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 THE 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SCIENCES AND ON THE ARTS 
 
 FROM THE SPANISH OF THE 
 
 REV. BOW ANDRES DE SALAS Y GILAVERT, D.D. 
 
 KNIGHT HOSPITALLER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM 
 
 CHAPLAIN TO HIS EXCELLENCY SENOR DON NARCISO DE HEREDIA Y PERALTA 
 COUNT DE DONA MARINA 
 
 MARIANA MONTEIRO 
 
 LONDON 
 SANDS & CO. 
 
 12 BURLEIGH STREET, STRAND 
 i goo
 
 ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
 TO THE 
 
 VERY KEVEREND ALFRED, CANON WHITE, 
 
 DEAN OP WESTMINSTER AND RECTOR OP THE CHURCH OP THE 
 HOLT TRINITY, BROOK GREEN, 
 
 $ DeDicate 
 
 THIS LITTLE WORK AS A SMALL TRIBUTE OF 
 RESPECT, ESTEEM AND GRATITUDE. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 " A Faithful Friend is a strong Defence, and he that hath found him 
 hath found a Treasure." ECCLESIA.STICUS, vi. 14.
 
 EXAMEN AND APPKOBATIONS. 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 WE, the Licenciate Don Fulgencio Gutierrez y Colomber, Priest, 
 Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal American Order of Isabel 
 la Catolica, and Ecclesiastical Vicar of this Most Loyal City of 
 Madrid and its environs, 
 
 By these presents and by what concerns us, we grant our licence 
 to permit the printing and the publication of the little book entitled 
 Influence of Catholicism on the Sciences and on the Arts, written by 
 the Presbyter Doctor in Divinity, Don Andres de Salas y Gilavert, 
 forasmuch as we have examined it and have found nothing con- 
 trary to the Catholic Dogma and wholesome morals, according to 
 ecclesiastical censure. 
 
 Dated Madrid, 27th September, 1877, and signed by the 
 Licenciate Gutierrez by command of his Excellency 
 the Licenciate Juan Moreno Gongalez (here follows 
 the seal). 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 ALTHOUGH I have submitted these articles to the examen, censure 
 and approbation of the Ecclesiastical Authorities, and I have 
 obtained their permission for their publication, I desire to state 
 emphatically that it has been my wish and aim to print nothing 
 that could offend the Catholic Dogma and morals. Should any 
 such word be found, I beg of my readers to consider it as though it 
 had not been written ; and from this day and for ever I submit this 
 little work to the correction of the Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 Dated Madrid, September, 1877, and signed Andres de 
 Salas y Gilavert, Chaplain to his Excellency Senor 
 Don Narciso de Heredia y Peralta, Count de Dona 
 Marina.
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IT seems incredible that in the so-called enlightened 
 nineteenth century there should have been found 
 a single person to attempt to maintain that the 
 Catholic Religion is hostile to the arts and sciences. 
 It must needs be that such a person simply closes 
 his eyes to history, in order to make so rash and un- 
 just an accusation. The modern philosophers, sup- 
 porting their accusations upon some texts of Holy 
 Scripture, and of the Holy Fathers falsely inter- 
 preted, have no hesitation to repeat daily with 
 insolent superiority of manner : " Is it not evident that 
 the Catholic Religion is opposed to the unfolding of in- 
 telligence ? " 
 
 The attack could not be more gross or more 
 insidious. Time has proved the charge to be an 
 absurd accusation, and the truly learned men of 
 the day are fully convinced that the Holy Catholic 
 Religion is superior to all others, not only on account 
 of the resplendent lights with which she has adorned 
 the world, but for the extraordinary and incontestable 
 progress which she has so brilliantly effected in 
 human reason. I shall proceed to examine and
 
 X THE AUTHOR S PREFACE. 
 
 refute the charge of the Bationalistic philosophers, 
 and clearly manifest the utter want of foundation of 
 their accusations, because no loyal Catholic can 
 possibly allow such grave accusations to remain 
 uncontroverted. 
 
 When the Divine Word took flesh in the purest 
 womb of the Queen of Angels and of men, assuming 
 our human nature, the object of His highest mission 
 was to ransom the world ; but He could not re- 
 establish between the Creator and the creature the 
 close relations which sin had destroyed, without 
 restoring all things, according to the forcible ex- 
 pression of the great Apostle. Hence He planted 
 upon earth the germ of all knowledge, full of power 
 and truth. 
 
 When He planted the beautiful tree of knowledge 
 a tree which later on under the influence of Catho- 
 licism was to assume gigantic proportions, extending 
 its splendid branches towards all the various parts of 
 the world, summoning all men to come, and taste, 
 and be delighted with its delicious and wholesome 
 fruits this tree was no more than an impercep- 
 tible seed. And in truth what was our Divine 
 Religion at that epoch? A cross raised up on the 
 heights of Calvary ; the Son of a Carpenter expiring 
 on that cross ; a few women weeping and imploring 
 mercy at its foot ; some doubting Disciples deficient 
 of courage, and who fled away from the smallest 
 persecution such was the first spectacle that was
 
 THE AUTHOR S PREFACE. xi 
 
 presented to the eyes of the world by Christian 
 society. But very quickly did the humble Eedeemer 
 of men rise glorious from the sepulchre, and like the 
 Good Shepherd that He was, full of tenderness, He 
 called together His loved flock which had become 
 dispersed. He laboured to convince His still vacil- 
 lating Apostles of the truth of His triumphant Ee- 
 surrection ; He enlightened more and more their rude 
 intelligences, purifying their carnal hearts, and then 
 He ascended to heaven, blessing them, promising to 
 send down the Holy Spirit. The Divine promise of 
 the Son of God was not delayed in being accom- 
 plished. 
 
 The spirit of wisdom and fortitude descended upon 
 the Apostles. Those hitherto ignorant, timid men, 
 feeling a Divine fire which enlightened and transported 
 them, dispersed and went to all parts of the world to 
 convert the nations and peoples to the Holy Doctrine 
 of Jesus Christ. The Disciples necessarily experienced 
 the same fate as their Master. Like Him they fell 
 victims to many and cruel persecutions. But over 
 the still smoking blood of those heroic leaders of 
 Christianity others rose in huge numbers, penetrated 
 by the same spirit, and who went forth to propagate 
 the Gospel throughout the globe. Amazed at the 
 rapid progress effected by the new religion, the 
 powers of the whole world leagued together to 
 smother it in its birth, and persecution broke out on 
 every side. The faithful were compelled to celebrate
 
 xii THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 their grand and sublime mysteries in the gloom of 
 the Catacombs ; they did not appear in public but to 
 serve as food for wild beasts, or as cruel prey to the 
 tyrants who were more ferocious still than the wild 
 beasts. Such was the second spectacle which was 
 offered to the world by Christian society. 
 
 At this moment there undoubtedly came over 
 human intelligences an extraordinary change. From 
 the instant when the Divine Jesus preached His 
 most holy and excellent doctrine in Judea, was not 
 the loftiest wisdom heard there? Should we not 
 wish to mention the Master Whose superiority is 
 incontestable, were the Apostles perchance men 
 deficient of eloquence whose wise, impressive words 
 convinced so many thousands of Jews and Gentiles ? 
 Were they bereft of talents, those evangelists who 
 are so greatly admired, and who have left us books 
 of a sublimity and elevation of thought which no 
 human understanding has been able to excel or 
 even reach, and of such depth and power that the 
 most critical have been unable to find the smallest 
 blot? Were the first successors of the Apostles 
 obscure men of no intelligence that they also suc- 
 ceeded in converting to the most profound dogmas, 
 and to the most austere of morals, whole cities and 
 peoples bred up and accustomed to an easy sensual 
 religion ? 
 
 If our holiest religion, which numbers nineteen 
 centuries, has conquered all the powers of the world,
 
 THE AUTHOR S PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 dominated the most rebellious spirits; if it has 
 poured abundant and refulgent light even over the 
 less elevated classes of society, and filled Europe as 
 well as the rest of the world with notable monu- 
 ments ; to dare with such hardihood to assert that 
 the Catholic Keligion is opposed to the unfolding of 
 intelligence is to dare to contradict evidence, and 
 equal to daring to confound truth with error, light 
 with darkness, Christ with Belial. 
 
 In order more fully to demonstrate the falsity of 
 this unfounded charge, let us call to mind the 
 multitude of great and privileged minds that have 
 been formed in the bosom of our Divine Religion. 
 What a magnificent continuity of illustrious per- 
 sonages is presented to my mind during the first six 
 centuries of the existence of the Catholic Church ! 
 St. Justin, Platonic philosopher, most admirable and 
 worthy of all praise for his wisdom and clear in- 
 telligence, yet lays down at the foot of the Cross the 
 vain wisdom of the schools, embraces the tenets of 
 the Holy Gospels, becomes her great Apologist, and 
 ends by being her true martyr. Tertullian, born in 
 the depths of Paganism, gifted with a noble, fecund 
 genius, deeply versed in jurisprudence, in fabulous 
 antiquities, and in the principles of all the philo- 
 sophical sects. St. Clement of Alexandria, who, 
 possessed by an immense thirst for knowledge, 
 traversed Greece, Asia, Syria, Egypt, visiting in all 
 these places the most renowned men and those most
 
 xiv THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 deeply read in all beliefs, and finished his travels in 
 Alexandria. Here he dedicated himself to the study 
 of religion, and became the president of the Christian 
 Academy established in that city a celebrated 
 school, where, according to St. Jerome, succeeded an 
 uninterrupted line of masters, full of learning and 
 virtue, equally conversant with sacred writings and 
 secular literature. It was here that St. Clement com- 
 posed his great works, among others his Admonitiones 
 ad Gentiles. From this school issued historians in 
 all ages and of all nationalities, philosophers in all 
 branches, poets of all languages. Origen, who at 
 the age of eighteen was already a distinguished sage, 
 the first shining light of his time, and the admiration 
 of the Pagan philosophers. St. Jerome tells us that 
 the celebrated and illustrious Origen was well versed 
 in dialectics, geometry, grammar, rhetoric, and in 
 the philosophy of all the schools. 
 
 To these great sages, defenders of holy religion, it 
 will be expedient to add others, in order that modern 
 sophists should be convinced of the truth of what 
 I advance. Theophilus of Antioch, Arnubius, Lac- 
 tantius, surnamed the Christian Cicero, Minutius 
 Felix, who distinguished himself in Borne by his 
 eloquence, and who, after he had embraced Chris- 
 tianity, composed for his defence a beautiful dialogue, 
 which is still carefully preserved. To recall the 
 names of St. Irenaeus, St. Cyprian, St. Basil, St. 
 Ambrose, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St.
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xv 
 
 Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the 
 Great, and others, is to call to mind men of great 
 eminence, whose excellent works are consecrated by 
 the veneration of ages. 
 
 I might still longer linger in the just and well- 
 merited praise of the great and excellent men who 
 so brilliantly illustrated the world during the first 
 ages of the Catholic Church, but I consider it would 
 be a difficult and needless task to attempt unfolding, 
 within the narrow limits of a small book, a subject 
 which is found so clearly developed by all the 
 Apologists, and the perusal of which I recommend to 
 the consideration of our obstinate adversaries, so that 
 they may become more fully convinced of the falsity 
 of their charges. In order that they may not urge 
 that these eminent men were already renowned 
 before they embraced Christianity, I will tell them 
 that there are existing documents which prove that 
 the greater number were formed in her glorious 
 bosom. I admit that there have been some who had 
 acquired celebrity previous to becoming adopted sons 
 of Jesus Christ, but can these followers of the Goddess 
 of Beason deny that they became much more eminent 
 after their conversion, and that, entrusted with the 
 defence of the Holy Catholic Faith (Fountain of 
 Divine Light), they rose to a height, and attained a 
 name and renown, which, outside the pale of reli- 
 gion, it would have been impossible for them to 
 
 have attained? 
 
 b
 
 xvi THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In order to bear out this statement, I wish to 
 mention merely a few of those who became most 
 renowned. What would St. Justin have been if to 
 his title of philosopher had not been added that of 
 Christian ? What of Tertullian, had he not with his 
 rare genius defended the holy cause of our Divine 
 Eeligion? Simply a clever jurisconsult, whose re- 
 putation would scarcely have extended beyond his 
 country and his age. What would St. Ambrose 
 have been had not his singular talents and great 
 eloquence become developed in the Christian pulpit ? 
 An incorruptible magistrate, whose name would 
 never have been handed down to our days. 
 
 What shall I say of that splendid luminary of the 
 Church, the glory of mankind, the most celebrated 
 of the fathers, the illustrious St. Augustine ? What 
 would have become of his rare talents had he not 
 faithfully interpreted the Sacred Scriptures, had he 
 not so admirably written the City of God, had he not 
 revealed to the world his ardent heart completely 
 transformed to the Catholic faith ? 
 
 Eloquence and letters imparted at this memor- 
 able epoch a most vivid lustre to Christian society, 
 Nevertheless, the Koman Empire was rapidly be- 
 coming engulfed on all sides, and along with it the 
 civilised world, which it enclosed within its boundary. 
 There was no possibility of cultivating the sciences 
 and the arts ; the sceptre of the world was held in the 
 fearful hands of ignorance and brutal force ; the new
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xvii 
 
 civilisation which Catholicity presented to the world 
 had scarcely illumined the earth with its brilliant 
 light than it suddenly disappeared, and sank, buried 
 in the most appalling darkness. 
 
 What could our holy religion work in those days 
 of sad memories ? Conceal, preserve the sacred fire 
 of science, as she preserved that of faith, within her 
 inviolable asylums ; impel her worthy ministers, her 
 most loved sons, to follow an assiduous study, far 
 from the tumult of warfare and of the passions ; 
 improve the gross and rude customs of the bar- 
 barians, and accustom them to love a life of peace 
 and order ; teaching them to respect, as sacred 
 things, the double deposit of the Divine and the 
 human thought, the venerable objects of worship and 
 of science, which the terrible hordes of evil men were 
 taking a pleasure in destroying. Meanwhile that a 
 senseless conqueror was razing to the ground, with 
 sacrilegious hands, the magnificent works of religion 
 and of science, those admirable men, those staunch 
 true lovers of our Lord and our God, would preserve 
 them carefully within their temples and monasteries. 
 
 All those who have no more than a superficial 
 knowledge of history must admit that the men who 
 more greatly distinguished themselves in the Middle 
 Ages were formed under the immediate influence of 
 the Catholic Religion ; and certainly these eminent 
 men were very superior to the sickly idea conceived 
 by the Sophists.
 
 XVlii THE AUTHOR* S PREFACE. 
 
 Was not the illustrious Bernard a superior man, 
 who, from the depths of his retreat, moved the whole 
 world by the power of his eloquent words ? Was not 
 the sympathetic and profound author of the Imitation 
 of Christ a man of superior attainments, and worthy 
 of all praise, whose modesty was superior to his 
 science, because, despising that vain glory which is 
 so ardently sought after by the world, he left to 
 posterity sublime and inimitable thoughts without 
 affixing his name to the work ? What shall I say of 
 those celebrated founders who alone, and at the foot 
 of the Cross, have traced out constitutions that have 
 never been superseded, nor even equalled, by public 
 constitutions, largely elaborated by our own most 
 brilliant statesmen ; and what of those theologians, 
 those jurisconsults, who have treated fundamentally 
 great religious and social questions, which have 
 scarcely been altered by our most distinguished 
 statesmen were they perchance not men of mark? 
 From the time when order was restored and peace 
 established in that land corrupted and overturned 
 by evil passions, are we not amazed to see issuing 
 from the bosom of the Church the first rays of that 
 refulgent light that dissipated the darkness which 
 covered the horizon of the world, and crowned with 
 glory and splendour the whole of Europe ? 
 
 What fertile and extraordinary geniuses have 
 appeared in Christian society since that epoch down 
 to our day ! In the intellectual and metaphysical
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xix 
 
 sciences, and in philosophy, what renowned men 
 have risen up before us, such as Bacon, Descartes, 
 Pascal, Malebranche and Leibnitz ! What men so 
 learned in all human knowledge as Erasmus, 
 Usserius, Baronius, Mabillon, Petau, Bochart, 
 Vossius and Fleury! 
 
 What depth of doctrine in those statesmen, 
 jurisconsults and magistrates, such as Thomas 
 More, Talon, Grotius and Donat ! What singular 
 geniuses, what rare intelligences, what poets, orators 
 and writers are conjured up on pronouncing the 
 names of Tasso, Bossuet, Fenelon, Bourdaloue, 
 Massillon and La Fontaine ! In the natural 
 sciences, in physics and mathematics, what brilliant 
 names are those of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, 
 Keaumur and Euler ! Were I to mention all the 
 great politicians, all the excellent artists, and all the 
 sages who were Christians, and even highly religious, 
 what a beautiful list of illustrious names I should 
 have to present to the discomfiture of our insidious 
 adversaries ! 
 
 Yet, how can I resist mentioning the glory and 
 sanctity of Spain, those intellects that so greatly 
 distinguished themselves for their learning, and 
 reflected so much honour upon our country ? How 
 can I cast to the winds the sweet recollections 
 bequeathed to us by the immortal St. John of the 
 Cross, that Spanish saint who filled with splendour 
 a whole century ? How forget St. Teresa of Jesus,
 
 xx THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 she who has been styled by an eminent orator of 
 our day, " the matchless pride of our country, Chaste Lily, 
 which has filled with fragrance our barren fields ; a 
 wondrous maiden, who has communicated to our letters 
 the most noble efficacy which can be conceived by genius, 
 the efficacy of rapture and ecstasy, the efficacy of the 
 wonderful elevation of a boundless love " ? 
 
 For the consideration of these modern Rationalists 
 and godless accusers, I place before them the ex- 
 cellent works of the humble cripple of Lepanto, the 
 illustrious author and Christian philosopher, our 
 immortal Cervantes, he who, with native simplicity 
 and extraordinary eloquence, has said : " Our works 
 must never go beyond the limits imposed by the Christian 
 Religion ". 
 
 Worthy of all praise are also the Listas, Saavedras 
 and Gallegos, great defenders of the Faith, and ex- 
 cellent writers, whose works, like their virtues, fill 
 with true enthusiasm the noble breasts of the faithful 
 lovers of Catholicity. Nor in Spanish literature are 
 less renowned those highly gifted men whom our 
 holy religion nestled in her beautiful bosom, Suarez, 
 Cano, Victoria, Luis Vives, Sepulveda, Soto, Mal- 
 donado, and the memorable Lope de Vega, who 
 conferred so much glory and honour on faith and 
 science. Justly did the great politician, the literary 
 Fajardo, surname him the Phoenix of Genius. 
 
 Catholics ! while we have before us all that is most 
 great and sublime which, under the influence of
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xxi 
 
 Christianity, has been produced by human intelli- 
 gence, why should we be agitated by the rude 
 murmurs of sophists, accusing us of being antagon- 
 istic to science and the arts? Let them know, 
 although they may dislike to hear it, " that in order to 
 comprehend the value of Spanish letters, and admire their 
 perfect synthesis and rare beauty, it is necessary to lift 
 one's eyes to the Altar ". Such has been said by a wise 
 foreign orator. 1 
 
 In order to develop fully this most important 
 subject it would be undoubtedly necessary to write 
 several volumes. However, this one may suffice to 
 confute the incredulous, and convince them clearly 
 that, very far from our holy religion being hostile to 
 science and art, she lends, and always has lent, them 
 her powerful influence. When we feel in our intelli- 
 gences the precious ray of light which emanates from 
 the Divine Mind, with what rapidity are we elevated 
 to the heavens ! 
 
 In conclusion, I affirm, with the celebrated Pinard, 
 that of all religions the Christian religion is the 
 most poetic, the most humane, the most favourable 
 to true liberty in the arts and letters; that the 
 modern world owes all things to her, from agricul- 
 ture to the abstract sciences, from the hospital to the 
 temples erected by Michael Angelo and decorated by 
 Baffaelle ! 
 
 1 Pere F^lix, Conferences, 1858.
 
 PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 IT is a well-known fact that many trees brought 
 from foreign lands, and which are engrafted, or 
 planted in English soil by botanists, produce 
 abundant fruit; and this is true even of such as 
 are supposed to be of small fruit-bearing power, 
 because planted in a richer land or in contact with 
 others of more perfect condition; and more especi- 
 ally is this the case if the tree of its nature comes 
 from a noble stock. 
 
 In the same way have I ventured to transplant 
 a Spanish work into English soil. No doubt many 
 of my readers (should I be fortunate enough to 
 have any) will wonder why, of all countries, I 
 should have chosen England, with its depressing 
 climate, to engraft a work, such as the present 
 one, from the sunny clime of Spain; but this 
 objection I will meet by stating that Spain, of all 
 countries in Europe, is, and has ever been, the 
 most Catholic and not only Catholic, but one 
 which has produced great theologians, world-wide 
 literary celebrities and artists, century after cen- 
 tury ; in this, imitating the sun, which never stops
 
 XXIV PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 in its course yet always illumines and, therefore, is 
 the one most competent to write upon the Influence 
 of Catholicism on the Sciences and on the Arts. 
 
 Some time ago I was asked to write a series of 
 articles to refute the common error that Catholicism 
 is, by its nature, opposed to the Sciences and the 
 Arts. 
 
 Judging that my own pen would carry with it 
 but small influence, I preferred to adapt and take 
 my inspiration from the learned theologian whose 
 name and dignity would be of sufficient power to 
 render my translation acceptable. 
 
 MAKIANA MONTEIKO. 
 
 ST. SCHOLASTICA'S, 
 CLA.PTON, 1st May, 1900.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGM 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE ix 
 
 PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION xxiii 
 
 FIRST ARTICLE 
 
 SCIENCE. Theology in General Its Definition and Divi- 
 sion Arguments in favour of the Divine Authority of 
 the Church - - 1 
 
 SECOND ARTICLE 
 
 Conformity of Reason to Faith 15 
 
 THIRD ARTICLE 
 
 Philosophy Its Definition The Influence of Catholicism 
 
 upon Human Tlumght 23 
 
 FOURTH ARTICLE 
 
 The Necessity of the Authority of Catholicism for Restrain- 
 ing tJie Wanderings of Reason 33 
 
 FIFTH ARTICLE 
 
 Continuation of the Same Subject ..... 43 
 
 SIXTH ARTICLE 
 
 LETTERS. History Its Definition and Division Its 
 Essential Conditions The Influence which Catholi- 
 cism exercises upon it 53 
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE 
 
 Eloquence Its Definition Its History The Influence 
 which is brought to bear upon Eloquence by Catholi- 
 cism Eloquence of the Sacred Scriptures 65 
 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Poetry Biblical Poetry is 
 
 Superior to tlie Pagan 83
 
 XXVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 NINTH ARTICLE 
 
 Continuation of the Same Subject New Sources of In- 
 spiration which Catholicism offers to the Poet 
 Dangers which the Poet is exposed to if left to himself - 99 
 
 TENTH ARTICLE 
 
 THE PINE ARTS. Influence of Catholicism on Music - 111 
 
 ELEVENTH ARTICLE 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Painting .... 125 
 
 TWELFTH ARTICLE 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Sculpture .... 139 
 
 THIRTEENTH ARTICLE 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Architecture - ... 147
 
 FIEST AETICLE.
 
 FIKST AKTICLE. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 Theology in general Its definition and division Arguments 
 in favour of the Divine Authority of the Church. 
 
 WHAT is Science? "Science," says an eminent 
 writer, 1 "is the conjunction of the relations which 
 constitute and bind all creations, from God down to 
 the atom, from the infinitesimally small up to the 
 infinitely great. Each step, in following up this 
 vast ladder, illumines the step which precedes it and 
 the one which follows, because each comprehended 
 relation, in whatever mode this comprehension is 
 effected, from below to above, or vice versd, is a 
 revelation of That which Is. Or in other words, the 
 effect manifests the cause, because it is an image of 
 it; the cause explains the effect, because it is the 
 beginning of the first. Nevertheless, this reciprocity 
 is not equal, because, while the True Light descends 
 from above, here below we have only a simple reflec- 
 tion. ' We see now through a glass in a dark manner,' 
 says St. Paul, ' but then face to face ' (1 Cor. xiii.). 
 Science in our present state is, therefore, necessarily 
 
 1 Lacordaire, Mdmoire pour le retablissement en France de Vordre 
 des Frtres PrScheurs, 1839, p. 117.
 
 4 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 imperfect, because we do not see face, to face the 
 starting point and the end which is God. How- 
 ever much it may be manifested to our sight, it is 
 not possible to know it but by the reflection which 
 is contained in the inferior beings. Before God 
 appeared He revealed His name. The voluntary 
 acceptation of this Sovereign Word is called faith. 
 Faith makes the Christian. When the Christian is 
 in the possession of this new element of knowledge, 
 from this point of view of the Highest he can 
 descend even to the extreme ends of the universe, 
 interpret from the relations which constitute the 
 Divine Essence, those relations which constitute the 
 essence of man and of nature ; after this, by the help 
 of a converse movement, he verifies, by the laws 
 which govern finite beings, the laws of the Infinite 
 Being. This comparison of the two worlds the 
 illumination of the second, which is the effect, by 
 the first, which is the cause, and the verification of 
 the first, which is the cause, by the second, which 
 is the effect : this flux and reflux of light, this 
 current, which goes from the ocean towards the 
 stream, and from the stream to the ocean ; faith in 
 the science, and science in the faith this constitutes 
 the Christian who has attained to become a theo- 
 logian." It is indubitable that this beautiful passage 
 concerning science is one of the most lovely and 
 most profound which human intelligence can pro- 
 duce, and one which opens to man an immense 
 field for comprehending the whole extension which 
 Theology embraces, which is the science of sciences.
 
 FIRST ARTICLE SCIENCE. 5 
 
 What is Theology? Theology, according to the 
 etymology of the word, is the same as treatise of 
 God ; it is, therefore, a word derived from the Greek 
 Theos, which signifies God, and logos, which means 
 treatise, or discourse. But, in an extended sense, 
 we can affirm, with all the wise men of the world, 
 that Theology is the science of sciences ; the one 
 which must necessarily embrace and contain all 
 others ; the one which pours upon all sciences a 
 certain reflection of the Divine Nature. For which 
 reason it is, with all propriety, called the Science of 
 God, because God is the Being Who by excellence 
 is the Being of beings, the One Who encompasses 
 all in His immensity, the One Who shines in all the 
 infinite perfections of His Sovereign and All-power- 
 ful Being, superior to all that exists or can exist. 
 
 "Theology," says the celebrated Maret, 1 "is the 
 science of God, of man and of nature, in its most 
 profound and mysterious relations. Carried on the 
 wings of faith, and guided by the torch of the Divine 
 Word, Theology soars towards the celestial world, 
 from thence to contemplate the Divine Nature. 
 Like Moses standing over Sinai, it contemplates, 
 beneath the veil of the mysteries, the very laws of 
 the Divine Being. Illumined by the celestial rays 
 under the ladder of creation, Theology lights up, 
 with that light which it has derived from the 
 Eternal Focus, the diverse spheres which compose 
 creation. Upon this inclined plane, it meets, in the 
 
 1 Th6odic6e Chrdtienne, Lesson 3, p. 70.
 
 6 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 first term, with the world of pure spirits, of celestial 
 intelligences. On the opposite extreme to this world 
 it meets that of bodies, with their laws, their powers, 
 the millions of beings which it encloses, pale reflec- 
 tions indeed, but reflections which bear the stamp 
 of the eternal Beauty. Between these two worlds 
 stands a third world, that of humanity, which parti- 
 cipates of the one and of the other. These three 
 worlds are joined one to the other and with its 
 Supreme Cause, for an infinity of relations. These 
 relations constitute two orders essentially different, 
 but which, notwithstanding, are united in themselves 
 and correspond in a magnificent unity the natural 
 and the supernatural orders. After this, from the 
 work of God, springs the work of man. Then is 
 unfolded the mixture of truth and error, of good 
 and evil, which is what constitutes human history. 
 But evil does not exist upon the earth, nor in 
 humanity, excepting under the condition of its being 
 combated and repaired. Only God can heal it, and 
 to attain this end institutes a series of means which 
 forms a new creation in the bosom of the first. 
 Then all becomes complicated, but all things become 
 exalted. Behold, here, the vast field of Theology : 
 in it is found God and the Atom." 
 
 In the same way as man has need to know created 
 beings, because he himself is a part of them, and all 
 beings bear some relation to himself, in like manner, 
 I repeat, does man require to know the Perfect Being, 
 the Uncreated Being, and his Infinite Maker ; be- 
 cause, without this knowledge, man would know not
 
 FIRST ARTICLE SCIENCE. 7 
 
 from whence he came, nor where he is going, nor 
 what is his high mission in this miserable exile. 
 Wandering, in a certain sense, through the vast 
 extent of creation, carried here and there by the ever- 
 swelling wave of the generations, like a ship without 
 a pilot to guide it on the large space of the ocean, 
 he would not know where to direct his steps, nor 
 from what shore he had started. From this we can 
 perfectly understand the reason why our God and 
 Lord was pleased to instil into our hearts an ardent 
 desire and yearning to know Him. 
 
 Theology, in general, is divided into two branches, 
 Dogmatic and Moral ; both being necessary for the 
 justification of man, because, in the same way as 
 Dogmatic Theology teaches us the truths revealed by 
 God, and which we are bound to believe if we desire 
 to be saved, so does Moral Theology teach us those 
 sacred duties we have to perform and the non-fulfil- 
 ment of which would deprive us of attaining to the 
 last End for which we were created, that is, eternal 
 glory or final bliss. We cannot take a single step, 
 in this world, without being reminded by our con- 
 science of many aud varied duties, but these duties we 
 would be unable really to fulfil unless we believed 
 firmly in the magnificent deposit of the holy and 
 sublime doctrine which God confided to His Church, 
 to whose infallible authority we ought to lend a 
 complete submission, if we do not wish to become 
 separated, like broken branches, and sent from the 
 precious tree of Life, Jesus Christ, our Kedeemer, 
 Who died to save the whole human race. It is
 
 8 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 altogether impossible that there could be a just 
 reason out of harmony with the incontestable and 
 indubitable proofs of the Divine Authority of the 
 Church, because these proceed, in the greater part, 
 from actual and resplendent acts, patent to all. 
 
 Are not the thousands of miracles which have been 
 performed under the clear light of heaven, throughout 
 the world, evident and manifest acts ? Is it not an 
 actual fact, the admirable and exact fulfilment of the 
 prophecies ? Does it not prove, in a most conclusive 
 manner, the Divine Authority of the Catholic Church, 
 to behold the infinite multitude of martyrs, the great 
 prodigy of its establishment, and the still greater 
 prodigy of its preservation, in the midst of so many 
 ruins which have been heaped up on its path, to 
 witness the purity, the sanctity, the sublimity of its 
 doctrines, and the -heavenly life of all those who are 
 obedient to them, with the excellent sincerity of 
 generous and noble hearts? 
 
 The Divine Queen of intelligence, the Catholic 
 Church, gathers around her the creatures she has 
 been entrusted with, and holding in one hand the 
 Sacred Scriptures, and in the other the holy Tradi- 
 tions, she tells them in sweet yet firm tones, " I have 
 to announce to you wholesome truths which you 
 would be unable to comprehend had they not been 
 revealed. Listen with docility, all of you ! There 
 is an Eternal God, All-powerful, who possesses the 
 plenitude of life. In Him there are three distinct 
 Persons, being only One God, possessing the same 
 Nature, which is communicated to Each without
 
 FIRST ARTICLE SCIENCE. 9 
 
 there being the slightest alteration or distinction. 
 These are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
 The Father is the Beginning of the Trinity, the Son 
 is begotten by the Father, and the Holy Ghost pro- 
 ceeds from the Father and the Son ; it is the infinite 
 love which the Father bears the Son and the Son to 
 the Father; it is its reciprocal union, its common 
 effusion. For One is the Person of the Father, 
 another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost. 
 But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost is all One, the glory equal, the 
 majesty co-eternal. The Father is uncreated, the 
 Son is uncreated, and the Holy Ghost is uncreated. 
 The Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incom- 
 prehensible, and the Holy Ghost is incomprehensible. 
 The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the 
 Holy Ghost is eternal. And yet they are not three 
 Eternals, but one Eternal. As also they are not 
 three Uncreateds, nor three Incomprehensibles, but 
 one Uncreated, and one Incomprehensible. In like 
 manner, the Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, 
 and the Holy Ghost is Almighty. And yet, they 
 are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the 
 Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost 
 is God, and yet they are not three Gods, but one 
 God." For as we are compelled, by the Christian 
 truth, to acknowledge every Person by Himself to 
 be God, so we are forbidden by the Catholic religion 
 to say there are three Gods. The Father is made of 
 no one, neither created nor begotten. The Son is 
 from the Father alone, not made, nor created, but
 
 10 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the Father and 
 the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but 
 proceeding. So, there is one Father, not three 
 Fathers ; one Son, not three Sons ; one Holy Ghost, 
 not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity there 
 is nothing before or after ; nothing greater or less ; 
 but the whole Three Persons are co-eternal to One 
 another and co-equal. So that in all things, as has 
 been already said above, the Unity is to be worshipped 
 in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity. He, therefore, 
 that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. 
 Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation 
 that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right Faith is, that we 
 believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God, is both God and Man. He is God of 
 the substance of His Father, begotten before the 
 world : He is man of the substance of His Mother, 
 born in the world. Perfect God and perfect Man : 
 subsisting of a rational soul and human flesh. Equal 
 to the Father, according to His Godhead, and less 
 than the Father, according to His Manhood, Who, 
 although He be both God and Man, yet He is not 
 two, but one Christ. One, not by the conversion 
 of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of the 
 manhood unto God. One altogether, not by con- 
 fusion of substance, but by unity of person. For, as 
 the rational soul and the flesh are one man, so God 
 and man are one Christ. Who suffered for our salva- 
 tion ; descended into hell ; rose again the third day 
 from the dead. He ascended into heaven ; He sitteth
 
 FIRST ARTICLE SCIENCE. 11 
 
 at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from 
 thence He shall come to judge the living and the 
 dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again 
 with their bodies, and shall give an account of their 
 own works. And they that have done good shall go 
 into life everlasting ; and they that have done evil 
 into everlasting fire. This is the Catholic faith, 
 which, except a man believe faithfully and stead- 
 fastly, he cannot be saved. 1 
 
 In the beginning God created heaven and earth. 2 
 He spoke and all things were magnificently made. 
 We also are of the number of these creatures that 
 have received existence from God, and whose life is 
 renewed every moment at His bosom. Although He 
 has, so to say, only granted to us an almost imper- 
 ceptible part of space and time, we are in reality 
 very great, because we were created to the image of 
 God, 3 and our life will be continued in eternity. 
 There is reserved to us for eternity the inexhaustible 
 fountain of all happiness, because the infinite Mercy 
 of God is rendered superior to the malice of men ; 
 because His Divine Son became incarnate, took upon 
 Himself our weaknesses, and died on a shameful 
 Cross, fully satisfying Divine Justice. Down then 
 with all unbelief and despair, because by the death 
 of Jesus have come to us the sweet and melodious 
 songs of hope and of love ! 
 
 1 Symbolum S. Athanasii. 
 
 2 Gen. i. 1. 
 
 3 " Ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram " (Gen. i.).
 
 12 THE INFLUENCE OP CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Remember, ye modern Sophists, this part of Catho- 
 lic Theology. Remember those poor fishermen, the 
 holy Apostles, and all those whom our Lord Jesus 
 Christ sent to propagate the Divine light of His 
 Gospel throughout the world, which was then buried 
 in the shadows of ignorance, of idolatry, and of 
 barbarism ! Remember those men who were so 
 great, so wise, and so extraordinary, who by their vast 
 science and tried virtues justly merited the renowned 
 and glorious title of Fathers of the Church of God. 
 What great and holy thoughts will ye find in all 
 their works ! What sublimity, what magnificence, 
 what depth of reasoning, what eloquence in the 
 writings of St. Thomas of Aquinas, the resplendent 
 luminary of Catholicity! What deep, good sense, 
 always impartial, always calm, ever closely united to 
 truth, will ye find in that Summa Theologica of his, 
 which has been compared by a celebrated writer 1 
 " to a majestic tree, coming forth from the sunshine, 
 lifting up its head, and spreading the branches, un- 
 folds flowers, and leaves, and fruits ! " 
 
 The language of these great men cannot be com- 
 pared with the language of the rest, because they 
 speak with the authority which they have received 
 from their Divine Master. It matters little.how many, 
 and what cruel persecutions they may have endured, 
 or that the blood of their brethren and their own 
 should have been spilt upon the earth, because, their 
 heroic hearts, overflowing with a Divine and holy 
 
 1 Maret, Life of St. Thomas Aquinas.
 
 FIRST ARTICLE SCIENCE. 13 
 
 fire, being intrepid and stronger than persecution 
 or even death itself, they calmly lifted up their heads 
 above the many ruins which were spread around 
 them, and made their voices resound in noble and 
 salutary words, which were destined to consolidate 
 and civilise all generations.
 
 SECOND AETICLE.
 
 SECOND ABTICLE. 
 
 Conformity of Reason to Faith. 
 
 THESE are some men who pride themselves upon 
 being truly Christian, yet were we to demand of each 
 an account of his faith, the usual answer would be 
 this: "I do not reason, but I wish to believe". 
 Excellent language this, if it be properly understood, 
 but in an ordinary sense, it manifests a very little 
 faith and a hidden disposition to incredulity; because 
 what does it mean to say "I do not reason"? If 
 this supposed Christian knew how to develop pro- 
 perly the two sentiments of his soul, or would wish 
 to frankly manifest them, he would acknowledge 
 that this expression is equal to saying : " I do not 
 reason, because, were I to reason, I should believe 
 in nothing ; I do not reason, because, were I to do 
 so, my reason would present before me a multitude 
 of difficulties, which would prevent my believing." 
 Those who think in this manner, can they make 
 an assertion, without being in error, that they really 
 possess faith ? No ; a thousand times no. It is 
 necessary to investigate, but without overstepping 
 the limits which the holy Apostle, in his letter to 
 the Komans 1 imposes and points out to the first 
 
 1 Bom. xii. 3. 
 
 2
 
 18 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Christians, when he says : " For I say, by the grace that 
 is given me, to all that are among you, not to be more 
 wise than it behoveth to be wise, but to be wise unto 
 sobriety ". This is the pattern conduct which we 
 ought to follow ; this is the sublime lesson which we 
 ought to study carefully : here it is where we must 
 use our reason, as it is not permitted to us ever to 
 say "I do not reason ". Without this examen, 
 without this exact investigation, we can never hold 
 but a vague, uncertain faith, without principle and 
 without consistency. ' ' Being ready always to satisfy 
 every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which 
 is in you," l as is taught and enjoined by the Prince 
 of the Apostles. 
 
 But what is the basis or foundation of these great 
 mysteries which religion reveals to us, and which 
 are announced to us in the Gospel? In what do 
 they consist ? How are they realised ? Here it is 
 where reason must halt : here it is where reason 
 must humble itself, and repress its natural curiosity, 
 saying, "I do not reason, I believe". In effect, we 
 would be unreasonable, and even criminal, were we 
 not to believe all that our most sacred and Divine 
 religion teaches us, whose strong reasonings and 
 evident arguments have made us cognisant of truths 
 which are so incontestable and indubitable, that by 
 no means whatever can they be refuted. 
 
 Such is the conformity which should exist between 
 reason and religion. Keason gives, let us so express 
 
 1 1 Peter iii. 15.
 
 SECOND ARTICLE. 19 
 
 ourselves, the first steps, convincing and persuading 
 us that Eeligion comes from God : that all the articles 
 which it contains have been revealed by this same 
 Supreme Lord, whether in the scriptures or in the 
 traditions, explained and proposed to us by our Holy 
 Church ; that, whereas God is incapable of error, it 
 is logically deduced that all that she has announced 
 is invariably true ; finally, that Religion, as it does 
 not teach us aught but the Word of God and His 
 excellent Name, is equally true and indefectible, and 
 with most just and incomparable motives demands 
 a perfect adhesion of our spirit and of our hearts. 
 Behold here where Reason acts, and what we discover 
 in favour of her beautiful and radiant lights ! 
 
 This general principle established, Religion im- 
 mediately exalts herself above Reason, expounds her 
 truths, and, however hidden these truths may be, 
 Reason submits to her without allowing it to pene- 
 trate her profound and mysterious dogmas. If 
 Reason, from its indocility and pride, rejects these 
 truths, then Religion, with her legitimate and in- 
 fallible authority, places it beneath her yoke, and 
 makes it see that it ought not to doubt absolutely 
 anything of what she proposes, according to the 
 rules marked by prudence, keeping it within proper 
 limits, beyond which it must not stray, so that it 
 should not wander about, delivering itself up to a 
 diversity of doctrines, which would engulph it with- 
 out doubt into the deepest chaos. 
 
 Therefore, our Catholic Faith is more firm with- 
 out losing anything of its mystery; and it is more
 
 20 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 mysterious without absolutely losing any of its 
 firmness. 
 
 There are moments in life when a soul however 
 much it may be Catholic, and a faithful Christian 
 becomes interiorly agitated, and has doubts of faith, 
 as was the case with the Prince of the Apostles, 
 St. Peter, who, when standing upon the waters, 
 was told by our Kedeemer, 1 " thou of little faith, 
 why didst thou doubt ? " Nevertheless, the soul does 
 not really doubt ; it believes in a vague, confused 
 manner; but the impression is so strong on these 
 occasions, that it appears as though the soul did 
 not believe in anything. This is a difficult trial to 
 sustain, but one which God permits in order to 
 perfect our holy Faith, and engrave it fixedly in 
 our hearts ! If at any time, which God forbid, 
 we should find ourselves assailed by such fearful 
 temptations, let us implore the Divine assistance, 
 and in imitation of the Prince of the Apostles, let 
 us exclaim, " Lord, save me". 2 Let us summon to 
 our assistance Beligion and Eeason, and these two 
 powerful elements, which are intimately united, will 
 influence us, and will lend us a hand to calm our 
 agitations. 
 
 Our natural Keason will remind us of those great 
 and excellent motives which ever impelled us to 
 believe, and that have seemed the most proper ones 
 for confirming in us more and more the Christian 
 Faith, which we happily possess. To our reason, 
 
 1 Matt. xiv. 81. *Ibid., 30.
 
 SECOND ARTICLE. 21 
 
 in effect, is presented the vast universe, with its 
 countless multitudes of beings which compose it, 
 filling us with admiration and astonishment at 
 beholding its diversity, its immense extent, its 
 beauty, its perfect order, its mutual dependence, 
 its utility, its durability after so many ages, and 
 its perpetuity ! Our reason will lead us to contem- 
 plate the heavens, whose rapid movements are ever 
 so precise and well arranged ; the planets which 
 afford us light, the prodigious number of stars 
 shining in the firmament ; the variety of seasons, 
 succeeding one another in such a constant and 
 marvellous revolution, and which perfectly divide 
 the course of time ! What but that precious and 
 rich gleam of the Divinity leads us to traverse in 
 thought, more rapidly than with the sight, those ex- 
 tensive tracts of land and ocean, which are like an 
 inferior world placed beneath the celestial one? What 
 fruitfulness ! What varied productions do we per- 
 ceive in this magnificent work of the Divine Creation ! 
 Pondering and developing this thought, according 
 to the rules marked by prudence and common sense, 
 we shall very quickly observe that all that surrounds 
 us is not, nor cannot be, the effect due to the vain and 
 insignificant word called chance, as some impious men 
 still pretend to maintain, obstinately, and with sense- 
 less zeal. Foolish man ! Nothing absolutely could 
 exist unless a Supreme Intelligence had given it the 
 principle of its being. This Supreme Intelligence, 
 this primary power, superior to all creatures, essential, 
 independent of itself, the Sovereign Author of its
 
 22 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 many and extraordinary beauties, is our God and 
 Lord, whom we ought to love and adore with our 
 whole soul, and with our whole heart. What is 
 there more natural and reasonable than that the 
 Creator should expect and demand of His creatures 
 that just homage which is His due ? What is there 
 more natural and reasonable than that creatures 
 should adore and glorify the One to Whom they 
 owe their existence, believe in His precepts, con- 
 form to His will, practise His Holy Law, and 
 dedicate themselves completely to His service? In 
 this consists our holiest and Divine Keligion, whose 
 excellent truths no just reason can disqualify, nor 
 ever disprove. 
 
 But should some bold man ask of us : "In what 
 consists the mystery of a God made Man without 
 ceasing to be God, mortal and immortal, uniting, in 
 one and the same Person, all the splendour and 
 glory of the Divinity ; in what consists the mystery 
 of one God and three Persons, and three Persons 
 in one God ; lastly, what may the dogma be of 
 a God-Man, really present under the beautiful and 
 mysterious species of bread and wine, in the Sacra- 
 ment of our altars? " our holy Catholic Faith would 
 then reply for us, in the words of the Omnipotent, 
 when, with a powerful, strong voice, He said to the 
 violently agitated sea : " Hitherto thou shalt come, 
 and shalt go no further, and here thou shalt break thy 
 swelling waves ! " J 
 
 1 Job xxxviii. 11. " Usque hue venies, et non precedes amplius, 
 et hie confringes tumentes fluctus tuos."
 
 THIED AETICLE.
 
 THIED AETICLE. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Its definition The influence of Catholicism upon human 
 thought. 
 
 WHAT is Philosophy ? Philosophy, according to the 
 definition of the word, signifies love of wisdom ; it is 
 a word derived from the Greek philos, which means 
 love, and sofos, which is interpreted wisdom. Philo- 
 sophy, in its general sense, is the exercise of the 
 reason, the activity of the human spirit, which has 
 for its object the study of self ; the investigation of 
 secondary causes, which are, in their turn, effects 
 of an infinite, eternal, absolute and necessary cause ; 
 the principle, and foundation of the knowledge of 
 man, and of his duties towards God, towards himself 
 and towards his fellow-beings ! 
 
 There are not wanting senseless men who reject 
 Theology and Philosophy as being unnecessary 
 studies. What is Theology but the Divine Mind 
 manifested to man through revelation ? If you re- 
 move the Divine Mind, then will human reason very 
 quickly abandon itself to all manner of disorders, 
 and all kinds of crime, which it is capable of com- 
 mitting when left to itself. What is Philosophy 
 but the thought of man, which is elevated and rises
 
 26 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 even up to God, the inexhaustible spring of this very 
 thought? Remove from the human thought the 
 activity which impels it towards the Divinity, and 
 then will the refulgent torch of faith disappear from 
 our reason, leaving it in almost complete obscurity. 
 It will happen to us as with the blind, who scarcely 
 perceive, if they do at all, the luminous refulgence 
 of the sun. 
 
 To deny the necessity of true Philosophy would 
 be equal to denying the existence of God, which 
 would, indeed, be a tremendous absurdity, because 
 when the Omnipotent created man to His image 
 and likeness, 1 He engraved upon his soul, with in- 
 delible characters, the idea of a superior Being ; the 
 absolute Creator of all that exists, or can exist, a 
 most perfect Being ! One that cannot be other than 
 God Himself, nor Who can cease to exist, because 
 the impossible is not, nor ever can enter, as a subject 
 of thought. This Being must be an Infinite Being, 
 Eternal, unless we wish to say that He existed in 
 a time when there was nothing existent : a false 
 supposition, a great absurdity, which would not 
 occur even to an idiot, for even the most ignorant 
 are aware that there cannot exist effects without 
 the cause which produces them, for, on beholding a 
 work, the first thing that occurs to man is the idea 
 of the artificer. 
 
 These principles being admitted, there follows the 
 undoubted fact that Catholicism exercises on Philo- 
 
 1 "Ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram" (Gen. i.).
 
 THIRD ARTICLE PHILOSOPHY. 27 
 
 sophy, or on human thought, a great and beneficent 
 influence. We have said already that Philosophy is 
 the mind of man, which is elevated up to God, and 
 that God is the absolute Creator of this thought, to 
 whom man owes all his greatness, and his superiority, 
 above all other creatures that surround him. By 
 what else, if not by the mind, which the supreme 
 Creator has conceded to man, is he constituted the 
 King of Creation ? By what, but by thought, does 
 man give to matter all manners of form, adapting 
 it to his needs, and making it produce marvellous 
 effects? To what else, but to thought, does man 
 owe the great dominion which he exercises over 
 those ferocious and indomitable animals, by which 
 he would be destroyed were he left to combat them 
 simply with his own material powers? By what 
 else, but by thought, illumined by the ray of light 
 Divine, does man attain to rise to the sublimity of 
 the heavens, penetrates the depths of the Infinite 
 Majesty, and there, contemplating His Magnifi- 
 cent Perfections, experiences an indescribable joy, 
 sheltered from all danger, unless pride and arrogance 
 introduce corruption into the sublime and delightful 
 fruition of the mind ? Pride ! Oh how many dis- 
 orders has it effected and induced in human reason ! 
 How many falls, how many calamities, how many 
 misfortunes has humanity to lament which have 
 been caused by this sin ? 
 
 The thought of man, fragile and limited, cannot 
 immediately perceive the truth whilst he is still on 
 earth, for, according to the Apostle St. Paul, the
 
 28 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 most sublime mysteries are not impressed on the 
 soul until the word of Jesus Christ touches the ear ; 
 and then, although a lively faith, deep and ardent, 
 may keep it constantly in the presence of our Lord 
 and God, man does not see Him face, is face (facie ad 
 faciam) as in the other life, but only in an enigmati- 
 cal manner, and in the mirror of Creation. When 
 these grave questions, which so intimately and 
 greatly interest our souls, are presented to our con- 
 sideration, such as the existence of God, the immor- 
 tality of the human spirit, the difference between 
 good and evil, the divinity of the Catholic Eeligion, 
 the punishment of vice, the rewards of virtue, ah ! 
 with what ardour do we seek to dive into their 
 depths for whole days together ! How often do we 
 shed bitter tears over the weakness of man, after we 
 have endured that restlessness, that conflicting 
 agitation, which produced many sleepless nights, 
 during which we endeavoured to solve the difficulties 
 which science presented before us ! But what supreme 
 pleasure, what untold joy, what exuberant delight did 
 we not feel, when an interior illumination came to dis- 
 sipate, with its bright and refulgent light, the cloud 
 which dimmed our intelligence ! With what rapturing 
 enthusiasm do we not newly behold the sun of Truth, 
 shining in all its splendour, before the soul's gaze ! 
 
 The corruption of society is the most cruel enemy 
 of the human spirit. After we have examined our 
 own selves, let us call to mind, if for no more than a 
 few moments, the teaching of history, and we shall 
 be quickly convinced that, with individuals as with
 
 THIRD ARTICLE PHILOSOPHY. 29 
 
 sensual nations, they are, almost in every case, de- 
 ficient, or rather, incapable of deep, great, energetic and 
 sublime thoughts. Their Philosophy, if, in reality, 
 they possess any, cannot be otherwise than gross, 
 materialistic and sceptical, and not true Philosophy. 
 
 Our Divine Eeligion is the one which powerfully 
 influences the complete unfolding of the power of 
 thought. This tender, magnificent mother gently 
 speaks to all her children : "Allow yourselves to be 
 guided by the spirit, and never follow the desires of 
 the flesh, because the flesh is always engaged in a 
 constant wrestling with the spirit, and the spirit with 
 the flesh ; therefore, you ought to practise the whole- 
 some fruits of the spirit, and overcome the repulsive 
 desires of the flesh, and so be enabled to elevate the 
 spirit up even to God, there to contemplate His 
 Divine Perfections. To overcome the dismal desires 
 of the flesh," adds this Divine Teacher, "it is 
 absolutely necessary that you practise charity, 
 patience, humility, perseverance, goodness, faith and 
 all the other virtues." 
 
 The Catholic Eeligion not only enjoins in order 
 to think rightly fasting, abstinence and the morti- 
 fication of the passions, but also especially recom- 
 mends to us humility, because the pride of man, if 
 once wounded, agitates the reason, and encloses 
 thought within the obscurity of a most darksome 
 prison, and then it respects nothing, does not ac- 
 knowledge rule or measure, and dares to refuse to 
 God His first title of a Primary Principle, unwilling 
 to give Him honour as to the Author of all good and
 
 30 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 of all riches. Ungrateful man ! I will say to him, 
 in the words of the great Apostle : " What hast thou 
 that thou hast not received ? And if thou hast received : 
 why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it ? " 
 The Sacred Scriptures are full of testimonies, where 
 Jesus Christ exhorts us to practise humility and to 
 despise that fearful and perturbing sin of pride. We 
 should be always in intimate union with God, con- 
 templating His Divine Attributes, and not be so rash 
 that, full of pride in our miserable, weak state, there 
 should be verified in us the words of the Gospel : 
 " He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. 
 He hath put down the mighty from their seat ". 2 The 
 Holy Ghost assures us that " God resisteth the proud, 
 and giveth grace to the humble ", 3 
 
 It is an undoubted fact that pride is the vice which 
 most cruelly agitates human thought, and for that 
 reason does our sacred and Divine Keligion inculcate 
 the constant practice of humility. "Blessed," said 
 our Divine Lord, " are the meek : for they shall possess 
 the land." 4 And He will fill them with blessings 
 and will raise them up. Alas ! for the proud and 
 the presumptuous ! For He will cast them down 
 and will resist them. Jesus Christ presents Himself 
 to us as a perfect model of humility, for He took 
 upon Himself all our iniquities ; He suffered and 
 died, saying : " Learn of Me, because 1 am meek, and 
 humble of heart ". 5 
 
 'ICor. iv. 7. 2 Luke i. 51-2. 
 
 3 James iv. 6. 4 Matt. v. 4. 
 
 6 " Discite a me, quia mitis sum et humilis corde " (Matt. xi. 29).
 
 THIRD ARTICLE PHILOSOPHY. 31 
 
 The Christian Keligion is the only religion which 
 inspires in the humble mind, when that mind is 
 bowed in most profound submission, not alone noble 
 and generous thoughts, but even sublime, elevated 
 ones, and of this truth there exist numberless ex- 
 amples to prove the assertion. Omitting many 
 others, let us ponder what was the illustrious St. 
 Augustine, with his rich store of excellent and beau- 
 tiful gifts of intelligence and of heart, so long as he 
 continued abandoned to his passions ? Completely 
 dominated by pride, it was not possible for him to 
 take the flight which his lofty intelligence was im- 
 pelling him to take until called by God through the 
 continued and fervent prayers of his pious mother, 
 and the winning and enrapturing eloquence of a 
 Catholic orator : then his large capacity of mind be- 
 came widened, his intelligence became enlightened, 
 and his heart being filled with a Divine fire, he went 
 forth like a glorious hero to defend the Catholic 
 Faith, and was justly held worthy to bear the title 
 of " the Torch of Religion, Column of the Church, and 
 the Glory of the human race "I To this renowned 
 father and doctor are we indebted for matters of the 
 highest and purest philosophy, since it is he who 
 has best known how to join this philosophy to our 
 holy and Divine Keligion, for he says : " We believe 
 and we teach l that philosophy, that is to say, love 
 of wisdom, and the religion of Jesus Christ are one 
 and the same thing ". 
 
 1 St. Augustine, Book of the True, Religion.
 
 FOUETH AETICLE.
 
 FOURTH AETICLE. 
 
 The necessity of the authority of Catholicism for restraining 
 the wanderings of Reason. 
 
 WE have stated that the thought of man constitutes 
 his greatness, his high dignity, his felicity, his very 
 life, and that our holy Religion powerfully influences 
 the development of the mind by divesting it of its 
 unbridled passions, and elevating it to high and 
 sublime meditation. It now remains to prove the 
 importance of curbing within bounds those vivid 
 intelligences, which, actuated by a constant whirl of 
 activity, assume, although in vain, to investigate all 
 things, and to penetrate every secret, even what the 
 Infinite wisdom has raised above our reach ! Hence 
 it is not to be wondered at that they should confound 
 all things, overturn everything, and it is an indu- 
 bitable fact that such as these would lead us into a 
 universal scepticism, unless held back by an infallible 
 and Divine Authority. 
 
 The state of ignorance into which man sometimes 
 falls towards the end of his life appears to me to be 
 far more deplorable than that which besets him on 
 entering life. What is man before the brilliant and 
 beautiful light of truth illumines his limited intelli- 
 gence but an indigent, weak creature? For this
 
 36 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 tender being there is no past and there is no future. 
 His weak eyes only see the present, and even that 
 present in a very narrowed way ! If, on the one 
 hand, he be deprived of the principal joys of life, on 
 the other, he ignores its adversities and its miseries. 
 He lives without trials and without solicitude. If, 
 at times, he turns his tender, sweet looks towards 
 the horizon of the intellectual world, it is like one 
 who turns his gaze in the morning towards the East 
 before the sun rises. A secret presentiment tells 
 him of the happy, cheering advent of the beneficent 
 planet which is to illumine his soul, and a thrill 
 of extraordinary joy and true hope suddenly darts 
 through his frame. 
 
 But how faithfully depict the sad state of the man 
 who, after he had the happiness and joy of knowing 
 the truth in all its brightness and splendour, yet loses 
 this magnificent possession, because he attempted to 
 gaze too near by the light of the intelligence? A 
 fearful indifference to all objects of highest impor- 
 tance, an insupportable anguish caused by doubt, 
 the crushing weariness of his bitter life all this is 
 the general experience of man when left to his own 
 powers, with no guide than his own wandering 
 reason. Full of pride he turns his steps away from 
 following the firm, straight path of truth. At times 
 he may perchance turn his languid looks towards 
 heaven, but it will be a look without hope, because 
 his eyes cannot be opened to behold the true light 
 but with difficulty. Will there still be found men 
 to offer their worship to Keason, choosing her in pre-
 
 FOURTH ARTICLE. 37 
 
 ference to the excellent and sublime truths which 
 God Himself has revealed to us ? What monstrous 
 blindness ! What an extravagant self-love that thus 
 can turn against itself ! Holy Religion is the only 
 power that can place a wholesome curb upon that 
 petulant, domineering Keason and save it from fall- 
 ing into the deepest abyss. This Divine Teacher of 
 holy truths recommends us in the first instance to 
 have diffidence in ourselves, and to consider the 
 necessity of humility as the safest and firmest 
 foundation of Dogma and Morals. Always holy, 
 and ever infallible, she teaches us that we ourselves 
 do not possess the principle of our existence ; that 
 it is only the Infinite Being, Necessary, Absolute, 
 who holds the principle of His own existence, as 
 also that of all other dependent beings ; that we 
 were created to the image and likeness of God, 1 but 
 what a faint likeness, and what an imperfect image ! 
 Our intelligence is, relatively to the Divine Intelli- 
 gence, what a handful of dust is to the lofty mountain 
 whose top is lost in the clouds, what a tiny dewdrop 
 is in respect to the vast ocean, what an imperceptible 
 spark of fire, which is instantly extinguished, is in 
 comparison to the resplendent focus of light which 
 proceeds from the Infinite Goodness to enlighten the 
 whole world, and which will not be extinguished but 
 at the consummation of all ages by the Divine Breath 
 of Eternal Justice. 
 
 What increases the obduracy of our intelligence 
 
 1 Gen. i. 26.
 
 38 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 is that, enclosed in the prison of the body, it does 
 not perceive, excepting across the senses, the light 
 of Truth, like a hapless captive buried in a dark 
 dungeon, who cannot see the pale light of day but 
 in an indirect manner, through a narrow grating. 
 
 This, then, is the state of man, such as is pre- 
 sented to us by our sacred and Divine Keligion. 
 From this results a most natural consequence, that 
 is, that we are all obliged to oppose the frequent 
 suggestions of our haughty reason, particularly when 
 she attempts to instigate us to reject the sacred de- 
 posit of those sublime and wholesome truths which 
 have been handed down to us by the unanimous 
 traditions of the people, hallowed and received by 
 all time, and before which the most singularly gifted 
 and enlightened geniuses have bent in submission 
 their glorious and laurel-crowned brows. Let not 
 Rationalists and godless Sophists forget that the 
 sweet, harmonious voice of Truth will not resound in 
 their ears until after they have compelled their boast- 
 ful, haughty reason to suffer a veritable and legitimate 
 humiliation. 
 
 The most just, the most wholesome humiliation 
 which human intelligence can experience is, evi- 
 dently, that which the Christian Religion makes it 
 feel. Religion teaches Reason a great number of 
 truths, which fully satisfies it, but she also presents 
 to it many which its limited light cannot compre- 
 hend, " which offends it and rudely wounds it," as Pascal 
 expresses it. One God in three Persons ; the In- 
 carnation of the Eternal Word ; the immolation of
 
 FOURTH ARTICLE. 39 
 
 the God Man upon the holy wood of the Cross for 
 the profitable redemption of the human race; the 
 Mysterious "Sacrifice, which is renewed at every 
 instant upon our altars ; a God hidden, in order that 
 He should become our nourishment under the ap- 
 pearance of bread, and which ceases at once to be 
 bread ; the salutary effects of grace upon the soul 
 which does not abuse its liberty. Ah ! what sub- 
 lime mysteries are comprehended in the Catholic 
 Symbol ! 
 
 The magnificent knowledge and teaching of these 
 Divine Mysteries are not less important or indis- 
 pensable viewed from the Theological standpoint 
 than viewed in the light of Philosophy. Nourishing 
 Reason with the rich and wholesome taste for 
 these excellent truths, repeating every moment to 
 her that if she does not admit them and closely 
 embrace them, there can be no possible salvation 
 for her ; then it is that Reason becomes awed and 
 that Religion dominates her rebellions and represses 
 her insatiable avidity for investigating everything. 
 When in the pursuit of Science, which demands 
 a great faith intimately united to the intelligence, 
 human reason reaches the mystery, it humbly cries 
 out : " Highest God ! I who am the smallest emana- 
 tion of Thy Infinite light, how shall I penetrate 
 Thy incomprehensible magnificent Works?" 
 
 Unbelievers and Rationalists ! Science, even that 
 which is called profane, what is it but the clearest 
 and most exact explanation of God in His beautiful 
 Works ?
 
 40 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 A spectacle full of instruction and comfort to 
 the believing Catholic is that which is offered to us 
 by those extraordinary intelligences, who have no 
 other resource left to them, in order to be delivered 
 from absolute Scepticism, than our holy Faith. As- 
 cending from question to question, and from doubt 
 to doubt, they reach, fatigued, to the last step of the 
 ladder, to find upon it nothing more than the 
 nothingness of chimerical illusions ! Still beholding 
 from thence the Cross, mysteriously sustained by a 
 Powerful Divine Hand, they go and rest at its foot, 
 and draw comfort for themselves by looking up to 
 heaven ! 
 
 The truths of our Holy Catholic Faith are suffi- 
 cient in themselves to nourish our intelligence ! Do 
 they not embrace all visible and invisible things? 
 Do they not descend from the Supreme Creator 
 down to the creature, from whence they impel us to 
 rise up to the very heavens ? To the Philosopher, 
 as well as to the Christian, are addressed the sublime 
 and eloquent words : " But one thing is necessary ", l 
 
 Nevertheless, as religious truths are intimately 
 united to mundane truths, if I may so express 
 myself, from this it results that the intelligence, 
 being constantly united to the truths of faith, equally 
 admits other truths which it judged to be uncertain. 
 Faith firmly and deeply implants on the shore of 
 Salvation an anchor which Providence casts out to 
 her from the heights of the heavens ; then, advanc- 
 
 1 " Porro uuum est necessarium " (Luke x. 4).
 
 FOURTH ARTICLE. 41 
 
 ing courageously towards the abyss, which God 
 leaves to our investigations, there becomes sub- 
 merged and explores it in all its meanings. If at 
 times the obscurity deepens around the spirit, if 
 the winds blow violently and lash the waves, in 
 sight of the abyss yawning before man he exclaims, 
 with suppliant emotion : "Lord, save me, lest 1 perish" 1 
 and his faith has saved him ! 
 
 Tell us, Pascal and Malebranche ! tell us, ye 
 extraordinary geniuses, was not this precisely that 
 which befell ye ? Desirous of resolving the questions 
 which more vividly interest mankind, ye had de- 
 scended to the most profound depths of reason, and 
 boldly dared to sound the foundations upon which 
 it rested ! The ever-swelling waves of doubt invaded 
 thy giant feet, and threatened to engulph ye ! The 
 reality of the bodies, the certitude of reason, life 
 itself all were manifested successively, like vague 
 illusions, before thy wandering gaze ! 
 
 Then you summoned the Catholic Faith to thy 
 aid, that Faith which was so firmly rooted in thy 
 souls, and, leaning upon her indestructible base, ye 
 traced, with sure hand, those great and sublime 
 thoughts which have been so much admired, and 
 which have so delighted the world ! 
 
 1 " Domine, salvum me fac " (Matt. xiv. 30).
 
 FIFTH AKTICLE.
 
 FIFTH AKTICLE. 
 
 Continuation of the same Subject. 
 
 EATIONALISTS and Unbelievers ! If you wrest Faith 
 from the World, that Faith to which as a last re- 
 source Reason appeals to and may lean upon, I 
 beseech of you to comprehend fully that the goddess 
 of Reason, to whom you offer so much worship, will 
 engulph you into the most horrible state of doubt, 
 and will take you from error to error, from precipice 
 to precipice, until you become buried in the deepest 
 abyss ! Consult the experience of all ages, appeal to 
 the testimonies of the most powerful and the most 
 enlightened minds ! 
 
 Who was wiser among the Greeks than Socrates ? 
 Nevertheless, we all know what his end was, after 
 having philosophised the whole of his life. He 
 openly avowed that he had learnt nothing else but that 
 he knew nothing. Who more erudite than Pliny among 
 the Latins? Yet, after extraordinary labours, of 
 which we can, with difficulty, form even a slight 
 idea, he arrived at the same conclusion as the former 
 sage, while this conviction of his nothingness wrung 
 from him at the same time a cry of despair, very 
 proper for confounding your pride ! " The only thing 
 that is certain," he said, " is that there is nothing certain,
 
 46 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 and no creature is more miserable or prouder than man" 
 If any one permits himself to affirm any one thing 
 as certain, he undoubtedly falls into some gross error. 
 As the elegant Cicero remarks, " There is no absurdity 
 which has not been uttered by some Philosopher". 
 
 You state with arrogance " that Eeligion petrifies 
 thought, that she is the great obstacle to human 
 intelligence, and that she envelops Reason, like a 
 mummy, in the grave-cloths of dogma and in the 
 shadows of faith". 1 
 
 What an unfounded and audacious accusation ! 
 
 Is it possible to offer a greater calumny against 
 our holiest and most Divine Religion, to which we 
 owe everything, and by which we are to obtain our 
 eternal Salvation ? Assuming that by such insolence 
 you manifest your error, do you wish to know what 
 our holy Religion does on this point? We have 
 already said it, and in order to repeat it I will re- 
 produce the very words of an eminent writer of our 
 day : " Faith is not death, it is life " ; " Justus autern 
 ex fide vivit ". 2 No. Faith does not confine genius 
 in a dark prison, depriving it of space and light, nor 
 does it convert into blind captives the kings of 
 thought. But if it does not do so, you may say, 
 what is it that it does do? 
 
 What does Faith do ? Faith reveals before genius 
 infinite horizons above the mists of her dogmas, and 
 in regard to men who are not like owls, which in- 
 stinctively seek the shadow and the night, but who 
 
 1 P6re F^lix, Conferences. *Ibid.
 
 FIFTH ARTICLE. 47 
 
 soar high like the eagles, I know full well what 
 Faith does in their regard listen ! In place of clip- 
 ping their wings, she makes them soar in their flight ; 
 instead of bandaging their eyes, she conducts them 
 to the heights of faith above the clouds which en- 
 velop the crowd of thinkers, and, placing them as 
 though upon a rock over the immutable dogma, 
 she opens a way for them to approach nearer to 
 the sun ! 
 
 The shadows which still hover around these men 
 are like clouds tinged with gold by the light, and 
 which, far from extinguishing the light, increase 
 their ambition of beholding, free of all shadow, that 
 sun which even from afar sends down upon them 
 such magnificent rays. In the sublime ecstasy in- 
 duced upon them by the truth, upon those heights 
 at which Faith enlightens and Hope elevates them, 
 far from lingering behind, because they have not 
 yet obtained the full light which will satisfy their 
 intelligence, they feel the necessity of transporting 
 their vivid curiosity, and their stimulated investiga- 
 tions, into depths which would even astonish Kation- 
 alisrn itself ! 
 
 Divine Providence, having given us the gift of 
 reason to serve us as a guide, has no desire to 
 exclude her absolutely from all matters of religion, 
 nor in any way to destroy her. He wishes her, it is 
 true, to submit to His great and sublime truths, 
 but not prevent her free exercise, nor to reject her. 
 Otherwise we would have only a vacillating, uncertain 
 faith ; a faith without consistency, forced, and devoid
 
 48 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 of any merit whatsoever. You may, perhaps, tell 
 me that these powerful and convincing motives 
 which impel us to believe do not produce upon the 
 irreligious the same impressions ; and do you know 
 the reason ? Because they do not take the smallest 
 trouble to think upon them ; because they do not 
 meditate upon these truths, nor do they examine 
 them or study them in order to understand them 
 well ; because they are deficient in that firm, pure 
 faith, and do not possess a heart sufficiently free 
 and disengaged to be able to judge unbiased and 
 free from the dark passions which preoccupy the 
 intelligence, and which produce the moral death 
 of humanity. 
 
 Daily do we see rising up around us, and even 
 in the heart itself of Catholicism, perverse societies 
 of unprincipled men, who, by means of their im- 
 pieties, profane the holiest things, and bring down 
 discredit upon the excellent service which we should 
 give to the King of Heaven and of Earth ; who attack 
 God Himself, and would wish to erase from the 
 minds of men the magnificent idea which has been 
 impressed with indelible characters of so high a 
 Lord ; who doubt even of His Essence, and who 
 strive, although vainly, to assure and make it appear 
 that He is an imaginary Deity. Men who despise 
 His Commandments and His Worship, and who 
 hold as superstitious the homage which is due to 
 Him ; who endeavour, with untold zeal, to draw 
 away from His Sacred Altars His most faithful 
 servants, scoffing at their pious practices, and cast-
 
 FIFTH ARTICLE. 49 
 
 ing before them the calumnious, bold accusations 
 of hypocrisy or simplicity. 
 
 Allow me to ask you, in view of all this : Is it 
 possible that the refulgent torch of Faith illumines 
 the weak intelligences of such ignoble and perverse 
 men, when we find them thus buried in the pride 
 of the world ? No, indeed. For we have only to 
 appeal to the true teaching of history, and we shall 
 all acknowledge that individuals, as in the case of 
 sensual nations, reject all Divine thought. 
 
 The great advantage, the extraordinary merit of 
 our holy Faith consists in being sufficiently mys- 
 terious in the bases of its excellent sublime truths 
 to demand the most humble submission : behold 
 the reason why the Son of God said to St. Thomas, 
 " Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed "- 1 
 
 Blessed is the man who believes and does not see, 
 because were he to see he would not believe, since 
 to believe is to conform with what is not seen; 
 blessed is he who believes and does not see, because 
 were he to see his conformity would not be a virtue, 
 nor a subject of reward, because it would not depend 
 upon his will nor upon his consent. 
 
 We are filled with true joy and great admiration, 
 when we consider the infinite mercy and the supreme 
 wisdom of our Lord and God in wishing to save us 
 by the sweet and harmonious voice of the Christian 
 faith. It has encompassed all His glory and our 
 sanctification ! I pray and beseech Him that His 
 
 I(( Beati qui nonviderunt et crediderunt" (John xx. 29).
 
 50 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Divine Will may be pleased to allow our Faith to 
 honour His adorable and sovereign Truths, and as 
 in love we sacrifice our hearts, so, also, we would 
 sacrifice, in like manner, our intelligences, by means 
 of that same faith, and that He may bestow on us 
 heaven as a recompense ! 
 
 Because, what are the truths proposed to us for 
 our belief, and what are its mysteries? Mysteries 
 which are very far above our intelligence, and in 
 which Eeason, however penetrative it may be, must 
 dash itself against the stony bulwarks which mark 
 its just limits, beyond which nought is found but 
 a dark, deep chaos ! And what credence should we 
 give to those mysteries so inaccessible to human 
 reason? A belief so firm and so absolute, that 
 through it we reject our senses, imposing silence 
 upon our reason, and subjecting her completely to 
 its sweet yoke ; a belief so pure, that we cannot 
 listen to the smallest difficulty, nor form the smallest 
 doubt ; a belief so full, and complete, and perfect, 
 that it should extend to all the Articles of Faith which 
 we possess ; a belief, in conclusion, so resolute and 
 so superior, from which nothing can absolutely 
 separate us, "neither tribulation, nor distress, nor 
 famine, nor nakedness, nor danger, nor persecution, nor 
 the sword ; neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor 
 powers ", 1 
 
 This is the great and profitable teaching which our 
 Divine Eeligion has traced for us in order to save our 
 
 1 Paul to Rom. viii. 35 and 38.
 
 FIFTH ARTICLE. 51 
 
 weak and limited reason from leading us astray. 
 Yet, presumptuous and reckless intelligences, through 
 their own weakness and inexperience, reject, with 
 haughty contempt, these extraordinary and sublime 
 truths which always constituted, and will ever con- 
 stitute, their strength and comfort. " We cannot 
 admit them!" they say. "What, then, will you 
 believe ? " we demand. " Absolutely nothing," they 
 insultingly reply. And, shutting their eyes to the 
 true light, they calmly sleep away into a slumber of 
 universal Scepticism. 
 
 Let us bend down to listen to all that is said 
 around us, and read all that is printed on all sides, 
 and say whether this be not a picture of the general 
 state of society ? This fearful state will continue to 
 increase day by day unless the Catholic Religion 
 raises up in the midst of this unwholesome society 
 the Standard of the Cross, and bathes these proud, 
 enervated intelligences in the Precious Blood of the 
 Divine Lamb, the Sweetest Jesus, Who has regener- 
 ated the world in order that we should be made 
 worthy of His merits, and thus attain to enjoy 
 Eternal Glory in the Mansions of the Blessed.
 
 SIXTH AETICLE.
 
 SIXTH AKTICLE. 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 History Its definition and division Its essential conditions 
 The influence which Catholicism exercises upon it. 
 
 "BELLES-LETTRES" comprehends, in general, history, 
 eloquence and poetry. Let us commence with history, 
 because it may truly be said to be the foundation of 
 literature, in which our Divine Eeligion also power- 
 fully influences. 
 
 General history is the true relation of all past events 
 during the course of the ages, their causes and results, for 
 the instruction, reformation and recreation of man. 
 
 Universal history is the methodical narration of the 
 deeds of men. We can also say that universal history 
 is the one which embraces in its fold every part of 
 the world, and, omitting minor successes, recounts 
 the most important ones. National history, as its 
 name implies, is the narrative of events which have 
 taken place in a nation. In conclusion biographical 
 history is that which has for its object to relate the 
 life of a man who has powerfully influenced his age, 
 and rendered himself notable through his deeds. 
 History is likewise divided into Sacred, Ancient, 
 Mediaeval, and Modern, which divisions may be said 
 to be comprehended in the above category.
 
 56 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 The Sacred Scriptures strictly embrace the whole 
 of universal history, because in both should concur 
 precisely three conditions, which are essential to 
 them, viz., unity of origin, unity of object, and unity 
 of direction. Who will be daring enough to deny 
 that there is unity of origin in God, from Whom 
 all proceeds ; and in our first parents, whom God 
 created in the beginning of time? Who can deny 
 that there is unity of object in God, the Universal 
 Centre towards which all things tend, principally 
 all the intelligences that have been created by Him? 
 All things were created by God, because nothing 
 existed before Him. It is, therefore, evident that 
 every existence has been determined by God, and 
 that the whole Creation, with its innumerable 
 planets and worlds, is none other than the magni- 
 ficent aureole of this Being, Absolute, Supreme, 
 Infinite, Most Perfect. No one can deny the clear 
 and conclusive unity of direction in God, before 
 Whom all men are alike, Who watches over all 
 creatures from the greatest and noblest down to the 
 smallest, meanest insect that creeps upon the earth. 
 Never will man be able to destroy this unity of 
 direction in God, however much he may strive to 
 do so, because He alone dominates with His Om- 
 nipotence the whole world, and encompasses with 
 His immense gaze the vast, sweeping torrent of the 
 Ages, which, having had their commencement and 
 origin in eternity, will also have their end in that 
 same eternity. 
 
 The Sacred Monuments of Catholicism contain
 
 SIXTH ARTICLE LETTERS. 57 
 
 the primitive history of man and of the universe ; 
 the history of the Jewish people, their laws, their 
 prophecies and miracles, whose deposit had been 
 entrusted to them ; the life of Jesus Christ, His 
 teaching, His holy and sublime doctrines, collected 
 together by the holy Apostles ; and, lastly, the pro- 
 phetic history of the society which He Himself 
 had established upon an indestructible foundation. 
 Of these two magnificent parts, called the Old and 
 the New Testament, are composed the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures, a marvellous Divine Book, whose beginning 
 and end is our Lord and God. 
 
 In these Holy Books is found precisely this triple 
 unity of origin, object and direction, which has been 
 accorded to it by our Divine Religion, or rather, it 
 is our very Religion, because it is the inexhaustible 
 fountain of all the truths contained in them. The 
 historian who rejects this triple unity rejects also 
 the unity of God, the true religion, abundant well- 
 spring of all truths, and, as a consequence, daringly 
 despises the origin of humanity, the equality of 
 individuals before Divine Providence, and, according 
 to the expression of Fenelon, " they despise God, the 
 Universe, the Fatherland, and the family ". The 
 order which the historian should follow is engraved 
 in sacred characters upon our precepts. It is the 
 order which God always enjoins, which Catholicism 
 promulgates and constantly inculcates, and which 
 the intelligence of man, with true enthusiasm, 
 admires. 
 
 History in general, is, therefore, the public rela-
 
 58 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 tion, the exact narrative of events which have been 
 previously realised ; it is the great book of the human 
 life, in which are inscribed upon earth the most 
 noteworthy events of men, and in accordance with 
 which they will be justified or condemned ; it is 
 the impartial and exact judgment formed of the past 
 for the profitable instruction of present and future 
 times. How terrible ! how powerful is the Tribunal 
 of History ! Never does it employ its indulgence 
 but in regard to him who has lived in the most 
 complete ignorance. This grand and severe tribunal 
 reveals the deeds which might be supposed for ever 
 buried in the deepest obscurity. 
 
 The historian who undertakes to edit, on his own 
 responsibility, these judgments passed by a whole 
 generation, and often by many successive genera- 
 tions, must never lose sight of the importance, 
 the sublimity of his functions, ever keeping before 
 him those immutable principles by which the life 
 of the nations, as well as the lives of individuals, 
 are judged, without ever desisting from meditating 
 upon them, deeply investigating, as much as possible, 
 their aims, in order to be able to form from them 
 the solid foundation upon which his irrevocable 
 decisions should rest. 
 
 Historians ! It is not alone individuals that you 
 summon to the severe tribunal of Public Opinion, 
 it is also the nations, nay, the whole world itself. It 
 is not only upon the life, which rapidly flies away 
 and disappears like the smoke under the least breath 
 of air, that you must pass your judgments, it is also
 
 SIXTH ARTICLE LETTERS. 59 
 
 to the continued memory of this life, which is pro- 
 longed without end. 
 
 Holy Eeligion continually teaches us that his- 
 torians should never lose sight of the sacred teaching 
 of her holy laws, and that upon them they should 
 form the indestructible basis of their conclusions. 
 Because, how are they to have a fixed rule for judg- 
 ing human actions if they rudely wrench from these 
 their reality ? Where will you " find the basis of 
 political truths if you remove from these holy laws 
 the moral truth ? Oh ! what dismal consequences 
 would result from this, as then there would be no 
 reason for preferring order to the most complete 
 anarchy, or truth to error, or the Divine Light to 
 the most appalling darkness. 
 
 It is important and necessary that the historian 
 should reject this mood of fatalism, which completely 
 destroys the beautiful life of man, and, as a conse- 
 quence, destroys the morality of human actions. 
 To endeavour in our days to raise the formidable 
 statue of the blind and sanguinary deity of the 
 Juggernaut of India would be not only to retrocede 
 too far back into barbarism, but it would be the 
 greatest of absurdities. 
 
 If man were deprived of free will, then there would 
 be for him no possible distinction between vice and 
 virtue ; the just or unjust man would, in that case, 
 be equally saved or condemned, a thing which could 
 not be more illogical or more criminal. Nevertheless, 
 man remains ever under the high and wise direction 
 of the Omnipotent. He acts within the circle, more
 
 60 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 or less extended, which is traced around him, but 
 when he reaches the limit beyond which God has 
 forbidden him to pass, he feels himself held back by 
 a superior power, against which he in vain would 
 try to wrestle. Nor can it be otherwise; because, 
 who would be so bereft of sense as to believe he 
 could wrest from the Supreme Creator the dominion 
 which He has over creatures, which He Himself 
 has created by the efficacy of His mere Word? Who 
 among His creatures, weak and impotent, would dare 
 attempt to scale the Heavens and upset the sublime 
 plans of the All-powerful ? 
 
 The historian, therefore, should ever keep before 
 his mind these great principles, these excellent maxims 
 of true humility, ever manifesting to the eyes of 
 his readers the Divine Providence, always solicitous, 
 always full of care for us, always attentive to all 
 that happens upon earth. Oh ! what a great conso- 
 lation to the weak is the thought that were the 
 earth to be subverted or shaken, it would not be long 
 ere it would become poised again firmly on its foun- 
 dations, whatever events might agitate the world. 
 " Man becomes agitated, but God guides him," said 
 the great and wise Fenelon. When the people of 
 God found themselves in Egypt a prey to the greatest 
 miseries under the powerful yoke of a cruel slavery, 
 and weighed down by almost insupportable trials, 
 they fled with Moses to the desert near Phihahiroth. 
 The hardened heart of Pharaoh pursued and perse- 
 cuted them, sending against them a formidable army. 
 On its approach the children of Israel lifted up their
 
 SIXTH ARTICLE LETTERS. 61 
 
 eyes, and on beholding the Egyptians were filled 
 with terror. In front of them lay the sea, behind 
 them stood a large army of warriors, and to the 
 right and to the left were inaccessible mountains. 
 In this fearful stress and dismal situation the children 
 of Israel called upon Jehovah, and said to Moses : 
 " Perhaps there were no graves in Egypt, therefore thou 
 hast brought us to die in the wilderness ", l Then Moses, 
 in energetic tones, said : " Fear not, stand and see the 
 great wonders of the Lord, which He will do this day ; 
 for the Egyptians, whom you see now, you shall see no 
 more for ever. Tlie Lord will fight for you, and you shall 
 hold your peace ". 2 He then immediately stretched 
 forth his hand over the sea. The waters miracu- 
 lously stood still on the right and on the left, like 
 two stony walls. And the children of Israel walked 
 as on dry land. Pharaoh and his army followed to 
 continue their persecution ; but the sublime and mys- 
 terious breath of the Omnipotent was felt, and the 
 whole army was buried in the depths of the sea. 
 Who is there that on reading this brief summary of 
 the world's history will fail to perceive the Divine 
 Finger of Providence? And who can doubt for a 
 single moment that to the historian belongs the 
 duty of drawing attention to the finger of God, which, 
 although it does not always appear to us in an osten- 
 sible manner, yet never forsakes us ? What a tender 
 
 1 " Forsitan non erant sepulcra in Egypto, ideo tulisti nos " 
 (Exod. xiv. 11). 
 
 2 "Nolite timere: state et videte. . . . Dominus pugnabit pro 
 vobis, et vos tacebitis " (Exod. xiv. 13 and 14).
 
 62 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 consideration this is for filling with holy joy the 
 hearts of the sad and of the unfortunate ! What a 
 wholesome warning this is, also, to the great ones 
 of the earth, those who, despising charity, and for- 
 getting their own littleness and misery, forget also 
 " that they are dust, and into dust shall return " ! 
 
 In conclusion, the historian ought to recount events 
 with the most conscientious faithfulness. On no 
 account is he permitted to invent, but, like a true 
 and faithful witness, he must write all the events, 
 such as they are in reality, the certain as certain, 
 and the doubtful as doubtful. When he is called 
 upon to judge events of any importance, he must not 
 depend solely on his own judgment, but on the com- 
 mon opinion, which he should interpret faithfully, 
 as far as possible, so as not to fall into those grave 
 errors into which many have fallen, because they 
 had the temerity to be guided solely by their own 
 judgment. 
 
 Let it not be supposed for an instant by this that 
 we wish to place the historian in the position of an 
 itinerary scribbler. On the historian devolves the 
 duty of imparting to his words the most beautiful 
 forms when expressing his well-grounded ideas. To 
 him belongs the forming of the picture in which all 
 the events have been gathered together. To him 
 appertains the style, the rich variety of colours, 
 which are more impressive than the events them- 
 selves. Who is not impressed by the utterances of 
 the historian, the cries which so often escape from 
 his impassioned soul? Lastly, to him, in a word,
 
 SIXTH ARTICLE LETTERS. 63 
 
 must he look for the profound reflections which he 
 should make upon events, their great and noble ideas, 
 which should be given with that complete conviction 
 that passes from his own intelligence into that of 
 his readers in such a way that they do not become 
 involved in the dismal confusion which doubt natu- 
 rally produces, by reason of the want of verification 
 in the narrative of events which are not founded on 
 competent authorities. 
 
 The historian who rejects these great maxims and 
 the immutable principles which our Divine Eeligion 
 prescribes to him does not comply with his high 
 mission. It is impossible for him to fulfil the object 
 of writing history, which is no other than to moralise 
 or instruct, as he can never moralise doubt, and still 
 less error, into which such writers fall when they 
 are deficient in that fixed and absolute rule which 
 is not to be found but in the bosom of the Holy 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 To instruct is not to abase the intelligence into 
 the depths of contradictions ; it is to teach how to 
 compare true events, certain and legitimate principles, 
 to deduce consequences which are also certain and 
 legitimate; it is to teach how to distinguish good 
 from evil, and never to confound truth with error. 
 " And how is he to assert," says an eminent writer, 1 
 " upon the intelligence an absolute judgment of 
 things and of men, if he follows only a vague rule, 
 ill-defined and subject to all the debates of opinions, 
 
 1 L'Auteur des Grandeurs du Catlwlicisme.
 
 64 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 which authors modify according to circumstances ? 
 It is not permitted to the fatalistic school, nor to the 
 moralistic, to appreciate the past and the present ; 
 it is only permitted to them to estimate them when 
 they attain to dominate them, that is to say, when 
 instead of a criticism which can only be relative or 
 arbitrary is affirmed a criticism immutable and 
 absolute the religious criticism." 
 
 From the great truths is logically deduced the 
 powerful influence which Catholicism exercises upon 
 the only way in which history should be written.
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE.
 
 SEVENTH AETICLE. 
 
 ELOQUENCE. 
 
 Its definition Its history The influence which is brought to 
 bear upon Eloquence by Catholicism Eloquence of the 
 Sacred Scriptures. 
 
 ELOQUENCE is the art of speaking in such a manner 
 as to attain the ends for which the words are spoken ; 
 that is to say, to teach, to move, to persuade and 
 to convince. The history of eloquence dates back 
 to the first ages of the creation of the world. God 
 Himself taught it to our first parents, and it was 
 continued by Moses and the Prophets. The Apostles 
 and disciples of Jesus Christ raised eloquence to its 
 highest pitch, shining like luminaries in the Greek 
 and Latin Churches, which were so greatly enhanced 
 by St. John Chrysostom, St. Justin, the two Gregories, 
 St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Ambrose. 
 What sublime ideas, what excellent and persuasive 
 eloquence do we perceive in the magnificent dis- 
 courses of these great Christian Apologists ! In 
 the Middle Ages, notwithstanding the fact that they 
 were enveloped in the fearful shades of darkness and 
 barbarism, eloquence was cultivated with singular 
 fruit by the renowned St. Bernard, Albertus Magnus,
 
 68 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 St. Thomas of Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure, who 
 filled those memorable times with splendour. 
 
 In modern times our Mother the Church has not 
 desisted for a single instant to consecrate her most 
 enlightened sons to the profitable study of eloquence, 
 while their writings are the admiration of the 
 whole civilised world. Who is not astonished at 
 the beauty of the Funeral Orations of the illustrious 
 Bossuet ? Who does not feel enraptured when 
 reading the Dialogues on Eloquence by the immortal 
 Fenelon ? Who is not charmed with the Lenten dis- 
 courses of the celebrated Massillon ? Who can read, 
 without being filled with enthusiasm, the eloquent 
 writings of Cardinal Maury, the excellent works of 
 Bourdaloue, and the Ecclesiastical Ehetoric of Fray 
 Luis de Granada? How can we resist calling up 
 the names of St. John of the Cross, of Cervantes, 
 Maldouado, Sepulveda, Luis Vives, Cano, Victoria, 
 and many others, who have bequeathed to us eminent 
 works ? 
 
 " From this beautiful alliance of letters with Faith 
 springs freely a clear stream of happy inspirations. 
 Who would be able to enumerate or enhance them ? 
 The name alone of Calderon would suffice to induce 
 us to admire that gentle union, that unutterable 
 marvel of the spirit of piety invigorating the flights 
 of genius. The heavens of the Lord, with their 
 mystical revelations ; the two hemispheres, with 
 their prodigies of nature ; the sea, with uprising 
 waves lashed by the wrath of the Highest, or with 
 its tranquil waters like mirrors, reflecting the passing
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE ELOQUENCE. 69 
 
 of the luminary of night ; the elevation of the moun- 
 tain, upon the top of which God was wont to speak 
 with His Prophets, and the depths of the valleys 
 through which softly murmurs the breeze ; the 
 whirlwind of the world, with its many changes, 
 and the silence and retirement of the forests, which 
 invite to prayer; is there a single conception, or 
 the smallest tint in that varied forest of the Muses, 
 which has not been interpreted a thousand times 
 over by our poets and our orators in defending the 
 religious idea of the severe code of Christianity? " 1 
 
 Never has Catholicism been a clog to genius, and 
 never has she opposed herself to the progress of the 
 civilisation of the world, as has been unjustly asserted 
 by ignorant Protestants. 
 
 Against this unjust accusation rise up in contra- 
 diction the wise aims of her mission, the great 
 impulse which she has given to the progress of the 
 Sciences and the ardent love which she has always 
 professed for letters. Kemember the letter of the 
 Sovereign Pontiff Leo X. to a Protestant Prince in 
 which he says : "I have always loved good learned 
 erudition ; this love was born with me, and age has 
 only strengthened it, because I always remarked that 
 those who cultivate letters are heartfelt lovers of the 
 dogmas of faith, and that they are the ornaments 
 and the glory of the Catholic Church ". 2 
 
 1 Arboli, Oraison Fundbre on Miguel de Cervantes, and other 
 Spanish men of genius. 
 
 2 Leo X., Letter to Henry VIII.
 
 70 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 How much has our Sacred Religion suffered in 
 regard to the civilisation of the world ! 
 
 St. Gregory Nazianzen, in opposition to the 
 Apostate Julian, exclaims in deeply sorrowful tones : 
 " Who could have put into your mind the thought of 
 forbidding to us the use of the Sciences ? There is 
 nothing I hold dearer, after the interests of heaven 
 and the hope of Eternity, than the Sciences, and it 
 is but just that I should take their side and defend 
 them with all the vigour of my word and the fire of 
 my heart." l 
 
 No one can possibly doubt the strength, the great 
 power, the extraordinary dominion which speech 
 wields. Who can doubt that to its influence is due 
 the formation of great empires ? To what else did 
 Greece owe its extension and its authority but to the 
 influence of the word? It was not by the thought 
 but by the word that God created the world. "For 
 He spoke and they were made." 2 It is by the word that 
 man, formed to the image and likeness of God, exer- 
 cises over creation a sovereign authority, dominating 
 and directing the animal world, and governing his 
 fellow-beings. Good orators, such as Demosthenes, 
 St. Bernard, Fenelon, Massillon, and others, were 
 able to lead the most indocile people with as much 
 ease as a skilled horseman leads a fiery steed. He 
 speaks to the animal with all precaution ; he caresses 
 it at the same time that he places a wholesome 
 curb and bridle upon it. After this he bids the 
 
 1 St. Gregory Nazianzen, Discourse 4 against Julian. 
 2 " Dixit, et facta sunt" (Ps. xxxii. 9).
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE ELOQUENCE. 71 
 
 animal stop, and the horse remains motionless. 
 " Advance," he cries, and at the word of command 
 the noble creature gallops away, braving the greatest 
 dangers. 
 
 Eloquence possesses a prodigious virtue, nay, almost 
 a Divine one. It is undoubtedly the greatest talent 
 which God has granted to man. Theology, philo- 
 sophy, history, poetry all, all is found in eloquence ! 
 It might truly be said that it is the whole of man, 
 for it exacts the simultaneous exercise of all his 
 faculties. Let us watch a brilliant orator captivat- 
 ing the multitude around him. His imagination, 
 vividly excited, imparts to his thoughts the most 
 beautiful forms, the most seductive colouring. His 
 words, slow and circumspect at commencing his 
 discourse, are similar to the rill, which, escaping 
 from the spring with a soft murmur, becomes 
 strengthened by degrees, and, little by little, assumes 
 power until it acquires a complete fulness and mani- 
 fests itself in all its strength. At one time his words 
 flow like a majestic river, which calmly carries its 
 beneficent waters through fertile lands ; at another, 
 like a torrent which leaps onwards and carries every- 
 thing before it in its tumultuous career. 
 
 The audience, captivated, yields to the smallest 
 impulsion of the orator's dominating word. For a 
 time there reigns a deep silence, and the people seem 
 to hold their breath. Suddenly, from one extremity 
 of the auditory rises a gentle murmur of approbation, 
 which is very soon communicated to the opposite 
 extremity of the crowd, like an electric shock. The
 
 72 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 orator himself suffers at the same time as he imparts 
 his telling speech and moves his audience. 
 
 It is not alone his eloquent word which serves to 
 express his sublime, grand thoughts ; his posture, his 
 movements, his looks, his flashing eyes, his flushed 
 face all in him proclaims the conviction of his heart, 
 and contributes to establish it in the minds and 
 breasts of his hearers, who, enraptured, listen to 
 him, deeply moved, and even shed abundant tears. 
 
 No one doubts that all these effects may be pro- 
 duced by the general orator, but what we have 
 described applies more particularly to the sacred 
 orator. As we have stated, is it not to Catholicism 
 that eloquence owes her greatest marvels and most 
 astounding effects? How abundant, how useful, 
 how numerous, how important are the riches which 
 our Divine Religion lavishes on the orator ! 
 
 Those great mysteries, the firm belief in which is 
 of such importance to our souls, those moral truths 
 which the sacred orator unfolds, do they not claim 
 for him an incontestable superiority over the secular 
 orator? The latter, at times, must no doubt treat 
 with subjects of immense interest to mankind ; but, 
 generally speaking, he defends at best minor interests, 
 which apply to certain times and places, while the 
 Catholic orator belongs to all, and every place and 
 time, because the interests he advances, and the 
 truths he announces, concern the whole of humanity. 
 
 How can the Protestant orator stand in the same 
 category as the Catholic one after so daringly reject- 
 ing the most Sacred Dogmas ? And what Dogmas
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE ELOQUENCE. 73 
 
 have Protestants rejected ? They have rejected the 
 Dogma of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the 
 Blessed Eucharist, that inexhaustible fountain of 
 most vivid emotions, that great mystery which is 
 renewed every day, and which, from the heights of 
 the heavens, is enacted and brings down the Just 
 One upon earth to renew, in an unbloody manner, the 
 great Sacrifice of the Cross. They reject the most 
 excellent gift which has been given to men by the 
 Saviour of the World. 
 
 What beautiful scenes, what magnificent pictures 
 are presented to the sacred orator by the noble 
 daughter of Nazareth ! Whether we contemplate 
 this purest Virgin, enriched by all the virtues, whom 
 the world salutes as being the comfort and the refuge 
 of all who have recourse to her in full confidence. Or 
 whether we are filled with admiration on beholding 
 her in the Stable, adoring her Divine Infant, together 
 with the humble shepherds and the wise men. Or 
 whether we consider her as civilising the world and 
 interesting herself in all the works whose fulfilment 
 concerns the Christian world ; or assisting in the 
 Incarnation of the Word for the redemption of the 
 human race, and in the foundation of the Holy 
 Church ; or associating herself in the social regenera- 
 tion of the Nations. Or whether we think of her as 
 listening with kind ear to the prayer of the pilot, 
 terror-stricken at the tempest which threatens to 
 destroy his frail barque, and calming with her sweet 
 smile the fury of the angry waves. Or whether we 
 enthusiastically admire her as she stands on Calvary,
 
 74 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 praying at the foot of the Cross, or consider her, later 
 on, as being carried by the Angels to the highest 
 heavens, whence she casts looks of mercy upon her 
 dearly-loved children! "Ah! holiest Virgin!" I 
 will ever exclaim with the Evangelist, " may you be 
 a thousand times blessed among women, hail ! full of 
 grace, for the Lord is with thee." 1 "Many daughters 
 have gathered together riches : thou hast surpassed them 
 all " ; 2 because you are the ever-flowing fountain of 
 the richest treasures of goodness, of beauty, and of 
 mercy, and your image alone is a most eloquent 
 teaching, and a perennial well-spring of ineffable 
 consolations and endless joy ! 
 
 What beautiful deeds do we not also find in the 
 lives of the Saints as themes for the sacred orator ? 
 Those glorious martyrs, whose courage is incompar- 
 able, and those hermits, exhaling in arid deserts the 
 rich fragrance of virtues, and those timid virgins, 
 gifted with all the charms of innocence and sanctity, 
 who have been elevated to the very heavens, carried 
 on the powerful wings of Divine Love ! No Pro- 
 testant orator can speak to his misguided brethren 
 concerning " that Church which suffers ". He cannot, 
 as does the Catholic orator, excite the commiseration 
 of the living on behalf of the dead, for the relief of 
 souls which are passing through a great, yet tem- 
 porary punishment ; that, by their prayers and tears, 
 the Divine Justice may be moved to convert their 
 torments and sighs into the sweet songs of Eternal 
 Joys! 
 
 1 Luke i. 28. 2 Prov. xxxi. 29.
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE ELOQUENCE. 75 
 
 If Protestants have severed the unity which gathers 
 together all human intelligences, making them to 
 converge towards a common centre with the celestial 
 intelligences, giving us the most beautiful idea we 
 can form of the magnificent harmony of creation ; if 
 all their mutilated dogmas rest on the fragile basis of 
 their own dismal reason, can they teach as though 
 possessing authority like Jesus Christ ? By no means. 
 They discuss, it is true ; but placing themselves in 
 contradiction to their principles, and even to their 
 consciences, they cast aside from the Church her 
 imposing authority, and communicate to the unwary 
 the uncertain results of all their discussions. Their 
 false teaching cannot be compared with the true, 
 majestic and Divine teaching of Catholicism ; that 
 teaching, which, coming down from the highest 
 heavens upon the heart of man, produces in it the 
 most profound, the most consoling, the sweetest 
 sentiments. The chair of Protestantism, resting as 
 it does on the ruinous foundations of pride, can only 
 be occupied and filled by the proud man. The 
 Catholic Keligion has raised eloquence, not only in 
 the Tribune, but to the throne, and this throne is 
 the Christian "Cathedra" to which God has given 
 for foundations faith and humility. In it is found 
 the Catholic priest suspended, as it were, between 
 heaven and earth, to hear the Divine Word, and, on 
 receiving It, he repeats It to his people. In that 
 sacred spot we behold not the man ; there we see 
 only the minister of the Gospel, because the words 
 he pronounces are not, in truth, his own, but they
 
 76 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 are those of Jesus Christ, who sent him : " Verba mea 
 non sunt mea, sed ejus, qui misit me". What he teaches 
 in the holy and majestic Temple, where all things 
 contribute to exalt his imagination, and which affords 
 living and magnificent colouring to move his audi- 
 ence, is taught, at the same time, throughout all 
 the nations, and in every place on the globe ; what 
 he repeats to-day has been spoken in all ages. With 
 the Evangelists and the Apostles, he teaches the 
 Divine morale of our adorable Saviour; with the 
 Prophets, he announces the happy or the sad future 
 of the people, according as these love or despise their 
 supreme Creator ; with the Patriarchs, he teaches 
 man that this life, so short and miserable, is a most 
 bitter pilgrimage, one which can only be sweetened 
 by the hope of an eternal life. 
 
 It is undeniable that in the sacred writings the 
 orator finds an immeasurable and most abundant 
 fountain of the purest eloquence. Do you desire to 
 speak to the human intelligence ? Do you seek to 
 adorn your eloquent discourses with deep, sublime, 
 magnificent thoughts which shall amaze your audi- 
 ence ? Deeply study the Sacred Scriptures, and you 
 will not pass a single page without adding many 
 elevated thoughts, energetic, sublime, because there 
 is not a single page in which is not found a great 
 object to move, to impress, and to marvel over, pre- 
 sented by God Himself. There is no single treatise 
 on literature in which the beauty of the following 
 words are not admired: "And God said: 'Be light
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE ELOQUENCE. 77 
 
 made'. And light was made." 1 "He who is. The 
 Heavens are His throne, and the earth is as a footstool 
 for His Feet. The earth is struck dumb in His Presence." 
 What admirable, what grand and deep thoughts will 
 you find also in those wholesome precepts wherein 
 are inculcated the beautiful and noble virtue of 
 Charity ! 
 
 It is in the Holy Bible that are found inscribed 
 those Divine dramas, whose aims spring from the 
 Heavens, and which find an echo in, and reanimate 
 and profoundly move, our hearts. Who can read 
 without emotion the admirable history of Joseph, 
 son of Jacob? It is with difficulty that tears can be 
 restrained when, meditating on this tender passage 
 of the Bible, we seem to see him wiping his own 
 tears ; and, above all, when we seem to hear him 
 exclaim: "I am Joseph; is my father living? I am 
 Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt." 2 This 
 most beautiful passage of the Scriptures used to 
 make Voltaire himself weep from admiration ; he 
 who, although he did not read the Bible with the 
 eyes of Catholic Faith, nevertheless thus expresses 
 himself : " I confess to you, that the majesty of the 
 Scriptures truly astonishes me, the holiness of the 
 Gospels speak to my heart. Behold the books of 
 the Philosophers with all their pomp ; how small 
 they appear by their side ! " 
 
 The wailings and cries of the Prophet, he who 
 seemed to have equalled the Lamentations with the 
 
 1 Gen. i. 3. 2 Gen. xlv. 3 and 4.
 
 78 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 bitterness of the calamities themselves, do they not 
 find an echo in every heart ? When we read of the 
 Queen of Nations, in former times so populous, and 
 now converted into an arid waste ; when in spirit 
 we hear the Priests and the Virgins wailing day and 
 night, the tender little ones weepingly asking for 
 bread and unable to procure any, we at once cry out 
 with Jeremias : " Who will give water to my head, and 
 a Fountain of tears to my eyes ? And I will weep night 
 and day for the misfortunes of Jerusalem." l In truth 
 we shall find in the Sacred Scriptures all that can 
 move our hearts to noble and tender emotions. In 
 this most beautiful book is found smouldering that 
 holy and Divine fire which our Redeemer brought on 
 earth, with which to unite closely all men to Himself ; 
 in it we enthusiastically admire the most tender 
 sentiments, the most consoling and also the most 
 encouraging, which the human heart can experience. 
 
 Orators ! if at any time you have to address those 
 who are labouring under the weight of the hatred 
 and the ill-will of men, let them hear the beautiful 
 and magnificent language of the Holy Scriptures : 
 " Blessed are ye, when they shall revile you and speak all 
 that is evil against you. Be glad and rejoice, for your 
 reward is very great in heaven."* Who has not read 
 with deepest emotion the parable of the Prodigal 
 Son, forgetting in the fatherly arms his wanderings 
 and his dissolute life ? 
 
 The language, the beauty of expression which we 
 
 1 Jer. ix. 1. 2 Matt. v. 11-2.
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE ELOQUENCE. 79 
 
 observe in the Holy Bible causes in us an enthusi- 
 astic admiration. How concise the narrative, what 
 precision, what vividness, what majesty do we find 
 in the books of the Pentateuch ! What power, what 
 energy so incomparable, what sublime aspirations in 
 the magnificent book of the Psalms ! Who is there 
 that does not admire the beauty and the enchanting 
 simplicity of the Gospel, as well as the imposing 
 grandeur of the Epistles ? Who is not astonished, 
 moved, and charmed by the interesting narrative of 
 the Apocalypse ? 
 
 In conclusion, we affirm that if the Fathers of the 
 Church possessed a grand style, enrapturing and 
 majestic, it is because they dedicated themselves to 
 the study of the Scriptures and became imbued with 
 their magnificent language. 
 
 The splendour which we so much admire in the 
 beautiful style of these writers, is oftentimes a re- 
 flection of the Sacred Scriptures. The same effect is 
 observable in all our most noted masters of literature ; 
 it is to the Sacred Scriptures that they are indebted 
 for their style, which is no less elevated than their 
 thoughts. " Suppress the Bible along with imagina- 
 tion," said an illustrious member of the Eeal Aca- 
 ddmia of Spain, " and you will have suppressed 
 what is beautiful in the great literature of Spain, or 
 you will, at least, despoil it of its most sublime 
 flights, of its most splendid adornments, of its noble 
 pomp and its holy magnificence." l 
 
 1 Valdegamas, Discourse pronounced on his reception into the 
 Real Academia of Spain,
 
 80 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 What we have said of the orator may also be 
 well applied to the writer, because our Holy Religion 
 also powerfully influences written eloquence. Let us 
 read our great Apologists, both ancient and modern 
 all those who have dedicated themselves to the study 
 of belles-lettres under the shelter of Catholicism and 
 what precision, what grandeur, what sublimity do 
 we not find in their ideas ? What force of expression, 
 what eloquence in their words which convey their 
 thoughts to the extreme ends of the globe, and are 
 preserved for ages ! And when these eminent writers 
 treat upon a subject of universal interest, how they 
 fill the world with enthusiasm and admiration. 
 
 They also instruct, individually, at times, if I may 
 so express myself. They speak to the heart as a 
 good friend speaks to his friend. Of this kind are 
 the Spiritual Letters of the memorable Fenelon. How 
 charming are these letters, and how captivating is 
 their sweet and amiable simplicity ! Yet, in this 
 class of eloquence there is nothing to equal the 
 beautiful book of the Imitation of Jesus Christ. What 
 a divine, enrapturing book ! What an inexplicable 
 union do we find in it ! Let incredulity show us 
 whether, outside Catholicism, there is any composi- 
 tion, I do not say that can be compared to it, but 
 that has any similarity with it. It is impossible to 
 read a page without feeling emotion. I will state a 
 reflection which many have made upon it. " How 
 is it that in the Middle Ages, when the intelligence 
 was so uncultured, and the heart completely delivered 
 up to the grossest passions, there should have existed
 
 SEVENTH ARTICLE ELOQUENCE. 81 
 
 a Solitary who should have found that measure of 
 expression, that perfect knowledge of man, which, 
 in our days, astonishes even the most enlightened 
 masters of the spiritual life ? Who had instructed 
 him so wonderfully in the mysteries of eloquence 
 and of the heart? " 
 
 To this reflection and question we will reply 
 with joy and enthusiasm, " Our holy Catholic 
 Faith. Yes ! that lively Faith, ardent and Divine, 
 which has saved and so highly illustrated the 
 World." 1 Yes ! we say it with the deepest convic- 
 tion, this grand and magnificent book is the clearest, 
 the most conclusive, and the most convincing testi- 
 mony to the Divinity of our Sacred Keligion, and of 
 the powerful influence which this Divine Teacher 
 exercises over eloquence. 
 
 1 Hsec est victoria, quse vincit mundum, fides nostra " (Epist. B. 
 Joannis, v. 4).
 
 EIGHTH AKTICLE.
 
 EIGHTH AKTICLE. 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Poetry Biblical Poetry is superior 
 to the Pagan. 1 
 
 I KNOW not upon what foundation unbelievers base 
 their assertions when they vainly attempt to main- 
 tain that Catholicity is hostile to poetry. What an 
 error ! Let them lay aside the Christian Religion, and 
 they will at once clip the wings of the genius of the 
 poet, and it will most undoubtedly fall to the ground, 
 enveloped in the woeful abomination of this world, 
 so full of abjection and of misery. 
 
 But, on the contrary, when, having faith for a 
 guide, the horizon of poetry becomes clear, and its 
 limits extended before the gaze of the poet in the 
 immensity of God, faith becomes united to charity, 
 which is pure love, which sustains and elevates the 
 heart of man to the celestial regions. No one can 
 possibly deny this incontestable truth ; yet there are 
 some who, dragged by the violent, sweeping currents 
 of their own reason, dare to maintain that Pagan 
 mythology is more favourable to poetry than our 
 
 1 In the arrangement of this article, and those that may follow, 
 I shall make use of a work entitled Le Gdnie du CatJiolicisme, from 
 which I have derived many of the chief proofs, although in a 
 different form.
 
 86 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Holy Eeligion. Those who think in this absurd 
 manner are miserably mistaken. 
 
 How much more full and complete is Eeligion, 
 since we find in it more truth : in its mysteries, in its 
 morals, and in its cultus ! Is it, therefore, less 
 favourable to poetic genius than to any other talent? 
 God Almighty never gives error as food for genius. 
 To say the contrary would be to blaspheme ; it would 
 be to ridicule and highly offend the Divinity. False- 
 hood is never advantageous, whilst truth in every 
 way possesses a secret virtue, which nothing can 
 replace for its want, because truth proceeds from God 
 Himself. 
 
 It has been said with much truth that never has 
 the description been adequately made of the dwell- 
 ings of the Blessed. The great Apostle has afforded 
 us the principal reason of this omission when he 
 affirms that we are unable to conceive anything 
 which can be compared to the rewards promised us 
 in the Kingdom of Heaven. Nevertheless, if any- 
 thing could afford us even so much as an imperfect 
 idea of that magnificent and eternal mansion, so 
 incomprehensible to our limited intelligences, it is 
 undoubtedly our Catholic Faith. 
 
 Let us read what has been said to this effect by a 
 believer, at the very time when the Divine Faith, 
 which had been the first cause of his glory and of 
 his power, had become weakened in his soul. It 
 runs as follows : 
 
 " I saw like an immovable Ocean, immense, in- 
 finite, and in this Ocean three oceans : an ocean of
 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE. 87 
 
 Power, an ocean of Light, an ocean of Life ; and these 
 three oceans, mingling together without becoming 
 confounded, formed an Ocean itself, an equal, indi- 
 visible unity, absolute, eternal. And this Unity was 
 That which Is ; and in the depths of this Being an 
 ineffable knot united together Three Persons, which 
 were named to me, and their names were the Father, 
 the Son, and the Spirit ; and in this union there 
 existed a mysterious generation, a mysterious breath, 
 living, fecund ; and the Father, and the Son, and the 
 Spirit were That which Is. And the Father appeared 
 to me like a Power, which, within the Infinite Being, 
 One with Him, was no more than one act, perma- 
 nent, complete, illimitable, which is the same Infinite 
 Being. And the Son appeared to me like a permanent 
 Word, complete, limitless, that dictates what the 
 power of the Father works, which is what is the 
 Infinite Being. And the Spirit appeared to me like 
 love, like effusion, like a mutual inspiration between 
 the Father and the Son, animating them with a 
 common life, animating them by a permanent life, 
 complete, limitless, the Infinite Being. And these 
 three Beings were One, and these Three were God, 
 and embraced each other, and were united under the 
 impenetrable Sanctuary of the substance One ; and 
 this embrace, this union was realised in the bosom of 
 the immensity of the Eternal Joy, of the eternal 
 enjoyment of That which Is. 
 
 " And in the depths of this ocean of the Being 
 there swam, and floated, and extended the Creation 
 in the manner of an island, which incessantly seeks
 
 88 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 to widen its shores in the midst of a limitless sea. 
 It expanded like a flower which throws out its roots 
 in the waters, and that shoots up its tall stems and 
 opens its corolla on the surface. And I saw other 
 beings chained one to another, and I could see them 
 produce and unfold in their innumerable variety, 
 feeding upon a sap which never becomes exhausted 
 of power, and of light, and of life, of That which Is. 
 And that which had been formerly hidden from me 
 became manifested to my gaze, which now was not 
 curtailed by the material cover of the essences. Un- 
 fettered from all earthly impediments, I proceeded 
 from world to world, similarly to the spirit here 
 below, which goes from thought to thought ; and 
 after having been inundated, lost in those marvels 
 of power, and of wisdom, and of love, I sank and lost 
 myself in that same origin of love, and of wisdom, 
 and of power, and then I experienced all that is the 
 Fatherland ; and I was satiated with light, and my 
 soul, ravished up by the waves of harmony, slumbered 
 upon the celestial depths in an unspeakable ecstasy. 
 "After this I saw the Christ on the right of His 
 Father resplendent with an immortal glory. And 
 I saw Him also, like a mystical Lamb, Immolated 
 upon an Altar. Ten thousand angels, and all the men 
 ransomed by His Blood, surrounded the Lamb, and 
 were singing His praises and returning Him thanks 
 in the language of the Heavens. And one drop of 
 the Blood of the Lamb fell upon nature, weakened 
 and sick, and I saw it become transfigured, and all 
 the creatures which it enclosed quickened with a
 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE. 89 
 
 new life, and all lifted up their voice, and this voice 
 said : "Holy ! Holy ! Holy is He who has destroyed 
 evil and has conquered death ! 
 
 " And the Son leaned on the bosom of the Father, 
 and the Spirit covered them with His Shadow, and 
 between them there was a Divine mystery, and the 
 Heavens, in silence, became agitated." 
 
 Let us compare merely these last words with the 
 following verses which have been so justly lauded : 
 " Annuit et totum nutu tremefecit Olympum ". l What a 
 difference ! We shall perchance find the same beauty 
 of imagery and expression, but how are we to find 
 the same loftiness and the same rectitude of thought? 
 
 Even this very verse "Annuit, etc.," which is one 
 of the most select of Pagan poetry, how can one 
 compare it with the '* Bespicit terram, et facit earn 
 tremere. Monies, sicut cer a, fluxerunt a facie ejus. Tangit 
 monies, et fumigant " of the inspired David? How 
 can we ever compare the praises which Virgil directs 
 to Augustus with the magnificent canticle of the 
 divine poet Moses, when he returns thanks to the 
 God of Israel after he has passed through the Bed 
 Sea? Thus sings Moses: " Fortitudo mea, et laus 
 mea Dominus, et factus est mihi in salutem ". One only 
 breath of the mouth of Jehovah sufficed to bury 
 Pharaoh and his army in the sea, to destroy those 
 who persecuted the people of God : " Flavit spiritus 
 tuus, et operuit eos mare : submersi sunt qiiasi plumbum 
 in aquis vehementibus ", 2 
 
 1 " He assented and all Olympus trembled at his nod " (Virgil). 
 2 Exod. xv. 10.
 
 90 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 How compare the power of the God Jupiter, whom 
 the poet Ovid presents to us casting rays upon the 
 Titans, who scaled the heavens to make a ferocious 
 warfare " Turn pater omnipotens misso perfregit Olym- 
 pum Fulmine et excussit subjecto Pelion Ossae" 1 with 
 the sublimity and the greatness of the God of David, 
 Who laughs at His enemies " Qui habitat in calls 
 irridebit eos : et Dominus subsannabit eos" and Who 
 destroys not only the impious, but even the very 
 place from which the proud had risen? " Vidi im- 
 pium super exaltatum, et elevatum sicut cedros Libani. 
 Et transivi, et ecce non erat : et qu&sivi eum, et non est 
 inventus locus ejus." z 
 
 How can we place the God of Moses, of David, of 
 the Prophets, and of the Apostles, Who is our God 
 and Lord, in comparison with the senseless divinities 
 of Paganism? How can we offer the incense of 
 poetry to that crowd of sanguinary gods and false 
 prophets, who only employ themselves in deceiving, 
 and who excite to laughter even the very children ? 
 How can a poet draw inspiration from that irritating 
 and scandalous affinity which is found between the 
 heaven and the hell of the Pagans ? Can they per- 
 chance possibly reconcile evil and good, vice with 
 virtue, error and truth ? Impossible ! Therefore 
 
 1 But these the Sire 
 
 Omnipotent, with lightning bolt through all 
 Olympus flashing, hurled adown, and dashed 
 Ossa from Pelion headlong. 
 
 Metamorphoses, Book i., 186 to 188. 
 
 Translated by Henry King, M.A., 1871. 
 2 Ps. xxxvi. 35-6.
 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE. 91 
 
 there can be no affinity between heaven and hell. 
 The one was made by God to be the dwelling-place 
 of angels, of the saints, and of the just. The other 
 was formed by sin. A proud Archangel fell from 
 the highest heavens down to the lowest depths of 
 the infernal abyss because he rebelled against the 
 Omnipotent, and with the rebound of his immeasur- 
 able fall the whole world shook, that world which 
 its Divine Author had just created ; that world which 
 His only begotten Son hastened to poise firmly again, 
 dying on a shameful cross to regenerate and save it ! 
 The grandeur of the Supreme Lord of heaven and 
 of earth can never be compared with the nothingness 
 of that miserable Pagan divinity which, according to 
 Lista, " was supposed to be divided among the Great 
 Lords of Olympus, like sovereignty in the feudal 
 code ". The God of the Bible, the God of Catholicism 
 embraces and dominates the entire universe, an only 
 word sufficing to create it. " Dixit, et facia sunt." 
 "Fiat lux, et facia, est lux." The beautiful picture 
 which the Divine poet David shows in Psalm ciii., 
 when, contemplating nature, he directs to its Supreme 
 Author blessings and praises, very loudly proclaims 
 that never will it be possible to reconcile the artificial 
 poetry of Paganism, bereft of ideas, with the grandeur, 
 the magnificence and the sublimity of Biblical poetry. 
 Thus sings the inspired David : " Benedic anima mea 
 Domino : Domine Deus meus magnificatus es vehementer. 
 . . . Extendens ccelum sicut pellem : Qui tegis aqiiis 
 superiora ejus. Qui ponis nubem ascensum tuum : qui 
 ambulas super pennas ventorum. Quifacis Angelas tuos."
 
 92 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Truly is He not a magnificent God, He who calls 
 upon the light to be His raiment. He who stretches 
 the heavens, like one who unfolds a curtain ; who 
 poises the world upon most sure foundations ; who 
 measures the depths of the oceans, and commands 
 them perpetually to move ? Yes ! all is sublime, and 
 so much the more sublime because all is wise ; it 
 fills the understanding and exalts the imagination, 
 because it is the lively light of Truth, which allows 
 itself to be translated by Art, communicating to it 
 eternal and undying resplendencies. 
 
 There is nothing comparable in force and energy 
 to the following passage of the Bible, wherein the 
 Holy Spirit, speaking in the language of men, places 
 before us the Omnipotent in wrath against erring 
 humanity : 
 
 " The earth shook and trembled ; the foundations of 
 the mountains were troubled and were moved, because He 
 was angry with them. 
 
 " There went up a smoke in His wrath : and a fire flamed 
 from His face : coals were kindled by it. 
 
 " He bcnved the heavens, and came down : and darkness 
 was under His feet. 
 
 "And He ascended upon the cherubim, and He flew ; 
 He flew upon the wings of the winds. 
 
 " And He made darkness His covert, His pavilion round 
 about Him : dark waters in the clouds of the air. 
 
 "At the brightness that was before Him the clouds 
 passed, hail and coals of fire. 
 
 " And the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Highest 
 gave His voice : hail and coals of fire.
 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE. 93 
 
 " And He sent forth His arrows, and He scattered them : 
 He multiplied lightnings, and troubled them. 
 
 " Then the fountains of waters appeared, and the founda- 
 tions of the world were discovered : 
 
 11 At Thy rebuke, Lord, at the blast of the spirit of 
 Thy wrath." 1 
 
 If this passage is rich in grandeur, sublimity and 
 magnificence, the following one is no less so in which 
 David, addressing all men, vividly and energetically 
 calls upon them to acknowledge and understand the 
 true God : 
 
 " clap your hands, all ye nations : shout unto God 
 with the voice of joy, For the Lord is high, terrible : 
 a great King over all the earth. He hath subdued the 
 people under us ; and the nations under our feet." 2 
 
 This powerful call to the true Light, this fervent 
 voice which spontaneously springs from the pure, 
 ardent heart of the divine poet, shines in all his 
 grand and sublime compositions. Hence unbelievers 
 are blind to truth who pretend to maintain that 
 Pagan poetry is superior to Biblical poetry. This 
 would be simply impossible, because the poets of 
 Paganism drew their inspirations from a blind 
 divinity, extravagant and absurd, whilst the poets of 
 the sacred Bible found their inspiration in a most 
 Wise God, Immense, Omnipotent, Infinite; their 
 chaunts participating of eternity, their inflamed 
 accents confided to the chords of their sacred lyres, 
 are echoed throughout the whole universe, and 
 
 1 Ps. xvii. 8-16. 2 Ps. xlvi.
 
 94 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 therefore all the poets of Catholic nations imbibe, 
 without ever being satiated, from those inexhaustible 
 fountains into which the Most High has poured His 
 infinite light, and are compositions which are uni- 
 versally and enthusiastically admired, and which 
 even the non-Christian poets cannot help seeking, 
 and drawing from. To what is the celebrated lyric 
 writer Kousseau indebted for a great portion of his 
 glory and renown, but to the magnificent psalms of 
 David? Who can fail to read with delight those 
 beautiful and majestic verses, although it is a poetry 
 very inferior to the original, from whence Eousseau 
 himself drew them? 
 
 " Les deux instruisent la terre 
 A rSverer leur Auteur. 
 Tout ce que leur globe enserre 
 Celtbre un Dieu Createur." 
 
 I would be too diffuse were I to treat here of all 
 the great compositions of authors who have drawn 
 their inspirations from the Sacred Scriptures. All 
 those gigantic conceptions which we find in the 
 " Divina Commedia," in the "Paradise Lost," in the 
 "Jerusalem Delivered," in "Paul and Virginia," in 
 " Telemachus," and in many others, from whence 
 have they sprung, but from the rich and perennial 
 springs of truth, of splendour, of beauty, and of 
 magnificence that are enclosed in the Holy Bible ! 
 
 With much truth does Donoso say that " the 
 Bible is a book which we read every day, and every 
 night, and it is a book which we never finish read-
 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE. 95 
 
 ing". "If you suppress the Bible along with 
 imagination," says another of our illustrious littera- 
 teurs, "tell me what remains of the great, and the 
 spiritual, and the beautiful in the literature of the 
 last twenty centuries ? " 
 
 "Even in Philosophy, in the Arts, in languages, 
 in all intellectual culture," says Schlegel, "the 
 influence exercised by the Bible has been great in 
 regard to all Christian nations." " How much greater 
 should its influence be upon poetry, with its char- 
 acters beautifully figured, and deeply symbolical," 
 says Chateaubriand. 
 
 If we examine, one by one, the compositions of 
 the Catholic poets, we shall observe that they have 
 all been inspired by the Sacred Scriptures. And 
 from this it follows that some are energetic and 
 profound, desirous of imitating Moses when he 
 depicts our God, the Creator, and the Omnipotent ; 
 others are grand, and yet, at the same time, humble, 
 endeavouring to copy David when he admirably 
 describes the magnificence and mercy of the Lord 
 of heaven and of earth ; others manifest themselves 
 sad and wailing, in imitation of Job where he so 
 vividly describes the touch of Divine Justice ; 
 others again are tragical and sublime, like Jeremias 
 on beholding the fearful ruins of his beloved Jerusa- 
 lem ; while yet again others appear sentimental 
 and sweet, like to Isaias when he announces the 
 humiliations and the cruel torments which the 
 Divine Eedeemer was to endure at the hands of 
 the human race.
 
 96 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 All is grand, magnificent and sublime in the 
 Sacred Scriptures, but the most extraordinary of 
 its books, as regards thought and expression, is, un- 
 doubtedly, the Apocalypse, where we can imagine 
 we actually feel that " He cometh with the clouds, and 
 every eye shall see Him, and, they also that pierced Him. 
 And all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves 
 because of Him. Even so. Amen. I am Alpha and 
 Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, 
 who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." l 
 
 There is nothing to be compared to the grandeur 
 of these versicles, not even the highly lauded verses 
 which we read in the opening of the " Avernus " of 
 Virgil: " Ibant obscuri sola sub nocteperumbram". . . . 2 
 
 This passage, so beautiful and pathetic, has been 
 perfectly reproduced by Dante, with his extraordinary 
 genius, when penning the famous inscription which 
 is read on the entrance door of his " Inferno," and which 
 is couched in these beautiful verses : 
 
 " Per me si va nella citta 1 dolente, 
 Per me si va nel 'eterno dolore, 
 Per me si va tra la perduta genie,. 
 
 Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate" 
 
 All those who read both compositions will observe 
 the same beauties in the Latin poet as in the Italian 
 one. " In these three repeated Per me si va," says a 
 learned writer, 3 "is supposed to be felt the icy 
 
 1 Apocalypse i. 2 JUneid, book vi. 
 
 3 Chateaubriand.
 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE. 97 
 
 agonies of the Christian. The ' Lasciate ogni spe- 
 ranza' is comparable to the finest outburst in the 
 'Avernus' of Virgil." 
 
 But all these words, however strong and terrible 
 their expression may be, how can they bear any 
 comparison with those words which the Divine 
 Judge will pronounce on the day of Judgment against 
 the reprobates, words which will precipitate them 
 into the very depths of hell : " Depart from Me, you 
 cursed, into everlasting fire"? 1 
 
 There can be no possible comparison between 
 Pagan poets and the beautiful, sublime poetry of the 
 Bible, in the same way as there can be no compari- 
 son between the intelligence of man and the Infinite 
 Intelligence, nor between the shadow of truth and 
 Truth Itself, which is God! 
 
 1 Matt. xxv. 41.
 
 NINTH ABTICLE.
 
 NINTH AETICLE. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 New sources of inspiration which Catholicism offers to the 
 poet Dangers which the poet is exposed to if left to 
 himself. 
 
 THEEE are many who, in truth, deceive themselves 
 when they believe that Catholicism, enclosed in her 
 own sanctuary, occupies herself solely with the sal- 
 vation of souls, and that, outside this most important 
 sphere, her actions are completely null. It is evident 
 that Catholicism sanctifies souls, because this is her 
 principal mission ; but who can even so much as 
 doubt that it effects this sanctification in a grand, 
 powerful, energetic and sublime manner, which 
 exalts all the faculties of man ? Placed in the 
 centre of the world, in order to raise up to God 
 Himself the homage of men, she distributes celestial 
 blessings with equity, manifesting to them the just 
 rewards of eternal bliss, while at the same time she 
 shows also the just punishment of evil by eternal 
 misery. Oh, what a vast field this offers to the 
 genius of the poet ! What grand and sublime 
 subjects are represented by our Divine Religion for 
 his meditations !
 
 102 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 It is indubitable that Purgatory, the place of 
 purification, wherein souls are cleansed of every 
 slight spot and stain, is a great means of inspiration 
 offered by Catholicism to the genius of the poet. 
 Who is not filled with enthusiasm when meditating 
 upon this place of temporary expiation, that con- 
 ception of a state which so perfectly reconciles 
 Justice and Mercy, those two Divine attributes 
 which appear so opposed to one another, yet which 
 are only so in appearance ? It is evident and satis- 
 factory to reason that there should be this scale of 
 suffering, in which souls can expiate their sins, in 
 proportion to the guilt incurred, and in proportion to 
 the place they occupy between the eternity of pain 
 and the eternity of felicity. Our sighs, our tears, 
 our prayers, all our good works rise from earth up 
 to heaven as offerings and expiations for the suffer- 
 ing souls, that so they may become purified, and 
 may then go radiantly, with the angels, up to the 
 mansions of the Just ! 
 
 Modern poets ! are you not touched and impressed 
 when you witness the tender solicitude, the holy 
 fervent love which animates the good son as he 
 weeps over the tomb of a beloved parent, that 
 of a mother leaning over the grave of her loved 
 child, of the friend over that of his friend ? Bards 
 of the earth ! let your voices resound in praise of 
 this Divine idea in all your sweet and melodious 
 songs. Sing the sorrows of your brethren as you 
 would do your own. Leave aside those profane 
 songs that have served to stain the once resplendent
 
 NINTH ARTICLE. 103 
 
 purity of those very souls which are now expiat- 
 ing a moment of guilty pleasure by a whole age of 
 fearful torments. Cast over your harps the crape 
 of mourning. Let your pious harmonies rise up to 
 heaven on the holy wings of prayer in order to 
 appease the Divine wrath, so justly irritated against 
 us. 
 
 Nature offers another source and means of inspira- 
 tion to the poet, if he views her in the light in which 
 our Divine Keligion represents her. ye un- 
 believing poets ! do you not see everywhere rising 
 before your view this earth, so full of verdure, of 
 freshness and of life, at the Voice of the Supreme 
 Creator? The King of Nature, man, disobeys the 
 absolute will of God, and all things become instantly 
 changed. God, in just punishment of the disobedience 
 of our first parents, cursed the earth, covering it with 
 thorns and briers ; the animals which He had created 
 to embellish nature He scatters on all sides in terror 
 and fright ; He condemns man to eat his bread in 
 the sweat of his brow, in this valley of tears ; the 
 woman, that beautiful creation, He condemns to 
 bring forth in labour "In dolore paries filios" those 
 beings which are to continue this hapless existence. 
 The earth is seen reddened with the blood of Abel 
 on account of the cruel fratricide of his brother 
 Cain. Then does Death commence to commit its 
 horrible devastations. It is not the crimes of a few 
 individuals which quickly stain the land ; perversity 
 becomes general, and demands a retributive justice, 
 and the whole world perishes in the waters of the
 
 104 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 deluge Noah and his family alone are saved, on 
 account of their virtue. The sons of Noah return 
 to people the globe alas ! to fill it with crimes, with 
 abjection, and with misery. 
 
 But now it is no longer Justice which proposes to 
 regenerate the earth, it is Mercy. The heavens bow 
 down in awe at the Divine Word taking flesh in 
 the womb of a humble virgin. In an instant the 
 world is filled with splendour and with sanctity, 
 because the Son of God suffered, in order to ransom 
 it, injuries, countless sorrows, and the most shameful 
 death on the Cross. From the firmly planted foot 
 of this sublime Cross His disciples go forth, entrusted 
 with the work of continuing its highest mission. It 
 is our Holy Church which unfolds and expands in 
 a most admirable manner. As ancient as man, this 
 Divine Mother must needs accompany him to the 
 end of his pilgrimage upon earth. What prodigious 
 effects does this excellent Teacher work on all sides ! 
 What notable and admirable personages does she 
 summon up to appear on the stage of the world ! 
 The Patriarchs, who still preserve a shadow of that 
 immortality which was to be the recompense of 
 sinless man. Others are the Prophets, before whose 
 eyes had been revealed the future. Again, the 
 Martyrs, carrying with extraordinary intrepidity 
 the palm of victory. They are our Knights with- 
 out fear and without any manner of reproach. 
 
 How small do the heroes of Paganism appear 
 to us in presence of our Christian heroes ! Ajax 
 trembled and fled from the presence of Hector, who
 
 NINTH ARTICLE. 105 
 
 himself trembled and fled before Achilles ; but the 
 lowliest and least favoured of our Knights never 
 trembled or fled in presence of the most terrible 
 adversary, nor even in presence of death itself. Yes ! 
 We proclaim it loudly, the Catholic warrior is superior 
 to all other warriors, because he has for a solid foun- 
 dation the virtues of Christian faith. 
 
 There is no doubt that Pagan poets have done all 
 that is possible, from a human point of view, when 
 writing such beautiful things respecting their divi- 
 nities ; but all these things, however beautiful they 
 may be, do they leave anything truly lovely and in- 
 teresting in the depths of our hearts? What are 
 the results left on the soul by all these grand beauties? 
 
 Ah ! how much more highly favoured is the Catho- 
 lic poet in his solitude, wherein he has God for his 
 companion ! His sylvan woods, freed from that 
 dismal crowd of ridiculous gods, have become filled 
 with an immense Divinity. The gift of prophecy 
 and of wisdom, the mysteries of religion seem to 
 reside in its sacred depths. We might say that the 
 Catholic poet finds himself alone in the depths of 
 the woods, but it is not so ; because the intelligence 
 of man, assisted by the Divine Light, easily fills the 
 great spaces of nature, and one only thought of his 
 soul is far more vast than all the solitudes of the 
 earth. 
 
 It is evident that our Divine Eeligion offers a class 
 of poetry far higher than that which is offered us by 
 Paganism. A ship is tossing on the ocean, and in 
 danger of being wrecked ; the chaplain, by means of
 
 106 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 words which purify souls, absolves each one of the 
 beings on board from his faults ; he directs to Heaven 
 fervent prayer, which in the midst of the whirlwind 
 of the storm rises like a spirit from the wreck to 
 the God of the Tempest. The ocean heaves and 
 divides its waters, ready to engulph the hapless 
 mariners ; the waves, rising up with melancholy wail- 
 ing, dash among the rocks and seem to be chanting 
 a funeral dirge. In an instant a ray of light gleams 
 in the midst of the storm ; the Star of the Sea, 
 Mary, the Patroness of Mariners, appears in the 
 centre of the dark cloud. In her arms she holds 
 the Divine Child, and calms the fury of the waves 
 with her smile. enchanting religion ! which 
 opposes to all that nature holds most terrible what 
 heaven has of sweetest to the tempest on the ocean, 
 a little Child and a tender Mother ! 
 
 But our Divine Religion, not satisfied with simply 
 offering the poet important subjects and rich ma- 
 terials, also assists him in the execution of his work. 
 We have already said it, "the poet is the man of 
 solitude, of interior recollection and of meditation ". 
 If the greater portion of the works of the present 
 day are deficient of thought and are weak in expres- 
 sion, it is because their authors, perturbed in mind, 
 and carried along by the whirl of business and of 
 material joys, always work in great precipitation, in 
 the manner of a dense cloud which does not allow 
 us to pierce through the haze, and see more than 
 a slight conceit which very quickly disappears alto- 
 gether. The works of man, more particularly poetry,
 
 NINTH ARTICLE. 107 
 
 demand a conscientious labour, meditation and soli- 
 tude. Ye poets ! ye who have chosen an arduous 
 subject, do ye wish to succeed? Withdraw from 
 the bustle of the world, at least for a time ; go and 
 meditate beneath the shades of a wood ; go and pray 
 in an ancient cathedral, at the foot of the Cross, and 
 near the tombs ; ask of those very sons of solitude 
 the difficult practice of silence and of meditation. 
 Do you seek to depict nature? Study beforehand 
 to know her. Do you wish to speak of man ? Enter 
 into your own selves and convert your hearts. Do 
 your aspirations tend towards God ? Ever listen 
 with attention and respect to what is taught us by 
 our holy Catholic Faith. 
 
 Lastly, Keligion is well calculated to prevent the 
 most grave and multiplied wanderings of poetry. 
 The first danger to which the poet is exposed is 
 that very retirement in which he is obliged to live 
 oftentimes. A solitary wanderer among paths of 
 thought little known, once he takes a false direction 
 he becomes separated, with extraordinary rapidity, 
 from his object. At length the light disappears, 
 nigh-t covers him with her darksome mantle, and 
 finally precipitates him into the abyss. 
 
 A second danger to the poet is the elevation itself 
 of his thoughts. To please the public he rises and 
 takes a flight even to the Heavens. Do we not per- 
 ceive an immense danger in this elevation of thought ? 
 The poet loses sight of the earth from which he has 
 departed, and back to which he has to descend. He 
 ignores the Hand which lifted him up, and he no
 
 108 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 longer knows himself; he attempts to rise still 
 higher, but in vain ; his head becomes giddy, his 
 thoughts wander, and if he does not quickly seek 
 refuge in Beligion, his complete ruin is certain. 
 
 Poetry is also dangerous on account of the beauty 
 of its expression, and of the harmony of its language. 
 Modern Poets ! you think not that you wander 
 away when walking through those paths covered 
 with flowers ; but bear in mind that those who 
 follow you imbibe and participate in your illusion. 
 
 Had Voltaire recounted in a common, usual way 
 the great infamies of that Poem which rendered him 
 so guilty in presence of the Christian Beligion, he 
 would have filled the whole of France with indigna- 
 tion, he would undoubtedly have aroused in her 
 that moral sense which is difficult to smother ; but 
 he covered with the beautiful flowers of poetry 
 the degrading corruption of his thoughts, and the 
 impure image entered into the hearts of men without 
 hindrance, beneath the veil of words. 
 
 It was on account of the great dangers which 
 poets expose men to that the celebrated philosopher 
 Plato banished poetry from his republic. We, far 
 from banishing genius, respect it like a sacred thing. 
 We hold it to be not an ordinary fault, but a horrible 
 sacrilege, the deplorable degradation of Godless 
 poets ; those who, possessed by a fierce boldness, 
 despise the gentle and benevolent hand of our holiest 
 Divine Beligion. you who, still youthful, feel 
 the fire of poetry, and who aspire to join the 
 perilous profession, take warning; if you wish to
 
 NINTH ARTICLE. 109 
 
 avoid the numberless dangers and difficulties which 
 are strewn in your path, impress on your own 
 souls, in indelible characters, the great and sublime 
 thoughts of Catholicism. Cast with firm hand on 
 its shores the holy anchor of Faith, in order to be 
 able afterwards to voyage without fear in the 
 oceans of the world.
 
 TENTH ABTICLE.
 
 TENTH AETICLE. 
 
 THE FINE ARTS. 1 
 Influence of Catholicism on Music. 
 
 WHEN our most Sacred and Divine Keligion was 
 established upon earth, all things were tending 
 towards what appeared inevitable ruin ; but this 
 universal Divine Institution came to raise humbled 
 nature from the dust and out of the degradation into 
 which it had been sunk. 
 
 In the beginning Eeligion was despised, persecuted, 
 humbled and even repulsed, and was fain to escape 
 from the clutches of her cruel enemies. 
 
 Her beloved children had to fly to the deserts for 
 concealment, or to the obscurity of the Catacombs, 
 while others were loaded with chains and dragged 
 to gibbets which were crimsoned with blood. Hence 
 she could not fully occupy herself with anything but 
 with the sanctification of souls, which in truth was 
 her principal mission. But no sooner did she 
 engraft within the depths of souls the Divine Idea, 
 than it fructified and developed, producing divers 
 splendours. Not satisfied with merely bestowing 
 
 1 The Pine Arts comprise Music, Painting, Sculpture and Archi- 
 tecture, of which I shall treat successively. 
 
 8
 
 114 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 splendour on the Sciences and the Arts, she com- 
 municated to them something of her Divinity. In 
 regard to the Art of Music, which we purpose treat- 
 ing upon in this article, far less than any of the 
 other Arts could it at first develop and unfold. 
 
 During the terrible persecutions which the Church 
 endured, what chants could possibly be used by her 
 but that interior melody, those smothered sighs 
 which the soul exhales when elevating itself towards 
 heaven ? But when Christianity came forth out of 
 the obscurity of the Catacombs, driving Paganism 
 out of the Temples and breaking its profane Idols, 
 and even from within the palaces of the Csesars, 
 who were fast becoming converted to Catholicism, 
 she raised her voice to entone hymns of triumph and 
 gratefulness. 
 
 Then when the Church commenced to widen her 
 sphere, and when she unfolded the powerful con- 
 stitution which had been given her by her Divine 
 Founder, she fully comprehended the importance of 
 music, and the need of a method which should be 
 in unison with the Holy Beliefs she was teaching 
 the nations. This grand work was commenced by 
 St. Ambrose, continued by St. Gregory, and brought 
 to perfection by Guido d'Arezzo. This, in brief, is 
 the origin of Plain Chant from which modern music 
 has sprung, and which is itself, in its turn, indebted 
 to our Holy Religion for its most notable inspirations. 
 But as Plain Chant has been specially adopted by 
 the Catholic Church throughout the world, we shall 
 treat principally about this beautiful style.
 
 TENTH ARTICLE THE FINE ARTS. 115 
 
 The grave, slow measure of Plain Chant perfectly 
 harmonises with the elevated, austere doctrines of the 
 Catholic religion, as well as the imposing majesty of 
 its cultus. For all its religious acts our Holy Church 
 has its individual chants, in which is found a con- 
 tinuous unanimity which ought not to be a subject 
 of surprise to any one. It is always the soul that 
 sighs in this vale of tears, " in hac lacrymarum valle," 
 and which anxiously yearns for the eternal joys of 
 the blessed life. 
 
 We shall proceed to give a brief sketch of the 
 chants of the Church, following the liturgical year. 
 On commencing the liturgical year, little does the 
 Church chant, because it represents the holy fervour 
 and the expectation of the Messias ; and let no one 
 doubt it, this expectation is a silent one. After this 
 we hear music of a melodious langour; these are 
 the sighs of the soul, and the cries of desire. 
 
 These cries and sighs have been rising from the 
 earth for more than four thousand years, and they 
 have ascended even to touching the vaulted heavens. 
 The Seraphim repeat them in their celestial concerts 
 in presence of the Almighty, and they return to 
 earth loaded with the precious and magnificent 
 treasures of grace. The greatest and most excellent 
 gift which the world has received from heaven is, 
 undoubtedly, the living Son of God, the "desired of 
 all the peoples," the true Messias. He has appeared 
 among us, and the Church manifests her joy in its 
 Divine songs. Let us keep it well in mind : this joy 
 is calm, slow, moderate ; it seems as though it lingered
 
 116 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 in its transports of holy joy and extraordinary en- 
 thusiasm. A God is born, it is true, but it is a 
 Man-God, loaded with our miseries and our infir- 
 mities. Some rays of the sun, which has filled the 
 nations with refulgent light, have been manifested 
 to the earth, and at the same time the Christian has 
 partaken of its untold and holy rejoicing, like to 
 material nature which wakens into life when the 
 beautiful light of day sheds its rays over our fair earth. 
 
 Towards the end of His holy mission the Man- 
 God enters into His sad and dolorous career, and the 
 Church also mourns and suffers with Him. This 
 holy Mother manifests in her solemn chants the 
 ineffable sorrows, the mysterious anguish of the most 
 patient Jesus. Above all, we find some passages of 
 a most pathetic nature. Who can listen, unmoved, 
 to the sublime chanting of the Passion of Jesus? 
 The narrative of the historian the cries of the ex- 
 cited populace the replies of the calumniated Just 
 One, at once so tranquil and so sublime form a 
 truly Divine Drama. Who is there that can listen 
 without taking part in the vivid and vehement sorrows 
 of the most holy Virgin at the foot of the Cross, on 
 hearing that chant, so impressive, of the " Stabat 
 Mater dolorosa " ? Blessed ! a thousand times blessed 
 may our Divine Eeligion be for having imprinted on 
 her magnificent chants that feeling which none other 
 can even imitate. 
 
 The Church, always compassionate towards the 
 sorrows of her children, has comprehended, in an 
 extreme degree, what passed in the soul of the Mater
 
 TENTH ARTICLE THE FINE ARTS. 117 
 
 dolorosa. Who can listen to the Lamentations of 
 the Prophet Jeremias without feeling an indescrib- 
 able sadness piercing into the very depths of his 
 soul? When those strong cries of grief resound 
 within the vast precincts of a great Basilica well- 
 nigh deserted, we feel as though we were standing 
 in the midst of that Jerusalem once so populous, 
 "plena populo," and now so desolate. After these 
 cries of lamentation the Church keeps a profound 
 silence, as though exhausted by the great and re- 
 peated efforts of deepest pain. We no longer hear 
 even the sound of the bell; it is the silence of death. 
 All things are hushed around the sepulchre wherein 
 was laid our Divine Redeemer. And while the faith- 
 ful, gathered together in the gloom and silence of 
 the Temple, are engaged in prayer, and shedding 
 abundant tears over Jesus in repose, lo ! a great 
 prodigy is worked " The Lord has risen 'non est hie' 
 do not seek Him in the Sepulchre ". At this instant 
 everything is changed to joy and gladness in the 
 bosom of the Catholic Church throughout the whole 
 Universe, and the "Alleluia," which we shall repeat, 
 for all eternity, in Heaven after the universal resur- 
 rection, has already commenced to be heard upon 
 earth, with the resurrection of the Crucified. Carried 
 in spirit with the Apostles unto the mountain from 
 whence Jesus ascended to His high and excellent 
 throne of glory, the Church manifests in her songs 
 an extraordinary joy on beholding those beautiful 
 Heavens opened which are to be, at some future day, 
 her eternal and happy dwelling-place.
 
 118 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Who does not admire those sublime and mysterious 
 songs of the Catholic Church when celebrating the 
 Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles ? 
 
 What deep recollection and reverence do we not 
 observe in the house of the King of Heaven and of 
 earth ! On that lovely day we imagine ourselves to 
 be in the Coenaculum, because we instantly picture 
 to ourselves those heroic men, filled with a Divine 
 Fire, who went forth with admirable courage and in- 
 trepidity to effect the difficult task of converting the 
 nations, submerged as they were in the most com- 
 plete barbarism. 
 
 What joy do we not experience when our Holy 
 Church celebrates the glory of those who are in the 
 highest joy, in the infinite bosom of God! What 
 songs of triumph and of rejoicing do we intone on 
 that day ! How gladly does it not please our holy 
 Mother, the Church, to open her maternal arms on 
 beholding such a multitude, which no man can 
 number, of the faithful in the Heavens ! Yet as all 
 souls do not immediately enter the celestial country, 
 but many have to go first to the place of expiation 
 called Purgatory, the Church makes an especial 
 commemoration for them on the day following the 
 Feast of All Saints. What touching supplications, 
 what chants of prayer and intercession does not our 
 Divine Religion send up to the Throne of Divine 
 Mercy for these blessed souls on that day ! 
 
 It is indubitable that in Religion, as in Nature, 
 our Lord and God has engraved on the heart of the 
 Mother those affectionate feelings towards such of
 
 TENTH ARTICLE THE FINE ARTS. 119 
 
 her children as most require her loving care. During 
 the Divine Office we imagine we hear the deep 
 sighs of all those souls who, from the depths of the 
 abyss, are imploring the Infinite Mercy to obtain 
 their speedy entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 The learned are not alone those who can appreciate 
 the beauties of our religious music, because it is 
 undoubtedly and essentially popular music. There 
 are few, indeed, who do not find pleasure in joining 
 their voices with those of the assembled congregation, 
 when, beneath the vaulted roofs of the Temples, are 
 intoned those sublime canticles which the inspired 
 David joyfully addressed to God. A large number 
 of persons are daily converted to Catholicism through 
 the great attractions of her songs ; and even in the 
 conversion of savages religious songs exercise no 
 less influence than the constant preaching of our 
 virtuous missionaries. And among our own selves, 
 is not sometimes the most moving and persuasive 
 eloquence the eloquence of our songs? The heart 
 which sighs before the image of the Blessed Virgin, 
 or before a statue of the Divine Child, experiences 
 an emotion which in vain it had sought for in the 
 sweetest harmonies of secular or profane music. 
 
 If, as we have proved, our Divine Eeligion exercises 
 a powerful influence on vocal music, its influence is 
 no less great over what is called instrumental music. 
 In truth the Catholic Eeligion is the only one that 
 suggests to the intelligence of man its grandest and 
 most powerful inspirations, and to his heart the most 
 noble sentiments, which, while they elevate him,
 
 120 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 sustain him in those loftier regions wherein are 
 formed the greatest of true Artists. Man, fragile 
 and limited, can do no good if left to his own 
 powers ; hence, when finishing those instruments 
 of music, so highly tuned and so harmonious, he 
 ought to humble himself, and pitting his pride 
 against his littleness, exclaim : " Lord ! to Thee 
 I owe everything. I give Thee thanks, Supreme 
 Creator, for so many and such benefits. What 
 could I have effected, Merciful God ! unless Thy 
 Divine Light had illumined my weak intelligence?" 
 In this way do the humble speak, and on account of 
 their humility God renders their intelligence like 
 to shining lights, whilst the proud fall into the 
 fathomless abyss into which their own fierce pride 
 has cast them ! 
 
 Another beautiful thing in our Temples is the bell. 
 We can well compare it to the human voice; because, 
 in the same way as the voice resides in the superior 
 part of the human frame, so also is the bell found 
 in the superior part of the Catholic Temple, in order 
 to teach her numerous progeny to lift up their hearts 
 to the King of Heaven and of Earth by means of 
 prayer. We may also compare the bell to a fond 
 mother, who rejoices or becomes saddened with her 
 children ; at times she commands, at others she 
 counsels them. The bell becomes sad or rejoices 
 with men ; it seems to command, as when, on festival 
 days of obligation, it lifts up its voice, summoning 
 all the faithful to come and be present during the 
 ineffable sacrifice of the Mass. It counsels us
 
 TENTH ARTICLE THE FINE ARTS. 121 
 
 when, at the dawn of day, at midday, and at night- 
 fall, it invites us, with its beautiful tones, to raise 
 our hearts in prayer to the Queen of Angels and of 
 men, and recite the Angelus. Perhaps there is no 
 sound which so intimately touches our hearts as 
 that of the bell. How often do we not hear it with 
 joy and enthusiasm ! How often does it not make 
 us shed tears ! 
 
 The organ is, by excellence, above all instruments 
 the one most proper for singing the praises of our 
 God and Lord. It admits of no comparison with 
 any other for power, fulness and brilliancy. It is 
 the sonorous voice of the Catholic Church, and like 
 the echo of an invisible world which is symbolically 
 manifested. Sometimes its tones excite us to con- 
 templation, at others it fills us with a holy sadness, 
 or, inflaming our hearts with a celestial ardour, raises 
 us to the beautiful and resplendent regions of the 
 Infinite Being, and iii the midst of our transports 
 we feel as though we were among the choirs of 
 angels. 
 
 It would be too wearisome to treat in these pages 
 of each instrument in particular, and, therefore, as it 
 is not necessary to our purpose to do so, we shall 
 omit the recital, simply saying in general that, what- 
 ever their origin may be, our Holy Keligion can 
 adopt them for her service, imparting to some those 
 sweet and touching accents which fill us with true 
 enthusiasm, and to others those strong sounds, full 
 and penetrative, which this Divine Teacher knows 
 how to communicate to the beautiful human voice,
 
 122 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 the principal organ of musical art. Very rarely does 
 the Church employ instrumental music without using 
 vocal music also. What magnificent effect is pro- 
 duced by this union ! How they move and strengthen 
 us, and elevate us to the Infinite Being! Who can 
 listen unmoved to the chanting of the " De Profundis 
 Clamavi " ? Who does not weep with Jeremias when 
 listening to his Lamentations ? Who doesnot feel elated 
 on hearing the grand Symbol of the Catholic Faith ? 
 Who does not sigh in supplication when reciting the 
 Litanies ? Who is not filled with a mystic joy when 
 listening to the " Gloria in Excelsis," and with great 
 tenderness in the " Salve Begina" ? Who does not 
 bow down to the ground and shed bitter tears on 
 hearing the solemn chant of the " Lacrymosa Dies 
 Ira, " ? Most justly did St. Augustine say : "How, 
 deeply and greatly moved, did I weep with the sweet hymns 
 and canticles of Thy Church I Then voices pierced mine 
 ears, and the truth distilled into my heart, and desires 
 filled it with ardour for piety, and the tears poured down 
 my cheeks, and I was happy." l 
 
 There is yet another magnificent song heard in 
 our Temples, which we cannot mention without 
 the heart overflowing with joy ; it is the " Te Deum 
 Laudamus ". Who can doubt of the excellence of this 
 magnificent hymn, when, with unanimous voice, we 
 lift up to the Most High the expressions of our 
 acknowledgment and grateful feelings ? 
 
 " It was enthusiasm that inspired the ' Te Deum '. 
 
 1 Confessions, Book 9, vi., Dr. Pusey's translation.
 
 TENTH ARTICLE THE FINE ARTS. 123 
 
 When, still on the plains, after a great victory has 
 been achieved on the battlefields, amidst the still 
 exploding shells, and the smoke and blood of the 
 contest, to the warlike sounds of clarion and trum- 
 pets, an army, surrounded by the fire of the battle, 
 bends the knee and entones the hymn of gratitude 
 to the God of Battles ; or else when, in the midst of 
 lamps and burning tapers and incense clouds, the 
 prolonged notes of the organ are heard, like sighs 
 mingling with the joyous pealing of the bells and 
 the low vibration of the bass, this hymn rises up, 
 resounding and agitating the coloured windows of a 
 grand Basilica, reverberating in its aisles and lofty 
 cupolas there is not a single man present but feels 
 some movement of that delirious joy which Pindaro 
 divinised in the woods of Olympus, and David in 
 the Brook of Cedron." 1 
 
 Were it not that I fear to be too diffuse, I would 
 prove still further, and in a more extended manner, 
 the great and extraordinary services which our Divine 
 Keligion has rendered to this beautiful Art ; but I 
 will simply offer a few observations, because to treat 
 this subject in a due form would necessitate several 
 volumes. Unbelievers and Sophists ! if what has 
 been advanced be not sufficient to convince you of 
 the powerful influence of Catholicism upon music, 
 you can open the brilliant pages of the history of 
 music, and you will at once find the celebrated 
 names of the Jesuit Fathers Kircher, Artega and 
 
 1 Chateaubriand.
 
 124 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Eximeno ; of the Monks Guido d'Arezzo, Nasarre 
 Martin, Flecha, and Sola ; of the Abbots Ceroni and 
 Baini, standing in the first ranks as illustrious and 
 enlightened masters, as also stand St. Ambrose, St. 
 Damasus, St. Isidore, St. Gregory and St. Eugenius. 
 From whence but from the Catholic Church did 
 the great Spanish artists Morales and De Victoria 
 to Eipa, Doyagiie and Ledesma spring? Who was 
 the master of Meyerbeer but the Abbot Vogler? 
 Who of the great Kossini but Father Mattei ? 
 Where else but in the schools of music of our 
 Holy Keligion did the great composers derive their 
 instruction, such as Gluck, Durante, Palestrina, the 
 Canon John de Muris, the Priest and Salamantine 
 Professor Salinas, as well as so many others whose 
 magnificent works it would be an endless task to 
 follow, but which, nevertheless, have astonished the 
 world ? Do not wonder then if, on terminating this 
 article, we should proclaim that the whole Art of 
 Music is due to the Catholic Eeligion, as being 
 the only one that knows how to imprint and 
 develop the Divine Thought on our limited human 
 intelligences. 1 
 
 1 1 will subjoin the names of the different schools of music which, 
 under the shelter of the Catholic Church, were maintained in Italy 
 during the eighteenth century : " L'Ospedaletto," " Santo Onofrio," 
 "Santa Maria," "Dei Poveri de Jesu," " Cristo" "Delia Field" 
 and " De Mendicanti". To the Catholic Church is due also the 
 origin of the style " lirico-dramatico ". The first Opera which was 
 represented in Rome in the year 1440 was called " The Conversion 
 of St. Paul," and this was followed by others, taking their subjects 
 from the Sacred Scriptures.
 
 ELEVENTH AETICLE.
 
 ELEVENTH ARTICLE. 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Painting. 
 
 No one who is fairly versed in history, and who pos- 
 sesses a clear judgment, can deny that the genius of 
 painting, like the genius of each of the other Arts, 
 finds the most efficacious principles of its develop- 
 ment in our Divine Religion. She supplies to the 
 artist the two elements essential to his work God 
 and the Creation. The ancient Pagans rejected 
 Creation and necessarily destroyed Art ; because, in 
 the same way as Creation cannot exist without God, 
 so also painting cannot exist without the Creation. 
 If the whole Creation, with its immense extent, is 
 no more than a perpetual dream, or a lengthened 
 illusion of God, what superiority did these senseless 
 men wish to impart to their work ? Where seek for 
 models to reproduce them ? We no longer cease to 
 wonder at all those monstrous forms of uncultured 
 nations ; but if, as we are already threatened, these 
 same doctrines were to rule society if from litera- 
 ture, wherein they have begun to be introduced, they 
 were to pass on into the domain of art, we 
 should have new dreamers who, beholding on all 
 sides phantoms, would take pleasure in representing
 
 128 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 the bizarre productions of their unhealthy imagina- 
 tions instead of created objects. 
 
 Some dissenting sects have denied also to Catho- 
 licism its powerful influence over this beautiful art 
 as regards the reproduction of sensible things. Do 
 they perchance ignore that our Holy Eeligion is 
 ever to man the efficacious principle of highest in- 
 spiration ? Do they not know that were Catholicity 
 destroyed, art, as a consequence, would perish, or 
 at least be restricted in its most beautiful develop- 
 ment? Every day do we see fanatical innovators 
 who, in their darkened intelligences, imagine that it 
 is pleasing to God to burn all the most beautiful 
 master-works in painting. This is not because they 
 deny the Creation, but because it appears to them 
 to be very dangerous to faith, from the religious 
 standpoint, this material reproduction of Creatures. 
 "If you represent God and the Celestial Spirits," 
 they say, "under a sensible form; if you place in 
 Temples the image of Jesus, of the Virgin and of 
 the Saints, you will infallibly open the door to 
 the materialism and idolatry which invaded us on 
 all sides in former times." 
 
 Blinded men ! who cannot see that this representa- 
 tion of material objects is natural to our intelligence, 
 and who do not understand that, by saying this, they 
 accuse God Himself of materialism and idolatry. 
 He reproduces Himself, up to a 'certain point, in 
 the Creation ; and numberless nations, forgetting 
 the Supreme Creator, have adored Creatures. Very 
 well; lift up your hand, extinguish this admirable
 
 ELEVENTH ARTICLE. 129 
 
 beacon, a lively image of the Eternal Sun, because 
 men have adored 'it ! And whereas there have been 
 men who have prostrated themselves before created 
 objects, let them therefore ignore the whole creation. 
 
 It is only to wandering minds that such a senseless 
 idea could occur. Others there are who have fallen 
 into the opposite error; for, despising the spiritual 
 element, they have occupied themselves exclusively 
 with the material element. Of these latter were 
 the Greeks, who made painting to spring from the 
 most sensual of all the passions. 
 
 It was reserved to our Divine Eeligion to supply 
 to the art of painting the two elements, spiritual 
 and material, which are most necessary, nay, indis- 
 pensable. She combines them together in a most 
 admirable manner, and establishes them with exact 
 precision, according to the degree which the nature 
 of each demands. 
 
 This great teacher tells us : There exists, ab cBterno, 
 a Supreme and Infinite Being, Creator of all contin- 
 gent beings which tend to return to Himself. There 
 also exists veritably a material substance, calculated 
 to make an impression on the senses, and through 
 which the Divine Thought always shines, more or 
 less clearly, before the eyes of the intelligence. 
 Reproduce, therefore, by means of art, spirit and 
 matter ; but bear in mind that all proceeds from the 
 spirit, that in the spirit is alone found the true life, 
 immutable ; observe, also, that the material element 
 is no other than a means which easily elevates us, 
 
 and with the greater security, up to the Spiritual 
 
 9
 
 130 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 Being, the only Being worthy of our love. In your 
 works, therefore, the spirit will ever stand above 
 the sensible phenomena; or rather matter will be 
 nothing else but the transparent veil of the spirit, 
 in order that, becoming impressed with so much 
 beauty, the thought, unfolding its wings, should fly 
 upwards, above the terrestrial regions, towards the 
 Perfect Model, to Whom we ought to be perfectly 
 united. 
 
 This is the reason why, in the imitation of created 
 objects, Catholic art especially cultivates the repro- 
 duction of the human figure, because man alone is 
 endowed with true intelligence upon earth. Behold, 
 this is the reason why, in a certain sense, she pays 
 little heed to the rest of the body, and employs 
 greater care upon the head, in which is especially 
 found the expression of the intelligence. 
 
 Not only does our Sacred Religion give the neces- 
 sary elements to art, but she also presents to it 
 highly finished models. The first of all models, the 
 One which above all others we admire, and that fills 
 us with enthusiasm, is the grand model of the Person 
 of Jesus Christ. Our Holy Catholic Faith teaches 
 us " that, in order to re-establish human nature, 
 stained by sin, the only Son of God, equal to His 
 Eternal Father, clothed Himself in our human nature, 
 and united it to His Divine Nature, without confound- 
 ing the one with the other ". The Word made Flesh 
 loaded Himself with all our miseries. For this 
 reason He is represented to us lying in the Manger 
 beneath the veil of infancy ; or again, he is represented
 
 ELEVENTH ARTICLE. 131 
 
 to us compassionating our griefs and sicknesses ; or 
 we see Him cruelly persecuted by those whom He 
 has laden with benefits, and, lastly, expiring upon a 
 shameful Cross, covered with insults, and enduring 
 untold sufferings. But in whichever phase of His 
 life we may find Him, we always see gleaming 
 through the obscure mantle with which He willed to 
 clothe Himself, some rays of His Sacred Divinity. 
 There is a touching grace ever in his look, more par- 
 ticularly hovering around His Divine Lips, grave as 
 truth, an attraction which transpierces and captivates 
 the most rebellious heart. Such was the God-Man 
 before His Divine Eedemption. But after His resur- 
 rection the veil was drawn aside ; the material Form 
 became spiritualised, and the resplendent rays of a 
 superior Beauty darted out from His Transfigured 
 Body. 
 
 After the Divine Master follow His Disciples, 
 those men whom He sent throughout the world to 
 continue His holy mission. Then did these hitherto 
 rough, carnal-minded men begin, little by little, 
 to become spiritualised in the high school of their 
 most wise Master, and when their union with Him 
 was consummated by the Holy Ghost, Who had 
 also joined eternally and in an infinite manner the 
 Son to the Father, they also appeared as though 
 they themselves had participated in the Divine 
 Nature. 
 
 We quickly perceive on this same heavenly path- 
 way an innumerable multitude of martyrs, of all 
 ages and conditions of life, some standing with
 
 132 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 extraordinary intrepidity before the tribunals of their 
 cruel persecutors ; others carrying, with holy love, 
 heavy chains, and enduring their great sufferings 
 with unheard of resignation, languishing in some 
 obscure prison ; others ignominiously thrown into 
 the arena, to serve as prey to ferocious wild beasts, 
 and as a criminal plaything to an insolent populace. 
 Yet in all, and in each, we perceive that wonderful 
 union of humility and greatness of soul, of sweetness 
 and firmness, of all those noble virtues which are 
 learnt in the great school of the Eedeemer of the 
 human race. They rise to heaven, bearing in their 
 hands the palm of victory. Their blood is converted 
 into a brilliant purple, and in their wounds shines 
 a celestial glory. And how speak of the Holy 
 Pontiffs and blessed Doctors of the Church, who fill 
 such an important place in the spiritual edifice which 
 Jesus Christ has founded, and of which He is the 
 Corner Stone ! Their looks are ever directed towards 
 heaven, from whence they have received their inspira- 
 tion ; there flows from the heart of each a fountain 
 of peace, that, like to an abundant river, renders 
 souls fruitful in good works, and makes virtue to 
 germinate. Unbelievers and Eationalists ! you who 
 maintain that you are so intelligent, and who can 
 so well describe your Goddess Beason, compare these 
 magnificent models with those that have been 
 bequeathed to us by Paganism, and afterwards tell us 
 which side claims superiority. 
 
 Above all secondary types derived from the incom- 
 parable model of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and which
 
 ELEVENTH ARTICLE. 133 
 
 also belong to our Holy Keligion, is found that of 
 the Blessed Virgin. In ancient times woman was 
 nothing else but a miserable slave. By taking flesh 
 in the womb of a virgin, the Eternal Word raised 
 the dignity of woman. Who is not charmed on 
 beholding the Daughter of Nazareth by the side of 
 her Divine Son ? She is truly the woman according 
 to the Spirit. Ideal beauty has purified to such a 
 degree in her the material envelope, that never has 
 it been marred by a sensual look. A miraculous 
 flower, rising above the earth, surrounded by a 
 mysterious light which conceals her to the eyes 
 of the carnal minded, she manifests herself to the 
 interior gaze of the soul. All things are at once 
 acknowledged in her : the benevolent affability of 
 the Mother of men, and the august dignity of the 
 Mother of God. 
 
 Let me again ask of unbelievers and of sophists, 
 " Where will you meet with any model to equal this ? 
 Is it in Paganism ? Pagan models do not produce 
 in our souls the smallest impression." 
 
 Bear in mind that the great Patriarch whom 
 we see upon the mountain lifting up his hand to 
 sacrifice his beloved Son is the Father of all believers, 
 and the model of a perfect obedience. 
 
 That Man-God Whom we behold receiving in a 
 manger the adoration of the Shepherds or of the 
 Magi, or conversing with His disciples familiarly like 
 a friend with a friend, and later on expiring painfully 
 upon a cross, is such with the sole object in view of 
 saving us, and redeeming the whole world, since it
 
 134 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 was for this that He came and suffered, and for this 
 that He died in a most opprobrious manner on a 
 cross. 
 
 That Mother whom we see with heart trans- 
 pierced by the sword of sharpest pain, standing at 
 the foot of the cross upon which her Divine Son is 
 expiring, is the most perfect model of all Christian 
 mothers. Those Apostles, those martyrs, virgins 
 and confessors are our teachers, our comforters, our 
 models, while that Heaven opened above their heads 
 is calling upon us all to follow them. Sacred 
 and Divine Beligion ! may you be a thousand times 
 blessed and praised, because in you has been per- 
 fectly represented the Image of Christ crucified, the 
 Last Judgment, more awe-inspiring than the judg- 
 ments of the earth, a Kesurrection which manifests 
 to us the proof of our own Spiritual resurrection and 
 the pledge of our heavenly inheritance. 
 
 What a vast field for the genius of painting is 
 presented to us by our Temples, the hallowed shrines 
 of our holy Catholic faith ! What lovely pictures 
 do we see suspended upon their magnificent walls ! 
 What beautiful subjects may not the artist find in 
 those noble Cathedrals and within the depths of 
 those Sanctuaries wherein dwells the Holy of 
 holies ! What peace, what silence, at once so im- 
 posing and so pleasing, do we not observe in the 
 mysterious spot in which man, elevating himself 
 towards heaven, finds the great King of kings, Who 
 humbled Himself to the very earth ! In that House 
 of God and of man our Divine Keligion explains her
 
 ELEVENTH ARTICLE. 135 
 
 holy Doctrines, her saintly Liturgy to her beloved 
 children, to rich and to poor alike. 
 
 Let us listen to the words of an eminent writer, 
 expressed with all that authority and power which 
 his virtue and his science impart to them. 1 
 
 " When we hear it asserted that Christianity is an 
 enemy to the arts one feels greatly astonished, be- 
 cause in an instant the forms are conjured up in the 
 memory of such men as Michael Angelo, Eaffaelle, 
 Cerrachio, Dominico, Lesueur, Poussin, Lawton, and 
 many other artists whose names alone would suffice 
 to fill volumes." 
 
 Towards the middle of the ninth century the 
 Eoman Empire, invaded by the barbarians and torn 
 asunder by heresy, became ruined on all sides. The 
 arts in those days found no other asylums but such 
 as the Christians and the orthodox Europeans granted 
 to them. Theodosius exempted painters, in virtue 
 of a special law, from paying tributes and taxes. 
 The Fathers of the Church are loud in their 
 eulogiums on painting. St. Gregory expresses him- 
 self on this subject in a manner worthy of remark : 
 " Vidi scepius inscriptionis imaginem, et sine lacrymis 
 transire non potui, cum, tarn efficaciter, ob oculos poneret 
 historiam;" the Saint refers to a picture which re- 
 presented the sacrifice of Abraham. St. Basil goes 
 further, for he says that painters "effect as much with 
 their pictures as orators do by their eloquence ". A monk, 
 called Methodius, in the eighteenth century painted 
 
 1 Chateaubriand.
 
 136 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 a picture of the Last Judgment, which was the cause 
 of converting to the faith Bogoris, the King of the 
 Bulgarians. The Priests had collected together in 
 the College of the Ortodoxia in Constantinople the 
 most beautiful library in the world and masterpieces 
 of the Arts, among the latter being the Venus of 
 Praxiteles, facts which at least prove that the foun- 
 ders of Catholic worship were not barbarians, destitute 
 of taste, and given up to absurd superstitions. 
 
 This college was demolished by the Iconoclast 
 Emperor, and its professors were burnt alive ; and it 
 was only at the grave risk of their lives that the 
 Christians succeeded in saving the skin of the Dragon, 
 measuring 120 feet, upon which had been written in 
 letters of gold the works of Homer. The paintings 
 in the churches became the prey of the flames. 
 Some senseless, furious heretics, like the Puritans 
 of Cromwell, destroyed by sword-thrusts the Mosaics 
 of the Church of Our Lady of Constantinople and of 
 the Palace of Blaquernas. Persecution reached such 
 a height that it extended to the artists themselves, 
 and they were prohibited, under pain of death, from 
 continuing their pious labours. 
 
 The monk Lazaro had the courage to be a martyr 
 to his art. In vain did Theophilus order that his 
 hands be burnt, so that he should be prevented from 
 handling the pencil. Concealed in the subterranean 
 parts of the Church of St. John the Baptist, he 
 painted with mutilated fingers the great Saint, 
 whose suppliant he was, and truly worthy was he 
 of becoming the " Patron of Painters," and of being
 
 ELEVENTH ARTICLE. 137 
 
 acknowledged as such by that sublime family which 
 the ardent breath of genius raises above the common 
 crowd. 
 
 In the Empire of the Goths and of the Lombards 
 Christianity continued to stretch out to talent her 
 protecting hand. These efforts are more especially 
 perceptible in the churches constructed by Theodori- 
 cus, Luitprand and Didier. The same spirit of 
 Eeligion inspired Charlemagne, since the Church of 
 the Apostles raised by order of this great Prince in 
 Florence is held even at the present day as a monu- 
 ment of sufficient merit. 
 
 Lastly, towards the end of the thirteenth century 
 the Christian Eeligion, after having wrestled with 
 thousands of obstacles, returned in triumph to bring 
 back to the world the Choir of the Muses. All things 
 worked together for the welfare and prosperity of 
 the churches, sheltered as they were by the protec- 
 tion of the Sovereign Pontiffs and of pious Princes. 
 Bouchet, a Greek by origin, was the first architect ; 
 Nicholas the first sculptor, and Cimabue the first 
 painter, who exhumed out of the ruins of Greece and 
 Borne rare and interesting antiquities. Since that 
 time the arts progressed in the hands of various 
 masters until the pontificate of Pope Leo X., in 
 whose reign shone, like two bright constellations, 
 Raffaelle and Michael Angelo. 
 
 Why should we hesitate to say it ? During this 
 epoch of such sad memories a disastrous revolution 
 made the Fine Arts fall away to a very consider- 
 able degree. Painting descended from the celestial
 
 138 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 regions to which it had been elevated by our Holy 
 Faith, and deteriorated into a gross materialism. 
 Various schools were founded in Germany, Flanders, 
 France, Italy and Spain. On mentioning the three 
 last we cannot resist recording with pride the 
 names of Murillo, Velasquez, Zurbaran, Claude 
 Lorrain and many others, who, under the protection 
 of Catholicism, have superseded other painters, and 
 shone with eclat and greatness. 
 
 Unbelievers and nationalists ! you ought, like 
 we do, to acknowledge that wherever the Catholic 
 Keligion is founded and propagated the Fine Arts 
 always succeed and flourish. 
 
 Although it may be hard for you to hear this, 
 historic truth is always above vain reason. Ac- 
 knowledge, then, your own littleness and misery. 
 
 Artists ! fly from those false prophets who are 
 constantly announcing that our dissolution is near 
 at hand. Consult them, if it so pleases you; you 
 will not find in their perverse doctrines anything 
 but an universal scepticism. Doubt can never 
 strengthen the pencil in your hand, nor will it ever 
 produce noteworthy works.
 
 TWELFTH AKTICLE. 

 
 TWELFTH AETICLE. 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Sculpture. 
 
 IT is not my aim to develop this subject fundamen- 
 tally, because all that we have advanced in respect 
 to painting may very well be applied, in a general 
 sense, to sculpture. We shall, therefore, not repeat, 
 but will add some considerations, and a few fresh 
 proofs, in order to confirm the great influence which 
 Catholicism exerts on this beautiful art. 
 
 It is an evident fact (and one which none may 
 doubt) that the first and most beautiful form which 
 the universe ever beheld was that creation which 
 came so perfect from the Hands of the Supreme 
 Artificer when, in Paradise, He said : " Let us make 
 man to our image and likeness "- 1 
 
 It is easy to understand the great influence which 
 our Holy Eeligion exercises over the beautiful art of 
 sculpture. It is indubitable that the interior of a 
 Temple which is appropriated to the ceremonies of 
 Religion is the most favourable medium for the 
 development and display of sculpture. In the 
 spaces left vacant by the pictures, on the tops of 
 the columns, around the large window, upon the 
 
 1 Gen. i.
 
 142 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 numerous cross-bars, so well calculated and disposed 
 for sustaining them, and which cause such a variety 
 in their beautiful shapes, within the highest parts 
 of the vaulted arches, what magnificent statues and 
 sculptures of all descriptions do we not meet with ! 
 On one spot, perchance, we find garlands of flowers 
 that Faith wove together to offer to the Author of 
 Nature. By their side we behold vanishing forms, 
 the emblems of our virtues, and which, as though 
 they had been rays from the Sun of Justice, wherein 
 they had their birth, soar up to heaven, sustained 
 by the hands of Angels. There are also seen horrible 
 forms ; these latter are representations of our vices. 
 As the immediate and inevitable consequence of 
 these is to humble the intellectual creature, by 
 placing him on a level with the inferior beings, 
 Christian art has had the happy thought of repre- 
 senting them to us under the form of realistic or 
 fantastic animals. They stand there in order to 
 inspire men with horror, who debase their high 
 dignity by delivering themselves up to the follies of 
 the world. At the head of this troop of degraded 
 beings is found Satan, the type of evil and of suffer- 
 ing. We see him flung on the ground, creeping 
 along the earth like a vanquished enemy, and fre- 
 quently is he represented under most loathsome 
 forms. All these symbols of horror and of degrada- 
 tion are executed to perfection. This contrast, so 
 great between physical beauty and moral decadence, 
 produces astonishment, and suggests motives of deep 
 meditation.
 
 TWELFTH ARTICLE. 143 
 
 The work of sculpture by degrees becomes more 
 salient from the walls, where it had commenced, 
 and becoming more developed, attains those admir- 
 able proportions which God has conferred on the 
 human form. Beneath this form, with something 
 celestial to enhance it, we see the holy Apostles still 
 announcing to us in the Temple the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ. Close to the Baptismal Font stands the 
 Angel of Mercy, that Blessed Spirit who invisibly 
 directs and opens the current of grace to flow over 
 the souls stained by original sin. By the side of the 
 Tabernacle is seen the Angels of Recollection and of 
 Prayer. Behind the Altar we find the Queen of 
 Angels, Mary most holy. When we approach to 
 this Divine Mother we see her so beautiful, as she 
 opens her arms, inviting us, with her ineffable smile, 
 to place ourselves in all confidence under her care 
 and protection. 
 
 It is often found necessary to place delicate paint- 
 ings in the interior of Temples, but this is not neces- 
 sarily the case with sculpture, for it can defy the 
 inclemency of the seasons. 
 
 Let us leave the Temple and we shall still find 
 this art enhancing the vast edifice, working, ani- 
 mating, as it were, and extending to all the inert 
 parts of that building movement, life, thought itself. 
 Here we see the Creation ; further on the Patriarchs 
 and the Prophets ; in another spot we find the Birth 
 of Jesus Christ, and all the events of His exemplary 
 Life and Sacred Passion. The imposing spectacle 
 of the Last Judgment also presents itself to our 

 
 144 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 gaze, and incites us to implore the Divine Mercy in 
 this hallowed edifice wherein He has fixed His per- 
 manent Abode. All things are admirably blended 
 together ; all things are arranged with order and 
 intelligence. In another part of the noble Basilica 
 is found represented the history of Man and the 
 history of Eeligion, engraved by art upon the Temple 
 of the Lord to attract the most enthusiastic hearts, 
 and inspire in them greater respect and veneration. 
 
 There is also a sacred spot which is intimately 
 united with the Temple, if not by its actual and 
 material nearness, at least by a moral proximity ; it 
 is the last resting-place of our beloved dead. In 
 every place, and at all times, man has always be- 
 lieved in the existence of a new life after death ; in 
 all lands and in every age, even among savage tribes, 
 it has been the custom to gather together and pre- 
 serve the mortal remains of the dear departed ones 
 with all solicitude. 
 
 But it is the Holy Catholic Eeligion which en- 
 graves in the deepest manner on the soul the belief 
 in immortality ; it is she who by her beliefs, her 
 expiatory ceremonies, brings to the mind of the 
 living the remembrance of the dead. From this 
 proceeds, especially among ourselves, the cultus of 
 the sepulchres. The village cemetery perhaps pro- 
 duces in the heart the deepest emotion. In this 
 spot Nature, ever young and fertile, hastens, like a 
 careful mother, to cast her mantle of verdure and 
 flowers over the objects of our sorrow. We may 
 observe only some wooden crosses, and in their
 
 TWELFTH ARTICLE. 145 
 
 midst, perchance, rises a larger cross, which marks 
 the grave of the pastor of that village, who seems 
 to be watching in death, as he did in life, over 
 the flock confided to his care, awaiting the general 
 resurrection. 
 
 In the burial places of the cities there is not that 
 simplicity of Nature, that equality of death, which 
 makes the heart feel restful when weary of the 
 fatigues and of the injustices and trials of life ; but, 
 on the other hand, what admirable works have been 
 effected by sculptors. The works of sculpture have 
 something of death and of life in them ; it is Chris- 
 tianity in the field of repose. 
 
 Let us look at the sepulchres of every shape and 
 form of grandeur clustering around the Cross, which 
 still spreads its Arms and shelters them with its 
 shadow ! How often do we see a mother, in deepest 
 grief, placing lovely flowers on the remains of a loved 
 daughter. Close to her is a boy of tender years, 
 who yet ignores the mysteries of death, as he also 
 ignores those of life, and who plays with the very 
 flowers cast upon his sister's grave. A little further 
 on we meet two sisters who are inconsolable at the 
 death of a brother who was all their felicity. With 
 eyes bent towards Christ nailed on the Cross, they 
 seem to be saying to Him, as on another occasion 
 the sisters of Lazarus did say to Him : " Lord, if 
 you had favourably listened to our prayer, our 
 brother would not have died". And the Divine 
 Master, always merciful, replies to them in the 
 consoling, expressive words of the Catholic Faith : 
 
 10
 
 146 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 " Your brother is not dead : he sleeps ! " In effect, 
 Death is not a horrible, dismal Spectre, such as 
 Paganism has conceived it to be ; it is a Sleep, 
 beautified by the Divinity. Peace reigns over that 
 transparent, immovable form. That body, on the 
 verge of crumbling to dust, seems but to be awaiting, 
 with impatience, the sound of the trumpet to quit 
 this miserable dust, and fly to the great Tribunal of 
 the Sovereign Judge of the living and of the dead, 
 from whence souls that are pure are carried to enjoy 
 eternal bliss.
 
 THIRTEENTH ARTICLE.
 
 THIRTEENTH AETICLE. 
 
 Influence of Catholicism on Architecture. 
 
 THE origin of the beautiful art of architecture dates 
 as far back as the first ages of the world. However, 
 on treating of this art we shall, for the sake of 
 brevity, commence with the architecture of the 
 Romans. 
 
 In their first epochs of glory the Romans did not 
 greatly shine in the culture of the Fine Arts. During 
 that time, which we may call primitive, other affairs 
 occupied their minds. 
 
 Their principal enterprise was the founding of the 
 Eternal City, and the subjecting to their dominion 
 all the nations on the face of the globe ; thus from 
 so remote a period preparing the vast comprehensive 
 unity of the Christian family, which our Sacred and 
 Divine Religion was to consummate, and to which 
 we owe so much greatness. 
 
 The roads which the Romans formed ; the aque- 
 ducts, the bridges erected for the service of their 
 armies and to facilitate in every way their victorious 
 march ; the lofty columns, the triumphal arches 
 under which all the conquered nations marched who 
 were unable to proceed to bend their knee before the 
 capitol ; their theatres, their palaces and porticos ;
 
 150 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 the sumptuous villas to which the wealthy Eomans 
 betook themselves when fatigued with the triumphs 
 and conquests effected, in order to rest and give 
 themselves up to idleness and pleasure ; the Basilicas, 
 that class of Temples wherein the Koman magis- 
 trature, those " Gods of the Earth," interpreted the 
 law and distributed justice such was the architecture 
 that chiefly occupied their time. Generally speaking, 
 there was not much delicacy or elegance in these 
 erections, but, on the other hand, there was a solidity 
 which was above all doubt. Participating, in a cer- 
 tain sense, of the destinies of the Eternal City, these 
 monuments appear to possess an imperishable dura- 
 bility. 
 
 Uncertain of the true Faith, the Eomans, in place 
 of dedicating themselves to religious architecture, 
 allowed each vanquished city its Religion and its 
 Temples. They nevertheless erected many sacred 
 edifices, and as they had adopted the religion and 
 philosophical conceptions of the Greeks, they like- 
 wise adopted their architecture, but in this they 
 effected some important modifications. In the first 
 place, they raised it to noble and bold proportions 
 so great was their ideal of the Majesty of the 
 Imperial City. This modification consisted either 
 in altering the elegance, the exquisite delicacy, the 
 harmony of the Greek Temple, or else in imparting to 
 it a grandeur and dignity well worthy of its destiny. 
 
 With the object of communicating to their religious 
 edifices something of the stability which they con- 
 ceived they had on earth, they introduced the dome
 
 THIRTEENTH ARTICLE. 151 
 
 so necessary in their vast constructions. This 
 vault or dome did not possess the elegance of the 
 Greek " Columniata," nor of its architrave ; but they 
 sought to imitate the vaulting of the heavens ; and 
 thus it came about that this was the origin of new 
 and beautiful designs in architecture, and was the 
 first example of the sublime cupola of our immense 
 and splendid Basilicas. 
 
 The first Christian assemblies were held in secret. 
 The Faithful, persecuted as they were by the blind- 
 ness of the Jews, by the pride of philosophers and 
 by the policy of the Caesars, performed their religious 
 rites, in the first instance, within the interior of their 
 dwellings. As the members of this Christian com- 
 munity began to increase considerably, wishing to 
 impart to the cultus some solemnity, yet compelled 
 on the other hand to fly from their cruel enemies, 
 they took refuge in the interior of the Catacombs. 
 Some portions of the sculptures which subsequently 
 were discovered clearly demonstrate that the mys- 
 teries of our Holy Catholic Faith had been celebrated 
 in these subterranean places. After three centuries 
 of bloody persecution, Constantine restored peace 
 to the Church of Christ. With the assistance of 
 this powerful Protector, and by the effects of that 
 Divine virtue which always exists in the Church, 
 the Christian Eeligion began to extend to the con- 
 fines of the Empire with extraordinary rapidity. 
 Then the Church had to assign to her children for 
 Divine Worship buildings which had been previously 
 used for other rites, but which were modified and
 
 152 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 adapted to the requirements of our Holy Eeligion. 
 After the modifications had been carried out, these 
 transformed Temples were made to serve as models 
 for the first churches erected by Faith, thus making 
 the architecture of the Pagans of use to the Christian 
 worship. Never have these primitive models been 
 lost sight of altogether, although they departed some- 
 what from them. From the successive changes 
 which took place there originated the Roman Archi- 
 tecture, so well adapted to the grave and simple 
 character of Christianity in its first ages. The 
 " pleno-ar co- Romano " becomes joined to the Greek, 
 considerably altered in its proportions. Sustained 
 by its own solidity, sheltered beneath the powerful 
 wings of the Catholic Eeligion, essentially conserva- 
 tive, the first monuments of the Faith of our Fathers 
 are found still in considerable numbers even in our 
 land. 1 Time has mutilated them, it is true, but it 
 has also been able to impart to them more than 
 it has taken away, because time has cast over them 
 that peculiar shade, the tint of ages, which imparts 
 to these monuments a grand beauty. 
 
 However noteworthy may have been this first 
 fruit of our architecture, it cannot yet be called the 
 complete manifestation of the Christian idea, which 
 became fully developed at the period dating from 
 the twelfth to the fifteenth century in the Church, 
 and which is improperly called Gothic. All the parts 
 of the building develop in a surprising manner ; the 
 
 1 The author here refers to Spain.
 
 THIRTEENTH ARTICLE. 153 
 
 edifice extends and becomes elevated. The world 
 would fain say that some celestial intelligence had 
 become incarnate in the mass to animate it : " mens 
 agitat molem ". From age to age the vault continues 
 to rise ; it rises in an endless way and without bounds. 
 It would seem as though the two parts of which it 
 is composed could never have united together had 
 it not been necessary to shelter the faithful, who, to 
 their sorrow, were still to be retained on earth. But, 
 nevertheless, the two arches of the vault are discovered 
 at a great height, and after becoming united they 
 seem to still wish to soar higher, and become elevated, 
 as though drawn by a celestial loadstone towards 
 that magnificent vault which God Himself had 
 formed. 
 
 Yet when the edifice is roofed in the artist does 
 not rest here. Leaping step by step he raises towers 
 and spires, as though he wished his work not to 
 belong to earth ; it is the counterpart of the Tower 
 of Babel. When raising the Tower of Babel, rebel 
 man intended to liberate himself from the just 
 punishments of a vengeful God, while the faithful 
 Christian, on elevating the Towers of the Catholic 
 building, assumes to approach to a God Who is mer- 
 ciful and Who rewards. Those weather-vanes and 
 spires and turrets impart to our cities, as well as to 
 our fields, a grand religious character never possessed 
 by the buildings of antiquity. Elevated above all 
 earthly objects, the bell tower is like to the finger 
 of Religion, our Divine Mother, who lovingly reminds 
 her numerous children of the great and excellent
 
 154 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 thoughts of eternity, and the tranquil, smooth road 
 to heaven. 
 
 When, after, perchance, taking a long ramble across 
 country, we approach a spot were men have fixed 
 their residence be it near a wooded part, or on the 
 declivity of a hill the church is the first object which 
 attracts our attention. What thoughts, so full of 
 comfort, are awakened at that instant within our 
 hearts, troubled, perchance, as they may be at the 
 time, by the tumult of the passions ! Here is where 
 the sacred bell lifts its pious accents towards heaven 
 on our behalf. Its mysterious voice proclaims to 
 the Holy Church our spiritual regeneration. 
 
 Yet this was not sufficient to give to the grand 
 and sumptuous building that lightness and elevation 
 which the Christian conception demanded. 
 
 On the exterior, as in the interior of the Temple, 
 among the columns of the nave and the choir, above 
 the principal facade, on all sides, up in the towers, 
 the most elevated portions of the building, in all 
 places, even those where the most penetrative eye 
 could scarcely reach, the Catholic artist has repre- 
 sented, with admirable profusion, men and animals, 
 flowers and plants, and countless creatures of all 
 kinds, in imitation of the Supreme Creator, Who 
 has peopled, with beings of all descriptions, the 
 different parts of the universal globe. 
 
 Christian architecture suffered a new and impor- 
 tant modification at the epoch which was called the 
 Benaissance. The faith of the first ages, that lively 
 faith, ardent, and which, as though it had been
 
 THIRTEENTH ARTICLE. 155 
 
 banished from the earth, was impatient of reaching 
 heaven in order to carry to God all that belonged 
 to Him that faith, we repeat, became weakened in 
 a considerable manner. On the one hand, the works 
 of antiquity were studied with great zest ; and, as 
 they had been for a long time despised, the study 
 excited a universal admiration. On the other hand, 
 faith, which was still rooted in the depths of souls, 
 did not permit of so sudden a change. An alliance 
 was formed between Ancient and Christian art. 
 The elegant and pure lines of the Greek Temple 
 were imitated, but at the same time the rich and 
 varied ornaments of the Gothic Church were pre- 
 served. 
 
 But one thing we must acknowledge. Christian 
 art produced at this epoch very notable works, 
 which we offer to the intelligent in art as new titles 
 of glory. The drawing is most pure and correct ; 
 the execution leaves nothing to be desired ; the 
 vault, on widening, imitates better than the diagonal 
 arch the immense vault of the heavens. But the 
 Catholic edifice has lost much in other ways. That 
 half light, so favourable to prayer and meditation, 
 appears to have become dispelled. That rich variety 
 in all the productions of nature disappears day by 
 day. Those high, delicate columns, crowned with 
 capitals which are so beautifully varied, and placed 
 in profusion in the Temple, in the manner of trees 
 planted in a garden those columns have been put 
 more apart and lower, and let us say it, they remind 
 us overmuch, by reason of its similarity, of the
 
 156 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 uniform work of man. The curves of vaults have 
 been arrested, and in place of rising in an endless 
 manner, and of elevating the thoughts and desires of 
 men, incline towards the earth. Placed upon that 
 inclined plane art decreases rapidly, and the Greek 
 Temple takes the place, in a certain manner, of the 
 Christian Temple. 
 
 Thus it is evident that, when once the cultus is 
 provided for and assured, architecture will always 
 work what it judges best. Statues and windows, 
 flowers, arabesques, cornices and capitals and bass- 
 reliefs all things does architecture combine har- 
 moniously, according to the logarithm which is 
 appropriate. From this results the prodigious 
 variety of magnificent buildings, in the construction 
 of which we find so much order, symmetry and 
 beauty. The trunk of the tree is immutable, its 
 branches and foliage are alone diverse and varied. 
 
 Should incredulity ask us, " Who gave the plan 
 for the creation of such marvellous Basilicas ? " our 
 answer would be a very easy one. It is Faith, 
 assisted by Genius ; it is those Bishops and Priests, 
 all those men who are powerful on account of 
 their great intelligences, and more powerful still on 
 account of their extraordinary zeal and their religious 
 enthusiasm, those who have formed our modern 
 societies, like to the bees, that work and form their 
 hives. Eetired from the busy throng of men, and 
 dwelling in the most arid deserts and in the vastest 
 solitudes, these men have studied and profoundly 
 meditated on the teaching of our most Sacred
 
 THIRTEENTH ARTICLE. 157 
 
 Eeligion; they have contemplated for a long time, 
 through the Divine prism of the Faith, all the 
 marvels of Nature ; and they have known also how 
 to cast, from time to time, an observant look upon 
 the productions of ancient art, whose beautiful 
 deposits they alone possessed. When these different 
 elements had become combined by reflection and 
 elevated by inspiration, then there came forth, by 
 degrees, those notable forms which many believe 
 had been brought to earth by supernatural and 
 Divine intelligences. 
 
 The earth is not for the Christian what it was for 
 the Greeks, who ever yearned for the pleasures of this 
 world, towards which they were drawn by a religion 
 of delights. To the Christian it is a place of expia- 
 tion and of trial, where he is found weeping and 
 suffering, until, forsaking his perishable body, his 
 soul may go forth to the peaceful and sweet abode 
 of eternal felicity. Behold the reason why man, 
 here below, views this earth as though enveloped in 
 an obscure mist like to a funereal crape. Man can- 
 not tell how often the arm of Divine Justice has 
 been laid upon him ; nevertheless, the memory of a 
 terrible punishment will never be effaced from the 
 mind. I mean the Universal Deluge. The just man 
 Noe, the only one, the hope of the human race, was 
 alone preserved in the Ark, together with all his 
 family. The perversity of the new world was not 
 long before it equalled the perversity of the old world, 
 and a punishment yet more heavy, in truth an eternal 
 condemnation, threatened him, until the Son of God
 
 158 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 came to redeem and to save us, and to reconcile erring 
 man to His Heavenly Father. The Cross is the 
 means whereby He has fully made satisfaction to 
 the Eternal Father. The infinite merits of His 
 Precious Blood are daily applied to us. Although 
 He superabundantly satisfied the Divine Justice for 
 our sins, yet He also wished that the merits of the 
 Holiest Virgin should be applied to us. Hence all 
 these magnificent and sublime ideas are found en- 
 closed, so to say, and materially realised in our 
 beautiful Christian Basilicas, which are so many 
 more titles of glory that are added to the innumerable 
 number with which our holy Catholic Faith has 
 enriched us. 
 
 When we penetrate within this vast circuit, we 
 breathe an atmosphere so pure and so tranquil that 
 it calms our senses and deadens our passions. The 
 paleness of the evening, the shadows which fall from 
 the numerous high pillars, remind us of the fading 
 away of nature, obscured after sin. Life and death, 
 hope and fear, holy joys and the mysterious sadness 
 of the soul, form in this sacred spot, by their indefin- 
 able tones, an atmosphere which leads us away from 
 all terrestrial objects, and raises our minds to the 
 contemplation of heavenly mysteries, symbolised by 
 these material sculptures. 
 
 We recognise above our heads the image of the 
 ancient Ark which saved man at the time of the 
 Deluge, as well as that of the Spiritual Ark which 
 so happily carries us over the waves of this world, 
 and "out of which there is no salvation". The two
 
 THIRTEENTH ARTICLE. 159 
 
 doors, on crossing each other, remind us of the precious 
 instrument of Eternal Health. Those saints, those 
 celestial spirits who incessantly plead for us, rever- 
 ently placed around the tabernacle ; those altars, so 
 worthy of veneration, and which seem to turn towards 
 the central spot wherein resides, hidden from our 
 view, the All-powerful and our Eedeemer; all in 
 that holy fane impels us to remember the Christian 
 Doctrine in relation to the regeneration of the human 
 race stained by sin. 
 
 We behold the majestic and magnificent procession 
 as it wends its way along, in all recollection, preceded 
 always by the Cross, to which our Saviour gave the 
 power and the virtue of reparation. When it leaves 
 the sanctuary the priest proceeds along the principal 
 nave ; in all the parts of the building does he pene- 
 trate, inviting the faithful and the celestial choirs 
 to join in his prayers ; then he returns to consum- 
 mate the sacrifice on the spot whereon the Victim 
 will descend, and which gives to the Temple its form, 
 its virtue, and its glory. 
 
 It is an indubitable fact that Catholic architecture 
 had derived much profit from the intelligent works 
 of former times, and that the admixture of the various 
 styles of ancient eras had entered into architecture as 
 an important element in the erection of our churches. 
 In them we actually recognise the Koman vault 
 intimately joined to the Greek "Collum". Each 
 style has, perchance, lost somewhat of its primitive 
 beauty, but the whole has gained by the fulness of 
 the effect, by this vague sentiment of the Infinite,
 
 160 THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM. 
 
 which it ever pleases us to experience in the presence 
 of God. We also observe and avow the hidden Taber- 
 nacle of the Temple of Solomon, and the Cherubim 
 prostrated before the sweet Majesty of the Holy of 
 Holies. The subterranean temples of Egypt and 
 of India are represented by the shadowy, sad crypts 
 which are sometimes seen in churches. These 
 crypts remind us also of the Catacombs, in which 
 the primitive Church celebrated the holy mysteries. 
 Beautiful and wholesome thought ! This Divine 
 Mother and indefatigable Teacher of Truth says to 
 the Christian faithful, as she does to the society of 
 the whole human race : " Remember that you pro- 
 ceed from the earth, that the splendour which you 
 enjoy in this exile is none else but a glory that is lent 
 to you, and which will disappear when the realities 
 of the invisible world shall replace the vanities and 
 illusions of this miserable, perishable earth ". 
 
 Some, perchance, will ask us anew : "From whence, 
 from what treasury was the wealth drawn for the 
 acquisition of so many materials?" "From the 
 inexhaustible treasury of the Catholic Faith ! " we 
 shall reply with joy and enthusiasm. 
 
 "What hands have gathered them together, to 
 prepare them and to work them and to raise them 
 up?" And we shall reply again: "Faith, holding 
 as her staff and mainstay the powerful arm of the 
 Christian people! " 
 
 THE END. 
 Laus Deo Semper.
 
 UCS8 LIBRARY
 
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