering. 
 She pursues one doctrine through all the mazes of the 
 other, and combines the two inextricably. The Infant 
 and the Victim are equal realities ; nay, a unity, begin-
 
 644 THE ACTIONS OF ,THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ning in God, and in God ending ; God throughout, in 
 feebleness as in might, in obscurity and in brightness, 
 in suffering and in glory. Nothing in Him is little, 
 nothing unworthy ; the fool's garment on Him is as 
 sacred as the snow-bright vesture of Thabor; the 
 scourge of cords in His uplifted hand is as mighty as 
 the thunderbolt ; the first lisping of His infant tongue 
 as wisdomful as His sermon on the mount, a bruise 
 upon His flesh as beautiful to angels' eyes, as adorable 
 to man's soul, as His first smiling radiance shed upon 
 His virgin mother. Thus does the Church believe, 
 thus realize her faith. She alone understands the 
 true doctrine of her Saviour's death, as He Himself 
 expounded it; for none other has learnt this lesson 
 from His actions, that love is an essential condition 
 of forgiveness as well as faith, and love it is that 
 will linger over every detail of love. 
 
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