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CATHOLIC RELIGION
CATHOLIC RELIGION
A STATEMENT OF CHRISTIAN
TEACHING AND HISTORY
BY
CHARLES ALFRED MARTIN
MEMBER OF THE CLEVELAND APOfiTOLATB
Author of •♦Cana," "Follow Me," Etc.
POPULAR EDITION
B. HERDER BOOK CO.
17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo.
AND
68 Great Russkli, St., London, W. C.
1919
2JIHIL 0B8TAT
Sii. Ludovicif die 26, Junii, 1913
F. G. Holweck,
Censor Librorum,
IMPRIMATUR
Sti, Ludovici, die 28. Junii, 1913
»{* Joannes J. Glennon.
Archiepiscopus
Sti* Ludovici
^OAN STACK
Copyright, 1913,
by
Joseph Oummersbach
All rights reserved
Made in U, S, A,
/^3^
I1M
INTRODUCTION
The story is told of the late Santicel Stehman TTalde-
mafif the distinguished naturalist of the University
of Pennsylvania and founder of the National Academy
of Sciences, that when asked hy his friends what
brought him to the threshold of the church, he would
reply: — '^Bugs!"
Then with good nature he answered their astonish-
ment hy explaining that even the smallest insect pre-
served in his cabinets, possessed the organism neces-
sary for its proper actiinties. Head and members he
always found working together as one body. His
science thus led him to expect that if a church — as the
embodiment of religion, were really part of the divine
plan, and so had its place in the world, that church
would be equipped by the common Creator, tvith the
organization and means of action proper to it, as
carefully at least, as is the beetle of a day. What his
hypothesis demanded, Professor Haldeman believed
he found realized in Catholic Christianity.
Men are commonly enough impressed by the social
organization of the church. A society of almost 300
millions of human beings, natives of every race and
land, speaking a hundred different languages and
dialects, boiind together by no political ties or material
poiver or interests, ** Greek and barbanan, black and
white, bond and free," a human Babel otherwise, —
yet standing as a unit in their faith, working out the
same philosophy of life in every possible condition
of society, a brotherhood of intellectual conviction and
iii
iv INTRODUCTION
'moral determination, the hisJwps reaching every lowly
member through the parish priests and uniting all
through their union ivith the Bishop of Rome, the
church has endured for 1900 years, an institution
unique in human history.
No less remarkable than the external solidarity of
the church, aiid indeed the secret of it, is her consist-
ent and coherent system of teachings and practices.
From the mighty moral principles that reach down to
the depths of human nature, to the symbolic regalia
of her holiday pageants, all the church's doctrines of
faith and precepts of morals and forms of^ worship are
related to a few great truths, and are, in their time
and place, the natural and proper expression of those
truths.
Scientists as well as poets have come to catch the
music of the spheres. We know that in nature noth'
ing is without meaning or out of place. If the tiny
violet is not indispensable, at least it has grown nat-
urally from its sod. Whatever is real and living in
the physical world, we find to belong to the universal
sum of its reality and life, and to be related to all
things else. We observe this fact the more we appre-
ciate the revelations of scientific research presenting
to our eyes multitudinous life hidden till now from the
foundations of the earth, and to our mind the infinite
exactness of the laws of nature, in their interdepend-
ence and ramifications uniting the whole cosmos into
one throbbing life, as it loere, ivith all its unnumbered
members working together for the common good.
So in religion the truths of faith and the acts of
worship which spring from them, are properly co-
ordinated and subordinated members of an organic
whole. They are, from their point of view the ex-
pression, and in their province the law, of the consti-
tuted order of things. We all of us are morally
related to each other and to God, Religion is the
INTRODUCTION v
destimj of man in his union with God who is Truth
and Love and Life Eternal.
The present little ivork attempts to give in a single
volume what might he called a hird's-ej/e-view of re-
ligion. In a popular way, the author endeavors to
review the great facts of religion, as they have de-
veloped binder *Uhe providence of God and the folly
of man'': and to present them in their relation to each
other and to human life. In suggesting an introduc-
tion to the greatest subject that has occupied the
human mind, he desires to write, as much as possible,
in the language of daily experience and unth a view
to pra^ctical needs. The exhaustive treatment of the
subjects and their more technical phrasing are left to
the books of the philosopher and the theologian, the
historian and the mystic, which arc mentioned in the
Bibliography.
The first part of the work briefly touches upo^i the
religious needs and ideals of humanity — often vestiges
of great truths that suggest a lost inheiitance of
knowledge — perceived by poets and philosophers and
expressed by them beautifully but darkly, without
the surcness and fullness of revealed truth: and so
leads up to the historical facts of the Incantation of
Jesus Christ and the supernatural revelation perfected
in Ilim. .
The second part deals with the Christian Church,
its origin and authority as a society and a teacher, and
its relation to the Bible and to the religion of Christ.
The third part deals with the practical and ultimate
work of the Church, in the Sacraments that consecrate
the several stages of the Christian's life.
The fourth part presents a perspective sketch of the
history of^ the Christian religion from its origin to the
present time.
The wise reader will not expect that which is im-
possible. The book of the biologist is not life. It
vi INTRODUCTION
mai/ analyze certain conditions of life and ohserve cer-
tain functions and may call a nicer attention to the
life that is all around us. Meantime life is more than
the hook. The scientist knows only too well, how ex-
ternal are his observations, and how almost completely
the mystery — life, ever eludes his most delicate touch.
So religion is more than the words that are written
ahout it. The apologist must he content, digging
down through human nature and history, to touch the
solid foundations of religion, to record the history of
its expression in words and deeds, to trace the origin
of its organized activities, to ohserve its effects on the
individual and society, and to analyze somewhat their
causes. All this is good and use fid and interesting as
is the lahor of the hiologist. The theologian knows
that his words do not exhaust the mystery. Yet the
reader may learn much of the power which makes the
pious mother seem as an angel in her home.
CONTENTS
Iiitro<liif-^-ion. .
PAOB
iii
1.
PART ONE
Foundations of Religion
CHAPTER I.
Man.
The Riddle of Life
The Answer
1
a
3.
4
CHAPTER II.
God.
No Man an Athoisi
He who Is
17
23
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
CHAPTER III.
Jesus Christ
What Men Think of Christ
What Christ Says of Himself . .
Dilemma of Unbelievers
The Resurrection
A Standing Miracl.-
The God-Man
R68um6 of Part One
33
38
41
43
46
48
50
PART TWO
The Christian Church
CHAPTER IV.
The Church as a Society.
12. The Church Founded bv Christ 53
13. The Head of the Church 67
14. Christ Established the Papacy with Peter as the
First Pope 59
CONTENTS
PAGE
15. The Primacy of Peter in the First Days of the
Church ; 65
16. St. Peter in Rome 67
17. The Successors of Peter 73
18. The Hierarchy of the Church 77
19. List of the Popes 80
CHAPTER V.
The Church as a Teacher.
20. Faith 84
21. Creeds and Deeds 88
22. Christ's Message and His Messengers 91
23. The Church Our Infallible Guide »4
24. The Infallibility of the Pope 97
26. Definition of Infallibility 99
26. The Roman Court 104
27. The Church's Councils 107
CHAPTER VI.
The Church and the Bible.
28. The Book of Books 109
29. The Book and the Church 112
30. The Rule of Faith 116
31. The Canon of Inspired Books 123
32. The Church Preserved the Bible 127
CHAPTER VII.
Science and Religion.
33. Science and the Bible 136
34. Evolution 139
35. Miracles 142
36. List of Catholic Scientists 146
CHAPTER VIII.
ST. The Fathers of the Church 152
38. R48um6 of Part Two 166
CONTENTS
PART THREE
The Christian Life
CHAPTER IX.
Christ Our High Priest. paqb
39. The Seven Sacraments 160
40. Exaltation and Fall 163
41. The Redemption of Christ 167
CHAPTER X.
42. Baptism— The Christian's Birth 173
CHAPTER XI.
43. Confirmation — The Christian Soldier IM
CHAPTER XII.
The Holy Eucharist— The Christian Worship.
44. The Christian's Day of Rest 186
45. Christ's Presence in the Eucharist . . 187
46. The Sacrifice of the Mass 194
47. The Sacrament of the Altar 198
48. The Liturgy of the Mass 201
49. Latin and Greek in the Liturgy . 207
50. Catholic Ceremonies and SacrameutuU 209
61. Prayer ^ 216
CHAPTER XIII.
Confession — The Christian in Sin.
52. Sin and Its Consequences 220
53. Confession and Pardon of Sin 226
54. A Peep Into the Confessional 231
55. Objections to Confession Answered 236
56. Indulgences 242
CHAPTER XIV.
Holy Orders — The Christian Priesthood.
57. The Sacrament of Holy Orders 250
58. Clerical Celibacy 253
59. The Religious Orders and Their Life of Perfection.. 267
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV.
Marriage — The Christian Home. page
60. The Sacrament of Matrimony 265
61. Divorce 269
CHAPTER XVI.
62. Extreme Unction—The Dying Christian 275
CHAPTER XVII.
The Christian's Eternity.
63. The Last Things 281
64. Purgatory and Prayer for the Dead 288
66. The Church Triumphant 296'
66. R6sum6 of Part Three 30&
PART FOUR
The Church in History
67. Need of Historical Perspective 308
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Church and the Pagan Roman Empire.
68. The Roman Empire 310
69. Spread of Christianity 317
70. Persecution and Triumph 320
CHAPTER XIX.
The Migration and Conversion of the Nations.
71. The Migration of the Nations 327
72. The Conversion of the Nations 330
CHAPTER XX.
73. The Church and the Christian Empire 339
CHAPTER XXI.
74. Temporal Power of the Popes 345
CHAPTER XXII.
75. The Crusades 349
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIIT.
76. The Monasteries of the Middle Ages 354
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Culture of the Middle Ages. pack
77. The Book of the Words . 359
78. The Book of the Deeds . . 3G4
79. The Book of the Arts . . .363
CHAPTER XXV.
The Church and Modern Times.
SO. Fruit of a Thousand Years 377
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Reformation.
81. Rise of the Reformation 386
82. Preparing the Way 390
83. Princes Spread the Reformation 396
84. Reformation in England 400
85. Character of the Reformers . 404
86. Reaction 406
87. Trent and the Counter Reform 411
88. The Reformation and Civilization 415
• 89. Did the Reformation Reform the Church?. 424
90. Statistics of Religion 433
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Catholic Church in the United States.
91. The Earliest Americans 436
92. Catholic Colonists and Our Religious Liberty 438
93. Catholics and the Revolution 444
94. Catholics and the Constitution . . 447
95. Catholic Institutions 450
96. Catholic Education 453
97. Catholic Church and Socialism 456
98. Patriots of Peace and War 463
99. R^sum6 of Part Four 469
100. Chart of Historical Data 472
General Index 477
CATHOLIC RELIGION
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
MAN
1. THE RIDDLE OF LIFE.
With all thinking men, the meaning of life has
ever been the ** master knot of human fate.*'
Whether they cut the Gordian knot with the sword
of faith, or like Omar Khayyam, deem its unravel-
ing a hopeless task, it is the problem in which all
are most vitally interested. It forces itself upon
each man with a fresh and personal appeal : and his
answer to this question shapes the principes and
actions of his life.
The history of thought in every age, interests us
for its stffcggling with the eternal problems* of man's
origin and destiny — the whence and whither of our
lives: for its attempts to fix the relation of man to
fellow-man in society, and of the race to the universe
and to God — the how and the why of our actions.
*^The thing,'* says Carlyle, **a man does practically
lay to heart and know for certain concerning his
vital relations to this mysterious universe and his
duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the pri-
mary thing for him, and creatively determines all
1
2 MAN
the rest/' Men have offered many solutions of the
riddle.
Pleasure. The prodigal of each recurring gen-
eration, imagines in the strong lust of youth and
the exuberance of physical life, that he finds his suf-
ficient goal in the keen joy of merely living and in
the gratification of the animal spirits. He sings his
banquet song: Let us crown ourselves with roses
before they wither. Eat, drink and make merry,
for to-morrow we shall die. But the cup of pleasure
has its dregs. The life devoted only to pleasure will
in time weary a man with its very meaningless-
ness ; if its remorse does not even sooner make it un-
bearable; or its excess does not destroy its victim's
power of enjoyment. The cool breeze of the dawn-
ing day blowing upon his fevered brow awakens
the Epicurean to a loathing of his midnight de-
bauch. The prodigal son continues to return from
the pigsty to the father's home.
Materialism. The successful life, says the ma-
terialist, is built not on the dreams of faith, but on
solid facts. It weighs its worth in pounds sterling
and the power that dollars bring. This earth is our
world: we can know no other. And so in the race
of life, he fights his way ruthlessly through the
crowd, elbows back the weak, tramples under foot
women and children, over-reaches his brother in busi-
ness, but ever forges toward the front; tfll at last
with exhausted health and deadened conscience, he
grasps the crown of Mammon, as the evidence and
reward of a successful life.
But are the building of skyscrapers in New York,
the slaughter of hogs in Chicago, the fast-flying lim-
ited express, the million dollar hotel and the billion
dollar navy, the only things v/orth while? Are they
the best things? Do they fully satisfy the favored
few who possess them, or bring hope to the common
THE RIDDLE OP LIFE 3
many who view them from afar and only with a
sense of grievance or envy? Materialism may tri-
umph in. its mechanism and masonry. But over
their din are heard the eternal questions of the soul
still calling for answer. There are moral facts quite
as real as the facts of visible matter. Even Croisus
finds that life is still very short ; that death has lost
none of its terrors ; that reAorse comes to haunt the
sinner and to murder sleep; that the mystery of
eternity and immortality remains for the individual
the one important problem.
Not by Bread Alone. To another class, the ulti-
mate purpose of life reduces itself to a matter of
economics — the struggle for bread. The supply of
food and raiment is the barometer of success or fail-
ure. Brushing aside religion as a primitive and
worn-out wrapping of this one essential truth, agi-
tators teach the toiling masses that happiness will
reign and the purpose of life will be fully attained,
when all are harnessed to regular work and pro-
vided with plenty to eat.
The poor laborer who is the victim of this shallow
sophistry, is no longer buoyed up w4th the thought
that he works, not so much for the mill or the mine,
as for his family and home, and so for the divine
Master who has intrusted that family to his care
and who beholds every silent sacrifice and repays all.
Robbed of the higher ideals that once nourished
their souls and caused them to walk w^ith head erect,
the hewers of wood and drawers of water become
stunted drudges, nearer to the beast of the field,
without faith in God or hope in Heaven. Rendered
desperate by the bewildering inequalities of society,
they cry: **We too believe in facts, and shall grasp
our share of them, though it be over the bodies of
rulers and through streets of blood. ^'
The struggle for social justice is a rightful one.
4 MAN
The laborer is worthy of his hire and that hire
should be a living wage. Food and raiment are ne-
cessities of life. To rob a man of the necessities of
life is a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. To
rob him of his faith in God, to destroy the very life
of his soul, is no less a sin. There is need of nei-
ther sin. Man should live the life of the body and
find his share of happiness in the years of time:
and he should live the life of the soul and prepare
for the fullness of happiness in the years of eter-
nity.
But no social system, however favorable it might
be to the righting of many wrongs and to the amel-
ioration of conditions, can smooth away all social
inequality, or take from us the poor, or transform
human passion, or wipe out sickness and suffering,
or make this earth the heaven which it is not. Those
who have been able to command the products of
the continents, have found that the yearnings of
man are not satisfied even with much more than the
food and raiment of the body. An illustrious prince
was wont to say : * ' If life meant nothing more than
the few years we spend here, it were not worth while
dressing of a morning — it were better to commit sui-
cide at once." The pagan Emperor Septimus Se-
verus addressed his funeral urn: *'I have been all
things and all things are nothing. I nowhere found
content or happiness. Now thou wilt contain him
for whom the world was too little." Solomon, the
wisest of men, when he was king, and had his riches,
and withheld not his heart from any joy, nor kept
his eyes from whatsoever they desired, recorded his
portion as *' vanity of vanities and all is vanity."
Jesus Christ explains the failure of material goods to
satisfy the human heart, in the words: *^Man lives
not by bread alone. "^
» Luke 4. 4.
THE RIDDLE OF LIFE 5
Ambition. To mount the ladder of fame and re-
ceive the plaudits of the world is, for some men, the
breath of life and the purpose dominating all their
actions. But while many run in the race and stir
up the Olympian dust, one receives the prize.
When failure is the harvest, and the ambitious man
sees the trophy which was the one goal of all his
toil, seized by another hand, he begins to realize
that he has served a fickle master. He regrets that
he has spent his best energies in the service of a
thing that is even less than himself. When he sees
names that only yesterday were blazoned on the
banner of honor and held up as the models worthy
of youth's highest aspiration, tumbled down in dis-
grace and dragged in the dust, he asks in his pessi-
mism: *'Is life worth living?'* Perhaps humbly
conscious that he has missed its meaning, he again
ponders the riddle, and admits, with the fallen Wol-
sey: —
"Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my Kinjr, lie would not in mine age,
Have left me naked to mine enemies."
Ambition may succeed and raise one on high
among the lords of the earth. And what then?
The following story is told of St. Philip Neri and a
young student:
Neri: — ''And when these college days are over,
what then?"
Youth: — "I hope, sir, to become a lawyer."
Neri:— ''And what then?"
Youth: — ^"From the bar I hope in time to go up
to the bench and be a judge."
Neri:— "And what then?"
Youth:— "Then I should like to be a senator and
help to make the law^s."
Neri :— ' ' And what then ? ' '
6 . MAN
louth: — *'Then I might be sent as ambassador,
to represent my country at a foreign court."
Neri:— **And what then?"
Youth : — * * Then I fear I would be an old man, so I
would like to live in a villa and enjoy the friends
and honors of my successful career."
Neri:— ''And what then?"
The youth is silent. Then eternity, which meas-
ures our success, not by the titles and possessions we
leave behind us, but by the riches of virtue and grace
which we carry with us as part of ourselves into the
larger life. Eternity teaches the meaning of life in
the test: *'What will it profit a man to gain the
whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul ! ^
Neither fame nor pleasure, neither materialism nor
socialism are the answer to the riddle of life.
2. THE RIDDLE ANSWERED.
The purpose of any object is essentially bound
up with its nature. The one reveals the other. We
must then discover the destiny of man, not in the
passions of pride or avarice or lust that may domi-
nate for a time, occasional individuals or classes,
but in marks that lie so deep in all human nature,
that they persist through all the changes of time
and place and social condition, and assert themselves
in the crises of life, over the whole race.
Aspirations. In our moments of sincerest
thought, we all of us experience the fact that the
best this world can afford us leaves us still soul-
hungry and unsatisfied. Our human nature seeks
for happiness; and the thorn in every earthly rose
mocks us, if there be no happiness that will endure.
The human mind aspires to truth; and is not satis-
fied to grope a little while in its shadows or at best
2Mt. 16, 26.
THE RIDDLE ANSWERED 7
to catch a few broken rays of its pure light. The
human heart is made for love ; and yearns for a love
that must not ever come to weep '*a priestess in the
vaults of death." We crave life ; and in the face of
death still feel the instinct of immortality. We
give our heart's blood for friend or country, con-
vinced that
"Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was ne'er spoken of the soul."
The thought and love which are our better selves
hunger after the infinite truth, the infinite good, the
eternal life. The Infinite is God. ''The very fact,"
says Canon Sheehan, "that we can rise above our
low levels, where one hears only the harsh music
of creatures in a state of transition from reptile to
angel, and dream of loftier things, is a pledge of
their realization." Speaking like one having au-
thority, the little catechism sums up the philosophy
of life in the words: — Man is created to know God
and love Him and serve Him in this world and so
to be happy with Him forever in the world to come.
Soul Immortal. The immortality of the human
soul is a condition, asit is also an evidence, of man's
undying destiny. The conviction "that something
in us never dies," is as universal as the human race.
Like any truth about which all men and all ages
agree, the immortality of the soul dominates minds
with the power and certainty of an instinct. This
is true even though the many may but poorly for-
mulate the terms and reasons of their belief. Emer-
son says: *"We are much better believers in
immortality than we can give grounds for. Its evi-
dence is too subtle or is higher than we can write
down in propositions." Martineau adds, not alto-
8 MAN
gether without fallacy: *'We do not believe in
immortality because we have proved it, but we for-
ever try to prove it because we believe it. ' '
Faith of Race. The sensitive genius of the poets,
reflecting the deepest wells of human nature, has
enriched all literature with records of man's faith
in immortality.
Addison recasts the thought of the Greek philos-
opher :
"Plato, thou reasonest well,
It must be so: . . .
Else — whence this pleasing hope, that fond desire,
Thiu longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror
Of falling into naught? "Why shrinks the soul
Back on itself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis Heaven itself that points out a hereafter
And intimates Eternity to man."
Tennyson records the aspirations of the human
soul:
"My own dim life should teach me this.
That life shall live forevermore;
Else earth is darkness to the core
And dust and ashes all that is."
Byron sings the insistent power of this faith :
"Immortality o'er sweeps
All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peals
Like the eternal thunder of the deep,
Into my ears this truth. Thou livest forever."
Conscience and Immortality. Conscience be-
speaks our immortality. The evildoer is filled with
dread of the punishment of his acts of which no man
but himself has any knowledge. He feels responsi-
ble to a judge beyond all human courts. From this
THE RIDDLE ANSWERED 9
responsibility even deeth is no release. On the con-
trary, terror of the consequences of sin, dread of an
inevitable judgment, are the poison that gives its
worst sting to death. This universal belief in a
judge and sanction dealing with the human soul in
the world to come, proclaims that the soul survives
its separation from the body in death.
Shakespeare again and again describes this real
and mighty, although immaterial power of con-
science as it proves man's immortality. To Hamlet
it proves greater than the weight of woes that tempt
the melancholy Dane to suicide.
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
To die: to sleep:
No more: and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.
To die: to sleep:
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of tinte,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy take.
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear;
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something aftet death.
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have.
Than fly to others that we know not of ?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
10 MAN
Eternal Justice. Of healthier men, conscience
makes not cowards but heroes. Great minds that
contemplate the noble aspirations and splendid pos-
sibilities of man's moral and intellectual nature,
only to be shocked by the shortness and uncertainty
of his life which is borne from the womb to the
tomb, find consolation in their hope of immortality.
The dying Socrates assured his mourning friends,
that they would bury not himself, but his body.
Like a traveler who avails himself of the accommo-
dations of a hotel and passes on to his destination
in the morning, David says of his life: "I am a
stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers
were." Kant argued that a future life is demanded
and postulated by our moral nature, as necessary
for its sanction and development. "If," says Jean
Jacques Rosseau, ^*I had no other proof of the im-
mortality of the soul, than the prosperity of the
wicked and the oppression of the just in the world,
that alone would be enough to convince me. To
explain such a terrible exception to the established
harmony of the Universe, I would be forced to ex-
claim: All cannot end with death: all will be put
into proper order and harmony after death." The
Christian speaks of this life, as a pilgrimage wherein
he works his way to the promised land and proves
his fitness for its larger life.
Voice of Nature. Burns, like other great bards,
expresses these feelings which all agree are the
voice of nature:
"The voice of nature loudly cries,
And many a message from the skies,
That on this frail, uncertain state,
Hang matters of eternal weight;
That future life in worlds unknown,
• Must take its hue from this alone;
Whether as heavenly glory bright,
Or dark as misery's woeful night."
THE RIDDLE ANSWERED 11
An English poet thus vindicates the argument
taken from the universal consent of men:
"If then all men, both good and bad do teach.
With general voice, the soul can never die,
'Tis not man's flattering gloss, but Nature's speech,
Which like God's oracle, can never lie."
Science and Soul. Physical science as such, can
have nothing to say about the soul, which is outside
of the material sphere. The physician who an-
nounced that his dissecting knife had never laid
bare a soul, was guilty of the absurdity of proclaim-
ing that the principle of life was not found in a body
which the audience already knew to be dead. When
the eminent Dr. Wm. Osier, lecturing on Science and
Immortality, invites his students to join him in
standing with Cicero and Plato and the other great-
est minds that have believed in the immortality of
the soul, he speaks not as a physician but a philoso-
pher. While it is outside its sphere to discuss the
metaphysical, many analogies from natural science
are in favor of the immortality of. the soul.
Thus it is a well known fact, recognized by all
scientific men, and confirmed by innumerable beau-
tiful and ingenious experiments, that nothing what-
soever of which our senses can take cognizanee, is
ever utterly destroyed. We may bring about all
sorts of chemical changes, and wholly alter the ap-
pearance and properties of things. But while we
may redispose, we cannot wipe out of existence
any smallest matter. The well known law, that the
sum of all the energies in the universe must ever re-
main a constant quantity, is only another way of
saying, that though forces may be transformed, they
can never be destroyed. As God alone can create,
so God alone can annihilate. Man can do neither.
12 MAN
What we call *' decay" and ''destruction" and
"death," does not involve real extinction. It in-
volves nothing more than change. The iceberg
melts away; but remains as water. The river in
time washes away the great rock, which remains as
sand. The house bums to the ground; but every
atom of its stick and brick remains as ash or gas or
carbon, and may be accurately accounted for.
In death, man's body and soul are separated.
That the body remains — however much changed
and reduced to the elements of which it was com-
posed, is a commonplace of science and even of pop-
ular observation. No less does the soul remain.
Nor does it undergo the disintegration which is the
fate of the body. The body decomposes because it
was composed. It is made up of many ingredients.
The soul is not composed of parts. Were it made
up of parts it would be material. But it is not
material. Corporal atoms are not invested with
judgment, intelligence and virtue. Matter does not
think and reason, sin and repent, rejoice and sor-
row, or philosophize about the abstract notions of
duty, justice, morality and truth. The soul has no
parts and no extension. It has no right or left, no
top or bottom. You cannot speak of the soul's size
or weight or color, any more than you can speak of
the size or weight or color of an abstract idea. The
soul is a spirit without dimensions or divisions. It
cannot suffer destruction by disintegration, because
it has no parts to be disintegrated. It cannot be
destroyed because it is an indivisible unit. In the
face of death it remains what it was. ''These may
destroy the case of Anaxarchus: himself they can-
not reach."
Matter and Spirit. Philosophers discuss the in-
most self of man in terms of scientific accuracy.
Man has something in his nature whose actions
THE RIDDLE ANSWERED 13
transcend the action of any material organ howso-
ever perfect it may be; whose properties, powers
and whole nature are of a totally distinct order of
being from a thing that is material; something
which, though it informs matter, can exist independ-
ently of matter. They call that something the soul.
We know what a thing is, from what it does. From
its actions they observe that, though not material,
the soul is nevertheless a real substance. It is su-
perior to matter. It transcends the action of any
corporeal agent. It is a substantial nature endowed
with intelligence and free will. This reality which
is not material, is called a spiritual being. A simple
principle of life, it is without the germ of dissolu-
tion and death: and so in the providence of the
Creator who does not annihilate His work, the soul
is immortal.
The body can act only as a body. Its functions
are with the material and concrete. Matter must
act materially. For it to act immaterially were a
contradiction in terms. Nevertheless man is able
to act immaterially. He reasons beyond the partic-
ular fact, to the general law. He is affected by the
moral as powerfully as by the material. He knows
the true and loves the good.
**It is a strange and significant fact," says Rich-
ard Proctor, "that man, insignificant in his dimen-
sions and in all his physical powers, and compelled
always to remain upon this orb which is utterly
insignificant when compared to the golar system,
should yet dare to raise his thoughts beyond the
earth and beyond the solar system, to contemplate
boldly those amazing depths amidst which the stel-
lar glories are strewn. That he should undertake
to measure the scale on w^hich the universe is built,
to rate the stars as with swift yet steady motion
they career through space, to test and analyze their
14 MAN
very substance, to form a judgment as to processes
taking place on and around them, all this affords
noble conceptions of the qualities which the Al-
mighty has implanted in the soul of man.''
Nor does man stop with the abstractions of higher
mathematics or the philosophical subtleties of ethics.
He passes all assignable limit whether of species or
magnitude, and rises to contemplate the universal
and speak of the infinite.
Body and Soul. While matter and spirit are es-
sentially different and each is capable of existing
independently of the other, yet in this life we find
them united together in one composite substance —
man. Man is composed of body and soul. While
matter and spirit are thus united, the soul depends
upon the body as the organ through which it ex-
presses itself and communicates with the outside
world. So great is this dependence, that an injury
to the organ throws into discord the music of the
spirit that plays upon it. Yet the spirit is not the
body, any more than the musician is the instrument
which at the touch of his fingers echoes the passion
of his heart. Paderewski is no less the modern
Orpheus, because the loosened strings and broken
sounding board of his piano cannot worthily re-
spond to the music of his art, but gives forth
strident noises instead of mellifluous symphonies.
Though his tongue be paralyzed, the thoughts of
Webster are not therefore less eloquent. When his
granddaughter led the stricken Emerson from the
platform in the midst of his last lecture, though the
worn-out machinery of the brain had broken down,
its master had not thereby forfeited his identity;
nor was his inner soul less beautiful or less beloved
of his hushed and reverent audience. The dying
words of Columbus and of Charlemagne, ''Father,
into Thy hands I commend my spirit" — the echo of
THE RIDDLE Ax\8WERED 15
the last words of a greater world revealer and a
greater king, challenge the victory of death with
the faith that amid the ruins of its temple of clay,
the soul stands unharmed and immortal.
God Our Goal. If the philosopher and the poet
find the significance and dignity of life in the des-
tiny of the immortal soul, Nature whispers the same
secret to her meanest child. In his very idolatry,
the poor savage gropes blindly after God, as the
plant in the winter cellar stretches out and twists
its branches toward the light which is its life and
which must be somewhere. In daily life the con-
science-stricken thief acknowledges a law not ma-
terial, when he purchases peace by returning his ill-
gotten goods. The scoffer awakening in the silent
darkness of the night and listening to the little heart
pulse beating away the moments of his life — con-
scious of his own personality, alone coming into the
world alone leaving it, unable to down the instinct
of immortality within — does not blaspheme as he
did in the blaze and bustle of the noon-day street.
Perhaps like Richard he sighs: ''Jesus, Mercy!"
And the virtuous man striving to walk nobly through
life, feels with Augustine of Hippo, that the soul
was made for the God that created it, and that it
will not rest till it rests in God.
This then is the end of human life : to be united
with God, through all the growing perfection of our
seeing Him now darkly, as it were, through the glass
of faith, up to the brightness of our beholding Him
face to face in everlasting life. As this is the true
significance of life, it is the noblest,: a purpose
worthy of the highest efforts of our powers ; a suf-
ficient stimulus and reward for heroic moral strug-
gle ; a goal that measures success in life and opens
its race to the striving of both high and low ; a des-
tiny that gives meaning to virtue, revealing the
16 MAN
value of truth and justice and love, over gold and
pleasure and place. As the immortal soul is made
for the Infinite, in pursuing his destiny, man real-
izes that religion and life are one.
CHAPTER n
GOD
3. NO MAN AN. ATHEIST.
Belief in God is as widespread as faith in the im-
mortality of the SLOul. Both are coextensive with
the human race. The existence of a Supreme Being
and our consequent relation to Him, are the conclu-
sion of the philosopher's laborious study, and seem-
ingly the instinct of the untamed child of nature.
It is the common sense of mankind. If there exists
an occasional atheist, he is the exception that proves
♦ the rule. The research of years has not disproved
the words of Plutarch: **If you traverse the earth,
you may find cities without walls, or literature, or
laws, or fixed habitations, or coins. But a city
destitute of temples and Gods, no one has ever seen
or ever shall see."
American Reverence. It is a sign of the healthy
mental balance of our American people, that
amongst us, belief in God, respect for religion, rev-
erence before the great mystery of life and eternity,
are universal and profound. This popular recogni-
tion of the truth and goodness of religion, is evidence
that we live close to the heart of reality. Unlike the
dream world, which some writers create out of words
draped on the forms of logic, and which they then
demonstrate to be nothing, ours is a real world;
and we neither pretend to explain all of its mys-
teries, nor to deny their existence. It is a most
17
18 GOD
significant fact, revealed by our United States re-
ligious census of 1906, that the people of this coun-
try, by their voluntary contributions, erected an
average of eight churches every day during the pre-
ceding sixteen years.
Our practical habits and strenuous business life
unfortunately hold some so constantly to the grind-
stone of material interests that they never get be-
yond the A. B. C. of that larger view of life revealed
by religion. Their lack of faith arises probably in
great part, from lack of knowledge. Their attitude
is perhaps rather one of bewilderment than of
apostasy. They grant that a church steeple is a
more satisfying inspiration than a smoke stack.
They want their children to come under the influence
of religion. They gladly support its institutions as
the schools of character and virtue ; and feel rather
guilty that they neglect its call to themselves.
No great American has been an atheist. Robert
Ingersoll spent his eloquence in combating the cari-
cature of God and religion which had been burned
into his boyhood mind by the mad fanaticism of his
father. That gentleman preached so cruel a con-
cept of God and salvation, that he was cut off from
his religious organization even in a place and time
that cherished ultra-Calvinistic views. The vagaries
of his father, the son mistook for the common teach-
ings of Christian faith, which in later life he could
approach only with the prejudice of outraged feel-
ings and consequently distorted vision. On the sub-
ject of religion, Ingersoll became a monomaniac.
Yet his mind could not be closed to the Infinite
Truth and Love which is God ; nor could his life help
breathing something of the Christian atmosphere
which influences our whole civilization.
Thomas Paine, while not a Christian, was no athe-
ist. His biographers declare that he penned his
NO MAN AN ATHEIST 19
most famous book to stem, with its deism, the tide
of atheism which flooded France at the time of the
Revolution.
Spencer's Unknowable. Men who are at once
shallow and pretentious, sometimes seek to dignify
the practical atheism of their lives, by invoking
such celebrated names as Herbert Spencer and Im-
manuel Kant. They quote the latter *s dictum that
God is the Unknowable. Yet Spencer is far from
denying the existence of God. In his First Princi-
ples, where he styles God the ** Unknowable," he
proclaims his conviction that religion is something
eminently true.
If Spencer speaks of God as the Unknowable, he
means to say that God is outside of the category
of material objects and phenomena. To observe,
weigh, measure, and experiment with material
things, is the province of the physical sciences, like
chemistry and astronomy. Now it suited Spencer
to limit the meaning of the word knowledge, to the
cognition of the things which we can bring before
our senses. Tennyson uses the word in the same
restricted and unusual sense, in the lines :
"We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see:
And yet we trust it comes from Thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow."
Spencer's phrase is really a contradiction: for he
writes that this ** Unknowable " exists and indeed
underlies everything: that it is the Universal En-
ergy, the Final Cause behind all observed causes,
the Ultimate Reality, the basis of all our intelligence.
This suggests not agnosticism, but very considerable
knowledge.
It is true that our knowledge of God is imperfect.
As St. Paul says, now we know in part, and we see
20 GOD
only in a dark manner and as it were through a
glass. But as far as it goes, this knowledge is real,
since it corresponds with a reality outside of our
minds. It is also useful for practical conduct, as
our meager knowledge of the nature of electricity
does not prevent us from accepting it as a fact and
making it one of our best friends. Far from deny-
ing the existence of God, his science led Spencer
constantly to perceive and acknowledge the First
Cause that lies back of all phenomena, itself un-
caused and unreached, yet ever present like the hori-
zon that surrounds our vision. However little he
may know the one true God and proclaim His attri-
butes, Spencer was too wise a man to dare abso-
lutely to deny the existence of God or to declare
that science left no place for religion. *' Religion
and Science,'' he writes, ''are necessary correla-
tives, the positive and negative poles of thought,
of which neither can gain in intensity without in-
creasing the intensity of the other." ^
Kant's Idealism. Kant denies neither God nor re-
ligion. The German philosopher aimed at giving a
positive value to the moral principle. He opposed
the degradation of virtue, in making it not some-
thing valuable for its own sake, but only as a means
of acquiring happiness. If the Idealism of his Crit-
ique of Pure Reason puts it outside the power of
the mind to reach from the finite to the infinite and
know with direct certainty the highest truth, he
does not thereby deny the real existence of those
super-sensible objects. On the contrary, he wrote
his Critique of Practical Reason to assert the moral
conscience as the true basis of our conviction of the
objective reality of a supreme moral law and of a
Sovereign Good which is the object of that law.
While those who would flippantly deny the exist-
* First- Principles. Part 1.
NO MAN AN ATHEIST 21
ence of God and sneer at all religion, would be re-
pudiated by either Kant or Spencer, it is true that
those philosophers do not build faith on the intel-
lectual basis which alone will vindicate its truth
and satisfy thinking men. With them religion is
thus deprived of its proper foundation, not because
they exalt reason and stand by it; but precisely
because they disparage reason and deny its wings
their proper flight. Spencer denies to reason the
power of passing the objects which greet our senses,
and Columbus like, exploring that larger sphere be-
yond our eyes' horizon, which we touch upon as
often as we ask the question, What caused this
Cause? What lies beyond? Kant's idealism vir-
tually dethrones reason by impeaching it in its
natural function.
Failure. Even Fichte, the disciple of Kant, de-
tected and exposed the error of his master, by insist-
ing on the simple postulate: the me is me, the not-
me is not me, the object is not the subject. Spencer,
in the last pages that he penned,^ admitted the fail-
ure of his system of philosophy. He not only wrote
of this sense of failure, but spoke of it to his asso-
ciates. Henry Murrey, in his Memoirs, ''A Step-
son of Fortune," relates this incident:
** Walking up and down the lawn of Buchanan's
home in Maresfield Gardens, I told hkn, in a mo-
mentary absence of' our host, what a load of per-
sonal obligation I felt under to his 'First Principles,'
and added that I intended to devote the reading
hours of the next two or three years to a thorough
study of his entire output. 'What have you read of
mine?' he asked. I told him. . . . Then,' said
Spencer — and it was the only time I have ever heard
such a counsel from the lips of any writer regard-
ing his own work — 'I should say that you have read
' Spencer's Autobiographical "Reflections."
22 GOD
quite enough/ He fell silent for a moment, and
then added, 'I have passed my life in beating the
air.' ''
Spencer lived to see Lord Kelvin and Sir Oliver
Lodge, the men who had come to take the place of
himself and Darwin and Huxley, as the leading Eng-
lish scientists, as well as Louis Pasteur and Albert
de Lapparent, the first scientists of France, not walk-
ing in his footsteps but devoting their science and
eloquence to the defense of religious faith and the
repudiation of agnosticism. In his last days,
wheeled up and down on the sands of Brighton,
speaking to no one, gazing with dimmed eyes out
over the unfathomable sea — the symbol of eternity,
Spencer realized sadly that the agnosticism to which
he had given his life, had nothing to give him in re-
turn. Perhaps as he gazed at the far off horizon,
the kinship of its mystery with our souls revealed
the Infinite and the Eternal as a God to be neither
unknown nor ignored, but to be recognized and
loved as the only good that is not shadows. The
philosopher may have recalled the lines of the poet
Tennyson, whose own old age had written "failure"
across the dreams of his youthful ''Locksley Hall":
"I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar stairs
That slope through darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope."
True Rationalists. The philosophy of the Chris-
tian Schools opposes itself to the traducers of rea-
son who distrust reason 's power to acquire certainty
about anything beyond our own subjective states.
A worthy system of philosophy is not the work of
HE WHO IS 23
one man or generation. It must take in the experi-
ence of the ages. The Christian or scholastic phi-
losophy, in its highest representative, Thomas
Aquinas, worthily unites to the inheritance of an-
cient wisdom as gathered in Aristotle, the contribu-
tion of Christian thought. '*To Reason, Aquinas
assigns the indispensable work of laying down, sure
and firm, the road by which alone we may reach the
heights where we are in a position to make an act
of faith. That Reason may successfully discharge
this function, it must be credited with competence
to acquire unto itself a knowledge which is a faith-
ful counterpart of actual being. Its judgments
must be held to be true and certain; not merely
within the province of transitory phenomena, but
true beyond the range of sense and space and cosmic
change, true absolutely and eternally. This recog-
nition of the authority of Reason is the fundamen-
taLaffirmation of the Thomistic philosophy.^* ^ The
Christian schoolmen are the true rationalists.
4. HE WHO IS.
Through His works, men have always known God
as the First Cause, the onie necessary, supreme, eter-
nal, infinite Being. His truest name is that
spoken to Moses — "He Who Is.'*^ God is Absolute
Being. Our mind may reason to the truth that God
is necessary and eternal Being, existing in and from
Himself.
The First Cause. The contingent or created be-
ings that fill the world, presuppose such absolute
being. They postulate uncreated being from which
they come and upon which they depend. For the
men and objects that rise to-day and to-morrow have
»Jas. J. Fox, Cath. Univ. Bulletin, April, 1908.
lEx. 3, 14.
24 GOD
passed away; that change with every circumstance
and season; that equally well might be what they
are, or might be different, or might not be at all, do
certainly depend for their existence on something
outside of themselves. In the last analysis they
owe their existence to some being that is necessary
and eternal. They are caused by a first and un-
caused cause. They may seem, at first glance, to
depend only on their immediate neighbor, as tran-
sient as themselves — the child on his father, the
acorn on the oak, the planets on the sun. But these
secondary causes themselves had their ancestors in
the line of being. However long the chain of such
causes, it will at last lead to a first cause that de-
pends on nothing ; that exists of itself ; that is neces-
sary, existing eternally and without change ; that is
absolute being. This First Cause, this Eternal and
Absolute Being, we call God.
The Master Mind. From the order and fitness of
the universe, the existence of God as an intelligent
creator and ruler may be inferred. That there is an
admirable order in the universe, no one can deny
without self-contradiction. For if in nature there is
no order or design, where are order or design to be
found? This order and fitness of things in nature,
are necessarily the reflection of supreme intelligence.
They reveal the existence of an intelligent, although
invisible Master, as surely as the exquisite mechan-
ism of a Swiss repeater speaks of a skilled watch-
maker; or the harmonious whirring of the compli-
cated machinery of a Westinghouse plant reflects
the purposeful mind of a directing engineer; or the
lion of Lucerne tells that the soul of a Thorwaldsen
guided the fingers of the sculptor over the chiselled
stone.
Indeed the evidence of design shown everywhere
in the constitution and government of the world,
HE WHO IS 25
whether in the organism of the human body, in the
relations and movements of the solar system, in the
reactions and affinities of chemistry, or in any other
department of nature where scientific observation
reveals an adaptation of means to end as admira-
ble as it is constant, bespeaks an ultimate intelli-
gence permeating and dominating with its law, the
immeasurable cosmos. The Infinite Intelligence, as
the Eternal Truth, is God.
Bacon, one of the first authors of scientific inves-
tigation, writes, in his essay on Atheism: ^'I had
rather believe all the fables in the Talmud and the
Alcoran than that this universal frame is without
a mind. It is true that a little philosophy inclineth
men's- minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy
bringeth men's minds about to religion."
Conscience and God. The human conscience that
inspires the innocent with peace and the guilty with
remorse and terror, reveals to each individual his
own personal relation with God as the rewarder of
right and the punisher of evil. The moral prompter
that approves certain actions as lawful and con-
demns others as unlawful, that restrains us from
the latter and urges us to the former, is not merely
reason itself. It is higher than reason and ante-
cedent to it. It is not of his own reason that man
is afraid; but of a judge distinct from himself, who
sees the secrets of his heart. With the same neces-
sity by w^hich he knows that certain actions are
good and commended while others are bad and for-
bidden, he knows that there is a supreme lawgiver
and judge — that there is a God.
Cardinal Newman seems to consider the testimony
of conscience, as do many others, the most prac-
tically powerful argument for the existence of God.
It convinces and persuades. Its clear voice is un-
derstood by minds that could not easily follow the
26 GOD
subtle reasoning of the argument from causality or
design. Indeed this testimony of our nature to God
and the soul, is so strong, that all sensible men in-
stinctively revere religion, looking beyond the crude
conceptions that are often put forward as its details
and applications.
The irreverent scoffer who denies his faith in the
day of prosperity and health, usually needs only the
cold breath of misfortune or the haggard specter of
death, to bring him to his knees, begging mercy of
God for his neglected soul. History records many
examples of unbelievers turning to God in the hour
of approaching death, when passion and interests
no longer blind the reason and pervert human na-
ture. It mentions no case of the man who walked
with God through life, turning from Him, in unbe-
lief, in the end.
A French priest was once discussing this .sub-
ject with an old schoolfellow who had fallen away
from the Christian religion and openly avowed him-
self an atheist.
** After all your self-restraint and pursuit of vir-
tue,'' said the flippant atheist, ** won't it be a joke
on you, if in the end there is no God or he'aven or
hell!"
*^Even in your supposition,'' rejoined the priest,
''self-restraint and virtuous living are in harmony
with the dictates of reason and make for health
and happiness here. But will you think over this
retort? After all your profligacy and blasphemies
won't it be a serious thing for you if there is a God
and a heaven and hell!"
Attributes of God. God's works proclaim His at-
tributes. The plan and design manifested through-
out His creation, whether in the marvelous laws of
the starry heavens, in our own wonderfully fash-
ioned human nature, in the tiny flower beneath our
HE WHO IS 27
feet, in the vital slime of the bird's egg, or in the
myriad animalculae that swarm in a drop of water
invisible to the naked eye, teach that the Creator
is mighty and wise. The abundance of necessary
food and raiment, the beauty of useful gifts and
luxurious adornments in the world, bespeak Him
provident and loving. The very existence of the
world reveals His omnipresence pervading all things
by His essence and sustaining all. Thus man con-
ceiving of the Infinite Being under various aspects,
speak of His attributes or perfections. He is one,
eternal, immense, unchangeable, incomprehensible,
all-wise, just, holy, merciful, omnipotent, in-
effable.
As God's essence is identical with His perfections,
it would be more true to say that God is Infinite
Wisdom, Goodness, Omnipotence, Holiness, Truth,
than to say that He possesses these attributes. They
are not something distinct from Himself, something
accessory and added to His nature. Being identical
with the Divine Nature, these attributes of God are
not really distinct even from one another. The ap-
parent distinction exists only in our minds. God
being infinite, cannot be completely represented by
any finite conception. Consequently no thought rep-
resents more than one or other of His perfections.
Our representation of God is imperfect: it is not
false: but it is only partial. Likewise the terms in
which we speak of God are inadequate. We form
our ideas even of divine things, from the considera-
tion of finite things : and we make our words corre-
spond to our ideas.
The names Infinite and Incomprehensible are the
negation of any limit to God: but they tell us little
of His essence. The words All- Wise and All-Boun-
tiful declare that any perfections found in man ex-
ist in an infinitely higher degree in God: but they
28 GOD
fail to express the manner in which God possesses
these attributes. So in this life it is not given to
man to behold God as He is ; but only, as it were, to
catch a glimpse of the garments or an echo of the
footsteps of the Divine Spirit in whom Action and
Being are one.
Personality of God. The fact that we speak of
God as a person begets a difficulty in some minds,
which generally arises from a misunderstanding of
the meaning attached to the word person. They
wrongly suppose that we thereby limit God, as all
human persons are limited, by a body; and imagine
us guilty of an absurd anthropomorphism. When
orators and poets speak of God's voice, His hand,
His eye, of course they expect their hearers to take
them not literally, but as referring to God's law
and power and omniscience. When philosophers
speak of God as a person, they mean that He is the
living Truth and the infinite Love.
We conceive of God as His works reflect the na-
ture and image of their maker. God's noblest mas-
terpiece on earth is Man. Man's nobility are his in-
tellect and will. Our highest acts are to think and
to love. These acts it is, that characterize us as
persons, and separate us from the lower animals.
We are persons then, not because we are limited by
a body, but because we are intelligent and free-
willed. Doubtless God is all the best that we are
and infinitely more. So we rightly speak of God
in our highest terms and say that He is Intelligence
to know and Will to love, and so a person. To deny
personality of God would be to make Him lower
than ourselves. To say that He is a person is true,
though His personality is not human but divine;
though His thoughts are not our thoughts, but the
eternal truth; and His love infinitely surpasses our
love and gives life to the world; and His freedom
HE WHO IS 29
is His own perfection which cannot be changed or
determined by external forces, because it is of His
infinite substance and nature, — His intelligence and
will being one eternal act and essence.
The philosopher aims to express with some accu-
racy his thoughts of God. Such expressions as the
Infinite, the Ultimate Reality, the First Cause, and
Absolute Being, are true and noble expressions of
an objective reality. The mass of men love more
the words which they have learned from the poet
and prophet, which are warm with life, and stir the
mind and heart. They love and serve their Father
who is in Heaven.
Pantheism. Confounding the creature with the
Creator, pantheism identifies the whole world with
God. It fails to mark the essential difference be-
tween the ever-changing finite world and the ever-
constant Infinity that pei*vades and sustains it.
Ourselves and all things good and bad, it would
count to be forms of God's own self. Howsoever se-
ductive, in the hands of its ablest exponents, may be
this theory, the common sense of mankind tells us,
though God be immense and everywhere present
and ''in Him we live and move and have our being,''
that we with all our changes and imperfections, are
not God, but distinct responsible creatures, mani-
festations of His creative activity.
Trinity. Christians not only speak of God's per-
sonality, but believe that in the one God this person-
ality is three-fold. We speak of the Eternal Father,
the Divine Son, the Holy Spirit, as distinct persons ;
though they are the one and same identical, indi-
visible, divine substance or nature, the one only God.
The revelation of Jesus Christ in giving us even a
glimpse of this mystery, enriches us with a surpass-
ingly great truth. This truth of the Trinity sheds
light on the mystery of Christ's own being. It gives
30 GOD
us a knowledge which reason alone would never
have discovered. And it raises our appreciation of
the fact that the Divine Being is a mystery where
larger knowledge shows but deeper depths.
The truth underlying our dim conception of the
Trinity, great minds have endeavored to illustrate
from the faculties of the human soul and the mutual
relation of their actions. Man knows himself and
by that act of intelligence generates the thought
which is the mental image of himself. From these
two things, the act of intelligence and the thought
or mental word which it has generated, proceeds
the act by which man loves himself. The simile
employed to illustrate, however imperfectly, the
mystery of the Trinity, is suggested by the Scrip-
tures which reveal the divine Son as the Logos or
Word, and the third person of the Trinity as the
divine Spirit, a word suggesting the impulse of the
will. In man, intelligence and will are merely fac-
ulties of the soul, and their motions end in transient
acts. In God, whose acts are eternal and identical
with the divine essence, the acts by which the Father
begets the divine Word, and the mutual love of the
divine Father and Son from which proceeds the di-
vine Spirit, are not transient but eternal, and have
as their result, the divine persons, distinct in rela-
tion, yet one in substance and nature. The Father,
Son and Holy Ghost are the triune God.
Trinities in Nature. Men have observed many
curious trinities cast all over the creation, which
seemed to some, the signature of the triune Creator
upon His handiwork. While these apparent reflec-
tions of the triune nature of God would never of
themselves lead us to a knowledge of that fact, as
some have suggested, still, like St. Patrick's sham-
rock, they may help us to apprehend the inscrutable
mystery after it has been revealed. We have al-
HE WHO IS 31
ready noticed this image in the three-fold relation
of the human soul.
Again we reproduce ourselves in our thoughts
when we are self-conscious, and call our thoughts
the children of the mind, and naming them with
words, send them out into the world, and knowing
them as our own generation, love them as our very
self. Philosophy and literature consider being in
the three-fold relation of the good, the true and the
beautiful. In physics the ray of white light break-
ing on a prism rt^veals three primary colors. Mathe-
matics has its three dimensions. Chemistry ex-
plores the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms.
Matter exists in time, space and motion. Again
time has the triple relation of the past, present and
future ; space, of length, breadth and depth ; motion,
of direction, distance and velocity.
Revelation. Plato, whose mind rose to such sub-
limity that Clement of Alexandria fancied that, in a
way, he was to the Greeks what Moses was to the
Jews, was thought by some to have had a vague idea
of the triune nature of the Deity. This is not prob-
able, since only divine revelation could afford man
a glimpse of that mystery. To catch a glimpse of
a truth even with heaven's light, is not to compre-
hend it. The child seen by St. Augustine on the sea-
shore, will never pour with his shell, all the waters
of the ocean into the hole he has dug in the sand.
And man will never pour the infinite ocean of God's
Being into the shallow basin of his human mind.
But we rejoice to know even dimly; and think of
God the divine Father as creating and sustaining
us; of God the divine Wisdom as redeeming and
governing us; of God the divine Spirit as dwelling
within us and sanctifying us.
The divine Creator has never left the world with-
out a witness of Himself. He is revealed in the
32 GOD
mighty forces of nature working with unerring law.
He is revealed much more in the human mind whose
thoughts compass the stars and the winds, and in
the human heart that loves. Our Father, who is as
mighty as He is wise and loving, has revealed Him-
self to His children even more directly than through
the visible things of creation, and has made known
the supernatural destiny to which He has called
them. History tells us, in its story of paganism's
dim groping after God, and fallen man's failure to
lead even a worthy human life, the sore need there
was of a supernatural revelation tb teach man the
destiny to which he had been called and from which
he had fallen. Man's most exalted dreams would
never have conceived of the revelation which God
has actually made; the sublimity of His message,
the dignity of His messenger, the destined union
of man with God even to our participating in His
divine nature. This supernatural revelation is per-
fected through Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER III
JESUS CHRIST
5. WHAT MEN THINK OF CHRIST.
Every great mind that has lived since the coming
of Jesus Christ, has been engaged with thought of
Him. He has towered in the world as its central
figure; so human that the lowliest and the poor are
at home with Him; so divine that the greatest and
best have looked up to Him as to an unapproachable
ideal. His influence has so penetrated the civilized
world that He cannot be ignored. Men have felt
that they must reckon with Him and account for
Him. The highest genius in every department of
thought has bowed to Jesus Christ. Poets and sci-
entists, artists and philosophers, statesmen and war-
riors have paid their tribute of loving adoration to
His acknowledged divinity or of silent reverence
before the mystery of His personality.
Poets. Shakespeare, in his many-sided splendor
the greatest glory of our literature, ever couples
with the name of Jesus the attributes of the Divine
One; and weaves that name into the verse which
marks his tomb in the parish church at Stratford-
on-Avon. Dante and Milton, the two supreme epic
poets since His time, found in the religion of Jesus
Christ, their inspiration and their theme. The Span-
ish Calderon and Lope de Vega, the French Cor-
neille and Racine, the American Longfellow, the
Polish Michkiewicz, immortal bards of their nations,
34 JESUS CHRIST
have sung their divine Christus. In spite of his
aberrations, from the faith of his childhood, Goethe
is constrained to say: ''I esteem the gospels to be
thoroughly genuine, for there shines forth from them
the reflected splendor of a sublimity proceeding
from the person of Jesus Christ, of so divine a kind
as only the Divine could ever have manifested on
earth. ' ' His brother poet, Jean Paul Richter, writes
that "the life of Christ concerns Him who being the
holiest among the mighty and the mightiest among
the holy, lifted with His pierced hands empires from
off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries
out of its channel, and still governs the ages."
Scientists. The greatest geniuses of science, like
Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Kepler, set the name of Je-
sus above every other, as the name by which man
may be saved. Indeed the roll of honor of the nat-
ural sciences is a catalogue replete with Christian
names. Pasteur, its brightest light in our day, lived
a life whose every action was influenced by the re-
ligion of Jesus Christ, and died clasping the cruci-
fix, the symbol of his faith and hope.
Art. Jesus Christ has inspired the noblest
achievements of art, be it in architecture, painting,
sculpture, music. The builders of the Middle Ages,
finding expression for the popular faith in their
mighty cathedrals, taught the very stones to cry
out and proclaim the divinity of Christ in the splen-
did eloquence of Roman and Gothic architecture.
The infant Christ is the theme of RaphaePs "Sistine
Madonna" and Murillo's ''Holy Family"; the suf-^
fering Christ, of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper"
and Guido Reni's "Ecce Homo"; the triumphant
Christ, of the "Transfiguration" and the "Last
Judgment." The chaste limbs of Christ, in the
Crucifixion, the Pieta, the Resurrection, have sanc-
tified sculpture in the marbles of Pisano, Canova
WHAT MEN THINK OF CHRIST- 35
and Michael Angelo. This last master, when he
would build St. Peter's at Home, said: *'I will
raise the Pantheon in the air, to be the canopy of the
altar of Jesus Christ." Beneath that canopy and
round the altars of Christ, whose golden zone of
chalices encircles the world, are heard the majestic
tones of the Gregorian chant, the heavenly har-
monies of Palestrina, the Masses and Vespers and
Oratorios and mighty old hymns of the masters of
music. And always the inspiration is the mystery
of Bethlehem, the mystery of Calvary, the mystery
of Easter, the mystery of humanity made one with
God: Credo in Deum et in Jesum Christum filium
ejus unigenitum, I believe in God and in Jesus
Christ His one begotten Son.
Philosophers. The worshipers of the True as well
as of the Beautiful, have felt the transcendent power
of Jesus Christ. No great philosopher has passed
Him in silence. In every age, supreme intellects
have believed that in Christ they found the Incarna-
tion of divine Wisdom and have cast their lot with
Him as with the living Truth. Saul of Tarsus, Cy-
prian of Carthage, Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of
Canterbury, Thomas of Aquin, are not only sages but
saints.
Philosophers alien to the common faith in the
mystery of the Son of God, still admit that mystery
there is; and have bowed in reverence before it.
Spinoza calls Christ the symbol of divine wisdom.
Kant and Jacobi hold Him up as the figure of ideal
perfection. Schelling and Hegel vaguely discern in
Him the ** union of the hiiman and the divine."
Carlyle calls Jesus "our divinest symbol." Chan-
ning confesses that **the character of Jesus is wholly
inexplicable on human principles." ''How petty
are the books of the philosophers with all their
pomp," says Rousseau, ''compared with the Gos-
36 JESUS CHRIST
pels. Can He whose life they tell be no more than
a mere man? If the life and death of Socrates be
those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those
of a God." ''Even to the end of time," writes
Fichte, ' ' all wise and reverent men must bow them-
selves before Jesus of Nazareth: and the more wise,
intelligent, and noble they themselves are, the more
humbly will they recognize the exceeding nobleness
of this great and glorious manifestation of the Di-
vine Life."
Statesmen. The statesmen of the Christian era
whose services to their country have merited for
them the title ''great," are men who accepted Jesus
Christ as their divine teacher. Constantine the
Great, Justinian, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, St.
Louis of France, Peter the Great, built up the glory
of their states on the principles of Christian faith,
Charles V who ruled more kingdoms than any other
European monarch, passed his last days in the pray-
erful retirement of a monastery. Of Daniel
'Council could be said, what Gladstone wrote of
himself, that the divinity of Christ was the inspira-
tion of all his public measures. The Christian prin-
ciples of George Washington raise him to a different
class from the irreligious revolutionists of the
French reign of terror. In our own day, statesmen
like Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt in
America, Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany, Carl Lueger
in Austria, John Redmond in Ireland, believe, with
millions of the brightest and best in every land, that
Jesus Christ is the divine Son of the Eternal God.
On the tomb of Daniel Webster is the following
inscription, written by the statesman himself:
"Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief. Philo-
sophical argument, especially that drawn from the
vastness of the universe, in comparison with the ap-
parent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes
WHAT MEN THINK OF CHRIST 37
shaken my reason for the faith that there is in me;
but my heart has always assured and reassured me
that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine
reality. The Sermon on the Mount can not be a
merely human production. This belief enters into
the very depth of my conscience. The whole his-
tory of man proves it." Webster's fellow orator,
William Jennings Bryan, writes of Christ: ''It is
easier to believe Him divine, than to explain in any
other way, what He said, and did, and w^as."
Napoleon and Christ. The first Napoleon has left
on record a tribute to Jesus Christ worthy of his
discerning genius. Conversing one day at St. Hel-
ena, about the great men of antiquity, and compar-
ing them with himself, he suddenly turned to an of-
ficer who shared his exile, and asked: ''Can you
tell us who Jesus Christ is?'' The officer excused
himself, saying that in his busy life he had given
little time or thought save to his profession of arms.
"And here on this rock that is consuming us both,''
replied Napoleon thoughtfully, "you cannot tell me
who Jesus Christ is! Well, I shall tell you!" He
then proceeded to compare Jesus with the heroes of
history and with himself, and to show how Jesus
surpassed all. "I think I understand something of
human nature," he continued. "I know men; and
I tell you all these were men, and I am a man, but
not one is like Him. Jesus Christ was more than a
man. Alexander, CaBsar, Charlemagne, and myself
founded empires;. but our creations depended upon
force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon
love: and to this day millions would die for Him.
Yet in this absolute sovereignty, He has but one
aim, the spiritual perfection of the individual, the
purification of his conscience, his union with what
is true, the salvation of his soul. Men wonder at
the conquests of Alexander : but here is a conqueror
38 JESUS CHRIST
who draws men to Himself for their highest good,
and who unites to Himself, not a nation, but the
whole human race/'
6. WHAT CHRIST SAYS OF HIMSELF.
What does Jesus Christ say of Himself? Did He
know the mystery of His own personality ? Did He
reveal it to others ? The answer is, that He was not
only conscious of His unique position, but spoke out
most plainly concerning it. By His words and His
works, He impressed His most intimate associates,
both His friends and His enemies, with His convic-
tion of His own divine nature.
His Disciples. To the Master's question, ''Who
do men say that the Son of Man is?'' the Apostles
reported the opinions of the populace. Some be-
lieved Jesus to be John the Baptist, others Elias or
Jeremias or one of the prophets. The people felt
there was something supernatural about Jesus and
associated Him in their minds, with the religious
heroes of their race. When Jesus asked the Apos-
tles, "but who do you say that I am?" Simon an-
swered and said : * ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God." Jesus endorses this faith with the
words: ''Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona, for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my
Father who is in Heaven. ' ' ^
The disciple Thomas adored the risen Savior
with the words: "My Lord and my God." Jesus
accepted the divine homage with the admonition:
"Be not henceforth incredulous but believing."^
St. Paul devoted his splendid genius to the work
of Jesus Christ, declaring: "For in Him dwelleth
the fullness of the God-head bodily."^
When John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to his
»Mt. 16, 15. 2 John 20, 28. « Col. 2, 9.
WHAT CHRIST SAYS OF HIMSELF 39
followers, with the words: ** Behold the Lamb of
God who taketh away the sins of the world. He it
is who Cometh after me; who is preferred before
me; the latchet of whose shoe I am unworthy to
loose ^': they followed Jesus, telling their friends,
**We have found the Messiah. '^ And Jesus ac-
cepted them as disciples.*
That their Master was God Incarnate, was the
conviction of the followers of Jesus, as is evidenced
by the Gospel according to John. Jesus is identified
with the Eternal Wisdom, — the Logos or divine
Word which from eternity was with God and was
God; through which all things were made; which
is the life and the light of men; which in the human
nature of Jesus was made flesh and dwelt amongst
us, and gives to all who receive Him the power to
become the sons of God.^
His Enemies. The enemies of Jesus, as well as
His friends, underetand Him to proclaim Himself
the Messiah or Christ, the Anointed One of God,
who was to come to save the world ; the promise and
expectation of whom is the theme of the old Hebrew
Scriptures. Far from disabusing them of this idea,
Jesus gave His words, His works and finally His life,
in support of its truth.
When asked, ''Art thou he who is to come, or do
we expect another?*' Jesus had answered: ''Go and
relate the things you have seen and heard : the blind
see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead rise again, the poor have the Gospel
preached to them.''® Later when the Jews de-
manded: "If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly'':
Jesus again appealed to these works in corrobora-
tion of His words, saying: "Though you believe
not me, believe the works, that you may know and
believe that the Father is in me and I in Him."
*John 1, 26-42. ^John 1, 1-14. 'Mt. 11, 2.
40 JESUS CHRIST
The affirmation at which the Jews had rebelled, v/a:^> :
**the Father and I are one.''^
On this and other occasions, as in His encounter
with the Jews about the Sabbath,* and His claim
to have existed before Abraham was born,^ the Jews
''took up stones to cast at Him," because as they
said, ' ' being a man thou makest thyself God. ' ' ^^
Thus His enemies understood Jesus to speak of Him-
self. When He said of Abraham — who had lived
some 2,000 years before Christ's appearance on
earth — ''before Abraham was made, I am," the Jews
caught the contrast between His own claim of un-
created being and the creation of their national pa-
triarch; and understood His eternal I AM, as a
synonym of Deity. ' ' ^^ Some critics contend that Je-
sus withdrew His claim and placed Himself in the
same class as His hearers who are as God because
they receive the word of God. On the contrary,
Jesus differentiates Himself from them, saying that
if they are so called, a fortiori is He free from blas-
phemy in so calling Himself.^-
In His trial before Caiphas, the High Priest re-
ferring to the charges brought against Jesus, de-
manded of Him: "I adjure thee by the living God,
to tell us if thou be the Christ, the Son of God."
The question reveals that the people understood
Jesus as claiming to be the Messiah, the long ex-
pected Christ. The question was clearly put and
excluded all subterfuge. The answer of Jesus was
no less precise : ' ' Thou hast said it. I am. ' ' ^^ Its
significance was fully realized. The High Priest
tore his garment, exclaiming: "He has blasphemed:
He is guilty of death." Jesus was taken to Pilate
with the accusation: "We have a law; and accord-
7 John 10, 24-39. "Ex. 3, 14.
8 John, 5, 18. 12 John 10, 34-36.
»John 8, 58. " ^t. 26, 63; Mk. 14, 62; Luke 22, 71.
10 John 10, 33.
DILEMMA OP UNBELIEVERS 41
ing to the law, He ought to die, because He made
Himself the Son of God." And for this truth Jesus
died.
7. DILEMMA OF UNBELIEVERS.
In view of the esteem in which, after 1900 years of
scrutiny, the greatest minds of the race hold the
character and influence of Jesus Christ, a dilemma
is forced upon the unbeliever when he considers the
idea Jesus had of Himself and communicated to
His associates. If Jesus is not the God-Man, what
is He ? To attack the testimony that Christ gives of
Himself, is to suppose either that through lack
of intelligence He could, in good faith, be mistaken
about His own nature; or else that through lack
of sincerity, He intended to deceive others. In
either case Jesus -would sink to the lowest level.
He would be either a designing knave or a mis-
taken fool. A great man may be mistaken in many
things and still be both honest and wise. But to be
deluded with the hallucination that he was God,
would leave a man neither wise nor great: while to
lead others into such an error, without sharing it
himself, would be the most monstrous imposture.
Is Jesus Christ the knave or fool, whichever it be,
of the logical infidel, or is He the Messiah of the
Christian? As Jesus presents Himself to the world.
He must be all or He must be nothing. He must
crumble into dust or we must fall at His feet.
Ad Absurdum. Is it probable that the one ideal
character which the human race has produced,
should be likewise its supreme impostor? or that
the most civilized peoples have bowed down before
a delirious dreamer, their proudest spirits counting
themselves unworthy to be named with him? Is it
credible that the influence which through the ages
42 JESUS CHRIST
has been most beneficent, inspiring every virtue and
every loving service, should be the memory of a de-
ceiver? or that the teachings which have been cher-
ished as the highest wisdom and a revelation from
God, should be the ravings of a madman? Is not
such a supposition an affront to the sanity of the
race ? a turning into a Babel of confusion of our no-
blest history and highest aspirations? It is true
that infidelity seldom has the hardihood to follow
its principles to these logical conclusions. But it
avoids them only by stopping short of accounting
to itself for the mystery of Christ, whose claim of
divinity it denies.
Role of Divinity. If Jesus was not divine. He
needlessly created for Himself unaccountable difi&-
culties in making such a claim. Thenceforth it be-
comes necessary that in all His actions He should
sustain the role of Divinity. Even in His death, He
must afford proof of this divine nature. Was this
humanly possible? No historical personage before
or since, has set himself up as God. It is the first
and last time in history. Man is not capable of ut-
tering so bold a falsehood. The title of Prophet or
Messenger of God would perhaps have been probable
and serviceable. But the title of very God added
nothing but difficulties to His enterprise.
Does the character of Jesus Christ sustain this role
of Divinity which He assumed? Or does He at
times, as the impostor sooner or later must, fall be-
neath the sublime in His thoughts ; reveal the weak-
ness of the human heart in His feelings ; grow fright-
ened at the temerity of His own claims; lose confi-
dence in Himself and hesitate in His actions ; and so
betray Himself ? No ! Absolute confidence in Him-
self never failed Him for a single hour. His very
forbearance to employ any of the ordinary human
meens — ^politics, power, schools of philosophy or sci-
THE RESURRECTION 43
ence — to insure the success of His work, proves His
inflexible resolution and the omnipotent energy of
His will.
Meantime His heart was open to men as the sanc-
tuary of tenderness and purity : and after 1900 years
of scrutiny, it cannot be said that it ever fell below
the divinest ideals ; much less that it was ever domi-
nated or even disturbed by an unworthy impulse.
He challenged the world to convict Him of sin ; and
in His presence alone, calumny and envy are silent.
His intelligence is sublime — not as of even the great-
est men, half a dozen times in a whole life — but with
a continuous elevation. He reveals His conceptions
of the Deity and of moral life. They are not the
affectations of the pretender who might have pre-
sented, as his model of divine dignity, the Jupiter
Tonans of the Pagans. The conceptions of Jesus
are at once most simple and most profound.
Though unthought of by men until revealed by
Him, they are universally recognized as incompara-
bly vital and true — the worthy revelation of the di-
vine.
8. THE RESURRECTION.
As an evidence of His divinity, Jesus continually
appealed to His resurrection, in whicn miracle He
wished, as it were, to summarize His credentials.
Investigation of this historical fact indeed reveals it
as proof comprising in itself all the other evidences
of Christ's divine mission. St. Paul was ready to
stake everything on its testimony: *'If Christ be
not risen, your faith is also vain. ' ' ^ Those who
would call into question the divinity of Christ, seek
to discredit the resurrection. Unable to controvert
the evidence of the Savior's life and acts after His
^Cor. 15, 14.
44 JESUS CHRIST
crucifixion, Strauss had recourse to the desperate
expedient of denying the reality of the death on the
cross. Renan concedes that Jesus actually died on
the cross, but asserts that Magdalen was the dupe of
a fervid imagination in declaring that she saw the
risen Lord. The French infidel seemed to forget
that Magdalen was only one witness among hundreds
who, under a variety of circumstances, beheld the
risen Christ. Harnack and some of the Modernists
admit the death of Jesus and the belief of His dis-
ciples in the resurrection; while they urge that it
was only a spiritual resurrection, true indeed in faith
but not in history. Thus one antagonistic theory
contradicts another.
Doubt. The following incident related of one of
the disciples of Jesus, makes us the more ready to
believe their writings — viewed even humanly as
mere historical documents — when they record the
facts of the first Easter Sunday.
^'Now Thomas, one of the twelve, was not with
them when Jesus came. The other disciples there-
fore said to him: 'We have seen the Lord.' But he
said to them: 'Except I shall see in His hands the
print of the nails, and put my finger into the
place of the nails, and put my hand into His
side, I will not believe. ' And after eight days again
His disciples were within, and Thomas with them.
Jesus Cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the
midst, and said: 'Put in thy finger hither, and see
my hands ; and bring hither thy hand and put it into
my side; and be not faithless but believing.'
Thomas answered and said to Him: 'My Lord and
my God! '"^
Though Jesus had foretold His resurrection, and
thus His disciples might have been somewhat pre-
pared for that event, Thomas was not the only one
2 John 20, 24-29.
THE RESURRECTION 45
who hesitated, till forced by the evidence of his
own senses, to believe that the Master whom he
had seen expire on the cross and buried in the tomb,
had indeed risen from the dead and was again liv-
ing and speaking with men. So far were they from
being over-creduloiis, that when the first reports of
the resurrection reached the Apostles, they regarded
them as dreams and did not believe them.^ Even
when certain of the Apostles actually saw the risen
Christ and spoke with Ilim, they would hardly trust
their own eyes; and could find little credence with
their brethren.*
Evidence. Yet in spite of this skepticism which
refused to believe till convinced by indisputable
proofs, all of the Apostles were soon rejoicing in the
triumph over death of their Master, and proclaim-
ing His resurrection as an evidence of His divinity
and of the truth of His teachings. They had beheld
the indisputable proofs and were convinced. They
had seen the Savior: and the circumstances under
which Christ appeared after His resurrection prove
that the disciples were not deceived. He was seen
not only by the Apostles ° but by many, even by
more than five hundred brethren at once. He ap-
peared not once only, but repeatedly during forty
days, till His ascension. He spoke and ate with His
disciples and showed them the marks of His wounds
and commanded them to touch those sacred scars.
Even the enemies of Christ had unwittingly taken
measures that proved further evidence to establish
the fact of His resurrection. They made certain
that he was really dead before they allowed His
body to be taken from the cross ; even going to the
excess of piercing His body with a spear, after hav-
ing pronounced Him dead.^ Moreover, knowing
» Luke 24, 11 ; Mk. 16, 11. * Luke 24, 37.
«John 20, 19-26; Mk. 16, 14; Mt. 28, 16-18; I Cor. 15, 6; Acts, 1,
1-9.
«John 19, 34.
46 JESUS CHRIST
that Jesus had prophesied that He would rise after
three days, as a precaution against the possibility of
His body being stolen by His friends or of any other
deception, influential Jews had demanded of Pilate
that a guard of Roman soldiers be stationed at the
grave/ In spite of the guard of soldiers, and the
stone barriers of the tomb, an3 the icy grip of death,
Jesus came forth on Easter morn to the astonishment
even of His Apostles; manifesting His divinity by
the fulfillment of the prophecy and by the display of
the miraculous power to which He had repeatedly
appealed as the final credential of His mission.^
Faith. The fact of the resurrection with its sig-
nificance for Christian faith, has providentially come
down to us proved by evidence adequate to such a
mightily important event. The Apostles were intel-
ligent and reliable eye-witnesses of the risen Lord.
Their slowness to believe the marvel except upon
the evidence of their own senses, shows that they
were as little moved by the impulse of enthusiasm
as is the modern scientific observer. Their truthful-
ness and sincerity are manifested in their whole con-
duct. Though they soon experienced that the
preaching of the resurrection of their Master would
lead to their own persecution and death, with the di-
vinely fearless strength of men who know that they
proclaim a truth transcendently great, the Apostles
continued to preach everywhere the resurrection, till
one be one, they laid down their lives as martyrs for
the divinity of Jesus Christ.
9. A STANDING MIRACLE.
There are other facts throwing light on the life
of Jesus Christ, which taken together constitute
'Mt. 27, 62-66; 28, 11-15.
«Mt. 12. 38-40- 20. 19; 27, 63; John 2, 18-21.
A STANDING MIRACLE, 47
overwhelming evidence of His Divinity. The his-
tory of the Old Testament, covering as it does a
period of several thousand years, is a record of the
expectation of a Messiah. It contains the history of
the family from which the Messiah was to spring.
It chronicles the hope of a Savior, ever growing
from the dim promise in Genesis,^ to the revelation
of His life and death in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Dan-
iel. Jesus Christ declared that these Scriptures
spoke of Himself.*- Certainly He alone fulfills and
explains the Hebrew covenant and the exp*ectation
of the nations.
The life of Jesus, His birth. His teachings. His
miracles, reveal His divine character. Even the
quiet days of Christ's early ministry, when from
village to village. He went about doing good, ex-
emplifying in His unstrained charity, His calm wis-
dom. His simple dignity, at once the ideal life of
man and the attributes of God, are for many souls
whom meditation has made appreciative of that life,
satisfying evidence of His divine Sonship and union
with the Father.
There is before the eyes of the world even to this
day, a standing miracle bearing witness to the divin-
ity of Jesus Christ. We look back to the carpenter
of Nazareth, living for some thirty years in His ob-
scure village. Remote from the centers of intel-
lectual life. He is, by His social position and
environment, cut off from the opportunities of
human education and large experience. He is the
scion of a race narrow and self-centered. He sud-
denly announces that He brings religious teachings
for all nations and for all ages. He prophesies that
His Kingdom will triumph and endure to the end of
time, even while He himself goes to the cross after
only two or three years of public life. Dying He
»Gen. 3, 15; 49, 10. »John 5, 39-46; 4, 26; Act. 18, 28.
48 JESUS CHRIST
leaves behind Him no single written word, no polit-
ical alliance, no philosophical school; only a dozen
common laborers to continue His work.
After the lapse of 1900 years, we behold about us,
the splendid fulfillment of His promises which when
uttered, seemed by every canon of human criticism,
to be meaningless dreams utterly incapable of real-
ization. We are confronted with the fact that His
Apostles have actually taught the nations. Their
message reveals ever deepening worth, as we are
more able to understand and appreciate its vital
truths. While the institutions and dynasties and
very civilizations of His day have all passed away,
Jesus Christ remains, and His Kingdom covers the
earth. In the presence of this standing miracle, we
may well bow our heads before the mystery and say,
with the centurion at the cross: ^* Truly this is the
Son of God. "3
10. THE GOD-MAN.
Christians speak of the mystery of the human and
divine in Jesus Christ, as the mystery of the Incar-
nation: *'The Word became flesh and dwelt
amongst us."^ In Christ, God has sent to us not
merely a prophet, but His Son who is ' ' the effulgence
of His Glory and the figure of His substance. " ^ In
Christ is the Incarnation of the divine Wisdom. He
is the second person of the Trinity, the Word or
mental image of God's substance generated by the
eternal act of the Father's self-knowledge. ^'No
man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither know-
eth any man the Father, save the Son and those to
whom the Son will reveal Him. ' ' ^ Though the In-
carnation has been the object of study of the great-
est minds, a mystery it must ever remain. We can
» Mt. 27, 54. 1 John 1, 14. » Heb. 1, 1-3. » Luke 10, 22.
THE GOD MAN 49
know many things about it, but we can never hope
to comprehend it. In th^ person of Jesus Christ are
united the human nature of His earthly Mother
Mary, and the divine nature of His eternal Father.
He is a man, like unto us in all things save sin : and
He is God.
Christ comes to the world as its Redeemer, enlight-
ening us by His faith and enlivening us by His
grace. Man falls through desire of false wisdom,-
and is redeemed through the substantial "Wisdom of
the Godhead."* The work of Jesus Christ rises above
the order of nature to the supernatural. He reveals
divine truth as it would never have dawned upon
unaided human reason. He provides us means to a
union with God utterly surpassing any hope of our
own merit or power. He opens up the way leading
to the beatific vision of God, Tviiich is not the due
of man but the gracious favor of .Heaven. Though
in this world, His kingdom is not of this world. In
the midst of nature, His subjects already dwell in
the supernatural state. His grace does not destroy
human nature but presupposes it and elevates it.
He came that we may have life and have it more
abundantly. To His words and works and His whole
plan of salvation, the key is, the supernatural. The
divine Word that is tlie Son of God by nature, ena-
bles us to become the sons of God by adoption,
whereby we may truly call God our Father.®
Christ, the Son of God, calls upon all men to fol-
low Him. He comes speaking as one having author-
ity. *'I am the way, the truth and the life. Follow
Me."* He is the vine only in union with which,
can the branches bear fruit or live. He demands a
complete self-surrender — the giving up of father and
mother and home, if these stand in the way of dis-
* St. Thos. Sum. Theol. III. Q. 3. A. 8.
• 6 Rom. 9, 4; 8, 15-23; Gal. 4, 5; Eph. 1, 5.
•Mt. 7, 29; John 14, 6; Mt. 16, 24.
50 JESUS CHRIST
cipleship with HimJ To open our minds to His
message and to conform op.r wills to its every pre-
cept, is at once the highest wisdom and the essential
duty. Under His standard men find the sense of
security and inner strength and spiritual life which
led St. Paul to say: *'If God be with us, who is
against us ? Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature shall be able to separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ' ' *
11. RESUME OF PART ONE— THE FOUNDA-
TIONS OF RELIGION.
We have seen that the foundations of religion
are God and the soul. Religion exists because God
and man exist and have relation to each other. Cor-
rectly speaking only the true relation between man
and God is worthy of the name religion. In this
absolute sense there is only one religion as there is
only one truth. The word is used in a loose sense
to cover what might be called man's attempts at re-
ligion. Again in a more proper sense we speak of
natural religion and supernatural religion. As man
has been called by God to a supernatural destiny
and God has in a supernatural way revealed to us
His divine will and plan of our salvation, the^true
religion is actually supernatural. It is the relfgion
of Jesus Christ.
As all men are related to God, every man has his
religious responsibilities. Only the thoughtless say
they have no religion because they have enrolled
themselves in no religious society. One may not live
up to his religious duties or even be fully informed
of them ; but each and every one has relation to God
»Mt. 10, 37. "Rom, 8, 39.
RESUME OF PART ONE 51
as creature to Creator, as child to Father. We can
no more get away from that relationship than the
son can make cease his relationship with his par-
ents. It is true, the ingrate may shamefully repudi-
ate and cast out his father and mother; but their
son he remains. To understand this bond as it is
revealed to us in God's will, is to know our religion.
To live in harmony with this truth, is to practice our
religion.
As union with God, in knowing and doing His will,
brings man's life into harmony with trutii, the true
religion makes possible man's highest development.
It alone teaches him to make all his deeds work to-
gether towards his supreme end. Even in this life
religion begets action. *'A11 epochs,'' says Goethe,
*'in which faith is dominant, are brilliant, elevating,
and pregnant for the present and the future. Those
on the contrary that are under the sway of a mis-
erable skepticism, dazzle for a moment, but are soon
forgotten, because worthless in the knowledge which
bears no fruit. Unbelief belongs to weak, shallow
and retrograding minds.'' It could not be other-
wise. Ideals and earnest convictions alone can
arouse man to heroic deeds. Doubt can destroy, but
it has no power to create or renew. Uncertainty
on the supreme problem, the very meaning of life,
stuns the best energies of man and depresses and
paralyzes the soul. **If I had the gift of faith in
my hands," said Thiers, *'I would pour it over my
country. I prefer a hundred times a nation with
faith, to one without. The former has more enthu-
siasm for enterprise, more heroism in defending its
greatness."
The man of faith is no Ploszow'ski with his hope-
blighting "cui bono." He is no cynic, to whom
' ' life is but a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury signifying nothing." He can find triumph in
52 JESUS CHRIST
failure. He is neither a server of time nor a slave
of men. He lives and dies for the highest good, con-
scious that he works with God and for eternity.
"Believers have been world-compellers and world
revealers. They have conquered with Paul; they
have founded empires with Charlemagne ; they have
written epics with Dante and Milton; they have
read the secret of the stars with Copernicus and
Kepler; they have sailed the seas of darkness with
Columbus ; they have cleared the wilderness for the
people's rule with the Puritans. Life's current has
welled within them in a clear, perennial, fresh-flow-
ing stream; and they have faced death himself, be-
lieving that he unlocks the door, through which we
pass to God by whose throne flows life's full tide." ^
We have seen that Jesus is the Christ, the divine
Son of God, bringing to our race, truth and grace
and so eternal life. The teachings of Christ, the
means by which He raises the individual soul to
union with God, the instruments by which He con-
tinues His work in the world and establishes His
reign among men, will be the matter of the following
chapters.
* Spalding, "Religion, Agnosticism and Education."
PART TWO
CHAPTER IV
THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
12. THE CHURCH FOUNDED BY CHRIST.
As one reads the history of Jesus Christ, he is im-
pressed with the fact that Christ gathered His fol-
lowers into a society furnished with definite social
organization and with certain sacramental rites.
This social union was at once the inevitable fruit of
Christ 's precepts of love and mutual helpfulness, and
His chosen means by which His influence would be
spread through the world and preserved to future
generations.
The Kingdom. Christ came to exalt the individ-
ual in virtue ; to bear witness to the truth ; to exem-
plify the highest love; to unite men with God, and
with one another as brothers under the one Father;
to break down the barriers of ignorance and wrong,
of caste and race-prejudice; to make the world a
great spiritual empire — the ''Kingdom of God'* on
earth. That the kingdom may exist ''within you/'
it exists likewise without.^
Through organization, Christ planned to carry on
His work. He repeatedly speaks of the kingdom
in the terms and under the figures of a visible soci-
ety. He calls His followers the Kingdom of
»LuTce 17, 21; Mt. 6, 10.
53
54 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
Heaven.^ He likens them to a fold of sheep led by
shepherds ; ^ to a mustard seed destined to grow to
a mighty tree sheltering the birds ; * to leaven which
will leaven the world ; ^ to a field in which are found
tares as well as good wheat ; ^ to a net with good and
bad fish ; '' to a vineyard with its master and la-
borers.^ He calls them His Church.®
Christ gives to the Church the essential features
of its constitution. To represent Him in a special
way and to act as His ministers or agents in spread-
ing and perpetuating His work, He selects from
among His followers, the twelve apostles.^*^ These
he appoints the shepherds of His flock.^^ He clothes
them with authority to govern the brethren.^^ Into
the mouth of these, His teachers accredited to the
world, He puts the preaching of His Gospel.^^ Into
their hands He entrusts the administration of the
sacred rites of the new covenant." To one of
the twelve He gives the **Keys of the Kingdom," ^^
the symbols of the preeminence of him who being the
servant of the servants, is the leader.^^ Membership
in this society was conditioned by the initiatory rite
of Baptism ^^ and marked by the frequent reception
of the Eucharistic Sacrament.^® It is open to all
men. All the sheep of the divine shepherd must be
brought into this fold.^^
^Mt. uses "Kingdom of Heaven" 34 times; others use "K. of God."
'John 10, 14.
*Mt. 13, 31.
"Mt. 13, 33.
•Mt. 13, 24.
»Mt. 13, 47; 4, 19.
•Mt. 20, 1.
•Mt. 16, 18. Word used over 100 times in N. T.
"Mk. 8, 13.
"John 21, 17.
«Mt. 18, 18.
"Mt. 28, 18.
"Mt. 28, 19; Luke 22, 19; John 20, 28.
«Mt. 16, 19.
"Luke 22, 26.
"John 3, 5.
"L Cor. 11, 23-29.
"John 10, 16.
CHURCH FOUNDED BY CHRIST 55
Unity. Christ foresaw how the Church would
develop in its details in order to accomplish its mis-
sion in every environment. He saw, too, how this
work would be hampered by the human tendency
toward disunion. To insure the permanence of the
Church and the success of its work, He promised
that the Holy Spirit will abide with it to the end of
time.^^ The powers of evil shall not overcome it.^^
After His last supper Christ prayed that all His fol-
lowers, both the apostles and those who would come
to believe in Him through their preaching, might
continue in a unity which would be seen by the world
and from which the world might know that He was
sent of God.^2 So the Church of Christ was to be
a public and visible society, whose members bound
together in a common faith and love, would, pre-
cisely by this unity, convince the world of their di-
vine origin.
After the departure of Jesus, we find the apostles
acting together as a society. They hold legislative
council.^^ They appoint fellow-workers.^* They sit
in judgment of the brethren.^^ They cut off unwor-
thy members.^* Their work required this organiza-
tion; the work of teaching with mutual council and
agreement; of charity with needful cooperation; of
sacramental worship with tepples and worshipers.
The Master has ordained this organization. All
who would be His disciples, must henceforth enlist
beneath the banners of His Kingdom; and contrib-
ute of their particular talents to the common effort
to propagate His truth and promote His love. The
Church is the embodiment of the Christian reli-
gion.
The Church. It is the necessity of our earth, that
the spirit of institutions, as well as the souls of men,
^ojohn 14, 16.
»Act. 15, 28.
20 Act. 5. 3.
=»Mt. 16, 18.
"Act. 6, 5.
2«I. Cor. 5.
"John 17, ^1.
56 THE CHUECH AS A SOCIETY
must have a body, if their influence is to be ade-
quately exercised. Only in the organization of our
Eepublic in 1776, did the spirit of our national lib-
erty — and all that the history of that phrase means
— receive the tangible and efficient shape that we
may call its body. Organization enables us to enjoy
and defend our freedom; to bequeath it to our chil-
dren; and to make it the privilege of other men.
In our present millions of people, our complex laws,
foreign relations and machinery of government,
the heroes of Valley Forge would hardly recognize
the little federation of 1776. Yet we, America of
the twentieth century, are but the development of
that humble beginning. A man does not prove his
identity by returning to his cradle. Our many laws
exist only to protect our liberty: our manifold rela-
tions, only to promote the happiness of all in our
different conditions. The highest national virtue is
still the patriotism that would live and die for the
country. Worthy citizenship is still the sufficient
honor. The darkest crime is still treason against
rightly constituted authority.
Like our Republic,^^ the Church has grown. The
mustard seed has become a mighty tree. The leaven
has leavened the world. Cockle has indeed appeared
amid the good wheat ; but it is no part of the wheat.
The kingdom has been assailed by all the powers of
evil; but the gates of hell have not prevailed. The
Church has not left Christ in the poverty of Beth-
lehem. She has enlisted in His service the highest
culture and eloquence. She has beautified His tem-
ples with every art. She has glorified His Cross on
her steeples. She herself has developed, as develop
she must, if she would live. But she has not
changed. To unite men with God and with one an-
" The CRurch is a society sui generis, having some features of both
empire and republic, while belonging to a different order from either.
THE HEAD OP THE CHURCH 57
other, to mold lives in the image of Jesus Christ, is
still her one work. That the Spirit of God might
be within us, His Church has been without. She is
a continuation through the ages, of the Incarnation.
The history of the Church is the history of Chris-
tianity in the world.
13. THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH.
Following the analogy of the human body, with
its various members working together harmoniously
under the direction of the head, nature teaches us
the necessity of placing a leader at the head of any
society of men, in order to hold its members to-
gether and enable them to carry out its purposes.
This is the conception of society, as opposed to the
unmarshalled mob ; of law and order, as contrasted
wuth anarchy. The business, social, political or mil-
itary organization must have its proper head. The
town has its mayor, the state its governor, the re-
public its president as the representative of the cen-
tral authority that unites its citizens. So essential
to the well-being of the republic is the chief execu-
tive officer considered, that with him, is always
elected a vice-president; and provision is made for
the legal succession of even further subordinates, to
take the presidential chair in case of necessity.
In the United States, Maine is uilited with New
Mexico, Oregon with Florida, through their com-
mon union with the central authority of the country
at "Washington. All our hundred million citizens
stand as one man in civic strength, because each ac-
knowledges the leadership of the president, in whosie
person the nation is made one. Within the proper
sphere, union with the central government at Wash-
ington and with its representative, the president, is
the test of loyalty and patriotism. Rebellion against
58 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
the constituted authority, secession from the union, is
treason, which brings down upon the offender loss
of citizenship and liability to death.
Christ's Headship. What our human wisdom
teaches us to do for any organization which we wish
to deal successfully with men, Christ's divine wis-
dom led Him to do for the Church which He founded
to carry on His work among men. He gave to His
Church a visible head. Christ Himself is ever the
invisible head of the Church, as He is, in a sense,
the invisible head of the nation. By His authority
''Kings rule and law-givers decree just things.''
But the Church, like the Republic, being a visible
society, made up of and for visible men, stands in
need likewise of a visible head. Christ indeed is
our King. He is the divine Sovereign of the King-
dom. He is indeed the Head of the Church, com-
municating His own spirit to the members of His
mystic body.^ He still guides His earthly flock;
only not in visible person, as He did in the days of
His sojourn on earth ; but through the hands of His
apostles and their successors, human instruments
through whom He works and with whom He abides
to the end of time.^
Christ's Vicar. The Gospel history tells us that
from among the twelve apostles, it was Simon Bar
Jona, better known as St. Peter, whom Christ ap-
pointed the leader among the apostles, the father
of the brethren, the chief pastor of the Church and
the highest representative of Himself after His own
departure from this world. Simon Peter is coristi-
tuted the visible head of the Church; the rock of
central authority on which the Church is built up
and its members held together in the unity of faith
and the bond of charity.
11. Cor. 12, 27.
2Mt. 28, 18.
CHRIST ESTABLISHED PAPACY 59
14. CHRIST ESTABLISHED THE PAPACY
WITH PETER AS THE FIRST POPE
In the mind of Jesus Christ, the workings and
needs of the Church were all foreseen and provided
for. The plan of the divine architect neglected no
essential point. Simon was chosen ^ and his future
ofifice designed by the Master, before the day when
Andrew brought his brother to Jesus, saying: **We
have found the Messiah.'* At that first meeting
with Simon, Jesus gave a hint of what the future
was to bring. Looking upon the fisherman. He said :
*'Thou art Simon the son of Jona. Thou shalt be
called Cephas" — which, as St. John explains, is by
interpretation a rock.^
Cephas. What the Lord meant by these words,
the apostles were to learn later on. Before hearing
their solution, we shall look carefully at the strange
word, Cephas, used by Christ. Cephas is a noun of
the Syro-Chaldaic language, the tongue (a mixture
of Hebrew and Chaldaic) used by the Jews after the
Babylonian captivity. As the Gospel notes, Cephas
means a rock.^ The word Peter, by which we com-
monly designate the Apostle Simon, is the Anglicized
form of petra, the Greek word for rock. We are
familiar with this root in the word petrified, by
which we describe wood or other substances that
have turned to rock.
Children are now often called after the great apos-
tle, and the word Peter has become to most people
merely a convenient name, like John or Thomas.
But it had never been a man's name before Christ
gave it to Simon to signify his destined office in the
Church. The half Greek translation, Peter, might
easily lead the uneducated to miss the very point
and force of what really Christ said to Simon. As
iJohn 15, 16. ^John 1, 42.
60 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
the whole New Testament, except perhaps the Gos-
pel of Matthew, was written in Greek, the form,
Peter, would easily be carried into our language as
the name of the apostle. .In plain English what
Christ said to Simon was: ''Thou shalt be called
the Rock.'* Other Jews, including Abraham, Sarah,
John the Baptist and Jesus Himself,^ had been given
mystic names significant of the office to which they
were destined. Doubtless Simon and his friends
wondered what was presaged by Jesus naming him-
the Rock.
The Great Commission. We read in the Gospel,*
the story of the great commission given by Christ to
Simon. ''Jesus came into the quarters of Csesarea
Philippi and asked the disciples, saying: Who do
men say that the Son of Man is? But they said:
Some, John the Baptist ; some Elias ; others Jeremias
or one of the prophets. Jesus said unto them : But
who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered
and said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv-
ing God. And Jesus answering said unto him:
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona, for flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father
who is in Heaven. And I say unto thee that :
Thou art Peter (Cephas, Rock), and
On this Rock I will build my Church; and
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it : and
I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven: and
Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be
bound in Heaven: and
Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be
loosed in Heaven."
The Rock. Let us study this commission. ' ' Thou
art Peter and on this Rock I will build my Church. ' '
The Church built by Jesus Christ is essentially asso-
»Mt. 1, 21. *Mt. 16, 13-19.
CHRIST ESTABLISHED PAPACY 61
ciated with Simon Peter. Simon proclaiming the
faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living
God, is the Rock on which the Church is built. The
wise architect builds his house upon a solid founda-
tion to hold it together and protect it from wind
and storm and enemies. So the Church, the society
of the faithful, is founded by Christ upon the rock
of a central authority which will hold it together
and be the citadel of union and protection. This
central authority is established concretely in the per-
son of Simon Peter.
That Christ identifies Simon and the Rock on
which He builds His Church, is more clearly indi-
cated by His words in the oriental tongues, where
the very same word is used both times. In the
Syro-Chaldaic, which Christ spoke, the word is
Cephas. In the cognate Syriac we read:
Anath Chipa vcJiaU hada Chipa.
Thou art Peter and on this rock.
This identity of expression is somewhat obscured
in the Greek, where the commoner form petra is
properly turned to the masculine form, petros, when
applied to the Apostle. Thus: —
*• 8u ci Petros Tcai epi taute te Petra,
Thou art Peter and on this Rock.
The Latin version follows the Greek:
Tu cs Petrus et super hanc Petram.
Thou art Peter and on this Roch.
The identity is well preserved in the French:
Tu es Pierre et sur cette Pierre.
Thou art Peter and on this Rock.
62 THE CHUECH AS A SOCIETY
Peter, as we shall now call him, does not become
for the Church a different foundation from Jesus
Christ. The Church is built on Christ, who is the
chief cornerstone and foundation. It is built on all
the Apostles. But in a particular way, it is built on
Peter as the rock of visible authority and the high-
est representative of Christ. ^'Note too, the Rock
is not the man Peter apart from his faith. For his
name is given him because of his*faith.^ Nor is
the Rock the faith apart from the man. *Thou,'
says Christ, ^art the Rock. ' The Rock is Peter hold-
ing and declaring the divinely given faith. '^
The Gates of Hell. "With Peter its rock of central
authority, is linked the promise of Jesus Christ to
His Church, that * ' the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. ' ' ^ Error and sin and all the passions of
men and all the cunning and fury of evil spirits may
besiege and storm the citadel; but they shall not
overcome it. Christ is the wise man who built His
house upon a rock; the rains descended, the floods
came, the winds blew and beat upon that house : but
it fell not because it was built upon the rock."^
Keys of the Kingdom. *'I will give to thee the
keys of the kingdom of heaven.*' The keys are the
symbols of authority. This is a figure coming from
the days of walled cities and castles, when the high-
est officer controlled the keys.^ The Kingdom of
Heaven, like the Kingdom of God, is used in the New
Testament to signify the Church.^ Hence upon Pe-
ter, Christ bestows the symbols of highest authority
in His Church.
Peter's Authority. Lest perhaps men might fail
to realize His meaning and intention, Christ drops
BMl. 16, 17.
•Mt. 16, 18.
»Mt. 7, 25.
•This figure found Is. 9, 6; 22, 15-22. Apoc. 1, 18; 3, 7.
» "Kingdom of Heaven" used 34 times, now for the elect, now for the
visible Church.
CHRIST ESTABLISHED PAPACY 63
the metaphor and in plainest speech concludes His
commission making Peter His vicar in the Church:
* * Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound
in Heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
shall be loosed in Heaven.'*
Servant of the Servants, To be the lowliest rep-
resentative of God — as priest in the parish or parent
in the home — is to be the servant of others for the
love of God and the good of men. To be the high-
est representative of God, is to be the servant of the
servants. Thus the divine Master explained the of-
fice and larger responsibility which He laid upon
Peter. The night before Jesus died, when perhaps
the disciples felt they would soon be without His
visible presence, some of them discussed among
themselves, who of them would be the greater in the
Kingdom. Jesus showed that if one will be the
greater, it is only because upon him will be placed
the greater care and labor as the servant of all.
And He promised that Peter will be the Father
Apostle, to hold together the company when Satan
will strive to scatter them as chaff before the wind ;
and that Peter, with God's grace, will confirm the
faith of the brethren.^<>
"Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have
you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith shall fail not; and
thou being converted, strengthen thy brethren." ^^
The Chief Pastor. Before His ascension into
Heaven, Christ gathered His Apostles around Him
and again singling out Peter from the rest. He con-
stituted him the pastor of His whole flock. Christ
commissions Peter to feed both the lambs and the
sheep. To his special care, the Master entrusts all,
'"Luke 22. 24-32.
""■ Note the plural you — all of you, and the singular thee — ^Peter: and
Christ's prayer for Peter to whom He entrusts the others.
64 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
both the little ones and their elders ^^ who would
bring forth the spiritual lambs into the fold.
*' Jesus said to Simon Peter: ^^ Simon, son of
John, lovest thou me more than these ? He said to
Him ; Lord thou knowest that I love Thee. He said
to him:
Feed my lambs.
He said to him again : Simon, son of John, lovest
thou me? He said to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou know-
est that I love Thee. He said to him :
Feed my Lambs.
He said to him the third time: Simon, son of
John, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved that He
said to him the third time, lovest thou me. And he
said to Him: Lord, Thou knowest all things:
Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus said to him:
Feed my sheep."
Thus Christ constituted Peter the pastor of His
whole flock, the father among the brethren, the rock
of central authority in the society of His followers.
The Church, as a society would need a visible head.
In this act, Christ provided it. Throughout history
we find the Church constituted with a chief officer.
He is called the Pope, that is the father. Before we
find the Pope in history, we find him in the Scrip-
tures. The constitution of the Church is divine;
it is the work of Christ. The Papacy is part of that
constitution. Peter is the first Pope, the pastor of
the Universal Church:
"The pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
The golden opes, the iron shuts amain." i*
" Laity and clergy make up the fold. Peter is over all. Elsewhere
Christ uses same figures, calling false teachers wolves in sheeps' cloth-
ing.
" John 21, 13-17.
" Milton. Church compared to boat. Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine
and other fathers were impressed by Christ teaching from Peter's boat
and calling him the Fisherman of Men. Luke 5, 1-10.
PRIMACY OF PETER 65
15. THE PRIMACY OF PETER IN THE FIRST
DAYS OF THE CHURCH.
Immediately after the Ascension of Christ, we
find Peter standing in the midst of his fellow Apos-
tles, as their leader. In the first half of the Acts of
the Apostles,^ which is almost the only history of
the first few years of the Church, Peter is the one
towering figure. He is the first to preach to the
Jews in Jerusalem.^ He is the first to receive the
Gentiles.^ He is the first through whom God exer»
cises miraculous power.* He conducts the election
of a successor to Judas.^ He judges Ananias and
Saphira, who fall dead at his feet.** He speaks at
the Council of Jerusalem and ''all the multitude
hold their peace.'' Before Peter spoke there was
much disputing. Afterward James and the others
speak only to agree with his judgment.'' Peter is
cast into prison: all the Church is aroused till he
is delivered by a miracle.® ''To see Peter," Paul
goes up to Jerusalem, and remains with him a fort-
night.® Doubtless Paul saw the other brethren too,
but he emphasizes the leader. At another time,
when Paul did not agree with Peter about a matter
of policy,^^ — where one may have his own opinion
and differ in it from a superior officer, — he records
the incident as something worthy of note: and his
mentioning it, the way he does, is a testimony to
Peter's primacy.
^ Later Chapters Luke devotes to journeys of Paul
'Act. 2. l-I. J J .
»Act. 10.
♦Act. 3.
"Act. 1, 15.
•Act. 5.
»Act. 15, 7.
8 Act. 12, 5.
"Gal. 1, 18.
^^ Gal. 2, 11. In truths of faith the Ap. were agreed, being undee
inspiration of Holy Ghost. Matters of policy might be left to theii
human wisdom.
66 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
Exercise of Office. In view of what occurred dur-
ing the passion of our Lord, how unnatural and un-
likely it would have been for Peter to thus assert
himself as he did, or for the others to have per-
mitted him to do so, had not he and they realized
that he was vested by Christ with an authority and
had a special office to exercise. It would have
seemed more becoming for Peter to take the lowest
place in the assemblies of the Apostles, to cultivate
silence, and to avoid prominence; instead of ^'rising
in the midst'' and leading his confreres. But in
Peter and indeed in all the Apostles, Christ was
using weak human instruments; and it was after
the repentance of the one and the forgiveness of
the other, that the trust was given, '*Feed my
lambs, feed my sheep."
Peter First. The primacy of Peter was testified
to by the other Apostles in various ways, by their
writings as well as by their acts. Thus it is signifi-
cant that in the four Gospels alone, the name of
Peter is mentioned as often as 91 times, while St.
John's name, which comes next to his, is mentioned
only 38 times throughout the entire New Testament.
In the Acts the name of Peter occurs over 50
times, whereas the next after his is mentioned only
eight times.^^ In the whole New Testament Peter
is mentioned some 180 times. Four times the New
Testament gives a list of the twelve. The name of
Judas is always placed last, not by accident, as all
will readily understand, but with good reason. The
others find different places in the several lists, ex-
cept Peter, who is always placed first. Elsewhere
too, when Peter is mentioned with other Apostles, he
is given the first place.^^ Neither was this by acci-
dent. As Matthew says: *' Peter was the first":
" Prince of the Apostles, by P. J. Francis.
"Mt. 17, 1. Mk. 14, 33. Luke 22, 8. John 21, 2.
ST. PETER IN ROME
67
not the first in age, nor the first to join Jesus, but
the first in authority.
Lists of the Apostles.
Matthew X-2.
Mark. III16.
Luke VI-14.
Actt 1-18.
1. The first Simon
Simon Peter.
Simon Peter.
Peter.
Peter.
2. Andrew.
James Zeb.
Andrew.
James Zeb.
3. James Zeb.
John.
James Zeb.
John.
4. John,
Andrew.
John,
Andrew.
5. Philip.
Philip,
Philip.
Philip.
6. Bnrtholomew,
Bartholomew.
Bartholomew.
Thomas,
7. Thomas.
Matthew.
Matthew.
Bartholomew.
8. Matthew.
Thomas.
Thomas.
Matthew,
9. James Alp.
James Alp.
James Alp.
James Alp,
10. Thaddaeus
Thaddaeus
Simon Zeal.
Simon Zeal.
(Jude).
(Jude).
11. Simon Zealotcs.
Simon Zeal.
Jude (Thad.)
Jude (Thad,)
12. Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot,
16. ST. PETER IN ROME.
Sienkiewicz, in his masterpiece, **Quo Vadis,"
paints a picture worthy at once of his historical
learning and his artistic skill. The Emperor Nero
is entering Rome from a triumphant tour of the
East, and the populace crowd the pavements to ad-
mire the gorgeous spectacle. The emerald through
which the tyrant scrutinized the crowd, rested upon
an humble, gray-haired Jew jostled in the throng.
For a moment their eyes met. In that moment two
world powers were gazing at each other. The one,
at the time triumphant, founded on might of arms
and wealth, seemed destined to last forever: but was
soon to fade away. The other, unknown and insig-
nificant, was to rise up in spiritual dominion and seize
forever the city and the world. The Jew was the
Apostle Peter.
It is a matter of history that Peter lived in Rome
and from that center of the world empire, labored
68 THE CHUKCH AS A SOCIETY
for the struggling infant Church. The years of
Peter in its Bishopric are estimated at 25; though
they were not spent in Rome alone, but in many jour-
neyings. From his letter to the Romans, we learn
that Paul, too, realizing no doubt the strategic value
of the capital city, planned to reach Rome. Both
saints sanctified the eternal city by their martyrdom,
under the Emperor Nero, in the year 67. Peter
was crucified like the Master, only with his head
downward. Paul, being a citizen of the empire,
escaped this ignominious death of the cross, only to
have his head struck off with the sword.
Rome Providential. In the providence of God,
the empire of the Caesars prepared the way for the
spread of the Christian religion. All the nations of
the civilized world and many barbarous tribes paid
tribute to Csesar. Roman law and arms held all the
provinces under the spell of the siren of the Tiber.
Her Latin and Greek, like her coins, were current
in the east and the west. They had broken down
the barriers of distance and race; and were found
everywhere — on the tongues of her merchants and
soldiers, in the outlying camp of British York, and
with the Hebrew of Palestine, on the cross of Cal-
vary.^ Rome was the head and center of this im-
perial dream realized then, and neither before nor
since.
All roads led to Rome and from Rome. Over
them marched soldiers crowned with the victory of
war; and captains of industry bartering the mer-
chandise of Egypt and Syria for the slaves of Greece
and Gaul. Along them, backward and forward,
sped wing-footed couriers bringing to the ends of the
earth the decrees of the senate; and to the eapitol,
the heart throbs of the world. Rome was the world
center of commerce and government. Would she
iJohn 19, 9.
ST. PETER IN ROME 69
not be the strategic point from which to spread the
religion of Christ to the nations of the earth?
Might not apostles march over her roads as sol-
diers of the cross; bearing the torch of divine light
to those that sat in the darkness of paganism, and
the tidings of salvation to the slaves of sin; and re-
turn crowned with the victory of peace ; or remain,
wreathed with the crown of martyrdom? The Ro-
man empire seemed a providential instrument for
the spread of Christ's kingdom on eaHh. And to
Rome came thp chief apostles, Peter and Paul.
Voice of History. That Peter was in Rome, is the
unbroken tradition of the ages. In the face of this
teaching of all historians worthy of the name, it has
been denied that Peter was in Rome. But the denial
arose not from historical criticism but from theo-
logical polemics. It was unheard of till the reli-
gious controversies of comparatively recent times
seemed to need it as an argument. The best answer
to this denial is to cite the names of a few of the
many illustrious non-Catholic historians who, with
all the ancient writers and the Catholic scholars,
teach St. Peter ^s presence in Rome. Such are Gro-
tius, Cave, Lardner, Whitby, Macknight, Hales,
Claudius, Schaff, Mynster, Neander, Steiger, De
Wette, Wiesler, Credner, Bleck, Hilgenfeld, Man-
gold, Renan, Myers, Whiston, Leibnitz.
The Dictionary of the B'ible - says: *' There is
now an almost unanimous agreement among scholars
that the Apostle Peter suffered martyrdom in the
Eternal City, the only point of <iifferenee being as to
the date."
Lardner writes: *'It is the general uncontra-
dicted, disinterested testimony of ancient writers,
Qreeks, Latins and Syrians."^
* Scribner's. 1905, Art. Rome,
» Church of Ap, and Evang., Ch. 18.
70 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
Cave writes.: ^'That Peter was in Rome and held
the See there for some time, we fearlessly affirm
with the whole multitude of the ancients. ' ' *
Whiston, the translator of Josephus, says : * ' That
St. Peter was in Rome is so clear in Christian an-
tiquity that it is a shame to confess that anyone ever
denied iV ^
To quote only one of the ancient writers, St. Clem-
ent of Rome, a disciple of Peter and Paul, speaking
of the faithful sacrificed by Nero, says of Peter and
Paul: "They were a great example among us. It
was here that they bore the outrages of men and en-
dured all kiiids of tortures.''
The American historian, Philip Van Ness Myers,
says : '* "Without doubt he (Peter) preached at Rome
and suffered martyrdom there under the Emperor
Nero."«
Babylon. St. Peter wrote his first epistle from
Rome, calling the capitol by the name Babylon.''
This name was a symbol of pagan power and perse-
cution of the people of God, burned into the Jewish
mind by the memory of their captivity in the an-
cient Babylon of the East. Peter was not in the
Assyrian Babylon, which had fallen to desolation
before his day. Pagan Rome, with its imperial
grandeur and its grasping power, crushing out the
independence of the Jewish nation, ready with exile
or the cross for the individual Jew, was the new
Babylon of the West. We find the same name ap-
plied to pagan Rome, in his Apocalypse,^ by St.
* Hist, of Eccl. Writers, V. I., p. 5.
'" Memoirs.
* Ancient History, p. 583.
U. Peter, 5, 13.
' Apoc. (Revelations) 17, 5. Some fanatics misinterpret as prophecy
about the Catholic Church, John's descriptions of the abomination of
ancient paganism. Speaking of the Beast and Babylon, of the
Apocalypse, the Expositor's Bible says: "Babylon, cannot be papal
Rome. It is impossible to treat of the papal church as the guide and
inspirer of Anti-Christian efforts to dethrone the Redeemer and to sub-
stitute the world or devil in His stead. The Papal Church has toiled,
ST. PETER IN ROME 71
John, who had been scalded with hot oil under the
Emperor Domitian and then exiled to Patmos.
"From the time of the Neronian persecution this
usage was common."^ That Rome is the Babylon
of Pefer's Epistle, is quite agreed by the best schol-
ars, Catholic and non-Catholic. Among the latter
are Ellicott's Commentary and the Speaker's Com-
mentary which says: "We find an absolute consen-
sus of ancient interpreters that there Babylon must
be understood as equivalent to Rome." -
Rome's Monuments. Rome herself has been ever
eloquent of her two glorious apostles. In every
century of the Christian era, their memory has been
associated with places and buildings, the monuments
of their presence and martyrdom. Over the eternal
city, visible for miles in every direction, towers
Michael Angelo's dome, beneath which lies the body
of St. Peter. His resting place there on the Vatican
hill, has been the site of a Christian church froni
the earliest days. Nearby on the Janiculum, an-
other church marks the site of his crucifixion. Out-
side the walls of Rome, on the Ostian way, stands
the noble basilica with the body of St. Paul; while
further on the same road, the famous three foun-
tains mark the spot where Paul shed his blood. In
the church of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the
city since the days of Constantine, preserved in
magnificent reliqueries, are the heads of both apos-
tles and the wooden table at which St. Peter cele-
brated the Mass or Lord's Supper. The visitor to
Rome may still penetrate the depths of the Mamer-
tine prison, where Peter and Paul awaited their
martyrdom: and elsewhere gaze upon the chains
which bound the prince of the apostles in his old
age and led him where he would not.
suffered, and died for Christ." — Vol. — "Book of Revelation," Ch. 13,
p. 295. Funk & Wagnalls, 1900.
» Stand. Diet, of Bible, Funk & Wagnalls, 1909, Art. Peter.
72 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
A Living Witness. But Rome has another testi-
mony of Peter's presence more convincing than any
of these. There on the Vatican hill, beside the
splendid world cathedral with its Cathedra Petri,
dwells still'the successor of Peter in the primacy of
the Church. Through all the centuries the Popes
have been there, from Jtome ruling the universal
Church with an authority acknowledged as the au-
thority given by Christ to Peter. The spectacle of
the Popes, throughout the ages the chief pastors
of the Church, is a living witness that St. Peter was
the first bishop of Rome.
Nero might put to death the Apostles Peter and
Paul and a host of other martyrs. But their blood
has had a vengeance worthy of the saints. As in the
arena of the Circus Maximus the broad shoulders of
the faithful Ursus bended over the horns of the in-
furiated bull, to which was lashed the fair body of
Lygia; so in the arena of Rome Christianity and
Paganism contended long in the awful struggle for
the soul of man. In the Circus, at last slowly,
slowly, the beast weakens under the superhuman
strength of Ursus, and sinks to the ground. So
Paganism gradually succumbed to the supernatural
power of Christian truth and life, and died with the
cry of defeat: Nazarene thou hast conquered. The
blood of the martyrs was the seed of their faith.
The Eternal City. Rome is no longer the capital
of the pagan world, but of the Church of Jesus
Christ: no longer the center of every idolatry, but
the center from which the light of Christian truth
has spread over the earth. The throne of Nero has
fallen: his empire has crumbled away: his name
lives only as the symbol of all that is abominable in
human nature. The chair of Peter remains: his
spiritual kingdom embraces continents the Csesars
never knew: his successor still proclaims to the city
SUCCESSORS OP PETER 73
and the world, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the living God.
All roads still lead to Rome: and the pilgrims of
the centuries go to learn the lessons of human great-
ness and human nothingness which her hoary stones
can teach so well. Rome is the field where all the
world has battled for a thousand causes. Her streets
have echoed the footsteps of those whose names are
written in history. And those echoes repeat the
lesson that all that remains is the eternal and all
that triumphs is the cause of God. In Rome, the
conqueror has been conquered for Christ, and lives
as the eternal city, to glorify His name. She has
consecrated the blood-stained sands of the Colosseum
to the memory of the martyrs and their Master. On
the proud pillars of Trajan and Antonine, she has
placed the statues of her glorious apostles. From
the Circus Maximus, she has brought the obelisk,
round which blazed the wheels of chariots but whose
ancient home was dark, mysterious Egypt, and
placed it in the square of St. Peter's, as the pedestal
of the Cross of Jesus Christ. In the great school
of the Propaganda, she has gathered a.round her
choice youths of every land; and over its doors are
read Christ's words of her commission and of their
work: Ite et docete omnes gentes — Go and teach
all the nations.
17. THE SUCCESSORS OF PETER.
From the beginning, the successors of Peter in the
Bishopric of Rome, have filled the office of primate
of the whole Church. Catalogues of the earliest
Popes have come down to us from Ireneeus, Eusebius,
Jerome, Augustine and others. In all of these lists
Linus, of w^hom St. Paul makes mention,^ is made
III. Tim. 4, 21.
74 THE CHUECH AS A SOCIETY
the immediate successor of St. Peter. Linus is fol-
lowed by Cletus or Anacletus, who was martyred
under Domitian in 91. Then comes Clement, a dis-
ciple of Peter and fellow-laborer of Paul,^ whose
epistle written *'in the name of the Roman Church"
to quell some trouble among the Christians at Cor-
inth, was long read in the churches with the inspired
apostolic writings. These Popes w^ere martyred, as
were almost all the 30 Popes of the first three cen-
turies.
Acts of Primacy. In spite of the constant perse-
cution of the first centuries, which drove the Chris-
tions to the catacombs and little tended to encour-
age the unnecessary exposure of their Bishops as
the leaders of the condemned religion, the historical
fragments from those earliest days contain a long
series of facts — appeals of troubled churches or in-
dividuals throughout the world and acts of universal
jurisdiction, which eloquently testify that the suc-
cessors of Peter were ever the center of unity and
authority in the Church.
Thus St. Clement writes to the Corinthians in the
name of the Roman Church. In this letter, written
before the opening of the second century, Harnack,^
recognizes ' language that was at once an expression
of duty, love and authority. ^ ' Lightf oot * admits an
*' urgent and almost imperious tone," and even ''the
first steps toward papal dominion."
St. Ignatius Martyr of Antioch, writes to Rome as
to the first See in dignity, being the Church of Peter
and Paul. St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, speaks
of Rome as the See of Peter and the principal
Chureh; whence comes the unity of the priesthood;
whose faith has been commended by the apostles ; to
whom faithlessness has no access. St. Polycarp of
'Phil. 4, 3.
•Hist, of Dogma, II, 3; Excursus, Eng. Transl. p. 156.
* Clement of Rome, I., p. 69, 70.
SUCCESSORS OF PETER 75
Smyrna, a disciple of St. John, has recourse to Rome
on the question of Easter. St. Irenteus calls Rome
the greatest Church of Peter and Paul ; and appeals
to its teaching, declaring that to it every church
that is faithful must resort. Later Pope Victor,
(192-202), threatens to excommunicate the churches
of Asia. The priests of Alexandria appeal to Pope
Dionysius (259-269) against their bishop. The
heretic Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, ap-
peals to Rome: as do the Montanists of Phrygia,
Praxeas from Asia, and Basilides deposed in Spain.
Soter, Bishop of Rome (168-177) sends alms and the
affectionate exhortation of a father to all the
churches of the empire. TertuUian says: *^0
Church happy in its position, into which the apos-
tles poured out together with their blood, their whole
doctrine." As Rome w^as the head in the first two
hundred years, so has it been through the centuries.
U Not Rome, What? When the student of histwy
contemplates how the other cities, — Jerusalem, An-
tioch, Alexandria, — ^^vhich in their day might have
seemed likely capitals for the Church, were destined
at an early date to pass beneath the Moslem yoke
and become a prey to barbarism, without influence
in the world and quite incapable of doing the work
which the Church had to do and which Rome has
done, — viz., the civilization and Christianization of
the nations of Europe — he may well wonder what
would have been the history of Christianity without
Rome as its capital: and he must admire the Provi-
dence that seated St. Peter and his successors in the
eternal city.
The Pope and Christ. Peter and the Popes do not
supersede Christ or set up an authority independent
of Christ. The Church is the continuation of
Christ's work in the world. The Pope is the servant
of the servants, the ambassador delivering the Mas-
76 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
ter's message, the general commanding the King's
army on the field of battle, the governor administer-
ing the Sovereign's law by the Sovereign's authority.
In the tribune of the church of St. Paul outside the
walls of Rome, is a mosaic of the 13th century — a
golden age of papal influence. It pictures well the
relation of the Pope to Christ. Christ is depicted in
heroic stature, surrounded by Peter and Paul and
their disciples Mark and Luke. At the feet of
Christ kneels Pope Honorius; his figure so compar-
atively small as scarcely to be seen. His work is to
exalt Christ and draw the world to him. If the
Pope is great and venerable among men, his glory is
the glory of the Master whom he represents.
Christ's Promises Fulfilled. Through the ages,
the Papacy as a matter of fact, has been the rock of
central authority that has united the Church in
faith and organization. In its long history how
mmiy a storm has the Church known, from enemies
without and within, from national spirit and political
intrigue, from pride and avarice and ambition. F-ull
often 'Hhe rain descended, the flood came, the winds
blew and beat against that house : and it fell not be-
cause it was built upon the rock."
When schism threatened to divide the Church, and
Satan, arrayed most often as an angel of light,^
would scatter the sheep, and men might hesitate to
which party to turn, the faithful remembered who it
was that Christ made their shepherd; and their
watchword was the phrase of St. Ambrose: Ubi
Petrus Ibi Ecclesia. Where Peter is there is the
Church.
In the day of heresy, when error contended with
truth for victory and leadership, men could listen to
the Church of Peter against which the gates of hell
° Under the pretext of reforming Christ's Church, men have struck the
deadliest blows at its unity.
HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 77
can not prevail ® and say with St. Augustine : Roma
locuta est, causa finita est. Rome has spoken, the
case is settled.
If to-day the 300 million members of the Church
are not cast about by every wind of doctrine and
split up into a hundred sects, but stand as one man
in faith and organization, it is because we stand with
Christ's Pope on the rock of central authority.
Without the Pope, St. Peter has no successor in the
universal pastorate given him by Christ. Without
this visible head the Christian people were indeed as
chaff before the wind. Men may, if they will, dis-
pute the meaning of the words of Christ. Men may
misinterpret His prophecy in their own minds. But
God does not misinterpret Himself in history. The
history of 1900 years is His interpretation. The
present Pope is a link in the unbroken chain that
unites us with Peter and the Apostles in the Church
of Jesus Christ.
After lecturing on this subject, the writer once
asked a celebrated non-Catholic lawyer who was in
the audience, whether, given a competent court, he
could hope to win the case of Peter and the succeed-
ing Bishops of Rome, as claimants to the Primacy of
the Christian Church. He answered: *'I only wish
I had half as much good evidence for every case I
defend."
18. THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH.
As any American boy may aspire to be president
of the United States, so any boy in the world may
possibly become the Pope, the Primate of the Uni-
versal Church. The hierarchy of the Church estab-
lished by divine ordination, consists of bishops,
priests and subordinate ministers.^ Any boy feeling
»Eph. 4, 14.
1 C. Trent Sess. 23, Can. 6.
78 THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
within himself the divine vocation, and judged by
his bishop to be a worthy candidate, may become,
through the sacrament of Holy Orders, a deacon and
a priest.
The Bishop. The bishopric is the fullness of the
Christian priesthood — the succession of the apos-
tolic office. The Pope is the chief Bishop. The
bishops are the proper pastors of their dioceses, ''set
by the Holy Ghost to feed the Church of God."^
They alone can perpetuate the priesthood by ordain-
ing priests and consecrating bishops. They can make
and dispense laws for the government of their re-
spective dioceses. They form the general council of
the Church. They assign duties to their clergy,
who preach and discharge the sacred ministry only
with the jurisdiction given them by the bishop.
"While the bishop, after his appointment, rules his
diocese by ordinary jurisdiction inherent in the of-
fice, — and not merely as the delegate of another, he
must of course administer and teach in harmony with
the general laws and faith of the universal Church,
and in submission to its central authority. Appeal
may be made from the actions of a bishop by his sub-
jects, to the Pope or his delegate. After proper
process of law in the ecclesiastical courts, the bishop
may be sustained, corrected or even deposed. The
laws regulating the rights and relations of persons in
the Church, as well as methods of legal procedure,
that have accumulated through the experience and
wisdom of centuries, make up the body of canon law.
Organization. The organization of the 300 million
members of the Church, proceeds along practically
the same lines in each country, and may be illus-
trated by the Church in the United States. The
laity, individuals and families belong to the parish.
Its limits are set, ordinarily by considerations of
a Act. 20, 28.
HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 79
distance, every one being a member of the nearest
church; or extraordinarily by the requirements of
language. The pastors of parishes and other priests
and religious officials belong to the diocese, whose
members are thus all united in their bishop.
The bishops of the several dioceses of a state or
other convenient district, make up a province ^ and
are called its suffragans; while one of their number
presides with the title of archbishop or metropolitan.
The archbishops of the country meet together under
one of their number who thus acts as national pri-
mate and is generally a cardinal.
The Catholic directory for 1913 gives for the
United States, not including our island possessions :
3 Cardinals.
1 Apostolic Delegate.
14 Archbishops.
97 Bishops.
17,491 Priests.
15,154,158 Members.
The Church throughout the world includes, in the
year of Our Lord, 1912:
1 Pope.
64 Cardinals (Full College 70).
201 Archbishoprics.
802 Bishoprics.
350,000 (about) Priests.
292,787,085 Catholics.
Cardinals Elect Pope. The Pope is elected by
the College of Cardinals who make up the Senate of
the Church and represent the various nations.* The
Cardinals are appointed by the Pope. They may be
the Bishops of ancient or important Sees, like Cardi-
' At the present time, in the United States, the Bishops of the Prov-
ince and the representative clergy of the vacant diocese respectively elect
sets of three names (terna) from which normally the Pope chooses one
as bishop.
* C. Trent Sess. 24, Can. 1.
80
THE CHUKCH AS A SOCIETY
nal Gibbons of Baltimore or the Archbishops of
Westminster and Paris; and so naturally act as the
leading prelates of the land. Or they may be priests
who are thus honored for their genius and signal
service to the Church, like Cardinal Newman; or
like some Cardinals in Rome, priests whose theolog-
ical, legal, or historical attainments are devoted to
assisting in the government of the Church in its dif-
ferent departments of higher education, diplomacy
or missionary propaganda. Or again, they may be
deacons, as was Cardinal Antonelli, the papal secre-
tary of Pius IX. The Cardinals then are. not a di-
vinely constituted or distinct order, as are priests
and bishops; but they are, in the highest sense, a
body representative of the w^hole membership of the
Church.
While the Pope may thus be said to be elected by
the people, through their representatives, he does
not receive from them his authority or power. He
is Pope not as their representative, but as God's rep-
resentative. He is selected by them for the office.
By virtue of holding the office, he exercises the au-
thority which belongs to it by the will of God, and
which Christ first entrusted to the Apostle Peter.
19. LIST OF THE POPES.
ACCORDING TO "GERARCHIA CATTOLICA."
Elected Died Elected Died
1. St. Peter 67 12. St. Soterus, M. 166 175
2. St. Linus, M. . 67 76 13. St. Eleutherius,
3. St. Cletus, M... 76 88 M 175 189
4. St. Clement I, M 88 97 14. St. Victor I, M. 189 199
5. St. Evaristus, M 97 105 15. St. Zephyrinus,
6. St. Alexander I, M 199 217
M 105 115 16. St. CaUistus I,
7. St. Sixtus I, M. 115 125 ^ M 217 222
8. St. Telesphorus, 17. St. Urban I, M. 222 230
M 125 136 IS. St. Pontian, M. 230 235
9. St. Hyginus, M. 136 140 19. St. Anterus, M. 235 236
10. St. Pius I, M. . 140 155 20. St. Fabian, M. . 236 250
11. St. Anicetus, M. 155 166 21. St. Cornelius, M 251 253
LIST OF THE POPES
81
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
12.
13.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
Elected
St. Lucius I, M. 253
St. Stephanus I.,
M 254
St. Sixtus II, M. 257
St. Dionysius . . 259
St. Felix I, M. . 269
St. Eutychian, M 275
St. Caius, M. . . 283
St. Marcellinus,
M 296
St. Marcellus I,
M 308
St. Euscbius. . 309
St, Melchiades. . 311
St. Sylvester I. 314
St. Mark 336
St. Julius I 337
St. Liberius . . . 352
St. Damasus I. 366
St. Siricius .... 384
St. Anastasiu^ I 399
St. Innocent I 401
St. Zozimus ... 417
St. Boniface I. . 418
St. Celestine I. 422
St. Sixtus III. . 432
St. Leo I (the
Great) 440
St. Hilary 461
St. Simplic'ius . 468
St. Felix III. .. 483
St. Gelasius I. . 492
St. Anastasius II 496
St. Symmachus. 498
St. Hormisdas. . 514
St. John I, M. . 523
St. Felix IV. . . 526
Boniface II. . . . 530
John II 532
St. Agapitus . . 535
St. Silverius. M 536
Vigilius 538
Pelagius 1 555
John III 561
Benedict I .... 575
Pelagius II ... 579
St. Gregory I
(the Great . . 590
Sabinian 604
Boniface III. . . 607
St. Boniface IV 608
St. Adeodatus I. 615
Boniface V 619
Honorius I . . . . 625
Severinus 640
John IV 640
Theodore I . . . . 642
St. Martin I., M 649
St. Eugene I. . . 655
St. Vitalian . . . 657
Died
Elected
Died
254
77.
Adeodatus II .
. 672
67e
78.
Donus I
. 676
678
257
79.
St. Agatho . . .
. fi78
681
258
80.
St. Leo II . . .
. 682
683
268
81.
St. Benedict II
. 684
685
274
82.
John V
. 685
686
283
83.
Conon
. 686
687
296
84.
St. Sergius I .
. 687
701
85.
John VI
. 701
705
304
86.
John VII
. 705
707
87.
Sisinnius . . . .
. 708
708
309
88.
Constantine
. 708
715
309
89.
St. Gregory II.
. 715
731
314
90.
St. Gregory II
I 731
741
335
91.
St. Zachary . .
. 741
752
336
92.
St. Stephen II.
. 752
752
352
93.
Stephen III. . .
. 752
757
366
94.
St. Paul I . . .
. 757
767
384
95.
Stephen IV . .
. 768
772
399
96.
Adrian I
. 772
795
401
97.
St. Leo III . . .
. 795
816
417
98.
St. Stephen V .
. 816
817
418
99.
St. Paschal I..
. 817
824
422
100.
Eugene II . . .
Valentine . . . .
. 824
827
432
101.
. 827
827
440
102.
Gregory IV . .
. 828
844
103.
Sergius II . ...
. 844
847
461
104.
St. Leo IV . . .
. 847
855
468
105.
Benedict III..
. 855
858
483
106.
St. Nicolas
I
492
(the Great)
. &58
867
496
107.
Adrian II
. 867
872
498
108.
John VIII . . .
. 872
882
514
109.
Marinus I ...
. 882
884
523
110.
St. Adrian III.
. 884
885
526
111.
Stephen VI . . .
. 885
891
530
112.
Formosus ....
. 891
896
532
113.
Boniface VII .
. 896
896
535
114.
Stephen VI . . .
. 896
897
536
115.
Roraanus
. 897
897
538
116.
Theodore 11 . . .
. 897
897
555
117.
John IX
. 898
900
561
118.
Benedict IV .
. 900
903
574
119.
Leo V
. 903
903
579
120.
Sergius III . .
. 904
911
590
121.
Anastasius III
. 911
913
122.
Landus
. 913
914
604
123.
John X
. 914
928
606
124.
Leo VI
. 928
928
607
125.
Stephen VIII.
. 929
931
615
126.
John XI
. 931
935
618
127.
Leo VII
. 936
939
625
128.
Stephen JX . .
. 939
942
638
129.
Marinus II ...
. 942
946
640
130.
Agapitus II. . . ,
. 946
955
642
131.
John XII
. 955
964
649
132.
Leo VIII
. 963
965
655
133.
Benedict V
, 964
966
657
134.
John XIII
, 965
972
672
135.
Benedict VI . . .
, 973
974
82
THE CHURCH AS A SOCIETY
136.
137.
138.
139.
140.
141.
142.
143.
144.
145.
146.
147.
148.
149.
150.
151.
152.
153.
154.
155.
156.
157.
158.
159.
160.
161.
162.
163.
164.
165.
166.
167.
168.
169.
170.
171.
172.
173.
174.
175.
176.
177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
188.
189.
190.
191.
192.
193.
194.
195.
Elected
Died
Benedict VII
.. 974
983
196
John XIV..
. . 983
984
197.
John XV . .
. . 985
996
999
198
Gregory V .
.. 996
199
Sylvester II.
.. 999
1003
200
John XVII .
. .1003
1003
201.
John XVIII
..1004
1009
202
Sergius IV. .
..1009
1012
203
Benedict VII]
[. .1012
1024
204.
John XIX . .
..1024
1032
205.
Benedict IX
. .1032
1044
206
Sylvester III
..1045
1045
Benedict IX
. .1045
1045
Gregory VI
. .1045
1046
Clement II .
. .1046
1047
Benedict IX
. .1047
1048
Damasus II.
. .1048
1048
207.
St. Leo IX .
..1049
1054
208.
Victor II...
.V.1055
1057
209.
Stephen X .
..1057
1058
210
Nicholas II .
. .1059
1061
211.
Alexander II
. .1061
1073
212.
St. Gregory V
tI.1073
1085
213.
B. Victor II]
[..1087
1087
214.
B. Urban II
...1088
1099
215.
Paschal II .
..1099
1118
216.
Gelasius II.
. .1118
1119
217.
Callistus II
. .1119
1124
218.
Honorius II.
. .1124
1130
219.
Innocent II.
..1130
1143
220.
Celestine II.
. .1143
1144
221.
Lucius n. . .
..1144
1145
222.
B. Eugene III
[. .1145
1153
223.
Anastasius I"V
^.1153
1154
224.
Adrian IV..
. .1154
1159
225.
Alexander II]
[. .1159
1181
226.
Lucius III. .
. .1181
1185
227.
Urban III..
..1185
1187
228.
Gregory VIE
[..1187
1187
229
Clement III.
. .1187
1191
230.
Celestine III
..1198
1216
231.
Innocent III
. .1198
1216
232.
Honorius III
..1216
1227
233.
Gregory IX.
..1227
1241
234.
Celestine IV . .
. .1241
1241
235.
Innocent IV
. .4243
1254
236.
'Alexander I"V
\ .1254
1261
237.
Urbanius IV
. .1261
1264
238
Clement IV.
. .1265
1268
239.
B. Gregory X
:..1271
1276
240.
B. Innocent '\
^ .1276
1276
241.
Adrian V. ..
. .1276
1276
242.
John XXI...
..1276
1277
243.
Nicholas III.
. .1277
1280
244.
IVfartin IV. .
..1281
1285
245
Honorius IV
. .1285
1287
246.
Nicholas IV.
. .1288
1292
247.
St. Celestine
V.1294
tl294
248.
Boniface VIIl
[..1294
1303
249.
B. Benedict J
[1.1303
1304
250.
Elected Died
Clement V 1305 1314
John XXII 1316 1334
Benedict XII... 1334 1342
Clement VI.... 1342 1352
Innocent VI... 1352 1362
B. Urban V 1362 1370
Gregory XI.... 1370 1378
Urban VI 1378 1389
Boniface IX. . . .1389 1404
Innocent VII, . .1404 1406
Gregory XII... 1406 tl415
(Clement V)...1378 1394
(Benedict
XIII) 1394 1423
(Alexander V) . .1409 1410
(John XXIII). 1410 1415
Martin V 1417 1431
Eugene IV 1431 1447
Nicholas V 1447 1455
Callistus III... 1455 1458
Pius II 1458 1464
Paul II 1464 1471
Sixtus IV 1471 1484
Innocent VIII..1484 1492
Alexander VI.. 1492 1503
Pius III 1503 1503
Julius II 1503 1513
Leo X 1513 1521
Adrian VI 1522 1523
Clement VII... 1523 1534
Paul III 1534 1549
Julius III 1550 1555
Marcellus II 1555 1555
Paul IV. . .. .'. .1555 1559
Pius IV 1559 1565
St. Pius V 1566 1572
Gregory XIIL..1572 1585
Sixtus V 1585 1590
Urban VII 1590 1590
Gregory XIV... 1590 1591
Innocent IX 1591 1591
Clement VIII..1592 1605
Leo XI 1605 1605
Paul V 1605 1621
Gregory XV 1621 1623
Urban VIII 1623 1644
Innocent X....1644 1655
Alexander VII. 1655 1667
Clement IX 1667 1669
Clement X 1670 1676
Innocent XI... 1676 1689
Alexander VIII.1689 1691
Innocent XII. . .1691 1700
Clement XI 1700 1721
Innocent XIII. 1721 1724
Benedict XIII.. 1724 1730
Clement XII... 1730 1740
Benedict XIV.. 1740 1758
Clement XIII . . . 1758 1769
Clement XIV... 1769 1774
LIST OF THE POPES 83
Elected Died Elected Died
251. Pius VT 1774 1799 255. Gregory XVI... 1831 1846
252. Pius Vir 1800 1823 256. Pius IX 1846 1878
253. Leo XII 1823 1829 257. Leo XIII 1878 1903
254. Pius VIII 1829 1830 258. Pius X 1903
CHAPTER V
THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER
20. FAITH.
Jesus Christ is our King, Prophet and Priest. In
the continuation of His work, it is the office of His
Church to teach as well as to govern, and finally to
sanctify. These three offices are intimately related.
The purpose of all the Church's work is to bring men
into union with God, and so to life eternal. That
through the truth, men may find this life, the
Church teaches them the truth. To this end she
draws them to herself as to the ''city set upon a
hill, ' ' ^ and gathers them around her in that king-
dom. In the Church, Christ remains for us still
''the way, the truth and the life." Having studied
the Church as the Christian society, we shall observe
her now as the custodian and teacher of Christian
truth ; and later as the medium of the Christian life.
Divine Virtues. The pledge of our life in Heaven
is our union with God begun here on earth by faith
and hope and charity. By faith we believe all the
truths which God has revealed. From this belief is
born the hope of reaching by God's mercy, and en-
joying by His gift, the heavenly things which we
know by faith. From faith and hope proceeds char-
ity, by which we love God whom we know and hope
for as the supreme good. This love or union of mind
iMt. 5, 14.
84
FAITH 85
and heart with God, we manifest by conforming our
lives to whatsoever faith reveals as His divine will.
Faith is the foundation of our life with God. We
may have faith without hope and love. **The devils
believe and tremble."- We may have faith and
hope without loving service. "Not everyone that
saith to me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father." ^
Itbt without faith, there is no basis for divine hope
or love ; there is no eternal bliss to be confidently
looked forward to ; no beneficent Father in Heaven
calling for loyalty and reciprocal love. ** Without
faith it is impossible to please God; for he that Com-
eth to God, nuist believe that He is, and that He is a
rewarder of them that seek him."*
Paul's Description. * 'Faith is the substance (or
grounds) of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen."^ The idea presented is that divine faith
is that light which gives the human intellect a cer-
tain apprehension of supernatural things. In other
words, faith makes certain to the mind of man, the
revealeS truths and mysteries of God. To borrow
Cardinal Newman's expression, it is a ''real assent"
to truth about divine things that are either dimly
visible or totally invisible to the naked eye of rea-
son.
Paul illustrates his description of faith by an ex-
ample: '* Through faith, we understand that the
world was framed by the word of God."^ That is
to say, faith is belief in revealed truth, one of the
first points of which is that God is the creator of all
things. Paul furthermore set forth the reason why
we can give our intelligent assent to the divine
truths. It is the veracity of God who can neither
deceive nor be deceived ; ^ and the clearness of the
'Jas. 2. 19.
*Heb. 11, 6.
•Heb. 11, 3.
»Mt. 7, 21,
•Heb. 11, 1.
»Heb. 6, 18.
86 THE CHUECH AS A TEACHER
fact that God has made a revelation in divers times
*and ways and especially through His Son Jesus
Christ.^
If eminent scientists tell us that the twinkling
stars are in reality mighty suns ; that no atom of the
matter we see blazing in the fire is really annihilated ;
that from ships in midocean men may send messages
to friends in Europe and America; that certain dis-
eases are the result of the activity of specific germf^
— and a thousand other things, we trust their testi-
mony even before our own untrained and unaided
senses. Their reputation and authority decide our
minds and move our wills to do so. These men may
possibly be wrong. They may possibly be deceiving
^s. They are human. But in spite of these remote
possibilities, in practical life we take these things for
granted because competent men declare them to be
facts. This is human faith. We act upon it every
day and in almost every movement of our lives. We
could not live in society without it.
If Jesus Christ tells me that the soul of man is
immortal, that our every good and evil deed leaves
its record in eternity, that the goodness of God dif-
fuses itself to men making them partake in the di-
vine nature and raising them to the adoption of sons,
— I believe these things to be true, even though my
own unaided reason would never have discovered
them. The authority of Jesus Christ is ample reason
for my doing so. His authority is the authority of
God who can neither deceive nor be deceived. This
is divine faith. It is of divine faith that our chapter
treats.'
Definition. We may then define faith as a divine
virtue whereby with God 's grace, the intellect firmly
assents to and holds as true whatever God has re-
vealed, precisely because God has revealed it.
•Heb. 1, 1.
FAITH 87
The word ''faith" is much used and abused.
Besides the primary sense, it is properly used in sev-
eral secondary senses: — creed or doctrines believed,
pledge or word of honor, fidelity, loyalty, faithfulness.
Practicing the Christian religion, living up to the
Christian faith, the virtue of Christian charity, some
call faith or living and saving faith. But there is
also much loose writing about '* faith, '^ by writers
*who do not know exactly the meaning they wish to
attach to the word. This has given' rise to endless
religious discussion. Webster quotes one Dwight
who styles faith an ''emotion of the mind called
trust, confidence, exercised toward the moral char-
acter of God and particularly of the Savior.'' The
psychology of this analysis is not likely to make
darkness less dark. Another vague sense noted by
Webster is "confiding and affectionate belief in the
person and work of Jesus.'' The word is abused to
cover confused ideas that hardly distinguish between
faith and hope and love. Clear conceptions of these
theological virtues would end much religious con-
troversy.
Let it not be supposed, however, that when we
have called faith the virtue by which man accepts
the revelation of the Eternal Truth, we have sounded
its depth or compassed its bounds. The sense of
sight, of which faith might be called the spiritual
kin, is not quite stripped of mystery by the definition
of the physicist or his description of its function.
Faith is surely not less mysterious. It is not the
conclusion of a syllogism. It is not within the gift
of the teacher. It is something so simple that it
abounds in the innocent and childlike ; and yet most
complex and elusive, involving intellect and will and
the whole man. It is indeed a gift or grace of God.
It is a virtue and like other habits, it may be neg-
lected and lost, or it may be treasured and increased.
88 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER
Percival and Sir Galahad beheld the Holy Grail.
The pure of heart shall see God.
21. CREEDS AND DEEDS.
The statement of what we believe, the platform of
our faith, is technically called our creed. ^ Each sep-
arate truth or doctrine is known as a dogma. * Sub-*
consciously at least, every man has the material for
the making of a creed.' It may be very different,
for better or worse, from his formal profession of
convictions. It largely determines his actions; be
they the outrages of the anarchist, the sensuality of
the epicurean, the narrow sympathies of the materi-
alist, the expedient hypocrisy of the masked skeptic ;
or on the other hand, the enthusiasm of the sincere
lover of truth, the self-sacrifice of the Sister of Char-
ity, the moral victory over passion of the young
Christian, the patient trust of the dying believer.
To be without dogma or creed is to be without re-
ligious principles. To the man without ideals noth-
ing great or noble seems worth while. To the man
without faith, the supernatural life with God is
meaningless. As far as his spiritual life is concerned
such a man is like a ship on the sea without chart or
rudder or destination. I wished my neighbor a
Merry Christmas. His face darkened sadly. He
* The Apostles' Creed has been in use as a summary of Christian faith
since so early a date, that it is popularly supposed to have been com-
posed by the first Apostles. It is the creed used in the administration
of Baptism and other sacraments, and in the daily prayers of the peo-
ple. See No. 51.
Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed shows its origin at the Council of
Nice, in 325, in its insisting on the divinity of Christ, then denied by
the Arians. It is merely an amplification of the Apostles' Creed. It
describes the Church by the famous four marks. "One, Holy, Catholic
and Apostolic." This creed is the formula of faith repeated in the
The Creed of Pius IV., a clear statement, embodying the expositions
of Nice, Trent and Vatican councils, and the Trinitarian Creed of St.
Athanasius are not in popular use.
CREEDS AND DEEDS 89
looked at me wistfully. He said: ** Christmas is
not merry for me any more.'' Why not? I knew,
lie had lost his faith. How? By not living up to it.
God, heaven, hell were no longer realities to him.
Yet he feared that perhaps these things might be.
He feared but was not sure. For want of faith and
the certainty it gives, he lacked the motive and
strength to make the moral effort necessary to live
aright. Was he happy? Christmas left him dispir-
ited, gloomy, afraid. On his desk was a skull yith
an olive wreath and the paralyzing **Ctd Botw** —
What's the use !
Broad Views. Faith enriches a man. It gives
him two worlds instead of one. Or rather it gives
him one larger world, partly seen and partly unseen:
and it makes the unseen as real as our senses make
the seen. The views of the believer are the truly
broad views. The horizon of material science is not
the impassable bounds of all truth. Faith penetrates
that horizon and stretches its gaze out over the in-
finite. Its measure is the eternal. It looks at things
from the point of view of God. To the man who
has faith, no low or sordid action seems worth while.
By faith he lives and walks with God. He is merci-
ful and loving, though no human heart return his
love. He is forgiving, and loves his enemies' more
than they love themselves. He is honest and true,
counting integrity and character more than riches or
fame. He uses his talents as serviceable gifts of
God, feeling that nothing less is his duty than to be
occupied with the highest work of which he is ca-
pable and to die with the conviction that he has done
his best. He rises superior to misfortune and to
death, knowing that the right will triumph, though
the righteous be crucified or go down to a forgotten
grave. He Avorks for the infinite ; his judge is God ;
and the balance is the justice of eternity. *'This is
90 THE CHUECH AS A TEACHER
the victory that overcometh the world, our faith. "^
Extremes. An extreme view often heard, demands
deeds and not creeds; speaks in praise of religion
without formula ; and considers dogmas as something
vulgar and unenlightened: as though good works
and heavenly virtues could spring from any soil but
good principles and supernatural motives ; as though
enlightenment consisted in not having any religious
principles, or at any rate in not knowing just what
they are, and in acting^ as if they were something to
be ashamed of, and the less said about them the bet-
ter.
This extreme is explicable as the liberal reaction
against the opposite extreme once much urged by
certain sectaries, which, founded on a wrong concep-
tion of faith, scouted good works altogether and in-
sisted that men are saved by faith alone.
Faith and Works. As usual truth lies between the
extremes. It embraces both faith and good works,
as the tree combines in itself roots and fruits. Re-
ligion is union with God by faith and hope and char-
ity. It is not an act of believing alone. There is no
saving faith without its fruit of good works. Reli-
gion is life lived daily in the light of the divine truths
which God has spoken to us by His Son. It is the
spirit' of eternity breathing through every humble
duty and common action of time. It is faith mani-
festing itself in loving service. Salvation is
the grace of God cooperated with by man. The grace
is offered to all : all are free to work with it.
St. James tells us the relation of faith and good
works. *'What does it profit, my brethren, though a
man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can
faith save him ? Faith, if it have not works, is dead,
being alone. Thou believest that there is one God:
thou doest well : the devils also believe and tremble.
2 1. John 5, 4.
CHRIST'S MESSENGERS 91
But wilt thou know, vain man, that faith without
works is dead ! You see then, how by works a man is
justified, and not by faith alone. For as the body
without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is
also dead." ^
Without the life of supernatural virtue which he
calls charity, St. Paul assures us, though we have all
faith and know all mysteries and all knowledge, we
are nothing. Charity, he says, will continue in eter-
nity, when faith gives way to vision, and hope to en-
joyment. For faith is a means, charity is the end ; it
is union with God. **Now there abide faith, hope,
charity, these three; but the greatest of these is
charity. ' ' *
22. CHRIST'S MESSAGE AND HIS MESSEN-
GERS.
What shall a man's creed be? There is but one
deposit of faith, as there is but one God.^ Its dogmas
are the divinely revealed truths. It is the God-given
light and guide of life. It is the message of Christ.
That we may receive it intact, He sends His own mes-
sengers to deliver it to us. The title Apostles is
given to the chosen disciples of Christ, because their
office is to bear His message to the world.- The Gos-
pel history reveals at once, who His messengers are
and what is the scope of their mission. Each Gos-
pel begins with the call and training of the Apostles.
Each concludes with their commission from Christ to
go and teach the world all things whatsoever He had
taught them.
Matthew. Matthew witnesses to the call of the
Apostles; the promise to them of knowledge of the
mysteries of the Kingdom;' the assurance of Christ
•Jas, 2, 14-26. i Eph. 4, 5. , , ^
*I. Cor. 13, 1-13. 'Greek, Apo-stello — send forth.
92 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER
that the gates of hell shall never prevail against the
Church ; ^ and the great commission of Christ to the
Apostles, at the end: *'A11 power is given to me in
Heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all
nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you. And behold I am with you all days, even unto
the end of the world."*
Here then is promise of a teaching Church founded
on the Apostles as ambassadors of Christ. Its mes-
sage is all that Christ has taught to His messengers.
His continued presence is to preserve it from error
and perpetuate it to the end of time.
Mark. Mark, besides the call of the Apostles to
know and preach the mysteries of the Kingdom, re-
cords the encouragement of Christ to the twelve that
it is not they alone who will speak, but the Holy
Ghost through them; and closes with Christ's com-
mission to these men: **Go ye into all the world,
and preach J:he Gospel to every creature. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that
believeth not shall be condemned. ' ' ^
Here again we have a teaching Church sent to ev-
ery creature; the Holy Ghost speaking through its
authorized leaders ; the salvation of men depending
on whether they hear its voice or refuse the message
which it brings.
Luke. Luke mentions the call of the Apostles and
several words of Christ shedding light on the relation
between the Apostles te'aching in the Church, and the
divine Master: "He that heareth you, heareth
Me." * He records the prayer of Christ that Peter's
faith shall not fail, since he is to confirm the breth-
ren ; ^ and the commission : *' Ye are the witnesses of
«Mt. 16, 18. «Luke 10. 16.
*Mt. 28, 18-20. 'Luke 22, 31-32.
»Mk. 16, 15.
CHRIST'S MESSENGERS 93
these things and behold I send forth the promise of
my Father upon you ; but tarry ye in the city till ye
be clothed Avith power from on high." ^
In his Acts, Luke describes this power from on
high with which the Apostles w^ere clothed in the
coming of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost;^ and its re-
sult in the activities of the infant Church, culmina-
ting in the Council of Jerusalem sending out its de-
cree with the formula: **It hath seemed good to
the Holy Ghost and to us." ^'^
John. Like the others, John mentions the call of
the Apostles and many details of their commission.
His great testimony is to the promise of the Spirit
of Truth to abide forever with the teachers of the
Church. **I go to the Father," says Christ, *'and I
wijl ask the Father and He shall give you another
Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever, the
Spirit of Truth. These things have I spoken to you,
abiding with you ; but the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name, wull teach
you all things and bring all things to your mind,
whatsoever I shall have said to you."^^ John con-
cludes his Gospel with Christ's commissions to the
Apostles: ''As the Father hath sent Me, even so I
send you," and ''Feed my lambs, feed my sheep." "
Paul. Paul adds his testimony that Christ
founded His Church to be* a living teacher of His
truth; He himself dwelling w^ith it and speaking
to the world through the mouth of the Apostles and
their successors. This is the "Church of the living
God, the pillar and ground of truth. "^^
Conclusion. If Christ's words mean anything,
these records bear witness that the divine Master
left His Church to teach men His truth forever ; and
that by the protecting presence of the Holy Ghost,
•Luke 24, 45-49. "Act. 15, 28. "John 20, 21; 21, 15-17.
•Act. 2. "John 14, 12-26. "I. Tim. 3, 15.
94 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER
He endowed the Church with infallibility in the dis-
charge of its office.
23. THE CHURCH OUR INFALLIBLE GUIDE.
The history of Christianity is the history of the
ecclesia docens and the ecclesia discens,-^th.e
Church teaching and the Church taught: the Apos-
tles living still in their successors, and the masses of
men who come to believe in Jesus Christ through
their word.^
The Church has ever been conscious that she was
commissioned by Christ to be the custodian and
herald of His truth. This consciousness is seen in
the apostolic activity of the first Pentecost; in the
selection of Matthias to fill the place of Judas jfis
a ** witness'^ of Christ's life; in the council of the
Apostles at Jerusalem. It is the explanation of
the General Councils of the Church, in which the
Bishops of the world have assembled together as a
supreme court of the Church to settle disputed
points of doctrine: — to condemn as heretical, false
principles which threatened to mislead people from
the one faith handed down from the beginning; or
again to restate the eternal truths in language more
intelligible to a later age; or to apply the ancient
principles to the moral problems of the times. The
same consciousness is displayed in the zeal of the
Church in sending missionaries to the nations; in
founding great universities where her doctors may
study philosophy, history and the natural sciences,
in order the better to appreciate and expound the
revealed truth; and in establishing Christian schools
where the children of rich and poor may be prop-
erly trained for life in the science of faith and the
art of virtue.
»John 17. 20.
THE CHURCH INFALLIBLE 95
Infallibility. Like the first Apostles at Jerusa-
lem, their successors, the Bishops of the Church,
have been persuaded that they spoke not alone, but
that the Spirit of Truth spoke through them: that
they were the official messengers of Christian reve-
lation, bearing in their hands the commission and
credentials of Jesus Christ: and that their message
to the world in the domain of faith and morals is,
by the will and power of God, the truth and noth-
ing but the truth. This is what is meant by the in-
fallibility of the Church.
Her mission requires that the Church be an in-
fallible teacher. In sending His Apostles to the
world, Christ said: **Go and teach. He that be-
lieves and is baptized will be saved: he that be-
lieves not, will be condemned.^'- He commanded
us to **hear the Church,'* as we would hear Him-
self.^ He spoke of no other teacher. Now if we
are to be condemned unless we hear and believe the
Church left by Christ, we may rightly expect, and
it is in the very nature of things necessary, that
Christ leave us a Church which we can believe — a
Church which we can trust as an unerring witness
and follow as a sure guide, a teacher that we know
is preserved by God from giving out as His truth
that which is not the truth. In a word we have a
right to expect a Church that is infallible.
Without Infallibility. If the Church were not
infallible in teaching faith and morals, her official
decisions might be true and they might be false.
Their value would depend upon the accidents of
office; the genius, accomplishments or virtue of the
men who chanced to be in power at the time. Our
faith would rest not on the authority of God, but
of men. It would be not a divine but a human
faith.
»Mk. 16, 16. 'Mt. 18, 17; Luke 10, 16.
96 THE CHUECH AS A TEACHER
If the Church were not infallible, we could never
be sure regarding any particular point of her teach-
ings, whether it w^re correct or not. There would
always be the reflection, if the Church can be mis-
taken, perhaps in this case she is mistaken. We
would receive her decisions in controverted matters,
not with the unquestioning assent of divine faith,
but with hesitation and a proviso; not as the cer-
tain truth, but as a probable opinion. There would
always be present the element of doubt. If we re-
ally believe a thing we do not at all doubt it.
Doubt destroys faith.
If the Church left by Christ to teach us were not
infallible, we would be called upon by the God-man
to submit our intellects and give a real assent to
something lacking sufficient authority to motive
such assent. Real assent under such conditions, is
an impossibility. Or we should have to be, in the
last analysis, ourselves the critics and judges of the
correctness of the Church's decisions. This would
leave Christ's constituted teacher, no teacher at
all.
Secured. Christ's Church must be infallible.
That He secured to it the infallibility its office re-
quires, is the repeated testimony of the Gospel his-
tories. In every line of His divine plan of the
Church, which those histories reveal, can be traced
Christ's promise of the means by which His Church
will be preserved from error. If the gates of hell
will not prevail against the Church* — leading her
to teach the falsehoods of Satan in place of the
truths of Christ — it is because the Master Himself
will be with the Apostles in their teachings, all days
to the end of the world.^ It is because He will send
the Spirit of Truth to teach His human representa-
tives and to remain with the Church forever.^
*Mt. 16, 18. »Mt. 28, 20. "John 14, 16-26.
INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE 97
24. THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE.
As Christ's teacher, the Church is unerring within
its proper sphere. *'The Church/' says Wilmers,
''exercises its infallible doctrinal authority in di-
vers ways: through its general councils; through
the unanimous voice of the Bishope dispersed
through the universe but united with the
Pope; through its ordinary and uniform preaching;
through the Pope alone teaching ex-cathedra."
Granting the infallibility of the Church, it is
natural to find the Church exercising that infalli-
bility through the Pope, when as head and chief
pastor of the whole Church, he pronounces decisions
in matters of faith and morals binding the univer-
sal Church.
From the earliest times, men turned to Rome as
to the authoritative court of appeal and the teacher
of Christian truth. When local synods disagreed
and individual bishops judged each other to be
heretics, from the chief pastor of the whole Church,
men could learn what was the faith of the Church.
Only by standing on the Rock of Peter, could men
be certain that they were in the Church of Christ
and that their disputes were settled by competent
authority.
St. Irenffius (c. A. D. 125-202) lays it down as
the principle of his day, that the short and sure
method of deciding what is, and what is not the
Christian truth, is to look to what is taught by
Rome. While studying at Antioch, St. Jerome
found the churchmen there engaged in a three-sided
quarrel, and wrote to Pope Damascus for direction,
saying that he knew not Vitalis nor Meletius nor
Paulinus, but that he did know that the Church
was built upon the Rock, and that he is united with
Peter when he is united with Damascus who fills his
98 THE CHUKCH AS A TEACHER
chair. St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo (b. A.
D. 354), when the Apostolic See approved the de-
cisions of two councils condemning Pelagianism,
gave origin to the immortal phrase, ''Roma locuta
est, causa finita est.'' Rome has spoken, the case is
settled. The Councils of the Church have always
been presided over by the Popes in person or
through legates; and their decisions are not re-
ceived by the Christian world until approved by
the Holy See.
Supreme Court. In the United States, doubts or
controversies about the law are brought finally to
the Supreme Court. When its Chief Justice has
handed down the decision of the court, the case is
settled. There is no appeal from the Supreme Court,
except an appeal to rebellion and arms, which would
cut off the appellants from citizenship in the na-
tion. This highest court of the land is, within its
proper sphere, as nearly infallible as its human
framers could make it. Its decisions are accepted as
the truth.
Though in altogether different orders there is an
analogy between the Supreme Court of the United
States and the magisterium of the Church, which is
useful as an illustration. In the Church, questions
and controversies about faith and morals are finally
decided by its supreme court. When its chief jus-
tice hands down the decision, the case is settled.
There is no appeal except to private opinion and
rebellion against the teaching authority left by
Christ. To make such an appeal, is to cut one's
self off from citizenship in the Kingdom of Christ.
This court is as infallible as its divine founder
willed. Its decisions are the truth. If the members
of the Church are united as one man in their faith,
and have kept that faith intact from the beginning,
INFALLIBILITY DEFINED 99
it is because they listen to the voice of Christ speak-
ing through the Church.
Reasonable Act. My own private judgment is
founded on a limited experience and perhaps a
more limited ability. I cannot substantiate for it
any claim to preservation from error. I have re-
ceived for it no special promise of divine assistance.
I submit that private judgment to the official judg-
ment of the Bishops of the Church. Their authority
is not their own native genius, which singled them
out as fit for the high position they occupy. It is
immeasurably more. It is the authority to speak as
the official representatives of Christ and with the
protection promised by Him to their office. In sub-
mitting my individual judgment to such a tribunal,
I no more demean my mind or act against my con-
science than does the sailor w^ho, amid the dangers
of the sea, follows the safe guidance of his com-
pass. To accept the teachings of the Church as the
correct statement of Christ's doctrine, is a most rea-
sonable act.
25. DEFINITION OF INFALLIBILITY.
Infallibility is neither revelation nor omniscience.
The Church repeats the mysteries that have been
taught from the beginning; and she does not claim
to know all that can be known about them. No
new revelation is made to her. She can preach no
different gospel from that preached by Christ.
The divine assistance of infallibility is given in or-
der to teach the revelation once for all committed
to the Apostles; and to safeguard from error the
eternal truths in their development and application
amid changing times and conditions.
Doctrinal Development. As we discuss truths
100 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER
we realize more fully their content. The thinking
mind penetrates the surface of a doctrine; observes
its relation to other things ; discovers its place in the
world. The stress of new social problems brings
out the hidden depths of moral principles. This
progress is the progress of the believer in the faith,
rather than of the faith in the believer. '^The de-
velopment of revealed dogmas is not a process of
accretion from without, but of elucidation of that
which was always within."
In the restatement of truths and the drawing of
conclusions from them, nothing is easier than to
slip into some subtle but far-reaching error. From
the clashing of minds stirred to combat by such
dangerous novelty, truth is likely to emerge more
precisely defined more Nearly known. St. Augus-
tine remarks that heresy thus indirectly develops
our knowledge of the truth. Cardinal Newman
(shows that in the living truth, as well as in the liv-
ing cell, the organism is what it will become.
''When false affirmations and developments are a
power with men, influence can be gained only by
true explanations and developments. Affirmations
have to be met by denials; and denials counter-
acted by affirmations. Not to be driven backward,
the Church has to advance. The custodian of rev-
elation necessarily becomes its interpreter. To keep
the deposit, the Church is ever obliged to expound
the deposit. The gift of infallibility safeguards the
truth from the dangerous forces of its environment,
and enables it to realize itself more and more in the
various intellectual forms and language of the cen-
turies. ^ ^ ^
Defined Dogma. Thus the formal definitions of
the Church are usually made to meet popular errors
of the time ; or to settle exactly some matter whose
» McNabb, "Infallibility."
INFALLIBILITY DEFINED 101
terms and limits discussion has brought into ques-
tion. The Vatican Council in 1870, reaffirmed th(!
personality of God in order to oppose and correct
the pantheism and agnosticism of the day. The
Council of Nice in 325, taught the divinity of Christ,
not as a new dogma, but as one needing to be clearly
and solemnly emphasized in the face of the current
Arianism. The Council of Trent restated practi-
cally the whole body of Christian faith and morals,
that in the religious agitation of the sixteenth cen-
tury, men might not be deceived about what the
Church really taught.
How Church Defines. In defining her dogmas,
the Church uses every human means of reaching the
truth. Thus the Vatican Council states: "The
Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of
Peter, that by Ilis revelation they might make
known new doctrine ; but that by His assistance they
might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the
revelation or deposit of faith delivered through the
Apostles. And the Roman Pontiffs, according to
the exigencies of times and circumstances, some-
times assembling Ecumenical Councils, or asking for
the mind of the Church scattered throughout the
world, sometimes by particular synods, sometimes
using other helps which divine Providence supplied,
defined as to be held, those things which, with the
help of God, they had recognized as conformable
with the sacred Scriptures and apostolic traditions.'^
Thus after communicating with all the Bishops
throughout the world, Pius IX, in 1854, solemnly de-
fined the Immaculate Conception, — in that title sum-
ming up all the glories of the Mother of Christ, and
by his decision, settling points long discussed by
theologians. Sixteen years later, the Bishops of the
whole world, assembled in Rome at the Vatican
Council, under the same Pope Pius IX, decreed the
102 THE CHUECH AS A TEACHER
infallibility of the Pope: again be it said, not as a
new doctrine, — for they had witnessed the exercise
of that prerogative in the decision of 1854 and con-
tinually in the history of the Church, — but as a
truth to be most publicly and explicitly proclaimed
to an age of revolution and repudiation of all divine
authority and revealed truth.
Definition. The words of the Vatican Council de-
fining the infallibility of the Pope, are as follows:
"We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely re-
vealed: — that -the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks
Ex Cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the of-
fice of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by
virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines
a doctrine regarding faith and morals to be held by
the Universal Church, is, by the divine assistance
promised to him in Blessed Peter, possessed of that
infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed
that His Church should be endowed in defining doc-
trine regarding faith and morals/^
Misunderstanding. The objections made by non-
Catholics against the doctrine of infallibility, arise
from misunderstandings regarding its nature and
limits. To deliver God's message as it is revealed
to us, is the mission of the Church. The theological
writing of Popes, as well as their public sermons and
private conversations, bear somewhat the same re-
lation to infallible decisions as do the legal treatises
and popular speeches of a chief justice to the de-
crees of his court. Still less then does the divine
assistance in teaching faith and morals, have to do
with geology, astronomy, or other natural sciences.
Mistakes of churchmen however exalted, in the dis-
cussion of these extraneous matters, would in no
way detract from the teachings of the Church within
her proper sphere.
Impeccability. A common misunderstanding con-
INFALLIBILITY DEFINED 103
founds infallibility with impeccability, and supposes
that Avhen we say the Pope is infallible, we mean
the I'ope cannot sin. As the decisions of the Su-
preme Court of the United States neither assume
personal perfection in its justices nor lose their
value because of the blemishes of private lives, so
the decisions of the Supreme Court of the Church
are the acts of an official authority, exercised within
limited sphere and form, and receiving their value,
not from the personal worth of the Pope, but from
the authority inherent in the office he fills.
The prerogative of infallibility exists within the
Church for the benefit of mankind, and as the con-
dition of an effective teaching authority. Impecca-
bility, did such a thing exist, would be a personal
rather than a public matter. The Church does not
depend upon the holiness of any individual man but
of Christ. Let it suffice to say that impeccability is
not infallibility; nor is it claimed for the teachers
of the Church.
It is of course eminently to be desired that the
officers of the Church be men whose private lives
are above reproach. And indeed generally speak-
ing the Popes have been men at once so brilliant in
intellect, so broad in charity, so exalted in virtue,
that their generation felt they were the best fitted
to wield for the benefit of mankind the influence of
this sublimest office. Of the 258 Bishops of Rome
since St. Peter, many are venerated as saints and
martyrs for Christ ; most are honored as benefactors
of the race ; only a few have failed, in the judgment
of history, to prove worthy of their position.
Unworthy Popes. When we recall that of the
twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus, one proved a
traitor, we shall not wonder if out of fifty priests
or even popes, one has fallen short of the ideal char-
acter associated with his office. To be scandalized,
104 THE CHUKCH AS A TEACHER
is to attach unwisely to persons, an importance
which is not theirs. St. Paul humbly dreaded his
own weakness, lest, as he said, while he preached to
others, he himself should become a castaway.^
While the Church no doubt suffers at the hands
of every unworthy priest, and indeed of every un-
worthy Christian, still the Church is more than any
member, no matter what his position. It remains
while he passes away. The work of Christ is not
essentially affected by any particular life, as no
particular life is essential to it. Finally it is worthy
of deepest though t_ that no utterance of any Pope,
in the sphere where infallibility belongs, has ever
embarrassed the Church by proving later to be in-
correct.
26. THE ROMAN COURT.
The Pope who is the chief pastor of the Church
in matters of ecclesiastical government and exterior
discipline,^ as well as in the sphere of faith and
morals, is assisted in his routine work, by the offi-
cials of the Roman Curia or Court. The curia
might be called the cabinet and departments of the
Church's government. It consists of several per-
manent committees called ''congregations," which
assist in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs.
Thus the Congregation for the Propagation of the
Faith, popularly called ''Propaganda," superin-
tends the work of the Church in missionary coun-
tries. The Congregation of Bishops and Regulars
is concerned with preserving equitable relations and
adjusting differences between bishops and their
clergy or religious orders. The Congregation of the
Holy Office is to watch over purity of faith and ex-
2 I. Cor. 9, 27. Members of some sects insist that they are sanctified
and cannot sin.
^ Of. Cath..^Encycl. Discipline exterior and dogmatic and moral.
THE ROMAN COURT 105
pose and combat false teachings. The work of the
Congregations of Rites, Studies, etc., is suggested
by their names.
The Index. The committee known as the Con-
gregation of the Index, has for its office to examine
books submitted to its judgment by Bishops or
others, and to proscribe those which it finds opposed
to faith or morals, putting them on the list or index
of books condemned either absolutely or till cor-
rected or expurgated. The Index has its countw-
part in the consulting committee of every good li-
brary. Its justification is the responsibility of all
parents and guardians to protect those under their
care from moral and mental poison; or at least to
place the warning label on the dangerous articles.
The evil of bad books has been combated in the
Church since the days of the Apostles who caused
the early Christian converts to burn their obscene
and superstitious books.^
The Index does not contain the name of every
dangerous book. Only thirteen books written in
the English language were placed on the Index be-
tween 1850 and 1903.^ Its general rules are easily
applied by the reader's conscience, to obviously im-
proper works. These rules are based on the princi-
ples of ethics which condemn works calculated to
deprave character, to destroy faith and piety, to
disseminate pernicious principles and practices.
Besides these obscene and irreligious books, the
w^orks of very good Catholic writers — even devoted
members of the hierarchy — have been adversely
criticised by the Index. This is not the paradox it
at first seems. These writers may have fallen into
some inaccuracy or imprudence, or broached some
novel theory of which the Church could not ap-
prove. On account of their position, the writers in
2 ^ct. 19 19
•Hull, s! J., in Bombay Examiner, Feb. 9, 1907.
106 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER
question would seem to speak as Catholic authori-
ties. If the Church remained silent, their views
would be taken as Catholic teaching. Their con-
demnation has the effect of serving notice that their
work must be revised, if they wish the Church to
endorse it. The theories of the greatest scientists
are amended by their disciples. Probably no High
School in America reads Shakespeare save in ex-
purgated editions. So even a saintly Bishop Fene-
lon might find his book placed on the Index.
Galileo Case. The Congregations of the Index,
of the Holy Office, and the other administrative com-
mittees of the Church's government are not infalli-
ble. They can and have made mistakes of judg-
ment — as in the case of Galileo. Of this one error
of judgment the enemies of the Church have never
ceased to make capital. The condemnation of Gali-
leo's teachings does not touch the infallibility of
the Church, being the work of a committee and out-
side the sphere of faith and morals. It may be said
here that Galileo lived and died a loyal son of the
Church and an intimate friend of the highest
churchmen. The stories of his torture and impris-
onment in dungeons are fictions born of malice to-
toward the Church. This exceptional case was
doubtless unfortunate. Indeed the Church has al-
ways been the best friend of science. She made a
cardinal of Nicholas de Cusa and a benificed canon
of Copernicus, who taught the new astronomy a cen-
tury before Galileo. It may explain much to say
that the mistaken opinion of the seventeenth century
cardinals, was shared by the greatest scholars of
their time, including Bacon, Pascal, Montaigne and
the Protestant Universities.
THE CHURCH'S COUNCILS 107
27. THE CHURCH'S COUNCILS.
The history of the teaching office of the Church,
as indeed the whole history of Christianity, is
epitomized in the history of her General Councils.
By an Ecumenical or General Council is understood
a council to which the Bishops of the whole world
are lawfully summoned for the consideration of im-
portant matters. A general council is presided over
by the Pope, either personally or through legates;
and its decrees must have his approval. The mat-
ters brought before a general council are usually
questions of doctrine, or they are problems of dis-
cipline of interest to the whole Church. General
councils have been held on an average of once a
century since the time of Christ.
Besides the ecumenical, there is the national
council, as our plenary councils of the United States
held at Baltimore; the provincial council, a council
of the Bishops of a province ; and the diocesan
synod, a meeting of the clergy of a diocese under
their Bishop. These minor councils discuss ways
and means of administration in the light of particu-
lar conditions, and legislate for practical local needs.
They exhibit the policy of home-rule for home af-
fairs, which is the spirit of the great Christian Em-
pire ; as well as its elasticity and adaptability in its
human side of discipline and administration; while
it remains one and unchangeable in its divine doc-
trine and constitution.
List of General Councils. The following is a list
of the ecumenical councils of the Church since the
Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem :
1. First Council of Nice, A. D. 325, under Pope Sylvester
I; 318 Bishops; Emperor Constantine present; Arian heresy
condemned.
2. FiBST Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381; confirmed
108 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER
by Pope Damasus I; errors of Macedonius condemned; Em-
peror Theodosius present,
3. Council of Ephesus, A. D. 431; under Pope Celestine
I; Nestorian heresy condemned.
4. Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451; under Pope Leo
I; 630 Bishops; Emperor Marcian present; errors of Eutyches
and Dioscorus condemned.
5. Second Council of Constantinople, A. D. 553; con-
firmed by Pope Vigilius; Emperor Justinian present; errors
of Theodore of Mopsuesta condemned.
6. Third Council of Constantinople, A. D. 681; under
Popes Agatho and Leo II; Monothelite heresy condemned.
7. Second Council of Nice, A. D. 787; under Pope Adrian
I; Iconoclast heresy condemned.
8. Fourth Council of Constantinople, A. D. 870; under
Pope Adrian II; Photius, author of the Greek Schism, de-
posed.
9. First Council of Lateran, held in Lateran Basilica,
Rome, A. D. 1123; under Pope Callistus II; Investiture strug-
gle settled.
10. Second Council of Lateran, A. D. 1139; under Pope
Innocent II; 1,000 Bishops; errors of Albigenses condemned.
11. Third Council of Lateran, A. D. 1179; under Pope
Alexander III; errors of Waldenses condemned.
12. Fourth Council of Lateran, A. D. 1215; under Pope
Innocent III; besides the Bishops, representatives of all the
Christian rulers present; Crusades authorized.
13. First Council of Lyons, A. D. 1245; under Pope In-
nocent IV.
14. Second Council of Lyons, A. D. 1274; under Pope
Gregory X; Greek Schismatics returned to the unity of the
Church.
15. Council of Vienna, A. D. 1312; under Pope Clement
V; Knights Templars abolished; Begard errors condemned.
16. Council of Florence, A. D. 1439; under Pope Eugene
IV; the Greek Emperor, John Paleologus, and the erstwhile
schismastic Greek and Russian Bishops present.
17. Fifth Lateran Council, 1512-1517; under Popes
Julius II and Leo X.
18. Council of Trent, A. D. 1545-1563; religious revolu-
tion and erroneous teaching of Protestantism condemned and
abuses reformed.
19. Council of Vatican, Rome, 1869 — ; under Pope Pius
IX; 704 Bishops; social revolution and errors of infidelity
and anarchism condemned; authority of Church as Christ's
teacher emphasized and set forth in dogma of Infallibility.
CHAPTER VI
THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
28. THE BOOK OF BOOK
The Bible is the great historical record of the be-
ginning of the Christian Religion. "While the New-
Testament presents sketches of the life and teach-
ings of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament chronicles
the expectation of the Messiah and the history of
the family from which He \Yas destined to spring.
Old and New Testaments make up one whole ; as the
Church of the Apostles is the fulfillment of the
covenant of the Prophets. From the days of Adam,
man has not been without supernatural knowledge
of his Creator.
The greatest minds of the civilized world have
paid tribute of highest admiration to the Bible.
Most have revered it as the word of God. Even
unbelievers confess that they find nowhere else such
loftiness of aspiration. The Sacred Writings are
well called the Bible — The Book. Only the scholar
can appreciate what the literature, the art and the
laws of all modern and civilized nations owe to the
Bible.
It is our purpose to -treat briefly of the nature
and history of the Bible, of its place in the Christian
religion and its relation to the Christian Church.
A Literature. The Bible is not merely a book,
but p, literature written by many human hands dur-
ing a period of more than fifteen hundred years.
109
110 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
The Old Testament embraces the chronicles of the
historians, the laws of the legislators, the cere-
monials of the priests, the proverbs of th,e sages, the
sacred songs of the poets, the withering denuncia-
tions and the inspired visions of the prophets of
Israel. Compared with the author of its first books,
Shakespeare is our contemporary; Dante is but of
yesterday; Cicero and St. Paul stand but half-wai-
down the line of writers at whose head is the au-
thor of Genesis.
The literary contemporaries of Moses were the
sages of the ancient kingdoms of Asia and Africa,
whose writings baked into bricks thousands of years
ago, are dug up in our day, from the ruins of tem-
ples whose foundations time had long covered with
oblivion. Biblical personages and deeds that flip-
pant skepticism had treated as myth and fable, are
finding corroboration in the hieroglyphics of Egypt
and of the cuneiform libraries of Assyria, in whose
interpretation scholars wear out their lives at the
British Museum and the other centers where these
eloquent stones have been gathered.
Its antiquity and literary influence are not the
only claims that the Old Testament has upon our
reverence. It is above all a sacred book. Its pages
are especially meaningful because they are the first
chapters of the life of Jesus Christ, in the history of
His ancestors.
• Genesis. The first dozen chapters of Genesis give
in outline, the history of the world up to the call of
Abraham — some two thousand years before Christ.
There is the Creation, Paradise, the Fall, Cain and
Abel, a millennium of silence, then the Deluge and
the Tower of Babel, then silence again till we meet
with the patriarchal form of the founder of the
Jewish race.
The scenes of the first chapters of Genesis are
THE BOOK OF BOOKS 111
stupendous events, the memory of which would
never be lost, so deeply would their startling char-
acters impress men's minds, but would be handed
down from generation to generation. In this part
of Genesis there are no detailed lives oi great men ;
no historical or geographical setting; few circum-
stances. As the sea-farer puts out from his native
shore, the forms of .men, the fields, the trees, the
cities, one after the other fade away in the distance ;
till out of the gloom and mist, there strikes his
view only the huge bulk of the mountains that raise
their heads to the sky. So the facts of the early
part of Genesis are like mountains of history, ex-
traordinary phenomena still impressing the genera-
tions even to the time of Moses, and long after the
lesser deeds of men and nations were lost in the
mist and obscurity of the ages.
Old Testament. The rest of the Old Testament is
the history of the Jewish race. It is not always a
beautiful picture. On the darker side there is the
continued story of a stiff-necked, carnal-minded
people, ever turning away from the ideals with
which God inspired their leaders ; turning back from
the promised land to the flesh-pots of Egypt. It is,
at times, a picture of lust and avarice, of cruelty
and idolatry, of vengeance and brutal war. Even
those men who are counted types of the coming
Messiah — Solomon by his wisdom, Moses as the law-
giver, Aaron in his priesthood, David by his kingly
rule — were not without their faults. The awful
truthfulness of the picture unsparing as a judgment,
suggests a hidden author who was no respecter of
persons.
But like a light shining through the dark clouds
of the human history of the people who stoned the
prophets, is the divine history of their expectation
of the Messiah. Like a ray of hope shining through
112 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
the gloom, the light grows with each prophet aris-
ing to announce the coming of the Savior. The
whole of the Old Testament from Genesis, where the
goodness of God inspires fallen man with the hope
of Redemption, was the gradual dawning of the day,
the rising of the Sun of Justice, the growing bright-
ness of the advent of the Son of God.
New Testament. . The pages of the New Testa-
ment are occupied with the one bright figure of
Jesus Christ. Its story is the story beautiful, of di-
vine love, of infinite mercy, of salvation for all na-
tions, of the shepherd who lays down his life for his
flock, of followers who return the Master ^s love and
so prove worthy of their ditine vocation to be the
continuators of His work. Shadows there are in-
deed, even the darkest shadows in the history of
man. They emphasize the light. The New Testa-
ment is the sequel to the Old. It is the fulfillment
of the hopes and visions of the Hebrew prophets.
It is the biography of Jesus Christ as He walked
among men.
* ' The New Testament is sublime ; but it exalts hu-
man life to its own level. It is simple and gracious ;
breaks no bruised reed nor quenches any flickering
wick of effort or desire. Its sympathy is intimate
but strong : it announces tremendous principles with
serenity, decision, and completeness. A child may
love it: the learned cannot exhaust it: while in
place of the confused medley of all other sacred
writings known to history, it presents the unity of
the living personality of Jesus.''
29. THE BOOK AND THE CHURCH.
An important question is the relation between the
Bible and the Church — between the living organism
of Christianity which, enlivened by His indwelling
THE BOOK AND THE CHURCH 113
Spirit, continues forever as the mystic body of
Christ, and the writings of its earliest teachers. As
the Jewish religion existed before the books of
the Old Testament Prophets, so the Christian
Church is older than any book of the New Testa-
ment. The Church of Jesus Christ was already es-
tablished when its Author sent the Holy Ghost, on
the day of Pentecost, to bring to the remembrance
of the Apostles whatsoever He had said unto them
and to guide them into all the truth of the Chris-
tian faith. The Church existed before Saul of Tar-
sus was converted on the road to Damascus and bap-
tized by the priest of that city, as Paul the disciple
of Christ.^ The children of the Church broke the
bread of Holy Communion before Matthew penned
the history of the institution of the Blessed Sacra-
ment ; or Luke, in the Acts, described their faith and
devotion.
The Church First. The founding of the Church
was the work of Jesus Christ. Later on His dis-
ciples wrote the Epistles and Gospels. The truths
committed to her were taught by the Church before
any one of her teachers recorded a dogma of that
tradition in the pages of the Scriptures.
It was perhaps A. D. 52, about twenty years after
Pentecost, that St. Paul wrote his first Epistle to
the Thessalonians ; which is believed by many to
be the earliest published portion of the New Testa-
ment. But that very Epistle reveals the Church al-
ready spread to far off Thessalonica, and sending
forth as "a minister of God and a fellow worker
in the Gospel of Christ"- men like Timothy, who
had indeed read the Old Testament from his youth,
but who must have learned the Christian faith, that
he was now deemed fit to teach, from the living voice
of the Church. So too the Church had been estab-
II. Act. 9. 'I. Thes. 3, 2.
114 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
lished at Corinth before Paul wrote to the Chris-
tians of that city. The faith of the Church at Rome
was well known before Paul wrote to the Romans
his intention of coming to the capital.^
It will be found true of all the New Testament
writings that the Book proceeded from the Church.
The Church does not owe its existence to the Book.
The Gospel according to Luke proposes to arrange
in order, the data of the life of Christ which the
physician-evangelist finds current among the Chris-
tians.* St. Peter writes to the eastern Christians
to remind them of the truths in which, he tells us,
they are already established.^ St. John writes to
those who have already learned the truth from the
preaching of the Church.^ St. Paul charges Timo-
thy: **The things which thou hast heard of me
by many witnesses, the same commend thou to faith-
ful men w^ho shall be able to teach others also.''^
The New Testament writings thus ever pre-suppose
the Church. In them are reduced to writing, truths
which the Church is already engaged in teaching.
The Writings. There is nothing about the New
Testament to suggest that it was intended to sup-
plant the Church as the teacher of men. Its writ-
ings consist of sketches and letters addressed to
Christian congregations in various towns, and even
to individual Christians. Not one of them pretends
to be an exhaustive presentation of the Christian
faith or j^olity. The conclusion of the fourth Gos-
pel disavows any idea of giving a complete record
of the Master's life or teachings.^ The synoptics of
Matthew, Mark and Luke do not ^eem such an
avowal necessary. On the library shelf are the ad-
dresses of Archbishop Ireland, the essays of Bishop
Spalding, the sermons of Cardinal Gibbons, the En-
»Rom. 1, 8. »II. Peter 1, 12. ^11. Tim. 2, 2.
*Luke 1. "I. John 2, 21. "John 20, 30.
THE BOOK AND THE CHURCH 115
cyclicals of Leo XIII. A survey of their contents
shows that they leave many points of Christian
teaching quite untouched; while other points are
assumed to be well known and are merely alluded
to. A few subjects may be discussed in full. No
one would claim that the aforesaid writings consti-
tute an encyclopedia of the Christian religion; or
insist that nothing be counted part of the Christian
faith which does not happen to be mentioned by
one of these four Bishops.
In like manner the collection of New Testament
w^ritings does not pretend to be a Christian encyclo-
pedia. While in the light of the traditional faith
handed down from generation to generation, Chris-
tians may find at least allusions to practically every
point of their religion, the stranger studying the doc-
uments by themselves without that tradition, might
find it very difficult indeed to discover even that
Sunday and not Saturday is the Christian Sabbath ;
or that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are the One
-triune God; or that the book he reads is of divine
inspiration. We find that the majority of the
twelve Apostles, — Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew,
Thomas, Matthias, Simon and James the Greater,
contributed nothing to the New Testament and in-
deed wrote nothing at all that we know of. Jude
left a single chapter, and James the Less one short
letter. The divine Master spoke much about His
Church. He gave to it His promise of perennial
protection; and sent it forth to continue His work,
w4th the commission: *'Go and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to ob-
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you,
and behold I am with you all days to the end of the
world.''® Christ gave no hint that a book is to
•Mt. 28, 20.
116 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
take the place of the Church which He founded and
endowed with authority as the custodian of His sac-
raments, the infallible teacher of His truth, the visi-
ble Kingdom of God on earth.
Relation. Yet the Book has its place and an im-
portant place. The Church has ever cherished the
writings of her earliest teachers as the most precious
of documents. They are historical works coming
down from the days of her institution and from
writers who were contemporaneous with the earthly
life of Jesus Christ. As documents of history fhey
stand as ancient witnesses of the origin of the
Church. They tell of her foundation by Christ and
of the constitution He gave her. Thus they stand
at the head of the unbroken line of historical testi-
mony that for 1900 years, through a thousand au-
thors, always and everywhere bears witness to
the living Church. And then the Church with the
infallible voice of the teacher left by Christ, tells
her children that these documents are not only au-
thentic human history, but are even of divine in-
spiration and worthy to be bound up as a New and
Christian Testament, with the Law and the Proph-
ets of the Hebrew Bible. Henceforth the Christian
Church and the Christian Scriptures are insepara-
ble : and the two together — the one interpreting the
other — are the Rule of Faith.
30. THE RULE OF FAITH.
The relative place of the Church and the Bible
in the rule of Christian faith, is a problem that as-
sumes immense proportions in the religious contro-
versy of the last few centuries. The rule of
Christian faith means the standard by which the
teachings of the Christian religion are determined.
It is the measure of belief. It is the way by which
THE RULE OF FAITH 117
Christians arrive at the right understanding of the
principles of their religion. By its very nature
such a norm is a prime determining factor in any
religion. The practical importance of the subject is
increased by the fact that the sects that went out
from the Church in the sixteenth century repudi-
ated the ancient rule of faith of the Christian
Church and adopted a standard radically different.
Influenced perhaps by the exigencies of the times,
the Protestant party, already splitting into many
sects, asserted the "Sufficiency of Scripture" and
the individual's ''right of private interpretation."
The Bible and the Bible only becomes the Protestant
rule of faith.
Protestant Rule. Charles A. Briggs in his Study
of Holy Scripture, quotes the Reformers' rule as
set forth in the Calvinists' French Confession and
in the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles, respectively.
"We know these books to be canonical and the Sure
Rule of our Faith, not so much by the common ac-
cord and consent of the Church, as by the testimony
and inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, which
enables us to distinguish them from other ecclesi-
astical books, upon which, however useful, we can-
not found any article of faith."
"The Holy Scripture containeth all things neces-
sary to salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read
therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not required
of any man that it should be believed as an article
of faith or thought requisite as necessary to salva-
tion."
Its Fallacy. This was a principle unknown to
Christian history, or to the Scriptures to which it
now appealed. It ignored the Church with its su-
preme court, and made for individualism instead
of the old Christian unity. Time soon proved that
it was calculated to secure, not the unchangeable
118 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
truth, but as many opinions as there are heads.
A similar principle applied to the interpretation
of our national constitution and laws, would mean
social anarchy and the breaking up of our union.
The Bible and the living authority of the Church,
God had joined together as the indissolubly united
teachers of Christianity. What God had joined to-
gether man presumed to put asunder.
''The Roman Catholic Church,'' comments Dr.
Briggs, "has ever emphasized the real presence of
^the Divine Spirit and of Christ in the organism of
the Church and in all the institutions of the Church.
The Protestant churches, in their zeal against lim-
iting the work of Christ and His Spirit to the opera-
tions of the Church, and in their efforts to main-
tain the independence of Christ and His Spirit of
any and every means of grace, have tended to de-
preciate the Church and its institutions, and so to
lose sight of the real presence of the living, reign-
ing Christ and of the real presence of His
Spirit in the Church and its institutions."
Against those who proclaim the Bible only as
their rule of faith, the Bible itself may be invoked
to prove that it teaches no such principle. On the
contrary, the sacred book constantly bears witness
that Christ founded His Church as the living teacher
of His faith, "the pillar and ground. of truth."
Search the Scriptures. Those who find themselves
committed — perhaps through family antecedents —
to the principle of the reformers, and think it worth
while to attempt its defense, are wont to cite a
couple of texts as settling the whole matter:
"Search the Scriptures;"^ and St. Paul's praise of
the Bereans who searched the Scripture.^ The first
text they assume to be a universal imperative, a
general command of God indicating the one only
t John n, 39. » Act. 17, 11.
THE RULE OF FAITH ill)
way for each man to learn His law. A study of the
passage shows Christ not laying dow^u a general
law, like a precept of the Decalogue, but addressing
Himself to particular Jews at Jerusalem, who
sought to kill Him because He said God was His
Father.^ Nor is it even certain that Christ told
these Jews to search the Scriptures. The Revised
Version admits that it cannot be known whether
the original Greek ereunate (Latin Scrutamini) is
the imperative or the indicative mood.
Waiving this point, what does the passage say?
** Search the Scriptures (or, ye do search the Scrip-
tures) for in them ye think ye have eternal life : and
they are they which testify to me. And ye will not
come to Me that ye might have life.'* Thus in-
stead of a revelation of the Christian rule of faith,
we find this text to be a reproach to the Pharisees,
who, although reading their Bible and thinking to
find everlasting life therein, nevertheless would not
receive Him to w^hom those Scriptures gave testi-
mony, and through whom alone they could have
that life. How like those who in our day search
the Scriptures and yet repudiate the Church of
Christ of wiiich the New Testament is so eloquent !
The Bereans. At Berea, St. Paul told the Jews
that the Master whose Gospel he was preaching, was
the Christ of whom the Prophets had spoken. He
confirmed the authority of his teaching by quoting
the Old Testament passages foretelling the Messiah.
Paul praised the Bereans for their generous eager-
ness in looking up the passages to which he had ap-
pealed. This merited praise w^as a very different
thing from a proclamation to the Jews that their
Scriptures w^ere the one and sufficient rule of faith.
Indeed the Jews would have searched in vain for
Paul's teaching about Baptism and other articles
of Christian doctrine, in the Scriptures whose study
'John, 5, 18.
120 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
this Apostle commended at Berea. Thus the text
does not sustain the principle in whose favor it is
so often quoted.
After the example of St. Paul, when dealing with
those who already believe in the Bible, the Chris-
tian writer may urge his readers to verify the texts
he quotes, that in the Bible they may behold the
Church of Christ and from the Bible learn to hear
the Church as the authoritative interpreter of God's
word.
Tradition. Some perhaps lean toward this un-
warranted rule of faith, because they have been
told that the Catholic Church believes in Tradition
as well as in the Bible : and to their minds, tradition
has been made to suggest only folk-lore and un-
worthy fables ; or the word may recall the reproach
of Christ to the Scribes and Pharisees: ''For leav-
ing the commandment of God, you hold the tra-
dition of men ; the washing of pots and of cups and
many other things you do like to these," and ''make
void the commandment of God that you may keep
your own tradition."*
Thoughtful and candid people will not have to be
told that the great Catholic Church teaches neither
old wives' stories nor the doctrines and- command-
ments of men, as part of the faith revealed by God.
The honest man will inquire whether by tradition
the Church perhaps means something quite differ-
ent. The dictionary gives several meanings of the
word. There are oral, written, legal, literary, hu-
man, apostolic, divine traditions. The Standard
Dictionary defines tradition in a special sense used
by the Catholic Church as "that body of Christian
doctrine handed down through successive genera-
tions of its faithful, Avhich is held by the Church to
belong to the deposit of faith, even though some of
♦Mk. 7, 8-9.
THE RULE OP FAITH 121
its parts may not b* explicitly contained in Holy
Scripture." It illustrates the definition from Car-
dinal Newman : '^ * 'Had Scripture never been writ-
ten, tradition would have existed still : it has an
intrinsic, substantive authority and a use collateral
to Scripture." "
St. Paul. The word tradition from the Latin
tradere means to hand down, to teach. It often car-
ries the significance of oral teaching ; as where Paul
recalls to the Corinthians what he taught them
while in their city: *'For I have received of the
Lord that which also I delivered {tradidi) unto
you."^ Again St. Paul makes it include both oral
teaching and the written word. ** Therefore breth-
ren stand fast and hold the traditions which you
have learned whether b/ word or by our epistle."^
So when the Church speaks of Divine Tradition,
she means the teachings of the Divine Master which
have been handed down from the Apostles. The
teachings of the New Testament are just so much of
that Divine Tradition committed to writing.
''All Things Whatsoever." The importance of
tradition is suggested by St. Paul's words: ''Stand
fast and hold the traditions which you have learned,
whether by word of mouth or by our epistle." To
ignore tradition and speak of "the Bible and the
Bible only," is a position wholly unwarranted by
the Bible itself. It involves the loss of most pre-
cious truths, including the authenticity, the inspira-
tion, and the canon of the Scriptures, as well as the
key to their understanding. St. Augustine in the
fourth century, realized that apart from the constant
traditional belief of the Church, he could find no
satisfying argument for accepting the Gospels. It
is upon the same traditional faith, reflected in the
" Essays Crit. and Histor, "Apost. Tradition," V. I., p. 118.
•I. Cor. 11, 23.
' II. Thes. 2, 14.
122 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
constant teaching and practice of the Church and
witnessed in every page of her history, that even
non-Catholic Christians receive the New Testament
as an inspired book. And whether they realize it
or not, it is tradition that they obey in keeping Sun-
day as the Sabbath of the New Law instead of the
Saturday of the Old Covenant.
While the inspired writers do not pretend to
record all of Christ's teachings,^ our faith must in-
clude and the Church must teach ''All things what-
soever" the Master has taught.^
Key to Bible. It is in arriving at the correct un-
derstanding of the wards of Scripture, that the im-
portance of tradition becomes fully manifest. Our
American laws are not interpreted by the private
judgment of the individual citizen nor even of the
judge legally sitting in a case. They are interpre-
ted in the light of history, of the precedents, of the
decisions of competent courts and of the sense gen-
erally held by legal writers of acknowledged au-
thority. In a word there is a traditional interpre-
tation; and to depart from it is to depart from the.
original sense of the law.
Similarly **no prophecy of Scripture is of private
interpretation."^^ That which was inspired by the
Holy Ghost is to be safeguarded by the same Spirit
of Truth whose guiding protection is promised to
the Church forever.
The Supreme Court of the Church explains the
sacred deposit of faith in no novel sense. But as
circumstances call for the elucidation or settling of
any point, her judges study the matter in the light
of history, of the decisions of councils, of constant
Christian practice, of the consensus of the whole
Church. The Church has made her own the test of
faith so well put by St. Vincent of Lerins: That is
•John 21, 25. »Mt. 28, 20. ^o II. Peter 1, 20.
CANON OF INSPIRED BOOKS
123
Divine Tradition which has been held in the Church,
always, everywhere, and by all, — **quod semper,
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus."
With this traditional interpretation as a guide,
the teachings of the Scriptures become wonderfully
clear. The Church has no difficulty in knowing the
gense of the words written about the Lord's Sup-
per; because she knows what the Christians from
the very beginning have believed about that divine
institution. The same light illumines the passages
about the constitution of the Church and the for-
giveness of sins; the references to Purgatory and
Confirmation ; as well as many allusions which most
probably would be missed by the mere reader of the
bare text. When the individual and his private
judgment usurp the office of the Church and this
traditional judgment, there is sure to be sadly
abundant evidence of the truth of St. Peter's warn-
ing that there *'are certain things (in St. Paul's
writings) hard to be understood, which the un-
learned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other
Scriptures, to their own destruction. ' ' "
31. THE CANON OF INSPIRED BOOKS.
The Canon or catalogue of the inspired books
consists of the following writings:
Old Testament.
Pentateuch or
Law
2
Kings (2. Samuel)
(Torah) of Moses
3.
Kings (1. Kings)
1. Genesis
4.
Kings (2. Kings)
2. Exodus
1.
Parallpomenon
3. Leviticus
(1. Chronicles)
4. Numbers
2.
Paralipomenon
5. Deuteronomy
(2. Chronicles)
Josue (Joshua)
1.
Esdras (Ezra)
Judges
2.
E 8 d r a 8 (Nehe-
Ruth
miah)
1. Kings (1. Samuel)
Tobias
"II. Peter 3,
16.
Judith
Esther
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Canticle of Canticles
(Song of Solomon)
Wisdom
Ecclesiasticus
Isaias (Isaiah)
124
THE CHUKCH AND THE BIBLE
Jeremias (Jeremiah)
Amos
Aggeus (Haggai)
Zacharias (Z a c h a-
Lamentations of Jer-
Abdias (Obadiah)
emias
Jonas (Jonah)
riah)
Baruch
Micheas (Micah)
Malachias (Malachi)
Ezechial (Ezeckiel)
Nahum
1. Machabees
Daniel
Habacuc (Habakkuk)
2. Machabees
Osee (Hosea)
Sophonias (Zepha-
Joel
niah)
New Testament.
Gospel — Matthew
Ephesians
Epistle of James
Gospel — Mark
Philippians
1. Epistle of Peter
Gospel — Luke
Colossians
2. Epistle of Peter
Gospel — John
1. Thessalonians
1. Epistle of John
Acts of the Apostles
2. Thessalonians
2. Epistle of John
Epistles of Paul to —
1. Timothy
3. Epistle of John
Epistle of Jude
Romans
2. Timothy
1. Corinthians
Titus
Apocalypse (Revela-
2. Corinthians
Philemon
tion) of St. John
Galatians
Hebrews
Deuterocanonical Books. Th^ Catholic Canon
of Scriptures, it will be noticed, includes books not
found in the copies of the Bible with which many
of my readers are familiar. They are Tobias, Ju-
dith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Sec-
ond Machabees and fragments of Esther and Daniel.
On the ground that their scriptural character was
doubted by some in the early days of the Church,
the sixteenth century reformers printed these seven
books in their Bibles under the classification of
Apocrypha. These Scriptures were styled deutero-
canonical or the second canon. They still supply
lessons for the liturgy of the Church of England and
are included in German Lutheran Bibles. The
British and Foreign Bible Society ceased to print
them in 1826. The American Bible Society follows
the unfortunate example. According to Charles
Augustus Briggs,^ the reformers, in rejecting the
deuterocanonical books, were influenced by two such
unsafe guides as the subjective test of their feeling
and by dogmatical considerations arising from their
novel theory of faith and good works,
»Introd. to study of Holy Script. Ch. VI.
CANON OF INSPIRED BOOKS 125
In proclaiming her canon of the Bible at the
council of Trent, the Church only repeated what she
had taught, and the body of Christians had be-
lieved, from the beginning. She stood by the Apos-
tolic and Christian tradition. The canon of the
Old Testament published at Trent was the canon
of the Septuagint, the version of Scripture with
which the Apostles were familiar. The New Testa-
ment does not directly determine the canon of the
Old Testament. But of 350 quotations from the
Old Testament found in the New Testament, at
least 300 are from the Septuagint. The Jews were
not agreed, in the time of Christ, about the canon
of their Bible. The Holy Ghost speaking through
the Apostles and the Church decides the mat-
ter.
The early Fathers repeatedly quote the deutero-
canonical books as inspired Scripture. If they at
times did not appeal to them in support of doc-
trines, it was because many Jews would not admit
their authority. Before the canon was officially set-
tled, individuals in the Church might disagree about
its contents. A scholar and saint like Jerome might
be mistaken. But when the universal Christian
faith finds expression in the decisions of the Church,
there is no longer room for doubt.
Inspiration. The Vatican Council teaches that
the books of the OM and New Testaments are to be
received as sacred and inspired, ''because having
been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost
they have God for their author." The Council of
Florence calls God the author of both Testaments,
"for by inspiration of the Holy Ghost the saints of
both Testaments have spoken, whose books (the
Church) accepts and reveres." ''It is in the same
sense," says Wilmers, "that the Council of Trent
calls God the author of both Testaments." The
126 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
Church has not defined more precisely the meaning
of inspiration.
Gigot speaks of Biblical inspiration as a ^'divine
and positive influence exerted upon certain men for
the purpose of transmitting truth to others and in
such a manner that the books compiled by the sacred
writers have God for their author. ' ' ^
Breen writes that inspiration ''signifies that one
is impelled by God, that the Spirit of God is in him,
moving him to action and guiding him in that action.
Hence God is the principal author, the principal
cause; and the inspired agent is the instrumental
cause.^
St. Paul teaches the divine impulse of the Holy
Ghost on Scripture in general, in the words: ''All
Scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach,"
etc.* St. Peter says of the Scripture writers:
''The holy men of God spoke inspired by the Holy
Ghost.'' ^ Christ declares that "All things must
needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of
Moses, and in the prophets and in the psalms con-
cerning Me."^ Only by inspiration could the Old
Testament authors thus write of Jesus Christ.
Though God is the principal author of the Scrip-
tures, the inspired writers do not cease to be their
human authors. The personality of each human au-
thor appears, as in any book, in his style, tempera-
ment, education, experience, and environment.
The inspired writers are intelligent free agents.
They themselves may have been unaware of the
fact of their inspiration. Inspiration is not identical
with revelation. The inspired writers may record
what they already know from personal observation,
2 Biblical Lect. p. 351.
« Introd. to Holy Script, p. 19.
♦ II. Tim. 3, 16. Paul does not state which are the Scriptures in-
•pired of God, nor that they alone are the Rule of Faith.
»II. Peter 1, 21.
•Luke 24, 44.
CHURCH PRESERVED THE BIBLE 127
eye-witnesses, preexisting documents and other
aids. Verbal difference between the writers may-
exist even about so important a matter as the
words of Christ at the last supper. Though the
writer is inspired to teach a truth, the words in
which he will express it are not necessarily revealed
to him.
As the division of the books of the Bible into
chapters and verses, and the numbering and punctu-
ation of these, are very modern conveniences, un-
known to the ancient codices, they are not matters
of inspiration, as some sectaries have imagined.
By What Authority. In her successive Councils
and in her daily teaching, the Church has con-
stantly proclaimed that Canon of inspired books
which has been the traditional Christian faith since
the days of the Apostles. She has been true to his-
tory. But her teaching has even a greater author-
ity. She has spoken as the official teacher left by
Christ to be the custodian and interpreter of the
Christian faith. Her decree is the decision of the
Supreme Court of the Church of Christ. The in-
fallibility with which Christ endowed His Church
is sufficient warrant that the decision is the truth.
Indeed only an infallible teacher could proclaim
with satisfying authority, the Canon of inspired
books.
32. THE CHURCH PRESERVED THE BIBLE.
The story is told of a nun whose tombstone in a
mediaeval cemetery bore the epitaph: ''Her life-
work was to transcribe the Bible.'' Her friends
thought they could pay her no higher compliment.
It may be said with all truth of the Catholic Church,
that she has spent her life preserving the inspired
books.
128 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
Ancient Times. The Catholic Church preserved
the writings of the Apostles during their first three
hundred years, when they were scattered through
the different Christian communities. By the end
of the fourth century she had officially determined
the Canon of the New Testament. The inspired
writings were separated from the mass of apocry-
phal literature which flourished in those early days.
Henceforth the Christian Scriptures would take
their place with the books of the Old Testament in
the one Holy Bible.
Middle Ages. The Church preserved the Bible
during the next thousand years from the Council of
Carthage in 397, to the invention of the printing
press in 1438. How much it meant to preserve the
Bible and the other treasures of ancient literature,
through those long centuries, it is almost impossible
for us to realize. In those years, when Europe was
developing from barbarism to civilization, the mon-
astery, the center of whatever culture existed, had
its scriptorium or writing-room. There men or
women, whose lives were consecrated to God in the
service of fellowman, were occupied day after day
in the laborious task of copying books by hand.
The infinite care with which they transcribed their
volumes, and the wondrous beauty with which they
often illuminated their manuscripts, have won the
admiration and gratitude of succeeding genera-
tions. With all truth it may be said that to the re-
ligious children of the Catholic Church, we owe
not only the Bible, but whatever of ancient litera-
ture has survived the ravages of time and remains
to enrich our culture.
A beautiful illuminated manuscript Bible is one
of the proudest possessions of our Congressional Li-
brary at Washington. Another Bible, the work of
the twelfth century monks of Cluny, was bought by
CHURCH PRESERVED THE BIBLE 129
Mr. J. P. Morgan for $25,000.00. The Vatican Li-
brary cherishes among its countless treasures, a
Greek Testament of the eleventh century, written
entirely in letters of gold.
Scriptorium. The venerable folios of the middle
ages bound in curious skins or in heavy oak boards,
with their exquisitely formed letters, their every
initial a picture in colors and gold illustrating the
chapter, recall Longfellow's vision of Friar Pacificus
in the Golden Legend, finishing his Bible at the
close of day:
"It 18 growing dark! Yet one line more.
And then my work for the day is o'er.
I come again ^o the name of the Lord,
Ere I that awful name record,
That is spoken so lightly among men,
Let me pause awhile and wash my pen;
Pure from blemish and blot it must be,
When it writes that word of mystery.
"This is well written, though I say it!
I should not be afraid to disphiy it,
In open day on the self-same shelf.
With the writings of St. Thecla herself,
Or of Theodosius who of old,
Wrote the Gospels in letters of gold!
There now is an initial letter!
St. Ulric himself never made a better!
Finished down to the leaf and the snail,
Down to the eyes on the peacock's tail.,
"And now as I furn the volume over, ^
And see what lies between cover and coverj,
What treasures of art these pages hold,
All" ablaze with crimson and gold,
God forgive me! I seem to feel
A certain satisfaction steal
Into my heart and into my brain
As if my talent had not lain
Wrapped in a napkin all in vain.
130 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
"Yes, I might almost say to the Lord,
Here is a copy of thy word.
Written out with much toil and pain,
Take it, Lord, and let it be.
As something I have done for thee."
Early Printed Bibles. The first work printed on
the printing press was the Bible. In the hundred
years from the invention of the press in 1438 to the
appearance of Luther's version of the Bible, no
less than 626 editions of the Bible and portions of
the Bible — such as the New Testament and Psalms
— had been published in the different languages of
Europe.^ Among these printed editions were:
Language. Entire Bible. Parts.
Hebrew 12 ( Entire 0. T.) 50
Greek 3 19
Latin 148 195
Italian ,.• 20
French 26
Flemish 19
Spanish 2
Bohemian 6
Slavonic 1
German 30
These incunabula Bibles are preserved in the
great libraries of Europe. Specimens have found
their way to America. The University of Notre
Dame possesses a German Bible printed before Lu-
ther's translation. Among these early editions was
the Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes
(1437-1517), Archbishop of Toledo and regent of
Spain. It was published in six folio volumes, at
enormous expense. The colophon on the last page
of the Apocalypse states that it was completed Jan-
uary 10, 1514. Six years earlier than Ximenes,
»Gigot, Biblical Lect. p. 311.
CHUKCli PRESERVED THE BIBLE 131
Erasmus published his New Testament dedicated to
Pope Leo X,
The Vulgate. Latin editions were most numer-
ous, as Latin was still the language of all educated
men. The received Latin text got the name, the
Vulgate, or popular version. This version was
largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commis-
sioned to make the translation by Pope Damasus,
about A. D. 380. Jerome brought to his task a
scholarship and critical method that have earned
for him the title, Doctor of Scripture. He more-
over had access to Hebrew and Greek texts which
were ancient already in his day when the Vatican,
the Alexandrian, the Sinaitic, our oldest codices,
were fresh from the hand of the copyist, if indeed
they existed at all. The Vulgate is the authorized
version of the Catholic Church.
As the European nations developed a vernacular
literature, it had become possible to translate the
Bible worthily into their different languages. Be-
sides the languages already mentioned, an Icelandic
version was made • in 1297. An Irish version ap-
peared in 1349, and a Swedish version about the
same time. An Ethiopic version was made at Rome
in 1548. The Venerable Bede, one of the glories of
Anglo-Saxon England, died in 735, while translating
the last words of St. John^s Gospel.
Foxe, the author of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and
a hot-headed anti-Catholic zealot, in a letter to
Archbishop Parker, wrote: **If histories will be
examined, we will find both before the Conquest
(1066) and after, as w^ell as before John Wy cliff e
was born as since, the whole body of the Scriptures
was by sundry men translated into our country
tongue.'' Sir Thomas More and Archbishop
Cranmer bear testimony to the same truth.
Douay. The Douay version, made at Douay, and
132 THE CHUECH AND THE BIBLE
at Eheims (1582), is the translation most in use
among English-speaking Catholics to-day.
Modern Times. The Church still preserves the
Bible; and indeed the Scriptures never stood in
greater need of a faithful custodian. It is easy
enough to-day to preserve and multiply copies of
the sacred text. The modern press turns out a thou-
sand impressions in a few hours. To-day the Bible
needs to be preserved as the word of God. It needs
to be kept for the children what it was for their
forefathers. There is no danger that its material
pages shall be lost. There is danger of the loss of
the faith and reverence with which it was formerly
read as a revelation from Heaven. Not only unbe-
lievers, but men calling themselves Christian lead-
ers, abusing Higher Criticism, bid us tear one book
after another from the Bible, till if we listened to
them all, we should have nothing left of the sacred
volume but the covers. Meanwhile the Catholic
Church brings to the defense of the Bible the whole
weight of her authority and stands for the inspira-
tion and truth of the Scriptures from Genesis to
Eevelation.
Church Loves Bible. In view of the facts of his-
tory, it is hard to understand how it is, that many
otherwise intelligent people imagine that the Catho-
lic Church does not love the Bible, that she kept it
from the people before the Reformation and that
even now she does not allow them to read it.
Had the Church not loved the Bible, she had only
to neglect it during the thousand years and more
when she was its sole custodian; and those who
malign her to-day would have no Bible at all. Far^
from allowing t^e Bible to perish, she taught her
consecrated children to give their lives to its pres-
ervation.
Before the invention of printing, Bible societies
CHURCH PRESERVED THE BJBLE 133
did not indeed scatter copies of the sacred text with
modern prodigality. When the manufacture of a
single copy of the Scriptures cost perhaps years of
a skilled workman's time, churches and schools
were glad to possess one copy of the sacred text.
Moreover when the nations were emerging from ,
barbarism, reading was not a common accomplish-
ment. Those who could read had access to the Bi-
ble and other treasures of the monastic libraries.
Those who could not read learned the sacred wis-
dom from the lips of the priests ; ^ and studied the
Biblical lessons painted on the walls of the church,
and blazoned on the stained glass windows, and
carved on the doors, and celebrated in the feasts of
the ecclesiastical year, and represented even dra-
matically in the moralities and mysteries and mira-
cle plays. Let it not be forgotten that all the na-
tions that are Christian to-day, were converted from
paganism before the close of the middle ages.
The Church had so taught her children to revere
the Bible as a letter sent to them by God Himself,
that when some went out from her unity, whatever
else they left behind, they took their Bibles with
them. The manuscripts of the Apostles had crum-
bled to dust a thousand years before the Reforma-
tion. If Protestants love the Bible they will be
ever grateful to the Catholic Church who made it
possible for them to possess the Bible.
Catholics Use Bible. Discussing the calumny
that the middle ages were ignorant of the Bible, Dr.
Maitland, the non-Catholic English historian, writes
in his ''The Dark Ages":
''The fact to which I have repeatedly alluded is
this — the writings of the Dark Ages are, if I may
use the expression, made of the Scriptures. I do
not merely mean that the writers constantly quoted
»MaL 2, 7.
134 THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE
the Scriptures and appealed to them as authority
on all occasions, as other writers have done since
their day — though they did this, and it is a strong
proof of their familiarity with them — but I mean
that they thought, and spoke, and wrote the
thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible, and
that they did this constantly and habitually as the
natural mode of expressing themselves. They did
it, too, not exclusively in theological or ecclesias-
tical matters, but in histories, biographies, familiar
letters, legal instruments, and in documents of ev-
ery description."
To-day Catholic book stores are well stocked with
Bibles; which is the business man's answer to the
absurd charge that Catholics are not allowed to read
the Bible. Catholics are urged to read the sacred
text. Leo XHI granted an indulgence of 300 days,
to be gained once a day, and a plenary indulgence
once a month — under the usual conditions — to those
who devoutly read the Bible for a quarter of an hour
each day.
Catholics, it is true, will not accept any and every
volume calling itself the Holy Bible. They want
only the real Bible. It must be a true translation
and so a genuine copy of God's word. If a version
can stand the test of the Church's inspection and
merit her approbation, Catholics know it is the Bi-
ble. When the inspired text is altered and cor-
rupted by men, it is no longer God's message. The
wisdom of the Church's vigilant supervision of the
publication of the Bible, is shown in the fact that
the Revised Version recently (1872-1881) made by
non-Catholic scholars, corrects several thousand pas-
sages of the King James' Bible — the authorized
version of the Church of England. If the Catho-
lic Church has made rules regulating the publication
and reading of the inspired books entrusted by God
CHURCH PRESERVED THE BIBLE 135
to her care, it will be found that they were made in
the truest interests of both the Bible and the people.
The mind of the Church is seen in her practice.
The prayers of the Mass and other services are red-
olent with Scripture. The Breviary or divine of-
fice recited daily by the priest and occupying about
an hour, is mostly Scripture. Passages from the
inspired books are read in the vernacular and ex-
plained at the Sunday Mass. Leo XIII and Pius
X by their writings and by the creation of the Bib-
lical Commission and the Institute of Sacred Scrip-
tures, took practical means to defend the Bible by
affording Christian scholars the opportunities to
more than match the erudition of the rationalist
critics.
Pope Leo XIII in 1893, wrote of the Bible:
*'This grand source of Catholic revelation should
be made safely and abundantly accessible to the
flock of Jesus Christ."
Pope Pius VI wrote in 1778: *^The faithful
should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scrip-
tures: for these are the most abundant sources
which ought to be left open to every one to draw
from them purity of morals and doctrine."
St. Odo of Cluny (d. 941) expressed the thought
of the middle ages: *'To neglect the reading of
the Bible, is as if we w^ere to refuse light in dark-
ness. ' '
Pope Gregory I (d. 604) wrote: ''The Bible
changes the heart of him who reads, drawing him
from worldly desires to embrace the things of God."
St. Jerome (d. 420) says: "To be ignorant of the
Bible is to be ignorant of Christ."
CHAPTER VII
SCIENCE AND EELIGION
33. SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE.
Men often misinterpret the Bible, and read into
its text, things its inspired writers never thought of
teaching. Again, men often mistake the unproved
theories of speculators for the teachings of science.
From these two fountains of error, arise many-
apparent contradictions between the Bible and
science. Between the actual teachings of divine in-
spiration and the certain truths of natural science,
there can be no real conflict. God is the author of
both. All our views of truth are broken lights of
the one Eternal Truth which is God. Religion and
science both have their foundation in the unchange-
able nature of the universal Creator. The scholar
may recount the history of many a clash between
the cosmic theories of students toiling, in their gen-
eration, in their respective fields of physics and of
theology; but he will not speak of warfare between
science and religion.
The following typical conversation between a
gray-haired professor and a youthful student who
thinks he has outgrown his faith during a year at
his state university, may sufficiently view certain
problems associated with science and religion. The
arguments follow the respective articles in the Cath-
olic Encyclopedia.
Bible Science. Student. — *'If the Bible is in-
136
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 137
spired, why does it talk as though the sun rose in
the east and set in the west?"
Prof. — '*It speaks in the language of the day, and
refers to the phenomenon according to appearances;
just as we do popularly and outside of text-books,
even at the present time. No systematic observa-
tions of the heavenly bodies were made by the Jews.
The descriptive phrases used by the Sacred Books,
as might be expected, cctnform to the elementary
ideas naturally presenting themselves to a primitive
people.''
Student. — ''Why doesn't the Bible speak with sci-
entific accuracy?"
Prof. — *'It is not a text-book of science. If it
speaks of astronomical or geological phenomena, it
is generally by way of literary illustration, — to
point a moral or adorn a tale. In no age or tongue
does literature confine itself to scientifically accu-
rate statement. Again Oriental literature especially
revels in metaphor and poetic imagery. The con-
fusion of the literal and figurative language, the
realism and mysticism, the historical, typical and
allegorical senses of the Hebrew writers, is the
source of many of our Biblical difficulties."
Student. — "How is it that the Bible and science
flatly contradict each other in their teaching about
the age of the human race."
Prof. — * ' I was not aware that either the Bible or
science had decided that problem. Scholars con-
sider that the question is far from being definitely
answered by Scripture or the natural sciences, and
will probably never be settled."
Days of Creation. Student. — ''How can you ex-
pect an intelligent Catholic to believe that the
world was made in six days of twenty-four hours?"
Prof. — "I do not know a single Catholic who
holds such an opinion."
138 SCIENCE AND EELIGION
Student. — "Isn't that what is clearly taught in
the first pages of the Bible?''
Prof. — "Great scholars who have spent years in
their study, do not find the first pages of Genesis
as clear as you think them. One thing they do
clearly teach is that God is the Creator of all things.
That is their essential message.''
Student. — "My opinion is that what you call days
were in reality great epochs of time during which
creation developed into its present condition. That
corresponds better with modern scientific thought."
Prof. — "Your opinion is not new with yourself.
It has been held for a long time by plenty of Catho-
lic scholars like Holzammer, Pianciani, and the
celebrated Hettinger."
Student. — "Is it the common theory of Catholic
scholars ? ' '
Prof. — "It is the view most commonly held.
There are also other explanations of the Mosaic cos-
mogony. Yon Hummelauer regards the six days
as so many visions of Moses, without reference to
time. Bishop Clifford and others regard the ac-
count of the creation as a hymn, in which the vari-
ous portions of creation are commemorated on the
days of the week. The Jewish Sabbath is thus em-
phasized. St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquin
thought that the act of creation required but an in-
stant and that Moses' account of its development
is largely allegorical.
"You complain that disputes have prevailed as
to the exact correspondence of the order of crea-
tion as recorded in Genesis, with the discoveries of
modern astronomical and geological science. The
wonderful thing is that the ancient account in its
popular dress, should be so near the truth that
there is possibility of dispute about the matter.
Take all the other cosmogonies found in ancient
EVOLUTION 139
records, and which one would be even discussed as
having any material correspondence with modern
science? It was possible for a man of science suf-
ficiently distinguished to be the President of the
British Association to state that *'it would not be
easy even now to construct a statement of the de-
velopment of the world in popular terms so concise
and so accurate as the story of Genesis.'*
34. EVOLUTION.
Student. — **If the Bible account of the creation
can be reconciled with the doctrine of evolution,
my science need not interfere with my religion. '*
Prof. — ** Pasteur's did not. If you know your
science and practice your religion as well as he did,
you will doubtless find that on being brought to-
gether the two will prove very agreeable friends."
Student. — **You are laughing at me. What I
meant was, that I am glad a Catholic need not deny
the theory of evolution."
Prof. — **The theory of evolution was first pro-
pounded (1809) by a French Catholic, Lamarck.
Some forms of that theory are not incompatible
with the principles of the Christian conception of
the Universe."
Student. — ^'I thought Darwin was the founder
of the theory of evolution."
Prof. — *' Darwinism and the theory of evolution
are by no means equivalent conceptions. Darwin-
ism is but one form of the general theory of evolu-
tion. It explains the origin of species by natural
selection, the breeding of new species depending on
the survival of the fittest in the struggle for ex-
istence."
Student. — **You say there are various views or
forms of the general theory?"
140 SCIENCE AND EELIGION
Prof. — ''You may view evolution as a scientific
hypothesis, or you may view it as a philosophical
speculation. The former assuming that the various
species of plants and animals on our earth have de-
scended from extinct species and that the organic
species are not constant or immutable, seeks to de-
termine the historical succession of the different
species and to show how in the course of the differ-
ent geological epochs, they gradually evolved from
their beginnings by purely natural causes of spe-
cific developments. Thus we have Darwin's 'nat-
ural selection,' Lamarck's 'inheritance of acquired
characters,' and Mendel's 'segregation.' The
scientific theory of evolution does not concern itself
with the origin of life. It merely inquires into the
genetic relation of systematic species, genera and
families, and endeavors to arrange them according
to natural series of descent or genetic trees."
Student. — "Is that opposed to religious teach-
ings?"
Prof. — "No. As Knabenbauer states, there is no
objection, so far as faith is concerned, to assuming
the descent of all plant and animal species from a
few types. Scripture does not tell us in what form
the present species of plants and animals were cre-
ated."
Student. — ^"And what about evolution as a philo-
sophical speculation?"
Prof. — "Leaving the observation and classifica-
tion of minute data and tangible facts, which is
the scientist's field, and rising to the philosopher's
uncertain realm of speculation, the theory of evolu-
tion as a philosophical conception considers the en-
tire history of the cosmos as an harmonious devel-
opment, brought about by natural law."
Student. — "Can this square with the Bible?"
Prof. — "The Bible says: 'In the beginning God
EVOLUTION 141
created heaven and earth.' The point of Genesis
is less to describe the mode of creation, than to
state the fact that the world is the creature of God.
If God produced the universe by a single creative
act of His will, then its natural development by-
laws implanted in it by the Creator, is to the greater
glory of His divine power and wisdom. St. Thomas
says: 'The potency of a cause is the greater, the
more remote the effects to which i.t extends.' Su-
arez states another principle: *God does not in-
terfere directly with the natural order, where
secondary causes suffice to produce the intended
effect.' Thus conceived evolution is again in agree-
ment with the Christian view of the universe.
**In the hands of atheists and materialists, who
deny the existence of God, this theory is rendered
ineffectual to account for the first beginning of the
cosmos or for its law of evolution. Philosophy says
that there is no effect without its cause: and nat-
ural science denies spontaneous generation — the in-
dependent genesis of a living being from non-living
matter. Haeckel extended the selection theory of
Darwin, and attempts to account for the whole
evolution of the cosmos by means of chance sur-
vival of the fittest. As Haeckel does not admit the
existence of God as the first cause, this atheistic ex-
planation, which does not explain, this materialistic
philosophy failing to account for effects by ade-
quate cause, is compatible neither with science nor
religion."
Student. — *'What about the evolution theory
when applied to man?"
Prof. — "That God should have made use of nat-
ural, evolutionary, original causes in the production
of man's body, is per se not improbable. St. Au-
gustine propounded this idea in the fifth century.
But the human soul cannot be derived through
142 SCIENCE AND KELIGION
natural evolution from the brute, since it is of a
spiritual nature; for which reason we must refer
its origin to a creative act on the part of God/*
Student. — ^'If the evolution theory is not neces-
sarily antagonist to faith, why are many Chris-
tians so conservative about adopting itT'
Prof. — ** Probably because they don't see any
good reason why they should.''
Student. — ^'Has not science proved it?"
Prof. — ''Not at all. However pleasing to many
minds and plausible as a speculation, it remains true
that the evolution theory is only a theory. The ori-
gin of life is unknown to science ; as is also the ori-
gin of the main organic types. As to the human
race, the earliest fossils and the most ancient
traces of culture refer to man, as we know him to-
day. There is no trace of even a merely probable
argument in favor of the animal origin of man."
Student. — ''Perhaps they will yet find the missing
link."
Prof. — "There is no chain which a missing link
would complete, in spite of the romances of men
like Haeckel."
Student. — "What opinion would you recommend
to the common man ? ' '
Prof. — "We know we were created by God: and
the grave-yard will tell us that our bodies were
made from the dust of the earth. Is it absolutely
necessary at the present time, to insist on an opinion
about the process?"
35. MIRACLES.
Student. — "Don't you think it is absurd, in our
day, to speak seriously of miracles?"
Prof. — "It is never absurd to speak seriously of
facts. It is the characteristic of our present spirit
MIRACLES 143
of scientific investigation to speak very seriously of
phenomena whose mysterious nature suggests that
there are more things in heaven and earth than are
accounted for in the philosophy of our physics and
chemistry. Sir Oliver Lodge, perhaps at present
the greatest English scientist, said in the very mod-
ern year, 1911: — 'The region of the miraculous has
been hastily and illegitimately denied. So long as
we do not imagine it to be a region denuded of a
law and order of its own, our denial has no founda-
tion.' ''
Student. — *'So you really think they are facts T*
Prof. — "If they were not facts, they would not
occupy the thoughts of serious scholars. Miracles
are effects produced in the material creation, ap-
pealing to and grasped by the senses. The feeling
of wonder which is excited in the observer and
which gives its name to the phenomenon, is due to
the circumstance that its cause is hidden and an
effect is expected other than actually takes place.
Hence in comparison with the ordinary course of
things, the miracle is extraordinary.''
Student. — ''If a fact violates the laws of nature,
I would not believe it even if I observed it with my
seven senses."
Prof. — "The real scientist is very careful about
the meaning of the words he uses. Only dilettanti
with no reputation to lose, like many of the writers
who contribute so-called popular science articles
to the Sunday newspapers, can afford to be flippant.
To deny a fact because it does not agree with your
theory, would be as unscientific as to refuse cre-
dence to the testimony of men's senses, which is
precisely the foundation on which the observations
of the natural sciences are based. What you want
to say is probably this. If you met a phenomenon
that seemed to violate the laws of nature, you would
144 SCIENCE AND KELIGION
be very slow to give an opinion about it, and very
careful in observing it and authenticating testimony
concerning it. If you were finally convinced that
you were dealing with a fact, extraordinary but
real, even though it could not be accounted for by
your theories, you would admit that it had its right-
ful place in the universe and you would set about to
discover its nature and causes, and to ascertain
whether it really did violate the laws of nature."
Student. — ''But isn't it conceded that miracles
would be in violation of all natural laws?''
Prof. — ''Not at all. A miracle may be above na-
ture, when the effect produced is above the native
powers and forces in creatures, of which the known
laws of nature are the expression. Christ did not
violate any law of nature in raising Lazarus from
the dead. He effected something quite above the
powers of nature.
"Again, a miracle may be said to be outside or
beside nature, when natural forces may have its
power to produce the effort, at least in part, but
could not of themselves have produced it the way
it was brought about. Thus an effect takes place
instantaneously, without the means or processes
which nature employs. The changing of water
into wine or the sudden healing of a large extent
of diseased tissue by a draught of water, does not
violate any law of nature. Nature produces the
same effects but not in the manner of the miracle
of Cana.
" "Again miracles that seem contrary to the laws of
nature, really imply an intelligent control of natural
forces, and are not 'unnatural' in the sense of pro-
ducing discord or confusion. The forces of nature
differ in power and are in constant interaction.
This produces interferences and counteraction of
forces, biological, mechanical and chemical. Man
MIRACLES U5
continually interferes with and counteracts natural
forces about him. He studies the properties of nat-
ural forces with a view to obtain conscious control
by intelligent counteraction of one force against
another. Intelligent counteraction makes progress
in chemistry and physics, and is used in the phy-
sician's prescription, in steam-locomotion and avia-
tion. Man controls nature and can live only by
counteraction of its forces. Though this goes on
daily about us, we do not speak of natural forces
being paralyzed or of nature's laws being violated.
In a miracle is God's action, so counteracting and
displacing and arranging the forces of nature, that
they work out His will.'*
Student. — ''Of course if one admits God as an
intelligence and will, outside of nature .and able to
control it, in a way analogous to man's control, mir-
acles are not impossible."
Prof. — ''And don't you believe in God? To the
materialist, atheist, and pantheist, miracles are
merely natural events which the beholder can re-
duce to no law with which he is at present ac-
quainted. Their view ultimately rests upon the as-
sumption that the material universe alone exists.
Mill admits Hume's argument against miracles from
the 'uniform sequence' of nature, to be valid only
on the supposition that God does not exist."
Student. — "Still I cannot see the purpose of mir-
acles. I would have to get mighty good proof of
any particular one, before believing it."
Prof. — "I am glad to be able to agree with at
least your last sentence. While the general rules
governing the acceptance of testimony apply to
miracles as well as to other facts of history, the
extraordinary nature of the miracle requires more
complete and more accurate investigation. No
critic is more exacting in his demands for proof of
146 SCIENCE AND RELIGION
an alleged miracle than is the Catholic Church.
Still in the end, as even Huxley says, it ^.s a ques-
tion of evidence pure and simple.
''The purpose of miracles is the manifestation
of God's glory and the good of man. The miracles
of Christ may not have been "necessary, but they
appear most fitting and in accord with His mission :
while they lead the people to glorify the power of
God, they also served to endorse His messenger
and open minds to receive His revelation. Man is
created for God : and a miracle becomes a proof and
pledge of God's supernatural providence."
36. LIST OF CATHOLIC SCIENTISTS.
The charge that there is a hopeless conflict be-
tween science and religion, may be best met by the
very scientific method of observing the facts in the
case. The history of the natural sciences affords
overwhelming refutation of the fallacy that a man
cannot be at the same time a scientist and a Chris-
tian.
The following is a very incomplete list of Catho-
lic scientists. It is taken not from the departments
of history and philosophy in which churchmen have
always held eminent place, but from the natural
sciences. The names will be recognized as those
of the very giants in the different fields of scientific
investigation. These Catholic scientists, together
with other Christians equally illustrious, such as
Newton, Kepler, Sir Humphry Davy, Farraday,
Agassiz, Dana, Dalton, Cuvier, Leibnitz, Lord Kel-
vin, Sir Oliver Lodge, etc., are undying witnesses
of the truth that there is neither warfare nor con-
tradiction between the teachings of God's book of
nature and His book of supernatural revelation.
Astronomy. Astronomy is rich in Catholic and
LIST OF CATHOLIC SCIENTISTS 147
priestly names. Regiomontanus, the greatest as-
tronomer Europe produced up to the 15th century,
was Bishop of Ratisbon and tutor of Copernicus.
Copernicus, who discovered that the sun is the
center of our motion and that the planets revolve
about it and on their axis, was a priest. Nicholas
de Cusa was a Cardinal. Galileo, the father of ex-
perimental science, the inventor of the telescope,
microscope, pendulum and the creator of dynamics,
was a sincere Catholic. Gassendi, a priest of the
17th century, studied comets, dissipating the super-
stitious fear of them; and first observed the transit
of a planet, Mercury, across the sun's disc. The
Jesuit Secchi is the greatest authority on the sun.
Piazzi, a monk, discovered Ceres and prepared the
fii-st standard catalogue of 7646 stars. The Abbe
de Lacaille erected an observatory at Cape Town,
where a catalogue of 10,000 stars was made from
southern observations. Jean Picard, another French
ecclesiastic, made the first accurate measurement
of a degree of the meridian, which measure enabled
Newton to establish the law of universal gravita-
tion. Pope Gregory XIII in. 1582, corrected the
Julian calendar and gave us our present Gregorian
system. Leverrier, discoverer of Neptune, is called
the giant of modern astronomy. Plana 's study of
the moon all but exhausts the subject. De Vico
and Grimaldi were Jesuits. Cassini, Boscovich,
Maraldi, Castelli, Bianchini, Perry, Denza, are other
Catholic names illustrious in astronomy.
Electricity. Galvani and Volta discovered the
continuous current of electric energy, the founda-
tion of telegraphy and telephones. Ampere discov-
ered the Amperian or electro-dynamic theory.
Abbe Nollet first observed the electric spark from
the human body. Father Caselli, 1856, invented the
Pantelegraph or copying telegraph. Nobili in-
148 SCIENCE AND RELIGION
vented the thermo-electric battery; Plante, the
storage battery; Foucault, the first electric lamp;
Gramme, the electro-motor; Marconi, the wireless
telegraph. The seismographic and meteorological
work of the Jesuits, at Havana, Manila and other
observatories is appreciated for its practical as well
as scientific value. Blot, Nollet, Carre, Pacinotti
are other Catholic names in electricity.
Chemistry. Lavoisier (1743-1794), is counted
the founder of modern chemistry. Before him
Schwartz, a monk of Cologne, had invented gun-
powder (1320). His brother monk, Basil Valentine
(b. 1394) founded analytic and pharmacological
chemistry. Dumas measured the specific gravity of
vapors and invented the theory of substitutions.
Bacqueral led in electro-chemistry. Minkelers dis-
covered the preparation of illuminating gas. Chev-
reul, Agricola, Van Helmont are honored names.
Madame Sklodovska Curie is the heroine of radium
and of Polonium, the latter metal being so named
in honor of her native Poland.
Thermotics. The science of heat places Fourier
at the head of its servants. Dulong and Petit dis-
covered the laws of atomic heat. Melloni traced
the transmission of heat. Regnauet prepared the
table of the specific heats of solids. Mariotte, a
priest, discovered the effects of caloric on the ex-
pansion* of gases. Sanctorius made the first ther-
mometer; Torricelli, 1647, the first barometer.
Physiology and Medicine. Couvier tells us that
three Catholic professors, Vesalius, Fallopius, and
Eustachius are the founders of modern anatomical
science. Realdus Columbus discovered the pulmo-
nary circulation of the blood. The observations of
Caesalpinus and Fabricius led Harvey, the pupil of
Fabricius, to discover the greater circulation. Mal-
pighi, father of comparative anatomy, introduced
LIST O^^ ( NTHOLIC SCIENTISTS 149
the microscope into anatomical examination and dis-
covered the capillary circulation from the arteries
to the veins. Bichat, Santorini and Bellingeri
studied the nerves and discovered their two sys-
tems. Guy de Chauliac, papal chamberlain, is the
father of modern surgery. Steno, discoverer of
Steno's duct and first to demonstrate that the heart
is a muscle, was a Catholic Bishop. Paracelsus, Bag-
livi, Aselli, Fabricius, Columbus, Steno Varolius,
Sylvius, Winslow, Fallopius, Eustachius, practically
all the men for whom structures of the body are
named, were Catholic scientists.
In the more recent phase of the development of
medicine, the greatest names are Morgagni, father
of pathology; Auenbrugger, father of physical di-
agnosis; Galvani, father of medical electricity;
Laennec, founder of our knowledge of pulmonary
disease; Claude Bernard, father of modern physiol-
ogy; Theodore Schwann, whose discovery that all
living tissues are composed of cells, laid the foun-
dation of true progress in biological science ; Louis
Pasteur, whose labors in bacteriology raised medi-
cine to a science and made him the immortal bene-
factor of mankind. All of these geniuses, with
Redi, Johannes Mueller, Spallanzani, Santono, Lan-
cisi, and many more giants of medicine and physi-
ology, were Catholic men.
Mathematics and Physics. Mathematics received
its great modern advancement w^hen Rene Descartes,
in 1637, invented analytic geometry. Gaspard
Monge invented descriptive geometry and applied
the infinitesimal calculus to the general theory of
surfaces. Cauchy developed the calculus of imagi-
naries. Pascal aided Leibnitz in the invention of
differential calculus. John Buteon, a priest, gave
us the algebraic signs.
Mechanics revived under Galileo and his school
150 SCIENCE AND RELIGION
teaching of the laws of motion, of falling bodies,
etc. Pascal taught the equilibrium of fluids, dem-
onstrated the weight of air and invented the hy-
draulic press. Flavio Gioia invented the mariner's
compass, 1302. Coulomb devised the torsion bal-
ance. The monk Gerbert invented clocks, 999.
Guttenberg, 1438, invented the printing press.
Acoustics. Acoustics owes its mathematical foun-
dation to the' genius of Galileo. Father* Marsenne
is the first great authority on sound vibration.
Couchy calculated the transverse, longitudinal and
rotary vibration of elastic rods. Gassendi, Cassini
and Picard were among the first to measure the ve-
locity of sound.
Optics. Optics counts as its greatest name Fres-
nel, who discovered the undulatory theory. Biot
discovered the laws of rotary polarization. Malus
invented the polariscope, discovered the laws of
double refraction and the phenomenon of polariza-
tion. Fizeau and Foucault measured the velocity
of light. Grimaldi first observed diffraction. Lenses
were invented by Armati, 1280; spectacles by
the Florentine monk, de Spina, 1285 ; the camera
obscura by della Porta, 1615 ; the magic lantern
by Father Kircher, 1680 ; photography by Daguerre
and Niepce, 1851. The X-rays was discovered by
Roentgen.
Geology. Leonardo da Vinci, Frascatoro, Fabio
Colonna, Bishop Steno, Buffon, Scilla, Vallisneri,
Father Spada, Moro, Generelli, Donati, Sorginet,
Bourgeois, Delauney, Lazzaro, Johannes Mueller are
the great and Catholic names in geology.
Mineralogy. The priest Rene Just Hauy who
created the modern science of crystallography, dis-
covered both the laws of constancy of the primitive
forma and the laws by which the secondary forms
are derived from the primitive, and applied them
LIST OF CATHOLIC SCIENTISTS 151
to the whole mineral kingdom. The Jesuit Cam-
pania invented the art of carving precious stones.
Agricola is preeminent in metallurgy.
Geography. Geography is one of the oldest sci-
ences, latitude and longitude being used before
Christ. Yet most will give the first place in this
department to Christopher Columbus. Columbus
was stimulated by the works of Marco Polo, whom
Alex. Humboldt calls the greatest traveler of any
age. Magellan first circumnavigated the globe.
Vasco da Gama rounded Good Hope and reached
India by sea. Amerigo Vespucci gave his name to
America. Balboa first beheld the Pacific Ocean.
Orellana first navigated and Father Acuna first de-
scribed the Amazon. Cortes explored Mexico and
discovered California. Father Marquette and Joliet
explored the Mississippi, which was discovered by
De Soto. Mercator, Pizarro, La Salle, the Cabots,
Le. Caron, Cartier, Champlain, Hennepin, Membre
and scores of other Catholic men, many of them
priests and missionaries, have an undying glory in
the early history of America; and have given the
names of saints and heroes to the valleys and moun-
tains, the towns and rivers of the land.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FATHERS
37. THE FATHERS.
In every century since the time of the Apostles
there have been men who wrote in explanation
or defense of the Christian faith. While not lay-
ing claim to the authority of the inspired writers,
their works are nevertheless of very great impor-
tance. The Fathers are the witnesses of the faith
and practice of the Christians of their generations.
So they ever afterward have relation to both the
Bible and the Church. While as Moehler says,
** There must be Fathers of the Church, as long as
the Church herself lasts," yet by the term ''the
Fathers," are generally understood those ecclesi-
astical writers of old, who on account of their learn-
ing and holiness of life, have been recognized as
such by the Church. So that antiquity, as well as
ecclesiastical learning, orthodox doctrine, holiness
of life, and the approbation of the Church, usually
enter into our concept of the Fathers.
Some of the Fathers on account of their greater
learning and holiness have been honored by the
Church with the title of ''Doctors of the Church."
Thus Saints Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazian-
zen, John Chrysostom, among the Greeks ; and Saints
Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Pope Greg-
ory the Great, among the Latins^ are styled the
great Doctors of the •Church.
Some early authors, though living in the Church,
have not always, in their lives or writings, ex-
152
THE FATHERS 153
pressed her pure doctrine, and are technically called
^'Ecclesiastical Writers"; as Clement of Alexan-
dria, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius. Others again,
like Novatian,* who have left behind writings on
matters of faith, but did not live in the communion
of the Church, are styled ''Christian Writers."
The Fathers are spoken of according to their lan-
guage as Greek or Latin ; according to their author-
ity as greater or lesser; according to their age as
apostolic, post-apostolic, early, later, anti-Nicene
(before the Council of Nice, A. D. 325) and post-
Nicene.^
Authority. These ancient Christian authors in-
clude, popes, bishops, priests and laymen. They
preached in sermons ; interpreted the Scriptures ;
wrote history; carried on controversy with Chris-
tians who had fallen into heresy and away from the
Church ; addressed apologies for their Christian
faith to their neighboi*s who still sat in the dark-
ness of paganism. They were often men of the
liighest culture which the Greek and Roman schools
of philosophy and literature afforded ; and they
brought their genius and learning to the defense
and exposition of the Christian religion. Their
works are valuable for their splendid exhortations,
their pregnant phrases carrying whole sermons
in their bosoms, their devotion and spiritual life.
But their writings have another value. They are
the historical monuments of early Christianity.
They are the record of the Church's traditional
teachings and practice.
It is accordingly, an accepted principle, that **the
agreement of all the Fathers of the Church to-
gether, in matters of faith and morals, begets com-
plete certainty and commands assent, because they,
1 "The False Decretals" of some 9th century writer in France or
Spain have no authority in the Church. The claims of the Papacy in
no way depend upon them.
154 THE FATHER^
as a body, bear witness to the teaching and belief
of the infallible Church. The consensus, howevei*,
need not be absolute; a moral agreement suffices;
as for instance, when some of the greatest Fathers
testify to a doctrine of the Church and the rest,
though quite aware of it, do not oppose it. What-
ever, therefore, the Fathers unanimously teach as
the divinely revealed tradition of the Church, must
be accepted and believed as such.''^
Patrology. There have always been in the
Church, men who were able to appreciate the Fa-
thers and willing to preserve their works. St.
Jerome (d. 420) composed a book containing ac-
count of the lives and works of 135 writers begin-
ning with the Apostles' age and ending with his
own. This was continued by Gennadius of Mar-
seilles (d. 496), St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636), and
others. The Greek Patriarch Photius (d. 891) com-
piled a similar work. In more modern times Cardi-
nal Bellarmine (d. 1621) cultivated Patrology in
accordance with the rules of historical criticism. A
century later the Benedictines of St. Maur and the
French Oratorians wrought marvels in this depart-
ment. The great Benedictine folios rejoice the
heart of every book-lover; while their scholarship
is the admiration of the learned. The field of Pa-
trology has been constantly worked ever since by
the most enlightened scholars, as the great mine of
Christian antiquity. The Migne edition of the Fa-
thers and early Christian writers comprises 379
large quarto volumes; 162 tomes of Greek and 217
of Latin writers.
The translation of many works of the Fathers
into English by scholars at Oxford and Edinburg,
had much to do with the Oxford movement in the
middle of the nineteenth century. John Henry
2 Schmid, Man. of Patrology, Ch. II.
THE FATHERS 155
Newman writes, ''The Fathers made me a Catholic."
Men found that the Church of the Fathers was iden-
tical in constitution and faith with the Catholic
Church of the nineteenth century; that the Church
of Rome in the days of Peter and Paul and Clement,
was not different from the Church of Rome in our
own days. The Fathers revealed to men that the
Church of Christ had not failed but that like its
founder, it is the same yesterday, to-day and for-
ever.
List of Writers. The following is a chronological
list of the principal ecclesiastiaal writers of the
early centuries. The dates are sometimes only ap-
proximate.
The Apostolic Fathers. Didache or Doctrine of
the Twelve Apostles; Bar,nabas d. 76; Clement of
Rome d. 101 ; Ignatius of Antioch d. 107 ; Letter to
Diogenetus; Hermas; Polycarp d. 166; Papias d.
160.
Apologists of the Second Century. Justin Mar-
tyr d. 167; Tatian d. 180; Athenagoras d. 130; Mel-
ito of Sardes d. 180; Theophilus of Alexandria d.
186; Hermias d. 200.
Third Century. Irenaeus, Bp. of Lyons d. 202;
Pantivnus d. 200; Clement of Alexandria d. 215;
Gajus d. 220; Julius Africanus d. 232; Hippolytus,
Martyr d. 235; Tertullian d. 240; Minucius Felix;
Pope Cornelius d. 252 ; Alexander Bp. of Jerusalem
d. 252 ; Origen d. 254 ; Pope Stephen d. 257 ; Cyprian
Bp. of Carthage d. 258; Novatian d. 262; Dionysius
of Alexandria d. 264; Firmilian d. 269; Gregory
Thaumaturgus d. 270; Archelaus d. 282.
Fourth Century. Pamphilus d. 309 ; Methodius d.
312 ; Peter of Alexandria d. 311 ; Arnobius d. 325 ;
Lactantius d. 330 ; Juvencus d. 337 ; Eusebius of
C^esaria d. 340; Julius d. 352; Hilary of Portiers d.
366; Athanasius d. 373; Basil d. 379; Ephraem of
156 THE FATHERS
Syria d. 379 ; Optatus d. 384 ; Pope Damasus d. 384 ;
Cyril of Jerusalem d. 386 ; Macariiis d. 390 ; Gregory
Nazianzen d. 390; Pacian of Barcelona d. 391; Di-
odorus d. 392 ; Didymus d. 395 ; Gregory of Nyssa d.
395 ; Siricius d. 398 ; Ambrose Bp. of Milan d. 397.
Fifth Century. Epiphanius d. 403; Sulpicius
Severus d. 410; Chrysostom d. 407; Rufinus d. 410;
Prudentius d. 410; Synesius d. 413; Jerome d. 420;
Theodore of Mopsuestia d. 428 ; Augustine of Hippo
d. 430; Nilus d. 440; Paulinus d. 431; Isidore of
Pelusium d. 440 ; John Cassian d. 435 ; Dionysius
the Areopagite; Cyril of Alexandria d. 444; Euche-
rius d. 449 ; Hilary of Aries d. 449 ; Vincent of Lerins
d. 450; Peter Chrysologus d. 450; Prosper of Aqui-
taine d. 463 ; Sedulius d. 455 ; Theodoret of Cyrus d.
458; Pope Leo I the Great d. 461; Salvian d. 490.
Sixth and Seventh Centuries. Ennobius d. 521;
Boethius d. 525 ; Fugentius d. 533 ; Caesarius of Aries
d. 542; Benedict, founder of the Benedictine order
d. 543; Cassiodorus d. 570; Gregory of Tours d.
594; Venantius Fortunatus d. 602; Gregory the
Great d. 604; John Climacus d. 600; Isidore of Se-
ville d. 636 ; Sophronius d. 638 ; Maximus d. 662 ;
Anastasius Sinaita d. 700; John Damascene d. 754.
38. RESUME OP PART SECOND— THE CHRIS-
TIAN CHURCH.
As Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threatenings
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, jour-
neyed toward Damascus, armed with letters for the
arrest of any Christians he might find there, he
was suddenly blinded with a light from Heaven
and thrown from his horse to the earth; and he
heard a voice saying unto-him: ^
*'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Mef When
lAct. 9, 1-6.
RESUME OF PART TWO 157
Saul answered, **Who art thou, Lord?*' the Lord
made answer: ''I am Jesus Christ whom thou per-
secutest." Thus Jesus Christ identifies Himself
with the Church which He founded to continue His
work in the world. To persecute His Church even
with intentions as good as Saul's, is to persecute
Himself. To oppose His Church in its divinely-
given mission, is to oppose His own work, — to in-
terfere with the instrument through which He
speaks His truth and brings the benison of His
ministry and the salvation of His cross to all men
and all ages.
Later on when the Apostle Paul realized the inti-
mate union between Christ and His Church, he re-
pented of the misguided zeal which made him an
unwitting persecutor of Christ. '*! am not worthy
to be called an Aposfle,'' he declared, "because I
persecuted the Church of God."- Through his
tears of repentance, he saw the more clearly that
the Church is the instrument of Christ and that
Christ is the life of the Church. Again and again
he speaks of the Church as the mystical body of
Christ.^ Christ is the living and life-giving Head
of the Church.* After Paul, Christian writers have
well called the Church the continuation of the In-
carnation.
While those withmit have admired its splendid
organization, those within, conscious that the secret
of its vitality is Jesus Christ, think of the Church,
not merely as an organization but as a living or-
ganism.
In the second part of our work, we have studied
the Christian Church — as a society, as a teacher,
and in its relation to the Holy Scriptures. We have
beheld the Church in the promise of Christ recorded
»I. Cor. 15, 9.
»Eph. 4, 12-16; Col. 1, 24; I. Cor. 12, 27; Rom. 12, 5.
*Eph. 4, 15; Col. 1, 18.
158 THE FATHERS
in the Bible, and in the realization of those prom-
ises in history — a visible society abiding through
the ages, bearing infallible witness to the teachings
of Christ, preserving and interpreting the pages of
the inspired writers, presided over by the successors
of the Apostles, and marshaling the army of Christ
in the unity of faith and charity. At the head of
this visible Kingdom of God on earth, is the suc-
cessor of St. Peter, feeding the sheep and lambs of
the flock, as the vicar of Christ who is ever the di-
vine invisible head of the Christian body. Around
the City of Rome, which Providence gave to St.
Peter as the capital of the Church, and around its
Bishops, who have succeeded the prince of the Apos-
tles in his primatial office, has centered the history
of the Christian Church since the days of Christ.
Dr. Charles Augustus Briggs, the eminent non-
Catholic theolo'gian, bears the following witness to
this relation of the Papacy to the Church of Christ.
**The Papacy is one of the greatest institutions
that has ever existed in the world; it is much the
greatest now existing, and it looks forward with
calm assurance to a still greater future. Its domin-
ion extends throughout the world over the only
CEcumenical Church. All other churches are na-
tional or provincial in their organization. It
reaches back in unbroken su^ession through more
than eighteen centuries to St. Peter, appointed by
the Savior of the world to be the Primate of the
Apostles. It commands the great central body of
Christianity, which has ever remained the same or-
ganism since Apostolic times. All other Christian
organizations, however separate they may be from
the parent stock, have their share in the Papacy
as a part of the Christian heritage, and are regarded
by the Papacy as subject to its jurisdiction. The
authority of the Papacy is recognized as supreme in
RESUME OF PART TWO 159
all ecclesiastical affairs, by the most compact and
best-organized body of mankind; and as infallible
in determination of doctrines of faith and morals
when it speaks ex cathedra.
*'We shall have to admit that the Christian
Church from the earliest times recognized the pri-
macy of the Roman Bishop ; and that all the other
great Sees at times recognized the supreme juris-
diction of Rome in matters of doctrine, government
and discipline.
**The history of the Papacy has been a history
of storm and conflict. About it have raged for cen-
turies the greatest battles in all history. The gates
of hell have been open in Rome, if anywhere in this
world. . . . And yet these forces of evil have al-
ways been driven back. When the conflict has sub-
sided, the Papacy has stood forth stronger than
ever. Is there not historic truth in saying, 'The
gates of hell have not prevailed against it'? Are
not the words of Jesus to St. Peter equally appro-
priate to his successors? * Simon, Simoo, behold,
Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as
wheat; but I made supplication for thee, that thy
faith fail not ; and do thou, when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren.' ''
PART THEEE
CHAPTER IX
CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
39. THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS.
Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
He is our King, our Prophet, our Priest. Through
the Church by which Christ continues His work in
the world, He still exercises His three-fold office.
We have studied the Church as a society and as a
teacher. She is a society in order that she* may be
a teacher. She is a teacher, that through the truth
taught, the lives of her children may be brought
into union with the Eternal Life. That is the final
purpose of all her activities. In the present chap-
ters we shall observe the means by which Christ
applies the grace of His eternal priesthood to the
daily lives of men.
Stages of Life. From cradle to grave the Church
consecrates with sacramental rites, every stage of
man's life journey; yea and in the face of death
abandons him not, but sends her prayers after his
soul even to the judgment throne of God, while over
the tomb that holds his mortal remains she raises
the Cross, the symbol of her faith and hope.
Thus in Baptism the child of Adam is born into
the supernatural life of Christ and started on its
career of Christian faith and service. As the years
bring the youthful Christian face to face with the
160
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS 161
battle of life, the Sacrament of Confirmation fur-
nishes him with the armor of the soldier of Christ.
If the Christian falls mortally wounded by sin, the
Sacrament of Confession restores the spiritual life.
In the. Eucharistic Sacrament, the Christian finds
real union with God as the life-giving food of the
soul. With manhood comes the call to a wortfty
life-work. If the call be to the domestic hearth, the
Sacrament of Marriage unites the two lives for God
and blesses their home. If the vocation be to the
Christian ministry, the Sacrament of Holy Orders
consecrates the chosen life to its divine work and
confers the powers of the priesthood. Finally when
the Christian hovers between life and death, the
Church is at his side with the sacred oils of Ex-
treme Unction bringing health to the body, if God
so wills; or strength to the soul to greet the silent
messenger with the supernatural courage that comes
of union with Christ.
Matter and Spirit. The Seven Sacraments of the
Christian religion are channels of the divine grace
by which Jesus Christ elevates man to supernatural
union with God and blesses with needed help every
stage of his life. In the Sacraments Christ em-
ploys material signs full of meaning and beauty.
This is in harmony with our human nature, made
up as it is, of body as well as spirit; and it is in
harmony with His incarnation wherein ''the Word
was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." But the
sacraments are more than mere symbols. They are
fountains of divine grace. We are baptized with
water and the Holy Ghost. We are confirmed wuth
oil and the Holy Ghost. We are ordained priests
by the imposition of hands and the communication
of the Holy Ghost. ''Receive ye the Holy Ghost;
whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them,"
were the words of Christ to His Apostles at the
162 CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
institution of the sacrament by which the Christian
separated from God by sin, would again be en-
livened by the Spirit of Sanctity. In the Eucharist,
under the species of bread and wine, we really re-
ceive Jesus Christ.
Definition. Deharbe defines a sacrament as a vis-
ible sign, instituted by Jesus Christ, by which in-
visible grace and inward sanctification are commu-
nicated to the soul.
The Sacraments, says Spirago, are sensible signs
instituted by Christ by means of which the graces
of the Holy Spirit are communicated to us.
The definition of a sacrament includes three ele-
ments: the outward sign, the inward grace, the in-
stitution by Jesus Christ.
Mysteries. The Sacraments are bound up with
several of the deepest mysteries of the Christian re-
ligion. To have any understamding of the Sacra-
ments and the importance of their place in the
Christian dispensation, it is necessary to know
something of the divine grace of which they are the
channels ; the atonement of Christ which makes that
grace possible ; the supernatural life to which sanc-
tifying grace raises man ; original sin by which man
lost that supernatural life in Adam's fall. Nature
and grace ; natural and supernatural ; human and
divine; the free will of man cooperating with the
grace of God unto its own salvation, or rebelling
against His law unto its own ruin; the silent min-
istration of the Holy Spirit; salvation wrought by
Jesus Christ and conveyed to the individual soul
by the sacramental channels; these mysteries are
the key to the Christian religion. Though we may
not fully understand, we can rightly apprehend the
mysteries made known by divine revelation.
Having established the authority of the Church
as the infallible custodian and teacher of divine
EXALTATION AND FALL 163
revelation, we can listen now to her voice and with
^fullest conviction accept her teaching of the mys-
teries of the Christian faith. In making a brief
statement of truths necessary for the understanding
of the Sacraments, our great argument will be:
thus saith the Church. For behind the voice of the
Church is the sanction: thus saith the Lord.
40. EXALTATION AND FALL.
Of all creatures of earth, it is man who is made
in the image of his' Creator. God made man to
His own likeness by the fact that He endowed man
with qualities which give us a resemblance, how-
ever imperfect, to God Himself. Some of these
qualities belong to the integrity of our human na-
ture, either as forming part of it, or resulting from
it or in some way due to it. They are called natu-
ral gifts. Such natural gifts are body and soul,
intellect, free-will and immortality.
Natural and SupernaturaL But besides these
natural gifts and the life and happiness which their
possession makes possible, God raised man to a des-
tiny far surpassing the powers and rights of our
human nature. From the shadows and reflections
of a merely natural knowledge of God, we are called
to behold Him face to face in Heaven. From being
mere creatures, we are called to be the adopted chil-
dren of God, and not only to share His celestial home,
but even His own divine nature. These gifts are
supernatural and make us the supernatural image
of our heavenly Father. The elevation of man to
a supernatural state is well described by Scripture,
as the gift of a new and higher life. With the grace
of this supernatural life, are given the powers and
faculties so to say, needful for its activities and en-
joyment. And the happiness of supernal union
164 CHKIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
with God of which it makes us capable, becomes
henceforth our supernatural destiny.
Man's Exaltation. These supernatural gifts,'
then, are no wise due to man's nature. They are
the free gift of the Creator's loving goodness. They
bestow a life to which the powers of nature could
never attain nor its proper needs lay claim. This
divine gift of a higher life with God, is well called
the Grace of Sanctification. For by this Sanctify-
ing Grace man is exalted above the exigencies of
his own humble nature and destined to be a par-
taker of the Divine Nature itself.^ This union with
God is our supernatural life. From being merely
creatures of God we are given ''power to be made
the sons of God." ''You have received the spirit
of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba-Fa-
ther. ' ' 2 As children of God we receive the right of
heirs to Heaven. Our nature of itself would be
capable only of a natural knowledge of the Creator,
and destined for a natural happiness. Our eleva-
tion to the supernatural order makes it possible for
us to enjoy the supernal knowledge and bliss of the
Beatific Vision; to be united with God and partici-
pate in His divine life. "Behold what manner of
charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called, and should be, the sons of God.
. . . We are now the sons of God and it hath
not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that
when He shall appear we shall be like to Him, be-
cause we shall see Him as He is.''^
Man's Fall. Our first parents were thus created
not only with their natural endowments, but also
with supernatural gifts of God. In Adam the hu-
man race was destined for supernatural life and
happiness. In his disobedience to the law of the
Creator sin entered our world with its train of woe-
. »II. Peter 1, 4. ' Rom. 8, 15. « I. John 3, 1-2.
EXALTATION AND FALL 165
ful consequences. In turning away from God in
the sin of disobedience, our first parents destroyed
the union with God wiiich was the supernatural life
of their souls. They lost the adoption of the chil-
dren of God conferred in sanctifying grace. They
retained the natural life of creatures, but forfeited
the participation in the divine life given them as
isons of God. Their supernatural gifts were gone.
All that belonged to their nature remained indeed,
but suffered in the loss of the supernatural gifts
by whose association the natural faculties had been
ennobled. The understanding was darkened ; the
will was weakened. Adam and Eve w^ent forth
from the happiness of Paradise to till the earth in
the sweat of their brow; to die; and unless for-
given by God and raised again to the supernatural
life which they had lost, to remain separated from
God forever.
Death of Soul. Our natural life consists of the
union of body and soul. Human death consists in
the separation of body and soul ; not in the annihila-
tion of either; body as well as soul, however much
changed, survives death. The supernatural life of
the soul consists of the supernatural union of the
soul and God. The death of the soul consists, not
in its annihilation, for it is immortal, but in its sepa-
ration from God. Original sin is called by the
Church, the death of the soul.*
Original Sin. The children of Adam inherit from
him human nature unadorned with supernatural
life. We are born without sanctifying grace and
the union with God which it confers. We have the
life that belongs to our nature, but not the super-
natural life to which nature had been generously
elevated. Nor are we simply as though . w^e had
never been raised to the supernatural life. We are
« C. Trent. Sess. V., Can. 3.
166 CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
like children who have been bereft of an inheritance
by the folly of their ancestors. After being des-
tined by God for a supernatural end, human na-
ture is robbed by man of the means to that end.
The inheritance has been squandered by our com-
mon father. The sin of the father is visited upon
the children. The children of Adam are conceived
in the state of original sin.^ And to original sin,
they add their own personal transgressions of the
divine law.
Original sin does not consist in concupiscence;
nor in disharmony between reason and sense; nor
in bodily death or affliction; nor in total depravity
of our human nature; nor in a mere imputation to
us of Adam's sin. Though it impaired, original sin
did not efface in man the natural image of God.
However weakened, human nature is intrinsically
the same.
Original sin is the state of separation from God
our supernatural end ; or what comes to the same, it
is the privation of sanctifying grace brought upon
Adam's descendants by his disobedience. We may
consider sin as an act and as a state. As an act
it may be the work of an instant; but the state re-
sulting from the act is permanent; and so long as
man perseveres in this state of sin he is a sinner.
The act of Adam has become the state of human na-
ture. The state is one of separation from God and
can be changed only by a fresh gift of sanctifying
grace. It is the death of the soul in the same man-
ner as sanctifying grace is the life of the soul.
. Had God created Adam without sanctifying
grace, man's state would not have been a state of
sin. It became a state of sin by its relation to the
sin of o^r first parents. Our ancestors gave to their
» Many are impressed with what they consider the striking analogy
between the Christiaji doctrine of original sin in the spiritual order, and
the doctrine of heredity in the physical and moral order.
THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST . 167
descendants the human nature that they possessed
and that was human nature robbed by sin, of the
gift of supernatural life. So we are born with this
effect of original sin on our personally innocent
souls. There is no evidence that the pain of sense
or positive punishment is connected with original
sin for such as have not committed personal sins.
The punishment is the loss of the adoption of the
children of God conferred in sanctifying grace, and
of the right to supernatural bliss connected with
sanctifying grace. The fall was from the super-
natural state to which, not by its right, but by
God's grace, human nature had been elevated.
41. THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST.
*'As by one man sin entered into this world and
by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in
whom all have sinned. . . . Therefore as by the
offense of one unto all men (came judgment) to
condemnation; so also by the justice of one (came
grace) unto all men to justification of life. For as
by the disobedience of one man many were made
sinners; so also by the obedience of one many shall
be made just. That as sin hath reigned to death;
so also grace might reign by justice unto life ever-
lasting."^ Thus St. Paul speaks of man's fall in
Adam and redemption by Christ.
God who w^as good enough to give man a woYi-
derful nature and more wonderfully raise it to a
participation in His own divine life, was too merci-
ful to abandon man in his fall. Even to the stricken
Adam, God gave the promise that the priceless
grace which had been forfeited, should be re-
deemed.- Man was of himself unable to arise from
» Rom. 5, 12-21.
«Gen. 3, 15; 12, 3; 49, 10; Deut. 18. 18; Is. 53, 4-7.
168 . CHEIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
his fall; to atone for the offense committed against
the Infinite; or to recover the sanctifying grace
which was entirely above his nature and the un-
merited gift of God. Jesus Christ came in the full-
ness of time, as the Redeemer. Uniting to His di-
vine nature, the human nature of the race which
He was to redeem, Christ restored the order of sal-
vation, offering Himself by His death on the cross
as a ransom for mankind.
Redemption. The reconciliation of man with
God might have been effected without the incarna-
tion of the Son of God. The benevolence of God
could have pardoned man's offense without condign
satisfaction, and restored him to the supernatural
state. Christ having come among men might have
effected the redemption by any act. The greatest
benevolence of God appears in this, that our Good
Shepherd willed to lay down His life for His sheep ;
Our Friend chose to show the greatest love that
one friend can have for another, by giving His life
for His friends — the sinners of the world.^
**In Christ, the second Adam," says Spirago,
*Hhe head of the human race suffered for his mem-
bers. We know by experience of daily life that
vicarious atonement is possible. Not only property,
but disgrace or glory may be bequeathed to poster-
ity. A family, nay, more a whole nation, will be
proud of a great man born in their midst; and on
the other hand nations are sometimes severely chas-
tised for the sins of individuals. Original sin (in
an altogether different order) has become the herit-
age of humanity. And in like manner the merits
of one may become the heritage of all mankind.
Christ is the true Paschal Lamb, the sacrifice of
which did not liberate one nation from the yoke of
* Theologians discuss whether the Incarnation would have taken place
if man had not fallen.
THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 169
Pharaoh, but the whole human race from the serv-
itude of sin."
Applied Through Sacraments. It is the will of
God that all men should be saved.* Christ gave
Himself a redemption for all.^ The son of man
died for humanity. The death on the cross was the
climax of the life of Jesus Christ. **If I be raised
up," He had said, *'I shall draw all to myself."®
The cross becomes henceforth the symbol of salva-
tion, the standard of the Christian faith. The mer-
its of the cross flow to men through the sacraments
which Christ instituted as means of applying His
grace to the individual soul. Man cannot raise
himself to the supernatural life. It is the gift of
God. As God wills our salvation, He stands ever
present ready to do His part. The Sacraments
work ex opcre operato. Man also, however, must
do his part. He must work with God's grace. If
some are lost it is because they failed, by such co-
operation to make their own, the salvation offered
by Jesus Christ. The medicine cannot produce its
effect unless the sick man receives it. If the Sacra-
ments are properly received they cannot fail of
their blessed effect. God is faithful. To bring the
benefit of the sacrifice of the cross into the lives of
men, to communicate to them the Divine Spirit and
so unite them with God, Christ instituted the Seven
Sacraments and left them with the Church as the
divine instruments with which she would accom-
plish His work. He entrusted their administration
to the ''dispensers of the mysteries of God,"^ the
Apostles and their successoi-s in His priesthood.
Grace. To help toward some understanding of
the Sacraments, it is necessary to give attention to
* I. Tim. 2, 4.
»I. Tim. 2, 6; II. Cor. 5, 14; Rom. 8, 32.
«John 12, 32.
'I. Cor. 4, 1; XL Cor. 5, 18-21.
170 CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
the word *' Grace," which is continually employed
by writers on the spiritual life. The word is used
in several senses. In the widest sense, grace means
any gift, natural or supernatural, bestowed by
God's benevolence. In a stricter sense, the word
refers to supernatural gifts.
These gifts may be either external or internal.
The Gospel, the miracles, the example of Christ are
external graces. A book, a sermon, a sickness, as
being occasions of grace are sometimes called ex-
ternal graces. Internal graces are the divine in-
fluences which move our souls preparing them for
the attainment of supernatural happiness and en-
dowing them with supernatural life. They include
the supernatural enlightenment of the mind and in-
spiration of the will, and other gifts bestowed on
us by God for our supernatural end, and finally
the gift of supernatural life itself. Grace in this
strictest ""sense, is divided into actual and sanctify-
ing grace.
Actual Grace. Actual grace consists in the super-
natural enlightenment of the understanding and
inspiration of the will, to shun what is evil and to
will and do what is good. It is called actual be-
cause it is not a permanent quality, but an act of
help, — a transient divine influence upon the soul.
These transient graces do not themselves sanctify
us. If we cooperate with them they prepare us
for sanctifying grace. They arouse or solicit our
natural faculties to do good and avoid evil; or they
aid the^ will in its free resolve ; or they strengthen
the will in the execution of its good purposes.
Grace is necessary to everything that is profitable
to our eternal salvation. God gives sufficient grace
to all men. Grace does not impair the freedom of
man's will, and may be rendered inefficacious by
man's will.
THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 171
Sanctifying Grace. Sanctifying grace is an in-
ward gift communicated by God to the soul, in
virtue of which man is made holy and pleasing to
God, a child of God and an heir of Heaven. It is
also called habitual grace, because it is an abiding
quality. When endowed with it we are in the state
of grace. By sanctifying grace fallen man is raised
again from the death of siil to supernatural life.
He receives internal justification and regeneration.
The Holy Spirit, together with the virtues of faith,
hope and charity are communicated to the soul. In
sanctifying grace, **the charity of God is poured
forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given
to us."® The Holy Ghost dwells in us, as in a tem-
ple.^ The supernatural union with God begun on
earth in the gift of sanctifying grace, unless de-
stroyed by man, will continue for all eternity. «
Channels of Grace. The Sacraments give sancti-
fying grace or increase it in the soul. Baptism and
Penance are sometimes called the Sacraments of the
dead because they may be received by those who
are spiritually dead by sin, to whom they then give
supernatural life. Confirmation, Holy Eucharist,
Holy Orders, Matrimony and Extreme Unction are
called the Sacraments of the living because they
presuppose the existence of supernatural life in the
soul. The Sacraments increase sanctifying grace in
souls in which it already exists. As each Sacrament
was instituted for a particular end, besides sancti-
fying grace each confers its own special effect which
is called sacramental grace. Baptism, Confirmation
and Holy Orders produce an indelible character on
the soul and can be received only once.
Atonement. The redemption is as inscrutable a
mystery as the personality of the Redeemer. The
syllables of the word atonement make at-one-ment.
•Rom. 5, 5. •!. Cor. 2, 4.
172 CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
'*Why, according to our faith/' says a Jesuit
writer/^ ''did the Eternal Word come down and
adopt our human nature? To vindicate the injured
honor of God, say some. To open Heaven to sin-
ners, say others. They mean the same. For what
is the injury done to God? That He is not loved!
Why is Heaven closed to sinners? Because they do
not love God! The one thing that the Creator
wished from the beginning was to be loved. This
is the glory of God, the expression has no other
meaning. God is love.
''His love for Himself in His interior glory — His
eternal life. ^ This is life, to love. This is true life
for creatures, to love their Creator. It is this we
mean when we speak of the external glory of God.
The happiness of the three Divine Persons comes
from the enjoyment of that charity which makes
them one. Happiness for a created intellectual be-
ing is knowing God, to love Him. Therefore the
glory of God and our happiness is one and the same
thing, that we should possess the joy of knowing
and loving God. Therefore again the generosity of
the Second Person of the most Blessed Trinity was
especially admirable and kind, because He so ele-
vated our helpless nature as to render back to it the
capacity for love."
" D. A. Merrick, S. J. Messenger, Dec. 1901, p. 1099.
CHAPTER X.
BAPTISM
42. BAPTISM— THE CHRISTIAN'S BIRTH.
As Adam is our natural parent and we owe to him
our natural life ; so Christ is our supernatural father
and to Him we owe our supernatural life. Through
Baptism we are born again; born into the family of
the second Adam. Through this laver of regenera-
tion, the Redeemer restores us to the supernatural
state lost by sin. In the words of Christ, sanctify-
ing grace with its raising of man to a supernatural
union with God, is described as the gift of a new
life. The man receiving from Christ the inheritance
of grace lost in Adam and redeemed in the Savior,
is "born again.'' At the entrance of His Kingdom
stands the sacrament of Baptism through which the
soul, void of the life of grace, is born into the divine
life of Christ's adopted family.
Spiritual Birth. All that the Church teaches con-
cerning Baptism is outlined in the words of Jesus
Christ to Nicodemus : ^
''And there was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the people. This man came
to Jesus by night and said to Him : 'Rabbi, we know
that thou art come a teacher of God, for no man can
do these things thou dost, unless God is with him.'
Jesus answered and said to him : 'Amen, amen, I say
to thee, unless a man is born again, he cannot enter
the Kingdom of God.' Nicodemus said to Him:
»John 3, 1-6.
173
174 BAPTISM
'How can a man be born again when he is old?
Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb
and be born again?' Jesus answered: 'Amen,
amen, I say to thee, unless one be born again of
water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the King-
dom of God. That which is born of the flesh is
flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is
spirit.' "
The last command of the Master to His Apostles
was : ^ ' ' Going therefore, teach ye all nations ; bap-
tizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost." ''He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved."
Apostolic Practice. The Apostles and early Chris-
tians have left ample evidence of the faith and prac-
tice of the primitive Church, concerning this sacra-
ment. To them it was the channel bringing from
the cross to the individual soul the living waters of
redemption. It was the font for washing away the
leprosy of sin. And it was the birth of the soul
into the supernatural life. All must receive Bap-
tism. For were not all sinners ? The adult labored
under his personal transgressions ; the personally in-
nocent child under original sin. All were children
of Adam. For all, the grace once lost must be re-
deemed. The second Adam came for all. Through
Baptism, sin that kills the soul — original sin in all;
personal sin in the actual sinners — ^is destroyed.
Through Baptism men are born into the family of
the Christian Church and into the spiritual life.
So we flnd the Apostles baptizing. "Repent and
be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus
Christ, for the remission of your sins and you shall
receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost. ' ' ^ Thus cried
St. Peter on the first Pentecost, when the Apostles
baptized thousands. "Rise up and be baptized, and
»Mt. 28, 19; Mk. 16, 16. ^Act. 2, 38.
THE CHRISTIAN'S BIRTH 175
wash away thy sius invoking His name,"* was
the message of the humble priest who baptized
the" future Apostle of the Gentiles and was the in-
strument of God's grace in transforming Saul of
Tarsus into St. Paul. Again when Philip found
that the Eunuch of Candace, in whose chariot he
was riding, was properly disposed, he baptized him
as soon as they came to some water along the road.*
Necessity of Baptism. St. Paul explains the mo-
tive of this zeal, in the doctrine: "He (Christ)
saved us by the laver of regeneration, and renova-
tion of the Holy Ghost, whom He hath poured forth
upon us abundantly."*
The Church has always held that Baptism is not
merely a symbol of the supernatural life, but the
channel that conveys it to the soul. In Baptism we
receive sanctifying grace. Actual graces may pre-
pare us for Baptism and lead us to the sacred font.
But if we mistake these calls of grace and to grace,
for the possession in ourselves of the grace of sancti-
fication, we deceive ourselves. Nicodemus came be-
lieving in Christ and anxious to be His disciple : and
to him the Master said: "Unless one be born again
of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the
Kingdom of God." Actual graces w^ere drawing
Nicodemus to the grace of sanctification. Could he
reach that state by neglecting the means ordained
by God? Even after Saul was struck by the blind-
ing light, the disciple sent to him by God, said :
"Rise up and be baptized and wash away thy sins."
When St. Paul found disciples at Ephesus, who had
been baptized only with John's baptism of repent-
ance, though they already believed in Christ, the
great Apostle judged it necessary to baptize them
with the Christian sacrament, as a means of their
receiving the Holy Ghost.^
«Act. 22, 16. 'Act. 8, 36-37. "Tit. 3, 5. 'Act. 19, 2-5.
176 BAPTISM
Baptism of Blood. The sacrament of Baptism is
the ordinary channel of spiritual life, and for those
who know it and can receive it, it is a necessary
means of salvation. For those who have not been
able to receive the Baptism of water, and indeed
perhaps never heard of it, the Christian sacrament
may be supplied by the Baptism of blood or of
desire.
"He that shall lose his life for me, shall find it," ^
says Jesus Christ. The innocents of Bethlehem
were baptized in their own blood, as were also those
early Christians who before coming to the laver of
regeneration, were called upon to die as martyrs
for the Christian faith.
Baptism of Desire. Baptism of desire is, in a
word, an act of perfect love of God ; including there-
fore, however implicitly, the will to do all that
God has ordained for salvation. ''Every one that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God. ' ' ^ We may
trust that even among the pagans there are some
souls who live according to the light that is given
them. It is by this measure that they will be
judged. We may suppose souls who conform their
will to the will of God and implicitly embrace His
law though they have little explicit knowledge of it.
They would be Christians and baptized gladly, if
they knew that God so willed. God can give such
souls even a knowledge of His revelation, that they
may make a supernatural act of faith. Such souls
may be united with God by the Baptism of desire.
No Salvation Outside the Church. Baptism of
desire does not make one a member of the body of
the Church nor capable of receiving the other sac-
raments, until sacramental Baptism has been ad-
ministered. It unites one with the soul of the
Church. It effects the internal communion with the
•Mt. 10, 39. 'I. John 4, 7; John 14, 21-23.
THE CHRISTIAN'S BIRTH 177
Church, consisting in the desire (albeit implicit) of
being externally united with it, which is an indis-
pensable means of salvation. One must bear in
mind the different kinds of imion with the Church,
in order to understand the truth, that outside of the
Church there is no salvation. Those who would be
saved must have the will to do all that God has
ordained for salvation — consequently the desire of
being a member of His true Church. If one who
professes a false religion is saved, he is saved not
through his false religion, but only inasmuch as he
is (however unconsciously) a member of the true
Church. Christians who through no fault of their
own, are separated by heresy or schism from the
body of the Church, may be in the soul of the
Church. The will to do all that God has ordained
for salvation is compatible with external but uncon-
scious separation from the Church ; therefore one
who is in error through invincible ignorance (bona
fide) is capable of perfect contrition. The case is
different with him who is knowingly in error (mala
fide) so long as he pei^ists in thus acting against his
conscience.
Infant Baptism. Christ says: ''Suffer little
children to come to me, and hinder them not.'* The
Christian -Church gives her children the benefit of
Baptism as soon as possible. They are born into
their natural life as children of Adam and heirs to
his legacy of sin. Shall they not be born into the
spiritual life as children of Christ and heirs to His
inheritance of grace ? ^^ However innocent it may
be personally, the child is born without the grace of
supernatural life. Through Baptism it receives that
life. It is the duty of parents to make sure that
the priceless inheritance redeemed by Christ is se-
cured to the child. A mother would not neglect a
"Tit. 3, 5-7.
178 BAPTISM
fortune left to her infant son, till he would grow up
and care for it himself. The fact that a very large
per cent, of human beings die in their childhood is a
special reason why parents should make sure that
their children are raised by Baptism to the super-
natural life.
Repentance of their persoiial sins disposes the
adults to receive Baptism worthily. To them are
addressed the words: ^'Repent and be baptized/'
''Believe and be baptized.'' But the repentance is
not the baptism. Baptism is a gift of God: and
God can bestow this gift upon the unconscious babe
as surely as He can bless it with natural life. St.
Paul doubtless included children as well as adults
when he baptized whole families : ^^ his prison-
keeper "and all his"; Lydia "and her household";
"the household of Stephanas."
Origen, St. Augustine, St. Cyprian and other
Fathers, clearly testify to the practice of infant Bap-
tism in the first centuries of Christianity. Christian
parents, knowing that their child was born in orig-
inal sin and mindful of Christ's words: "Unless
one be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he
cannot enter the Kingdom of God," endeavor to
present the little ones at the font of Baptism as
promptly as the Jews consecrated their sons in the
covenant of circumcision.^^
Children who die without baptism are not con-
demned to the fire« of hell. It is the common teach-
ing of theologians, including St. Thomas, that in
eternity they will enjoy such union with God and
consequent happiness as nature is capable of: but
never having been raised above nature, they are
incapable of the supernatural union which makes
possible the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision. St.
"Act. 16, 33; 16, 15; I. Cor. 1, 16.
"Gen. 17, 9-14; Luke 1, 59; 2, 21. When 8 days old.
THE CHRISTIAN'S BIRTH 179
Thomas teaches that they are not saddened by this
loss: either because they are unconscious of it; or
because they realize that no injustice is done them,
since they are not deprived of anything to which
their nature had a right. The opinion that God
gives such infants a Baptism of Grace in some ex-
traordinary way, while put forth by some theo-
logians,^^ is not the common belief.
How to Baptize. While the priest is the ordinary
minister of Baptism, anyone can baptize validly, and
in case of necessity should do so. Having the in-
tention of doing what Christ ordained, pour com-
mon water on the head or face of the one to be bap-
tized and while pouring it say the words : I baptize
thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost.^* Baptism is administered val-
idly by immersion, by sprinkling or by pouring the
water. The last named mode is the discipline of
the western Church at the present time, perhaps as
being best suited to our climate. Certain sectaries
insist on immersion as the only way of giving Bap-
tism — even more sometimes than they insist on the
necessity of the Baptism itself. Their years of
fruitless controversy about the manner of baptizing
should teach them that the supreme court of the
Church left by Christ as the teacher of His religion,
is the only authority competent to settle the matter.
Ceremonies. The first care of the Church is for
the valid administration of tjie sacrament. This se-
cured, she surrounds its solemn reception with ap-
propriate ceremonies. The font in the baptistery,
— generally at the door of the Church, is supplied
with water and blessed at Easter and Pentecost. To
oach one presenting himself for Baptism, the priest
says: "What dost thou ask of the Church of
God?" Answer: "Faith."
" Breen, Exposit. of Gospels, V. I., p. 394.
"Mt. 28, 19.
180 BAPTISM
Priest: ''To what doth Faith bring thee?" An-
swer: "To life everlasting."
Priest: "If therefore thou wilt enter int-o life,
keep the commandments. Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. ' '
The tongue is touched with a little salt, the sym-
bol of wisdom and of preservation from corruption.
The Lord's Prayer and Apostles' Creed are recited.
Exorcisms are repeated and Satan and all his works
and pomps are renounced. These baptismal vows
are made for the child by its sponsors or God-par-
ents, who pledge themselves to look to the child's
Christian training should the parents neglect it or
die. The name of a saint is generally given to the
child. Thus a Christian hero will henceforth be its
model and patron.
Finally the new heir to the Kingdom of God is
anointed with chrism; and covered with a white
cloth symbolic of the soul's robe of sanctifying
grace: "Receive this white garment which mayest
thou bear without stain before the judgment seat of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that thou mayest have life
everlasting. ' '
A lighted candle, symbolic of the light of faith, is
given him with the words: "Receive this burning
light and keep thy Baptism so as to be without
blame : Keep the commandments of God, that when
the Lord shall come to the nuptials, thou mayest
meet Him, together with all the saints in the heav-
-enly court and mayest have eternal life and live for-
ever and ever. Go in peace, and the Lord be with
thee. Amen."
Conditional Baptism. As Baptism can be received
but once, it is not repeated in the reception of con-
verts who are validly baptized outside of the Cath-
olic Church. If there is room for doubt about the
THE CHRISTIAN'S BIRTH 181
validity of such a Baptism, for safety's sake the
sacrament is administered conditionally.
Churching. It is the custom for Catholic moth-
ers to come to Church as soon as possible after child-
birth, to thank God for His goodness and to ask His
blessing on themselves and their children. These
are the sentiments of the blessing read by the
priests on the occasion. This benediction is popu-
larly called ** Churching.'*
CHAPTER XI
CONFIRMATION
43. CONFIRMATION— THE CHRISTIAN
SOLDIER.
Life is a battle. This is true especially of the
moral life. The religion of Christ aims to prepare
the young Christian to make it a winning fight.
After years of training in home and school and
Church, the individual who was born into the King-
dom^f Christ by Baptism, is now no longer a child.
Grown to youth and to the consciousness of his re-
lations and responsibilities to God and fellowman,
the Christian must face his battle of life. This
turning point in life the Church meets with the
Sacrament of Confirmation.
Confirmation is a complement to Baptism. The
promises made in the name of the child by his spon-
sors in Baptism, he now renews for himself. He
professes the faith of Christ and renounces Satan
and all his works and pomps.
Rite. Confirmation is administered by the
Bishop. He extends his hands over all who are to
be confirmed and prays for them all, that the Holy
Ghost may come upon them; then he lays his hand
upon each one in particular and anoints him, saying :
*'I sign thee with the sign of the Cross, and I anoint
thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."
The Holy Chrism is olive oil and balsam blessed
by the Bishop. The oil is the sign of strength: the
balsam is a symbol of preservation from corruption
182
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER 183
and of the sweet odor of virtue. Like David the
young Christian rejoicing in his strength, can say:
*' Thou hast anointed my head with oil."
The athlete entering the contests in former times,
was rubbed with oil to give him the strength and
activity that mean victory. The oil with which his
brow is anointed, signifies the inward strength which
the young Christian receives for the combat against
the enemies of salvation. The sign of the Cross
made by the Bishop on the forehead, intimates that
the Christian must never be ashamed of the Cross,
but boldly profess his faith in Jesus crucified. The
Bishop gives the youth a slight blow on the cheek
to remind him that he may have to suffer even
blows for his faith. "While not absolutely necessary
for salvation. Confirmation could not be willfully
neglected without fault, especially as it is a sacra-
ment coming to youth at an age (generally in our
country about the 15th year) when he stands in pe-
culiar need of the light and strength of the Holy
Spirit.
Apostolic Practice. Pope St. Melchiades (d. 311)
writes :
*'In Baptism the Christian is enlisted into the
service; in Confirmation he is equipped for battle.
At the Baptismal font the Holy Ghost imparts the
plenitude of innocence; in Confirmation the perfec-
tion of grace. In Baptism we are regenerated to
life; after Baptism we are fortified for the combat.
In Baptism we are cleansed ; in Confirmation we are
strengthened. Regeneration saves those who re-
ceive Baptism in peace ; Confirmation arms and pre-
pares for the conflict." The early Fathers call this
Sacrament: Confirmation or Strengthening, Sealing,
Unction, Chrism, Mystery of the Holy Ghost. *'The
Sacrament of Chrism," says St. Augustine, *'is just
as holy as Baptism."
184 CONFIRMATION
In Confirmation the Holy Ghost increases sancti-
fying grace in the soul and matures its supernatural
life. The Spirit of God confirmed the Disciples on
the first Pentecost/ These Apostles and Disciples
were already Christians, endowed with the super-
natural life of grace. The Holy Ghost came with
special gifts to strengthen them to work unto their
own salvation and for the conversion of others. We
read of the Apostles administering this Sacrament
of Confirmation:^ ''When the Apostles who were
in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the
word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John.
Who, when they were come, prayed for them that
they might receive the Holy Ghost. For He was not
yet come upon any of them ; but they were only bap-
tized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid
their hands on them, and they received the Holy
Ghost."
The disciples at Ephesus were baptized in the
name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul .had im-
posed his hands oi;i them, the Holy Ghost came upon
them.^
Paul says: *'He that hath confirmed us with you
in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who also
hath sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in
our hearts. ' ' *
Gifts and Fruits. The gifts of the Holy Ghost
are told us by Isaiah.^ ' ' The Spirit of the Lord shall
rest upon him. The Spirit of Wisdom, and of Un-
derstanding; the Spirit of Counsel, and of Forti-
tude ; the Spirit of Knowledge, and of Piety, and the
Spirit of the Fear of the Lord.'*
St. Paul tells us the fruits of the Spirit : ® ' ' Char-
ity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Benignity, Goodness, Long-
suffering, Mildness, Faith, Modesty, Continency,
Chastity."
lAct. 1. 'Act. 19, 5-6. »Is. 11, 2.
»Act. 8, 14-17. *II. Cor. 1, 21-22. "Gal. 5, 22-23.
CHAPTER XII.
THE HOLY EUCHARIST— THE
CHRISTIAN'S WORSHIP
44. THE CHRISTIAN'S DAY OF REST.
Week after week, all through life, the Sunday
brings to the Christian a day of rest from the labor
of earning his bread ; a day of social life with fam-
ily and friends ; a day of opportunity for the mind ;
and a day when the soul renews itself, in a special
way, in life-giving communion with its God. Sun-
day is a day of bodily rest and of divine worship.
The Christian's public worship centers around the
Holy Eucharist.
God's Law. Our labor unions exert their influ-
ence to keep for the workingman his weekly holiday.
Ages before labor unions existed, the Great Father
gave to His children that weekly day of rest and
safe-guarded it with the sanction of law. The Dec-
alogue says: ^ "Remember that thou keep holy the
Sabbath day. Six days shalt thou labor and shalt do
all thy works. But on the seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt do no work on it ;
thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-
servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy ox, nor thy
ass, nor any of thy beasts, nor the stranger that is
within thy gates." Even the poor dumb beasts are
remembered as needing respite from the yoke of
»Ex. 20, 8-11; Deut. 5, 12-15.
185
186 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
toil. When the Pharisees misunderstood the mean-
ing of the day of rest, and would turn it into a
burden instead of a blessing, Jesus Christ said : ^
**The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath: therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of
the Sabbath/'
Christian Sabbath. Sunday is the Sabbath of
the New Law, as Saturday was the day observed
by the Jews. This change was inspired by the Lord
of the Sabbath. The Resurrection of Christ on Sun-
day, and the Pentecostal coming of the Holy Ghost
upon the Church on Sunday, are by the Christian
Sabbath commemorated as the completion of the
new and better spiritual creation.
Finding the early Christians celebrating Sunday
as the weekly holy day of the Church, the Emperor
Constantine, upon his conversion (312), made it also
the legal holiday of the empire. All Christian
states have made Sunday a legal holiday. In their
mad opposition to everything Christian, the leaders
of the French Revolution abolished Sunday and
made every tenth day the national day of rest.
This new arrangement was soon abandoned. Ten
days were found to be too long an unbroken stretch
for men and beasts generally to labor. It may be
said then, that this commandment, like the rest of
the Decalogue, is really founded upon the laws of
nature itself. As the Catholic Church teaches that
it is a moral duty binding in conscience, to observe
this commandment, when at all possible, by absti-
nence from servile work and by attendance at the
divine service of Mass, America owes to her an in-
calculable debt for the quiet and good order of
our Sundays.
Day of Soul. While Sunday is a day of rest, the
imperative of the commandment is that the Sabbath
*Mk. 2, 27.
CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 187
be kept holy. Man is to rest from servile work that
he may attend to the worship of God. The Sunday
is the day of the soul. The Christian goes to
Church. There he learns the meaning of his life;
the moral relations of man to God and fellowman;
the destiny and duty and consequent dignity of
each human soul. In his Father's house, he beholds
together rich and poor, high and low, employer and
employe, master and man. All kneel at the altar
as equals, for all are equally great and small before
their common God.
The Church is God's school of life. It is the only
school that teaches men the lessons that are most
important for the individual and society. Take the
Church out of the world for the past thousand years,
and the very name of Jesus Christ would be all but
forgotten. His influence which to-day is the inspira-
tion of hundreds of millions of humble lives, would
be a memory recalled only by the scholar in his li-
brary.
As the Sunday is more than a day of rest, the
Sunday service is more than a school of religion.
Important as these two elements are, they are but
preparatory to something greater, as the words we
have written about them are but an introduction to
the chapter on the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament
around which centers the Christian Worship.
45. CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN THE HOLY
EUCHARIST.
The stranger attending the morning service in a
Catholic Church, sees a priest dressed in unusual
robes officiating at an altar. On the altar is a
Chalice — ^^a gold or silver cup. There is also a pre-
cious. metal plate or paten, with unleavened bread.
The priest pours wine and water into the Chalice
188 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
from cruets brought to him by his assistants. There
are prayers read or sung. There is mysterious si-
lence. Toward the end of the service, people ap-
proach the altar and reverently kneel at the com-
munion railing. From the altar, the priest carries
to them the sacred cup. From it he places some-
thing on the tongue of each communicant. The
stranger is told that this service is the Mass and
that these people have received our divine Lord in
Holy Communion. He may well ask what is the
meaning and origin of these mysterious rites.
In his Apocalypse, St. John writes : ^ *'I saw seven
golden candlesticks and in the midst of the seven
candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed
with a garment down to the foot.'' Among the
seven sacraments the Holy Eucharist is called the
Blessed Sacrament. It is the incomparable gift of
God, that this Great Sacrament is, in all truth, the
Son of Man, Jesus Christ, remaining with us as our
spiritual food, even though He be clothed from head
to foot and hidden from our bodily eyes, under the
appearances of bread and wine. To take part in
this Eucharistic Mystery, which we call the Mass,
the Church summons her children to her altar on
Sunday morning. The Mass is the form of public
worship instituted by Jesus Christ.
Breaidng of Bread. As we read the New Testa-
ment, we find after the death of Christ, that His dis-
ciples repeatedly engaged in a sacred service to
which they refer as the *' Breaking of Bread.''
They were persevering in the doctrine of the Apos-
tles and in the ** Breaking of Bread. "^ They were
gathered together on the first day of the week to
Break Bread.' At Emmaus, when the risen Master
"took bread and blessed and brake and gave to
them, their eyes were opened." They knew Him in
»Apoc. 1, 12. 'Act. 2, 42. 8 Act. 20, 7,
CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 189
the Breaking of Bread.* The significance of this
service, St. Paul explains :^ * ' The Chalice of Ben-
ediction which we bless, is it not the Communion
of the Blood of Christ? And the Bread which we
break, is it not the partaking of the Body of
Christ?''
So the Christian worship centers around not a
symbol merely, but the really present body and
blood of Jesus Christ. The subjoined passage, in
which St. Paul warns those who receive the Blessed
Sacrament unworthily, that they are guilty of the
body and blood of the Lord, and so eat and drink
to their damnation, instead of their salvation, re-
cords the faith of the early Christians in the real
presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
Paul's Testimony. **I have received of the Lord
that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord
Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed,
took bread, and giving thanks, broke and said:
Take ye and eat : this is my body which shall be de-
livered for you: this do for the commemoration of
me. In like manner also the chalice, after he had
supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament
in my blood: this do ye, as often as ye shall drink,
for the commemoration of me. For as often as you
shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall
show the death of the Lord, until He come. There-
fore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the
chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of
the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a
man prove himself: and so let him eat of that
bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eat-
eth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh
judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the
Lord."«
History of the Promise. As Paul recorded the be-
*Luke 24, 30. 6 1. Cor. 10, 16. « I. Cor. 11. 23-29.
190 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
lief and practice of the early Church about the
Holy Eucharist, John has left us in the sixth chapter
of his Gospel, the history of the first announcement
of this Sacrament, when it was promised by Christ.
The people having seen the miracle by which Je-
sus fed thousands with a few loaves, were ready to
take Him by force and make Him their king. Hav-
ing thus prepared them, Jesus spoke to them of a
better food that would nourish their souls unto ev-
erlasting life, and announced: ^'I am the living
Bread which came down from Heaven. Amen,
Amen, I say to you: He that believeth in Me hath
everlasting life. I am the Bread of Life. Your
fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead.
This is the Bread which cometh down from Heaven,
that if any man eat of it he may not die. I am the
Living Bread, which came down from Heaven. If
any man eat of this Bread, he shall live forever:
and the Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the
lifeof the world. ''^
Analysis. What did Jesus say? Let us analyze
His words. *' First, Christ states in a general way
that He is the bread of life, which came down from
heaven. Secondly, He compares this bread to the
manna, which was given to the Israelites in the des-
ert, and points out its superiority, in as much as it
imparts life everlasting, whereas those who ate of
the manna are dead. Thirdly, He states explicitly
that this bread is His own flesh, and because it is
His flesh, therefore He calls it the living bread.
Fourthly, He makes the unconditioned and explicit
promise that He will give this living bread, which
is His flesh, as food to His followers. Hence if we
take our Lord's words as they stand, they make it
as plain as words can do, that He promised to pro-
vide for His real and personal divine presence
»John 6, 47-52.
CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 191
upon the earth in such a way that His followers
would be enabled to eat His flesh and drink His
blood, and thus have everlasting life. ' ' ®
Christ Repeats Truth. Thus literally the Jews
understood our Lord and incredulously demanded:
* ' How can this man give us His flesh to eat ? " **
Christ answers them by repeating the great truth
which they must be content to believe on the author-
ity of Him whose miracle had only yesterday stirred
their enthusiasm. So Jesus continued:
**Amen, Amen, I say to you: Except you eat the
Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you
shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh
and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life, and
I will raise him up at the last day. For My Flesh
is meat indeed and My Blood is drink indeed. He
that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, abid-
eth in Me and I in him. As the Living Father hath
sent Me and I live by the Father ; so he that eateth
Me the same shall have life by Me. This is the
Bread that came down from Heaven. Not as your
fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eat-
eth this Bread shall live forever.*' ^^^
Jews Reject Christ's Gift. After this many said:
"This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" Jesus
warned them that their hope of grasping this truth
lay in their being spiritual men ; that not the eyes of
the flesh, but of faith, could see His presence in this
divine food: ''It is the spirit that quickeneth,"
said He, ''the flesh profiteth nothing. The words
that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." In
spite of this appeal to their faith, "many went back
and walked with Him no more."
What did Jesus do for these unbelieving ones?
They took our Lord's words literally: that men
must somehow eat His flesh and drink His blood as
"Otten, Sacramental Life of Church. lojohn 6, 54-60.
•John 6, 53.
192 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
the food of the soul. They could not understand
such a thing and turned away. Did He call them
back and say: '*You have misunderstood Me; I
was not speaking literally; I was speaking only in
metaphor; I did not really mean that you must eat
My Flesh. Come back; let Me explain.'' No, Je-
sus let them go. His language was not figurative.
He had spoken as plainly as iteration can make
speech. The Jews had understood Him. He had
proclaimed His message. There was no explanation
to make. He did not call the unbelievers back;
but turning to the Apostles, He said: *'Will you
also go away?" The Apostles did not go. They
long since had learned that there were many things
which Jesus knew and did, which they could not
understand. St. Peter answering for them said:
^*Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words
of Eternal Life.''
Transubstantiation. Catholics stand as did the
Apostles, with Him who has the words of eternal
life. They do not understand how Christ is present
in the Blessed Sacrament; but they do not for that
reason, refuse to believe. Our faith is founded
upon the authority of Jesus Christ. It is no harder
to believe that He remains with us in some mysteri-
ous way under the appearances of food, than it is
to believe that the divine Son of God dwelt amongst
us in the form of the carpenter of Nazareth. While
all the appearances of bread and wine remain after
the consecration in the Mass, a real, albeit invisible,
change has taken place; and Jesus Christ is sub-
stantially present under these humble forms of
food. The word transubstantiation has been
adopted by the Church as most properly expressing
the change that takes place in the Mass.
The Eucharist Instituted. At His last supper, the
\iight before He died, Jesus Christ instituted the
CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 193
Sacrament that would give us Himself as our spir-
itual food. Under the appearances of bread and
wine — types of human food — Christ finds a way of
remaining in the midst of us. We have heard the
testimony of Paul and John. Matthew, Mark and
Luke add their record of the Last Supper and the
words there spoken by the Son of God. They are
Christ's last will and testament: and so they are
very plain words. They bespeak the mind and will
of the divine Master.
St. Matthew's record: Whilst they were at sup-
per, Jesus took bread and blessed and broke and
gave to His disciples and said: Take ye and eat:
THIS IS MY BODY. And taking the chalice He
gave thanks and gave to them saying : Drink ye all
of this. For THIS IS MY BLOOD of the New
Testament, which shall be shed for many unto the
remission of sins.^^
St. Mark records : Whilst they were eating, Jesus
took bread, and blessing, broke and gave to them
and said: Take ye, THIS IS MY BODY. And hav-
ing taken the Chalice, giving thanks, He gave it to
them. And they all drank of it. And He said to
them : THIS IS MY BLOOD of the New Testament,
which shall be shed for many.^-
St. Luke records : Taking bread. He gave thanks
and brake and gave to them saying: THIS IS MY
BODY which is given for you. Do this for a com-
memoration of me. In like manner the Chalice also,
after He had supped, saying: THIS IS THE CHAL-
ICE, THE NEW TESTAMENT IN MY BLOOD,
which shall be shed for you.^^
Christians Reject Christ? Catholics are continu-
ally shocked to see professing Christians treat this
great Sacrament precisely as did the unbelieving
Jews of our Lord's time. Because they cannot un-
^m. 26, 26-28. "Mk. 14, 22-24. "Luke 22, 19-20.
194 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
derstand how the mystery is effected they refuse to
bow their minds even to the authority of God and
believe what He has revealed. In the face of
Christ's plain words, they say: *'Well, whatever
Christ may have said, He must have meant some-
thing else/' They insist that He must have spoken
only figuratively. A little study will show that
Christ was very careful not to be misunderstood.
Thus, on other and less important occasions, when
He spoke figuratively and was taken literally, He
at once corrected His hearers.^* Likewise He cor-
rected them when they mistook for metaphor what
He meant literally.^^ Is it likely that in the su-
preme matter of His last will and testament, He
would be obscure — especially when that will in-
volved a Covenant for the New Law? When the
Jews understood Him to speak literally, would He
not have corrected them, if they had missed His
meaning? Moreover, as all scholars testify, in Ori-
ental metaphor, to eat one's flesh, has only the
meaning to calumniate, to back-bite.^® As the lov-
ing design of the Savior was far removed from
this metaphorical sense, we must — like the Jews,
take His words literally; and — unlike the Jews we
must gladly believe Him who has the words of eter-
nal life.
46. THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.
The great public worship of the Catholic Church
centers around Jesus Christ, present in the Holy
Eucharist. On entering our churches the stranger
finds occupying the most prominent place therein,
not an organ or a pulpit, but an altar. Music and
eloquence each have their place in religion, but it
"John 3, 3; 4, 31; 11, 11; Mt. 16, 16.
"John 8; Mt. 9.
"Job 19, 22; Eccles. 4, 5; Ps. 27, 2; Gal. 5, 15.
SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 195
is a secondary place. On the Catholic altar the
Mass is celebrated daily. AVithin the altar-taber-
nacle is preserved the Blessed Sacrament — Jesus
Christ present under the appearances of food. The
altar becomes a throne of the hidden God. The
Lord is in His holy temple. Christ occupies the
central place in the Church. He is the attraction.
He is the magnet that draws multitudes to Mass each
Sunday.
The Mass, From the beginning the Church cele-
brated the Mass as a means instituted by Christ for
perpetuating in the world, His redeeming sacrifice
and applying its fruits to the individual soul. **As
often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chal-
ice, you shall show the death of the Lord until He
comes.'' ^ Jesus Christ established the Mass as a
new Covenant or Testament. The Christian Church
was to have its Covenant between God and His peo-
ple, not less surely than did the Jewish synagogue.
The Old Law had covenants typifying the reality
that was to come. Here was the reality — Christ
Himself. **This is the New Testament in my
Blood.''- As priests of the New Law the Apostles
were empowered to celebrate this Mystery of Faith.
**Do this," said Christ, *'in commemoration of
Me."^
On the altars of the Catholic Church, whose zone
of chalices encircles the world, the Mass is cele-
brated every day. Since time changes from conti-
nent to continent, this morning sacrifice is at every
moment, taking place somewhere. In it is fulfilled
the prophecy of Malachi : * **From the rising of the
sun even to the going down, my name is great among
the Gentiles; and in every place there is sacrifice,
1 T. Cor. 11. 26.
2 Luke 22, 20; I. Cor. 11, 25; Mt. 26, 28.
«Luke 22, 19. I. Cor. 11, 25.
*Mal. 1, 11.
196 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
and there is offered to my name a clean oblation:
for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the
Lord of hosts/'
Names. From the days of the Apostles to the
present time, the Church has cherished this New
Covenant as the greatest gift of God. It is called
the Holy Eucharist or great grace ; the Blessed Sac-
rament par excellence, because it contains the source
of all grace, Jesus Christ; the Lord's Supper, in
view of the circumstances of its institution; the
Host or victim; the Holy Communion wherein men
come into sacramental union with God; the Viati-
cum, when received by the dying as the riches of
eternity ; the Mass, some say from Messiah, or from
the salutation at the close of the sacrifice, Ite Missa
est — Go, it is finished.^
A Sacrifice Forever. In his vision of Heaven St.
John beheld Christ standing before the throne of
God, like a lamb just now slain.^ Christ IS the
Savior. With God there is neither past nor fu-
ture. To Him all is one eternal present. The Sac-
rifice of Christ is as much a reality now as it was
on the day of the crucifixion. Before His coming
among men Christ's redeeming grace might be ap-
plied to souls in anticipation of His sacrifice. To
the end of time the covenant of the New Law will
apply the grace of the same sacrifice to the souls of
men. The Mass brings Calvary to our very doors
and enables us to stand at the foot of the Cross.
Baptism and the other sacraments convey from the
Cross, the particular grace needed by the Christian
in some great crisis of life. The Mass brings to
men the grace they need day by day through life,
the daily bread of the soul.
Mass and Cross. The Mass is properly called a
sacrifice. It is not a different sacrifice from that of
6 John 19, 30. 'Apoc. 5, 6.
SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 197
Calvary. It is Christ's sacrifice. It shows forth
His death forever. In it Christ is the High Priest
as He was on Calvary. His human priest is His
instrument and mouthpiece. In the Mass, as on
Calvary, Christ is the victim offered. He is really
present on the altar. He dies now no more. His
death is represented by the two-fold consecration,
first of the bread, then of the wine — as though His
body and blood were separated. The Mass differs
from Calvary in being a ** clean,'* and not a bloody
oblation. In it our High Priest and victim is still
our Mediator. For us He adores when we neglect
God's majesty; gives thanks when we forget God's
goodness; petitions when we are unworthy to be
heard; atones when after many mercies we again
fall in^,o sin and must again seek His saving aid
or be lost.
Paschal Lamb. It may help one to understand the
relation of the Cross and the Mass, if he will recall
the feast at which Christ established the covenant
of the New Law. It was the feast of the Pasch or
Paschal Lamb. For 1500 years the Jews had cel-
ebrated that feast commemorating their deliverance
from the slavery of Egypt on that night when
the Angel of Death moved over the land and the
first born was dead in every Egyptian home, while
the homes of the Jews who had sprinkled their door-
posts with the blood of the lamb, were spared. The
Paschal Lamb feast celebrated this event ; but it did
more. In it the Jews learned to look forward to
the coming of the great Lamb of God, whose blood
would be sprinkled on the door-posts of the world,
and whose salvation would be from the slavery of
sin and the darknes of eternal death. ''With de-
sire have I desired to eat this Pasch with you," said
our Lord as He sat at table. It was the last feast
of the Old Law. On the morrow the true Lamb of
198 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
God would be sacrificed on the Cross. The Old
Testament was at an end. The New Dispensation
was opening. Christ willed that we should have a
covenant to bring His redemption to our souls, even
as the Paschal Lamb of the Jews had typified. So
at the end of the supper, the Son of God instituted
the Covenant* in His Blood — the commemorative
sacrifice of the New Law. In it He gave us Him-
self. He gave Himself for us. He is ours. He left
the means by which all souls could be sanctified by
the blood of the true Lamb of God and could feed
upon His flesh for their nourishment unto eternal
life.
Our Melchisedech. Christ offered His one eternal
sacrifice. It abides forever, to be applied to the
souls of men. Religion without a sacrifice possesses
but an imperfect external worship. Sacrifice, in the
strict sense, visibly and autwardly represents the
sentiment that God is the first source and last end
— the sovereign Lord of all things. It is a visible
gift offered -to God and wholly or partially destroyed
in honor and adoration of Him as the Supreme Lord.
The Old Law had its sacrifices which were types and
figures of the reality to come. The public worship
of the New Law is worthier than that of the Old
Law, as substance is better than shadows. It is the
reality. The Mass is the sacrifice of Christian wor-
ship, continually offered to God in praise, petition,
thanksgiving and atonement. Jesus Christ perpet-
uating His sacrifice in the world by means of the
Mass, is indeed, as the Psalmist foretold: *^A Priest
forever, according to the order of Melchisedech. ' ' ^
47. THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR.
The Holy Eucharist is a sacrament as well as a
^ Ps. 109, 4; M. sacrificed with bread and wine. Gen. 14, 3 8.
SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR 199
Sacrifice. The worshipers eat of the meat of the
altar. We receive Jesus Christ in Holy Commun-
ion. We are sacramentally united with the Author
of grace. The effects of this Sacrament are an in-
crease of sanctifying grace in the soul, an abundance
of actual graces, preservation from grievous sin,
and the confident hope of eternal salvation. **He
that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath
everlasting life ; and I will raise him up in the last
day.'^i
Practice. By a law of the Church Catholics are
obliged to receive Holy Communion during the
Easter time. Perhaps most communicants approach
the sacred banquet every month ; while multitudes
of pious souls receive our divine Lord sacramentally
weekly or even daily. Catholics prepare for Holy
Communion by Confession, to make sure, as far as
is possible in this life, that they are in the state of
grace. *'Let a man prove himself,'^ says St. Paul,
''and so eat of that bread. "^ Out of respect for
the food of the soul, which he is to receive at the
morning Mass, the communicant abstains from all
bodily food from midnight. This discipline does
not apply to the dangerously ill who may at any
time receive the Blessed Sacrament as viaticum.
One of the great events in the Catholic's life is the
day of First Communion, when after instruction and
preparation, the child receives for the first time his
sacramental Lord.
Christ continues to be present under the species
of bread and wine as long as the species themselves
continue to exist. Under the species of bread the
Blessed Sacrament is usually preserved in the
churches. A little light burning before the altar-
tabernacle indicates the divine presence. The
Blessed Sacrament is at times publicly exposed on
»John 6, 55. » I. Cor. 11. 28.
200 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
the altar, and carried in solemn processions. Bene-
diction of the Blessed Sacrament is a frequent serv-
ice. The Forty Hours ' devotion is a solemn triduum
of honor to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament:
each parish in the diocese in turn taking part in
what thus becomes a perpetual adoration. The si-
lence and reverence of Catholic people in Church
and their genuflection on entering and leaving the
sacred edifice, attest their lively faith in the real
presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the
Altar.
Communion Under One Form. It is often asked
by non-Catholics, why the people do not receive the
wine as well as the bread at Communion. Neither
priest nor people receive either bread or wine in the
Eucharist. Both receive Jesus Christ — body and
blood, soul and divinity. As a sacrifice showing
the death of the Lord, the Eucharist must employ
the separate forms of bread and wine, which the of-
ficiating priest then receives. But in fact the di-
vine body and blood are no longer separated. Christ
is not dead but living. Christ is really present
whole and entire under the appearance of bread
and under the appearance of wine. In the Eucha-
rist as a sacrament. Christians receive Christ. This
they can do under both forms or under either form,
as body and blood are no longer separated. Christ
speaks sometimes of the reception of His body
only.^ It is the present discipline of the Church
that communicants receive the Blessed Sacrament
under the form of bread. This mode of reception
is sufiicient, and avoids many difficulties connected
with giving the Sacrament — perhaps to several hun-
dred at a single Mass — under the form of wine.
The distinction between the Eucharist as a sacrifice
and a sacrament, as well as the reception of the sac-
»John 6, 59.
LITURGY OF THE MASS 201
rament under one or both forms of food, is indi-
cated in St. Paul's words: '*For as often as you
shall eat this bread AND drink the chalice, you
show the death of the Lord. . . . Whosoever shall
eat this bread OR drink the chalice of the Lord un-
worthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the
blood of the Lord."*
Union with God. It is not possible for a brief
exposition of the doctrine of the Eucharist to reveal
the warm spiritual life which the Holy Communion
means to the Christian. For who will describe a
soul's union with its God? The seemingly inspired
pen of Thomas a Kempis devotes the fourth part
of the ** Following of Christ" to this divine Sacra-
ment, in which the following of the disciple re-
ceives its reward in union with his beloved Master.
48. THE LITURGY OP THE MASS.
The liturgy or ritual of the Mass is essentially
what it was in the days of the Apostles. The forms
of prayer, the sacred ceremonies and vestments have
been used for centuries and centuries by saints,
martyrs, confessors and Apostles of Jesus Christ.
The word liturgy is found in the Greek text of the
Acts of the Apostles.^ **As they were ministering
to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Ghost said to
them, separate unto me Saul and Barnabas." The
** ministering unto the Lord" here mentioned, is
not the serving at table, sometimes called minister-
ing.- A very different Greek word is used. The
word is. **liturgizing" — performing the liturgy or
external public act of worship. "With the Apostles
this was, of course, the Eucharistic service.
*I. Cor. 11, 26-27. The King James translators altered this text,
changing "or" to "and" in verse 27, to make the Bible seem to support
their contention against Communion under one kind. The Revised
Prot. Version restored the text.
^Act. 13, 2. 'Act. 6, 2.
202 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
Low and High Mass. Accordingly as the liturgy-
is merely read or is chanted in part, we speak of
Low Mass or High Mass. If the officiating priest
is assisted by deacon and subdeacon, this more sol-
emn celebration of the divine service is called Sol-
emn Mass. High Mass celebrated by a Bishop
(Pontiff) is styled Pontifical. Mass for the dead
is called Requiem, from the first word of the in-
troit — ''Rest eternal give to them, Lord.'^ The
celebration of Low Mass occupies about half an
hour: the High Mass a somewhat longer time.
Mass of Catechumens. The Mass is said to have
three principal parts: the Offertory, the Consecra-
tion, and the Communion. These parts which con-
stitute the Mass proper, are introduced by a
popular service called in the early days of the
Church, the Mass of the Catechumens or candidates
under instruction but not yet baptized. This pre-
liminary portion of the service consists, as a rule,
of the recitation of the 42nd Psalm and the Con-
fiteor or general confession of sin, at the foot of
the altar; the Kyrie Eleison, or appeal to the triune
God for mercy ; the Introit and Collect, — short pray-
ers appropriate to the feast of the day; the hymn
''Gloria in Excelsis Deo"; the Lesson and Gospel, —
selections appropriate to the day, the one from the
Gospels, the other from some other part of the Bi-
ble; the Credo or Creed. The sermon is usually
preached after the Gospel. In ancient times the
Catechumens were here dismissed and only the ini-
tiated remained for the Mass proper.
The Offertory. The chalice is now uncovered.
Wine and a little water are poured into it. The un-
leavened bread of pure wheat is on the paten or
plate. Everything is ready for the sacrifice to be-
gin. This part of the liturgy is called the Offertory,
because the bread and wine prepared for the obla-
LITURGY OF THE MASS 203
tion are offered to God as the elements of the sacri-
fice which is about to take place : also because at this
time offerings are made for the needs of the Church
and its work.^ The Offertory is accompanied by
beautiful prayers which, like the whole liturgy of
the Mass, may be found in prayer-books generally.
The Consecration. The Consecration is the cen-
tral act of the Mass. Forgetting himself and speak-
ing only as the instrument of Christ, the priest pro-
nounces over the bread and wine the words uttered
by the Lord at the last supper. The words of the
Consecration with the prayers immediately before
and after it, are as follows:
We therefore beseech Thee, O Lord, graciously to
accept this oblation of our service, as also of Thy
whole family, and to dispose our days in Thy peace;
preserve us from eternal damnation, and number us
in the flock of Thine elect. Through Christ, Our
Lord. Amen.
Which oblation do Thou, O God, vouchsafe in all
respects to make blessed, approved, ratified, reason-
able, and acceptable, that it may become to us the
body and blood of Thy most beloved Son, Jesus
Christ, Our Lord.
Who, the day before He suffered, took bread into
His holy and venerable hands and with His eyes
lifted up towards heaven, to Thee God, His almighty
Father: giving thanks to Thee, did bless, break, and
give to His disciples, saying: Take, and eat ye all
of this: For this is My body.
After pronouncing the words of consecration, the
' The oflferings taken up in Church are to support the material side
of religion, buildings, heat, light, music, teachers, charities, etc., which
God leaves to our generosity, while the priceless grace of salvation is
His free gift. For his personal needs the priest receives a fixed salary,
usually from $500 to $1,000, a year. In all churches it is customary
for the clergy to receive perquisites on special occasions. Such fees are
the only contribution some people ever make toward religion. As mar-
riages, and funerals (and sometimes their anniversaries) are celebrated
with Mass, at a special service, with special decorations, music, at-
tendants, sermon, etc., an offering ($1, $5, $10) proportionate to the
special work and the means of the giver is made on these occasions.
But people do not buy the grace of God, or pay for the Mass. The
Bible says: "He that serves the altar shall live by the altar."
204 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
priest kneeling adores ; rising elevates the Host ; and
then kneels again in adoration. He then proceeds,
taking the chalice in both hands :
In like manner, after He had supped, taking also
this excellent chalice into His holy and venerable
hands, and giving Thee thanks, He blessed, and gave
to His disciples, saying: Take and drink ye all of
this. For this is the chalice of My hlood of the
new and eternal testament; the mystery of faith:
which shall be shed for you and for many, to the
remission of sins.
As often as ye do these things, ye shall do them
in remembrance of Me.
Kneeling the priest adores ; and rising he elevates
the chalice for the adoration of the faithful; and
makes a second act of adoration. He then pro-
ceeds :
Wherefore, O Lord, we Thy servants, as also Thy
holy people, calling to mind the blessed Passion of
the same Christ Thy Son, Our Lord, His resurrection
from hell and glorious ascension into heaven, offer
unto Thy most excellent Majesty, of Thy gifts and
grants, a pure Host, a holy Host, an immaculate
Host, the holy bread of eternal life, and the chalice
of everlasting salvation.
Upon which vouchsafe to look with a propitious
and serene countenance, and to accept them, as Thou
wast graciously pleased to accept the gifts of Thy
just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch
Abraham, and that which the high priest Melchise-
dech offered to Thee, a holy sacrifice, an immaculate
host.
We most humbly beseech Thee, almighty God,
command these things to be carried by the hands of
Thy angel to Thy altar on high, in the sight of Thy
divine Majesty, that as many of us as by participa-
tion at this altar shall receive the most sacred body
and blood of Thy Son may be filled with all heavenly
benediction and grace. Through the same Christ,
Our Lord. Amen.
LITURGY OF THE MASS 205
The Communion. At the Communion, the priest
and such of the people as are prepared to do so, re-
ceive sacramentally our divine Lord now present
on the altar. The liturgy is as follows: Bowing
down and striking his breast, the priest ^ays the
Agnus Dei:
Lamb of God, who takcst away the sins of the
world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the
world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the
world, grant us peace.
Lord Jesus Christ, Who said to Thy apostles, I
leave you peace, I give you My peace, regard not my
sins, but the faith of Thy Church; and grant her
that peace and unity which is agreeable to Thy will;
Who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, W^ho,
according to the will of Thy Father, hast by Thy
death, through the cooperation of the Holy Ghost,
given life to the world, deliver me by this Thy most
sacred body and blood from all my iniquities, and
from all evils; and make me always adhere to Thy
commandments, and never suffer me to be separated
from Thee; Who livest and reignest with God the
Father, etc. Amen.
Let not, Lord Jesus Christ, the participation of
Thy body, which I, though unworthy, presume to
receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation :
but, through Thy mercy, may it be to me a safe-
guard and remedy, both for soul and body: Who with
God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost,
livest and reignest God.
I will take the bread of heaven, and call upon the
name of the Lord.
Taking the two portions of the Host in his hand,
the priest strikes his breast, and says thrice:
Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter
under my roof; say but the word and my soul shall
be healed.
206 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
Consuming the sacred Host, he says :
May the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve
my soul to life everlasting. Amen.
After a short pause of silent meditation and
thanksgiving, he says:
What shall I render to the Lord for all He hath
rendered unto me? I will take the chalice of sal-
vation, and call upon the name of the Lord. Prais-
ing, I will call upon the Lord, and shall be saved
from my enemies.
Receiving the chalice, he says:
May the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve
my soul to everlasting life. Amen.
The Holy Communion is given to the people who
kneel at the altar-railing. The last prayers are then
said. The chalice is cleansed and covered. The
blessing is given; the final Gospel read; and the
Mass is over.
Mass an Action. Cardinal Newman in his ''Loss
and Gain, ' ' replies to those who imagine the Mass is
a mere form of words. ''It is not a mere form
of words, — it is a great action, the greatest action
that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation
merely, but if I dare use the word, the evocation of
the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in
flesh and blood before whom angels bow and devils
tremble; that is that awful event which is the
scope, and is the interpretation of every part of the
solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not
as ends ; they are not merely addresses to the throne
of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher,
of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if
impatient to fulfill their mission. . . . And as Moses
LATIN AND GREEK 207
on the mountain, so we, too, make haste, and bow
our heads to the earth and adore. So we, all around,
each in his place, look out for the great Advent,
'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in
his place with his own heart, with his own wants,
with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with
his own prayers, separate, but concordant, watching
what is going on, watching its progress, united in
its consummation ; not painfully and hopelessly fol-
lowing a hard form of praye^' from beginning to end,
but, like a concert of musical instruments, each dif-
ferent, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take
our part with God\s priest, supporting him, yet
guided by him. There are little children there, and
old men, and simple laborers, students, priests,
there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent
sinners; but out of these many minds rises one
euciiaristic hymn, and the great action is the meas-
ure and the scope of it. You ask me whether this
is not a formal, unreasonable service? it is wonder-
ful, quite wonderful!'*
49. LATIN AND GREEK IN THE LITURGY.
Through the greater part of the Church, the lit-
urgy of the Mass as well as of the Sacraments is
recited in the Latin language. In the East, Greek is
the prevalent liturgical tongue. These ancient
languages bring us back to the origin of the Church
when Latin and Greek were the languages of the
Roman Empire and so of the civilized world. Not
in their local Hebrew but in the world-wide Greek,
the inspired writers composed the New Testament.
The title on the Cross of Christ was written by
Pilate in Latin and Greek, as well as in the vernacu-
lar of the province. Our modern languages did not
then exist The barbarians of Northern Europe had
208 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
no such thing as written or even stable languages
when Catholic missionaries began their conversion
and civilization. Amid the uncertain tribal dia-
lects which they tried to master for the instruction
of their people, the missionaries preserved ''the form
of sound words" for the liturgy by reading it from
their books written in the imperial tongues. Thus
the discipline of using Latin and Greek as the liturgi-
cal languages of the Church arose from circum-
stances of history. The Church has not judged it
wise to change that ancient custom which presents
practically no difficulties and has many advantages.
Advantages. It is an advantage that the Latin
keeps the liturgy intact. A dead language is free
from the changes in form and sense constantly go-
ing on in a living tongue. We can scarcely make
out the English of Chaucer's time. By the use of
Latin, our liturgy reads the same and means the
same to-day that it did in any century since its in-
stitution. Not oply does it escape corruption, but
it is uniform everywhere. As far as taking part in
the holy sacrifice of the Mass is concerned, the Cath-
olic is equally at home in the Cathedral of New
York, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Madrid, Westminster,
Prague, Cracow, Quebec, Calcutta, Sidney, Buenos
Ayres, Tokio, Manila, Peking, or Rome.
The Catholic people experience no inconvenience
from the fact that the liturgy is in Latin. They
are familiar with the Mass, which, as Newman points
out, is above all an action — not a sermon but a
sacrifice. Translations of the liturgy are found in
the vernacular prayer books. Even were the lit-
urgy in the vernacular, the people nvould not for
the most part, hear its words on account of the
size of the churches and the fact that many of the
prayers are whispered in silence. Each individual
soul is to an extent left alone with God, to take
CEREMONIES, ETC. 209
undisturbed its proper part in the ineffable act and
to lay its particular wants at the foot of the Cross.
Needless to say the Catholic priests do not preach
to the people in Latin, but in perhaps a hundred
languages and dialects. While God can understand
any language in which the human soul may speak
to Him, in addressing himself to the people, the
teacher will speak the tongue known to his au-
dience.
St. Paul's chapter (1. Cor. 14) does not refer to
our liturgical use of Greek and Latin, which are not
unknown tongues, biit to the abus« Of glossolaly or
the ''gift of tongues" prevalent at Corinth.
Popular song and prayer services that are outside
of the sacred liturgy, are conducted in the vernac-
ular.
As the Church is Catholic or universal, existing
amid all nations, the possession of a universal lan-
guage helps to preserve its unity. Thanks to their
common tongue the Bishops from all lands can meet
and confer together in general councils. The uni-
versal Latin facilitates also the communication
which is constantly going on between the central
government of the Church at Rome and the dioceses
throughout the world.
50. CATHOLIC CEREMONIES AND SACRA-
MENTALS.
Much of the ceremonial of Catholic worship is
intimately connected with the Holy Eucharist. The
real presence of Jesus Christ upon the altar ex-
plains the genuflections and silent prayer with which
we enter the church. To bow the head and bend
the knee in the presence of the Deity is a natural
expression of reverence and adoration and an in-
stinct of human nature.
210 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
God's Temple. Because it is the temple of the
living God, the church is made as beautiful as cir-
cumstances allow. Christ was born in a stable.
But Christians will not leave Him there. **The
earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof.'^ Daily
in the Mass we repeat with David: ^ *'I have loved
the beauty of thy house and the place where thy
glory dwelleth.^' Faith in the Blessed Sacrament
calls in all the fine arts to help make as worthy
as possible, the house where the Lord will abide.
God has created the material world, from the sun
with its gladsome light, to the flowers with their fair
colors. Shall not all of God's creatures gather
round His tabernacle to praise Him? "Bless the
Lord all the works of the Lord, praise Him and ex-
alt Him forever. "2 To deny the material a place
in religion, is to forget the fact of the Incarnation:
"The World was made of flesh and dwelt amongst
us.''
Pictures and Statues. By the external objects
which she consecrates to the service of religion, the
Church reaches men not alone through the sense of
hearing but through all the avenues that lead to
the soul. Modern books and periodicals are full of
pictures. By means of drawings and models the
successful teacher appeals to the eye as well as to
the ear. This valuable principle of psychology has
been recognized by the Church since earliest times.
Pictures and statues of our divine Lord and of
His angels and saints are used in the Catholic
Church in much the same way that family portraits
are honored in the home, the likeness of poets are
preserved in the public library, or the monuments
of civic heroes are set up in the parks. They keep
alive memories worth preserving. They inspire
high thoughts and lead men to imitate the nobility
iPs. 25. *Dan. 3.
CEREMONIES, ETC. 211
of those whose superiority is acknowledged. Need
we Catholics still tell people in this twentieth cen-
tury that we do not adore statues and pictures?
If we have a crucifix before us as we kneel in prayer,
it is to keep our mind on Him whom the crucifix
pictures and to w^hom in Heaven our prayer is ad-
dressed. Those who have tried to pray and have
experienced the difficulty of keeping the mind from
wandering off to everything that strikes the eye or
fancy, will appreciate the usefulness of thus arrest-
ing the senses by an object which will help instead
of hinder the proper attention.
Not Forbidden. Adoration, the worship of thef
Supreme Being, is paid to God alone. Catholics
have no more intention of adoring the images in
their churches, than the people of London have of
adoring the monuments in Westminster Abbey.
Needless to say, the rational use of pictures and
statues is not forbidden by the decalogue, as some
have supposed. The commandment given to the
Jews who were surrounded by idolaters, forbade the
making of images to be used as idols — to be strange
gods before or in the place of the one Lord God.
The key to the meaning of the commandment is
the words : * * Thou shalt not adore them nor serve
them.'* The Lord ordered the same Jews to make
graven images to adorn the Ark of the Covenant:
''Make two cherubim of beaten gold on the two
sides of the oracle. ' ' ^ A brazen serpent was, by the
commandment of God, made and set up as a sign of
the coming salvation.*
Ecclesiastical Year. In the feasts of the ecclesi-
astical year, the Church makes the days and nights
join with His other works to bless the Lord.^ The
Church year is mainly the anniversary celebration of
the great events in the life of Christ. It is divided
»Ex. 25, 18. *Num. 21, 8. "Dan. 3, 8.
212 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
into three seasons: Advent and Christmas time, com-
memorating the expectation and the birth of Christ ;
Lent with Holy Week, commemorating His passion
and death; Easter time and the weeks from Pente-
cost to Advent, commemorating His triumph and
eternal reign. Like a splendid panorama the feasts
follow one another. All the year round the Church
presents before the world the figure of Jesus Christ.
His personality abides as a perennial influence.
Some feasts like Christmas are fixed to a certain
date ; others like Easter Sunday to a certain day.
Friday Abstinence. The death of Jesus Christ on
Good Friday is remembered each Friday when
Catholics abstain from flesh meat. This simple cus-
tom preaches to us of the goodness of the crucified
one and of the malice of sin which caused His suf-
fering. The habit of self-denial strengthens the
will and asserts the supremacy of the spirit over the
desires of the flesh.
Candles. The lights and flowers placed upon the
altar adorn it and express the Christiana's love for
the Eucharistic Lord. The light of the candles is
symbolic of the light of faith; while the warmth
that ever goes with the light suggests the fire of
charity. The wax paschal candle, the fruit of the
virgin bee, typifies Christ the light of the world.
Around the coffins of the Christian dead, the candles
remind us of the faith of the deceased, and so in-
spire us with hope of their salvation. The Church
blesses candles to be used during the year, on the
feast of the Purification (Feb. 2), which is popu-
larly called Candlemas.
Holy Water. The Holy Water with which the
Catholic sprinkles himself at the door of the church,
reminds him of the water of baptism through which
he first entered the Church of God. Holy Water
is ordinary water set aside with appropriate bless-
CERE]\K)NIES, ETC. 213
ing for religious use. It symbolizes the cleanness
of heart and mind with which the Christian should
come to take part in the worship of God. Holy
Water is used not only at the entrance of the church,
but in many blessings, both in the church and the
home. The use of Holy Water is very ancient in the
Church, and is probably derived from the Old Testa-
ment.®
Incense. The use of Incense is likewise an Old
Testament custom so beautiful in its significance that
the Church never allowed it to be forgotten. In
the Christian worship the burning of Incense is of
course not a sacrifice but merely a symbol. It is
a sign of prayer ascending as a sweet odor to God.^
This fragrant resin is burned in certain services
either to express adoration of the Deity, which is
one end of prayer, or to bless the people and things
dedicated to religious use, since on these the prayer
of petition calls down God's benediction. St. John
compares the prayers of the saints to the perfumes
of Incense about the throne of God.®
Vestments. The vestments worn by the clergy at
the altar are ancient forms of dress, adapted and
developed and full of significance. The principle
upon which their like is based is a sound one, recog-
nized among all people having appropriate dress for
special occasions. The mourner at a funeral, the
bride at a wedding, the soldier in the army, the
justice in the supreme court, has each an appropriate
costume. Vestments were used by God's command,
by the priests serving in the temple of the Old Law.
The dress assumed by the priests of the New Law,
when entering the holier sanctuary of the Christian
Church, reminds both themselves and the people of
the sacred character of the mysteries that are en-
acted.
•Num. 19, 17; 8, 7; Ps. 50. •Apoc. 8, 3-4; 5, 8.
' Ps. 140.
214 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
Sign of the Cross. The Cross is the standard of
the Christian faith — the sign of salvation. As the
government flies its flag over ship and port and pub-
lic building, so the Church crowns her steeples,
her altars, and the very tombs of her children, with
the emblem of our hope. Catholic people sanctify
their homes with the sacred symbol. When one sees
the crucifix reverently hung on the walls of a room,
he knows the place is not the home of an infidel.
From the earliest centuries the Christians blessed
themselves with the Sign of the Cross, as we learn
from Tertullian, Jerome, Ambrose, Atiianasius, and
many other Fathers. St. Basil (d. 373) asserts that
the practice was introduced by the Apostles. The
Sign of the Cross is made by placing the right hand
on the forehead^ then on the heart or breast, then
on the left and finally on the right shoulder, thus
outlining a cross upon the body. This action is ac-
companied by the words: ^'In the name of the Fa-
ther and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. ' '
These words amount to a profession of faith in the
triune God, while the Cross signifies our faith in the
redemption wrought by Jesus Christ.
St. Paul glories in the Cross of Christ.^ It is
**the sign of the Son of Man.'' ^^* The great Crucifix
^et up in many churches, depicting vividly the
tragedy of Calvary, silently preaches day and night
to all who pass, and with an awful and subduing
eloquence that is rarely given to the words of men,
of *' Christ and Christ crucified."
Sacramentals. The Church blesses and dedicates
to religious use many objects that will promote de-
votion: such as sacred pictures, religious medals,
and the scapulars which are the badge of member-
ship in certain pious confraternities. These things
are called sacramentals. They differ essentially, of
• Gal. 6, 14. " Mt. 24. 30.
PRAYER 215
course, from the sacraments. The sacraments are
instituted by Christ himself, and if we put no ob-
stacle in their way, they are unfailing channels of
His grace. The sacramentals are instituted by the
Church. They belong rather to the domain of dis-
cipline than of faith. They are symbols useful to
suggest worthy thoughts. Their value depends on
the pious intention of the person who makes use of
them and on the prayers and blessings of the
Church.
51. PRAYER.
Prayer is the lifting up of the mind and heart to
God, to adore Him as the Infinite Good; to thank
Him for His benefits; to seek His forgiveness; and
to ask of Him all the graces we need, whether for
soul or body. By these acts God^s sovereign maj-
esty is honored ; and so prayer is of its very nature
an act of the virtue of religion. Sacrifice, the most
eminent act of religion, is a species of prayer. The
Christian religion teaches men to pray not alone
during the public worship of God, but indeed at all
times. The God-man has left both the example and
precept of praying:
**He went up into the mountain alone to pray.*'^
'*He passed the whole night in the prayer of God.'' -
**A11 things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, be-
lieving, you shall receive. ' ' ^ " Watch ye and pray,
that ye enter not into temptation.''* ''Thus shall
you pray: Our Father who art in Heaven, etc."^
''Pray without ceasing."® "Amen, I say to you.
If you ask the Father anything in my name, He will
give it to you. ' ' ^
How to Pray. At the mother's knee the child
»Mt. 14, 23. «Mt. 26, 41. • I. Thes. 5, 17.
'Luke 6, 12. »Mt. 6, 9. 'John 16, 23.
»Mt. 21, 22.
216 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
learns to lisp reverently the Holy Name. The youth
learns to ''pray always'*^ each morning offering to
God, through the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the day
with all its works. The man learns to pray even
without words, uniting himself in mind and will
with the Father who searches hearts. Perhaps he
bows his head as did the Master in the garden of
Geth^emani, and says, "not my will but Thine be
done:" and like the Master rises strengthened to
face any trial by that hour of communion with God.
In the stress of the civil war Lincoln said: ''I went
down on my knees when there was no place else to
go.''
Christians are taught to pray with confidence, per-
severance, humility and entire submission to the will
of God. It may be truly said that no prayer offered
under these conditions is lost.^ As the years pass,
we understand God's very kindness in not giving us
all the temporal gifts our childhood prayed for.
The prayer of petition is but one form of prayer,
and not the highest form. He that prays with per-
severance and submission to the divine will, if he
gets not his coveted way, may in time be enriched
with the wisdom to see the superior blessing of God's
way. Prayer for spiritual benefits must ever be
pleasing to God.
Necessity. To pray is necessary and fruitful. To
unite himself with God in mind and will, would
have been a natural duty, even if man were not
raised to the supernatural state. If the world did
not find benefit in prayer, it would have long since
ceased to pray. Experience teaches that the virtu-
ous life is invariably a life of prayer; and on the
other hand, that the life which is empty of prayer,
is soon filled with disorder. Christ expressly char-
acterizes prayer as a means of grace: ''Watch ye
8 Luke 18, 1.
•Gibbon's, "Our Christian Heritage," Ch. 9.
PRAYER 217
and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.** He
who neglects this means, so forcibly recommended
and so easily employed, cannot claim the necessary
grace to overcome grievous temptations and to per-
severe in good.
Daily Prayer. Besides the prayers that may rise
spontaneously from the individual heart. Catholics
make use of fixed forms of prayer, which like cer-
tain poems, express worthily what the soul may feel
vaguely and be unable to say. Christ taught such
a fixed form of prayer in the *'Our Father." Rich
collections of prayers may be found in any Catholic
prayer-book. The following prayers are of the
greatest excellence and are generally recited daily
by Catholic people.
The Sign of the Cross, — ^In the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Lord's Prayer. — Our Father, who art in heaven, hal-
lowed be Thy name: Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread :
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us. And lead us not into temptation: but deliver
us from evil. Amen.
The Angelic Salutation. — ^Hail, Mary, full of grace; the
Lord is with thee: ble'ssed art thou among women, and
blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother
of God, pray for us sinners, npw and at the hour of our
death.
The Creed. — ^I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator
of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our
Lord: .who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the
Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
died, and was buried. He descended into hell; lo the third day
He arose again from the dead ; He ascended into heaven, sit-
teth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from
thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I
believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the com-
"Hell from Anglo-Saxon helan. to hide — hidden places used to
translate the Latin *'ad inferos," is employed in the Creed not in the
primary sense as the estate of the wicked spirits but in a secondary
sense as the place where the just of the old law awaited the Savior
who would open Heaven. Cf. I. Peter 3, 19; Act. 2, 27.
218 THE HOLY EUCHARIST
munion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection
of the body,ii and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Cwifiteor. — I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary
ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed
John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and
to all the Saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought,
word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through
my most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech blessed Mary
ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the
Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the Saints,
to pray to the Lord our God for me. May Almighty God
have mercy upon us, and forgive us our sins, and bring us
unto life everlasting. Amen. May the Almighty and merciful
Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins.
Amen.
An Act of Faith. — my God! I firmly believe all the
sacred truths which Thy Catholic Church believes and
teaches; because Thou hast revealed them, who canst neither
deceive nor be deceived.
An Act of Hope. — my God! relying on Thy infinite good-
ness and promises, I hope to obtain the pardon of my sins,
the assistance of Thy grace, and life everlasting, through the
merits of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
An Act of Love. — O my God! I love Thee above all things,
with my whole heart and soul, because thou art infinitely
good and deserving of all love. I love my neighbors as my-
self for the love of Thee. I forgive all who have injured me,
and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.
An Act of Contrition. — my God! I am most heartily
sorry for all my sins; and I detes£ them above all things,
because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell,
but most of all because thej^ offend Thee, my God, who art
•all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with
the help of Thy grace, never more to offend Thee; but to
confess my sins, to avoid their occasion, to do penance and
amend my life. Amen.
The Rosary. A favorite form of popular devotion
is the Rosary. It consists of fifteen meditations on
the life of our Lord, each of which is accompanied
by vocal prayers; viz., the ''Our Father," 10 ''Hail
Mary 's ' ' and the ' ' Glory be to the Father. ' ' A chain
of beads is used to count the repeated prayers. The
titles of the mysteries or meditations are as follows :
"L Cor. 15.
PRAYER 219
I. — The Five Joyful Mysteries:
1. The Annunciation.
2. The Visitation.
3. The Nativity.
4. The Presentation.
^. The Finding in the Temple.
II. — ^The Five Soreowful Mysteries:
1. The Agony in the Garden.
2. The Scourging at the Pillar.
3. The Crowning with Thorns.
4. The Carrying of the Cross.
6. The Crucifixion.
III. — The Five Glorious Mysteries:
1. The Resurrection.
2. The Ascension.
3. Coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles,
4. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
5. The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin.
CHAPTER XIII
CONFESSION— THE CHRISTIAN IN
SIN
52. SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Though God is the infinite good and has shown
His bounty to man by wonderfully creating our hu-
man nature and still more wonderfully elevating it
to supernatural union with Himself, it is a sad fact
that man turns away from God and deliberately runs
counter to the divine law. This is sin.
The moral law is expressed in the Decalogue or
Ten Commandments. This code whose wisdom, sim-
plicity and comprehensiveness alike suggest its di-
vine origin, points out the right social and religious
relations of the individual to his fellow-man and to
his God.
The Ten Commandments. Tfee following is the
common form of the Decalogue or Ten Command-
ments of God.^
1. I am the Lord Thy God, Who brought thee out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor
the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or
in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in
the waters under the earth: thou shalt not adore
them nor serve them.
* Ex. 20 ; Deut. 5. The original numbering of the precepts is not
certain.
220
SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 221
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy
God in vain.
3. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.
4. Honor thy father and thy mother.
5. Thou shalt not kill.
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
7. Thou shalt not steal.
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbor.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
What is Sin. The Commandments are written in
the heart of man as well as on the stone tables of
Mt. Sinai. St. Paul says that even the heathens
''show the work of the law written in their hearts,
their conscience bearing witness to them." ^ In His
commandments God reveals to man the way of life
and happiness. Apart from it being the law of God,
if we may suppose such a thing, it would still be the
highest wisdom to love God above all things and our
neighbor as oui'selves: while to do the things which
the moral law forbids would be the most miserable
folly. But, as God has promulgated the Command-
ments as His positive law, their transgression is not
merely a folly contrary to our own reason and wel-
fare, but a rebellion against the divine lawgiver who
as our Creator commands our obedience. Sin is the
willful transgression of the divine law. Sin is a dis-
obedience; a rebellion against God; an offense
against the divine Lord and Master. It is not
merely a natural manifestation of man's limited pow-
ers : on the contrary, it is repugnant and derogatory
to human nature. It is a repetition of Lucifer's de-
fiant: "I shall not serve." It is the free will of an
intelligent creature opposing itself to the law of its
Creator. In sin man turns from God, his proper
«Rom. 2, 14-15.
222 CONFESSION
end ; and chooses a contrary object for his love and
service.
Precepts of the Church. Under divine law may
be comprised not only the immediate law of God,
but also His mediate or indirect ordinances. The
civil law, in as much as it is not contrary to the di-
vine will, obliges in conscience. The laws made by
the lawful authority of the Church are ratified in
Heaven.^ The precepts of the Church are not dif-
ferent from the Commandments of God so much as
they are explanations or developments of the com-
mandments, or point out duties that have their roots
in the fundamental laws of the Decalogue. The
chief precepts of the Church are:
1. To keep the Sundays and^Holy-days of obliga-
tion holy, by hearing Mass and resting from servile
works.
2. To observe the days of fasting and abstinence
appointed by the Church.
3. To go to confession at least once a year.
4. To receive the Blessed Sacrament at least once
a year, and that at Easter or thereabouts.
5. To contribute to the support of Religion.
6. Not to marry within certain degrees of kindred,
nor to solemnize marriage at forbidden times.
Sin opposes itself to the natural cardinal virtues
of Justice, Fortitude, Wisdom and Temperance : and
to the supernatural theological or divine virtues of
Faith, Hope, and Charity: which are the founda-
tion of our right living with God and man, and
which the laws of God and His Church inculcate.
Capital Sins. The seven capital sins are so called
because they are, as it were, seven sources from
which all other sins flow. The capital sins with the
contrary virtues are:
»Mt. 16, 19.
SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 223
Pride.
Humility
Covetousness.
Liberality.
Lust.
Chastity.
Anger.
Meekness.
Gluttony.
Temperance.
Envy.
Brotherly Love.
Sloth.
Diligence.
According to various points of view, sins are also
divided into sins of omission and commission; sins
against God, against our neighbor, against ourselves;
internal and external sins, etc.
Virtue and Vice. As frequent repetition of an
action begets a habit, the practice of good deeds
develops moral virtue while the practice of evil
deeds ends in vice. A habit is defined as a tendency
to do a thing and an ease in doing it, arising from
having done it often. It is a common truth that
habit becomes as a second nature. It is a growth.
A single sinful action does not constitute a vice : nor
does one good deed make a virtue. As a habit is
not acquired in a day, neither is it destroyed all at
once. The skillful pianist, the successful athlete, the
able orator have given time and trouble to their re-
spective arts. So the virtuous man has patiently
built up his noble character. On the other hand,
little by little a vice grows on a man until it waxes
so strong that at last it holds its victim in slave-
chains. Sailors in the navy sleeping close to the
cannon, become so accustomed to its noise, that it
finally no longer disturbs their slumbers. So the
habitual sinner becomes callous to the shock of sin,
and deaf to the voice of conscience. To this extent
his nature is perverted. Evil has become his good.
Mortal and Venial Sin. There are degrees in sin
as there are in the guilt of civil crime or in th^ seri-
ousness of bodily disease. The infraction of the
224 CONFESSION
physical law may bring with it a little suffering
or it may bring death. The civil law distinguishes
between petty offenses and heinous felonies. Even
in a case of murder, the court takes account of the
culprit's intentions and circumstances before judg-
ing of the extent of his guilt. In the order .of mor-
als, where guilt or innocence is a matter of the mind
and will, even more than of the overt act, the
Church distinguishes not alone different degrees but
also different kinds of sin.
Sin may be mortal or venial. Mortal sin is an of-
fense against the law of God in an important mat-
ter, committed with sufficient reflection and full con-
sent of the will. The matter may be important in
itself, or in its circumstances. For the transgression
to be perfectly deliberate and entail complete re-
sponsibility, the gravity of the action must be known
and the consent of the will must be perfect. Mor-
tal sin receives the name mortal or deadly, from its
effect; namely the destruction of the supernatural
life of the soul.
Venial sin is so called because it is more easily
pardoned, since it does not destroy the life of grace
and the friendship of God. Venial sin is an offense
against the law of God in a slight matter: or in a
serious matter it is an offense committed without
sufficient reflection or full consent of the will. The
transgression is not perfectly willful when either
the necessary knowledge of the sin and its gravity or
the perfect consent of the will is wanting.
Mortal or grievous sin includes in its nature not
only the turning of man to creatures, but also his
turning away from God, his last end. Venial sin,
while it includes an immoderate attachment to crea-
tures, does not imply an aversion from God, our last
end. p As among men not every offense destroys
friendship, neither does every offense against God
SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 225
destroy the divine friendship which is based on sanc-
tifying grace. Holy Scripture distinguishes be-
tween venial and grievous sins ; between faults that
leave us still friends of God and that separate us
from Him. St. James writes: '*In many things
we all offend."* The imperfections of a St. James
are very different from the heinous crimes of which
St. Paul writes: *' Neither fornicators, nor idola-
ters, nor adulterers • . . shall possess the 'Kingdom
of Heaven."^
Consequences of Sin. The consequence of sin is
not merely the evil effects which are associated with
the very nature of the actions committed, such as
the loss of honor or health or possessions. It is not
merely natural and temporal. The worst sinners
may have wealth and beauty and high places. The
formal consequence of grievous sin is the separation
of 4;he sinner from God ; his guilt of malice against
the supreme majesty ; and his liability to the punish-
ments which are the sanction of the divine law. Its
separation from God is the soul's spiritual death.
The sanctifying grace which was given to the soul
in Baptism and increased in the reception of the
other sacraments, is lost. The gift of supernatural
life is forfeited. No longer an adopted child of
God, the soul is no longer an heir to Heaven. Sepa-
rated from God, its place in eternity is hell. Sin is
evil, indeed.
*'If thou wilt enter into life, keep the command-
ments."^
''Not every one that saith to me. Lord, shall enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doth the
will of my Father, he shall enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven." ^
*'The wages of sin is death." *
*Ja8. 3, 2. «Mt. 19, 17. •Rom. 6, 23.
»I. Cor. 6, 9-10. »Mt. 7, 21.
226 CONFESSION
''If you live according to the flesh, you shall
die.''«
''The fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable,
and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers,
and idolaters, and liars, they shall have their por-
tion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death. "^°
"Let not sin reign in your mortal body so as to
obey the lust thereof. Neith# yield your members
as instruments of iniquity unto sin. For sin shall
not have dominion over you. What fruit had you
then in those things of which you are now ashamed ?
For the end of them is death. ' ' ^^
53. CONFESSION AND PARDON OP SIN.
Is there any hope for the Christian who is dead
in sin? Has Jesus Christ left a sacrament of mercy
to restore spiritual life to the soul, whose baptismal
character betrays that it has sinned even after hav-
ing known and received the grace of redemption?
The mercy of the Savior and His knowledge of
weak human nature might well lead us to expect
to find in the Church by which Christ applies His
redemption to the individual soul, a sacrament des-
tined to bring sanctifying grace and the assurance
of pardon to the fallen Christian. And our expecta-
tion is not in vain. The power of bringing peace to
the soul by loosing the fetters of sin, has been prom-
ised to the Apostles : ^
""Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be
bound in Heaven : and whatsoever ye shall loose on
earth shall be loosed also in Heaven/*
Sacrament of Pardon. After the Resurrection
Jesus instituted the sacrament of pardon and em-
oRom. 8, 13. . "Rom. 6, 12-21.
i»Apoc. 21, 8. ^Mt. 18, 18.
^ PARDON OP SIN 227
powered His Apostles to act as its ministers. St.
John records the history of the institution.^^
*'Now, when it was late that same day, the
first of the week, and the doors were shut where the
disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews;
Jesus came and stood in the midst of them and said
to them: * Peace be to you.' And when He said
this He showed them His hands and His side. The
disciples were glad therefore when they saw the
Lord. He said therefore to them again:
*' 'Peace be to you. As the Father hath
sent Me, I also send you.'
' ' When He had said this, He breathed on them and ^
said to them:
'' 'RECEIVE YE THE HOLY GHOST,
WHOSE SINS YE SHALL FORGIVE,
THEY ARE FORGIVEN THEM: WHOSE
SINS YE SHALL RETAIN, THEY ARE
RETAINED.' "
Power Remains. By the will of Christ, the power
to forgive sins belongs henceforth to the apostolic
office. It was not to cease wnth the death of the
first Apostles, any more than the power to baptize
or celebrate the Holy Eucharist, but was to continue
forever in their successors. The Sacraments were in-
stituted for the* sake of men. They are part of the
Church's equipment to carry on the work of Christ
in the world. They were given not only for the first
ages but for all time. As long as sin will last in the
world, the remedy of sin will last in the Church.
St. Paul, though not one of the original twelve
Apostles, calls himself an ambassador of Christ in
the ministry of reconciliation: ''All things are of
God who hath reconciled us to Himself by Christ,
•John 20, 19-23.
228 CONFESSION ^
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
For God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world
to Himself; not imputing to them their sins; and
He hath placed in us the word of reconciliation.
For Christ therefore are we ambassadors. ' ' ^
Since the days of St. Paul, the successors of the
Apostles have exercised "^the ministry of reconcilia-
tion*' as an ordinary function of their priesthood.
The power of forgiving sins is inherent in the priest-
hood. To His priests alone has Christ given the
commission: ^'As the Father hath sent me, I also
send you." As the power to forgive or retain is a
judicial power, the valid administration of the Sac-
rament of Penance requires not only priestly ordi-
nation but also jurisdiction. The necessary faculties
are given by the Bishop to priests whom he wishes
to exercise the office of confessor in his diocese.
All Sin Pardonable. The power to forgive sins
in the Sacrament of Penance extends to all sins com-
mitted after Baptism. The words of Christ, 'Svhose
sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them," are
of a general nature admitting of no exception. In
reference to certain passages of Scripture that seem
to convey that some sins cannot be forgiven, suffice
it to remark that nowhere is the impossibility on
the part of God, to forgive sins, asserted: it may be
impossible on the part of the sinner; and it is im-
possible as long as he remains impenitent and resists
all external and internal graces. In this sense
Christ's words to the Pharisees are to be under-
stood: *'A sin against the Holy Ghost will not be
forgiven." When the conversion of the sinner is
said to be impossible, we are to understand not a
strict impossibility but a difficulty which, owing to
the perversity of the sinner, will rarely, if ever, be
overcome: as when the Pharisees refused to believe
•II. Cor. 5, 18-20.
PARDON OF SIN 229
in Christ even in the face of Heaven's own evidence.
Confession Necessary. The power of administer-
ing the Sacrament of Penance granted to the Church
is a judicial power, and its exercise is a judicial act.
The commission is to forgive sin or to retain sin:
to send the sinner on his way pardoned and with the
assurance of forgiveness ; or to dismiss him with the
warning that his sins still burden his soul. A ju-
dicial act necessarily supposes that the judge is in-
formed of the case in which he is to pronounce sen-
tence. But the matter on which the priest is to
pronounce sentence is sin; not only public sins, nor
only external actions, but even the most secret sins
of thought and desire. And the apostolic judge
must forgive these sins or he must retain them. The
priest is not empowered to give absolution to every-
one indiscriminately. He must forgive or retain
with judgment and discretion; not according to his
own will or fancy, but according to the sinner's
disposition. He must absolve the sinner whom he
finds fulfilling all the conditions of true repentance.
The impenitent who will not be converted, the priest
must send away unshriven. The priest cannot judge
of the disposition of the sinner or properly direct
him, unless he knows his sins. And he cannot know
them unless the sinner confesses them. Therefore
the power of forgiving or retaining sins, granted by
Christ to the Church, implies the necessity of self-
accusation on the part of the sinner. Hence the
confession of sins is of divine origin.
Spiritual Physician. In the confessional the
priest is also the physician of souls. The sick man
exposes to the physician the weaknesses and diseases
of his body, that the proper remedies may be ap-
plied to them and the proper advice may be given.
Similarly the sinner reveals to the spiritual physi-
cian the state of his soul, that the priest may apply
230 CONFESSION
to this particular soul the medicine of sal-
vation and the helpful guidance that it needs.
As the physician achieves his best results not by
the general advice given to a mixed assembly from
the lecture platform, but by the personal work of
the siek-room; so the priest accomplishes the most
immediate and practical good not in the pulpit but
in the confessional. In the confessional the priest
speaks directly to the soul about itself. There the
soul is honest, as it is nowhere else in the world.
There is no respect of persons to embarrass the .spir-
itual physician and tie his tongue. The name of
the penitent need not be known. His face need not
be seen. The priest in the confessional meets him
only as a Christian seeking spiritual help.
In the confessional the young are saved from
their own ignorance and weakness which might oth-
erwise bring them later on to the physician as phys-
ical wrecks. The drunkard is given the pledge.
The thief is commanded to restore his ill-gotten
goods. The libertine is obliged, as a condition of
pardon, to avoid the occasion of his sins. Evil prac-
tices which would pervert whole schools are de-
tected and eradicated. Means of ^persevering in
good resolutions are pointed out. The rights of the
unborn child are defended. Consciences are edu-
cated. Difficult cases are settled wherein the ex-
pert is needed to say just where right and duty lie.
Innocence is preserved against the snares that are
set in its way and whose danger it might realize
only too late. Good souls receive spiritual direc-
tion, teaching them to overcome even little faulte
and to rise from virtue to virtue, to the heights of
Christian perfection.
Pruits of Confession. The law of the Church re-
quires that Catholics go to confession at least once
a year. Confession, like Baptism, is called a sacra-
THE CONFESSIONAL 231
ment of the dead, because it can be received by those
who are dead in sin, as a means of their spiritual re-
surrection. Into the spiritually dead, with sanctify-
ing grace the sacrament infuses supernatural life.
It remits sins and the eternal punishment due to
mortal sins. But one need not be in mortal sin in
order to go to confession. Many pious souls go fery
frequently to confession, as a means of avoiding
grievous sin and overcoming venial faults; of ob-
taining spiritual direction ; of receiving an increase
of sanctifying grace ; and as a preparation for Holy
Communion, being mindful of the words of St.
Paul:* **Let a man prove himself and so let him
eat of that bread and drink of the cup.'*
54. A PEEP INTO THE CONFESSIONAL.
The catechism defines Penance or Confession, as
a Sacrament in which the priest, as the representa-
tive of God, forgives sins committed after Baptism,
to those sinners who are truly penitent, sincerely
confess their sins and are ready to perform the
works of penance imposed by the confessor.
Examination of Conscience. The sinner begins
his preparation for confession by praying to the
Holy Ghost for the grace to know his sins and the
Borrow to detest them. He examines his conscience,
scrutinizing his thoughts, words and deeds in the
light of the divine law, and thus endeavors to know
the number and kind of his sinful actions and the
nature and duration of his evil habits.
Contrition. He must have contrition for his sins.
Contrition is a detestation and sorrow for the sins
committed, combined with a firm resolution to sin
no more. The necessity of contrition is taught in
all those passages of Scripture wherein the sinner is
*T. Cor. 11, 28.
232 CONFESSION
exhorted to repent in order to obtain pardon of his
sins. If the sinner is to be converted, to return
again to God, he must turn away with horror from
that which separates him from God. He must have
true sorrow for that which is the greatest of evils
and most hateful to God. By this sorrow and detes-
tatBwi he crushes, as it were, the innate pride con-
tained in every revolt against God. "A contrite
and humbled heart, Lord, thou shalt not despise. '^
Contrition must include the purpose of amend-
ment — the earnest will to amend one's life and sin
no more. For what one hates and detests he like-
wise shuns and flees. The purpose of amendment
includes the will to avoid the proximate occasions
of sin — any person, place or thing which proves an
occasion in which one is likely to sin. For he who
desires the end, desires also the means. *'He that
loves the danger shall perish in it.^'
Qualities of Contrition. The sorrow for sin and
the purpose of amendment required for the Sacra-
ment of Penance, must be internal and sincere, not
merely on the lips but in the heart. *'Rend your
hearts and not your garments." The sorrow must
be universal, extending to all mortal sin. For as
long as the heart clings to one mortal sin or is not
determined to avoid all mortal sins, it cannot turn
to God. The sorrow must be sovereign. The sin-
ner must grieve more for having offended God than
for any other evil that can befall him. Finally the
sorrow must be supernatural. It must proceed from
grace and rest on the supernatural motives of faith.
Such motives are the loss of sanctifying grace, of
heaven, and of the friendship of God; or the fear
of hell or purgatory : they are not the merely natural
consequences of sin, such as the loss of temporal
goods, honor, health, or liberty.
This supernatural sorrow with its accompanying
THE CONFESSIONAL
233
resolution, may have for its motive the perfect love
of God for His own sake. This is perfect contri-
tion. Perfect contrition flowing from perfect love
of God suffices for the justification of the sinner.
Meditation on the Passion of Christ often helps one
to elicit an act of perfect contrition. As the Bap-
tism of desire includes at least implicitly the will to
receive the Sacrament of Baptism — such being the
will of God ; so perfect contrition includes explicitly
ec implicitly the w^ill to receive the Sacrament of
Penance.
The supernatural sorrow and resolution may have
for their motive the loss of Heaven and the fear of
the punishment due to sin. This is attrition. This
imperfect or less perfect contrition suffices for the
valid reception of the Sacrament of Penance.
Analysis of Act of Contrition.
1. my God,
2. I am most heartily
sorry,
3. For all my sins,
4. I detest them above
all things
5. because I dread the
loss of heaven and the
pains of hell,
6. but especially be-
cause they displease
Thee, my God, who art
the Infinite Good and
worthy of all love.
7. I firmly resolve with
the help of Thy grace,
never more to offend
Thee,
1. Addressed to God.
2. Interior.
3. Universal.
4. Sovereign.
5. Motives of Attri-
tion.
6. Motives of Perfect
Contrition.
7. Resolution for fu-
ture.
234 CONFESSION
8. but to confess my 8. Part of God's law.
sins,
9. to avoid their occa- 9. Means to end.
sion,
10. to make satisfac- 10. Works lOf penance
tion imposed.
11. and amend my 11. Changed life,
life.
The Confessional. Having made his preparatipn
for confession, the penitent presents himself at the
confessional chair. The confessional is erected in a
public place in the church. The partition between
the priest and penitent is provided with a screen or
lattice-work of wood or metal, through which they
speak. After stating the time of his last confession
and whether or not he received absolution, the peni-
tent recites the Confiteor or at least the words: I
confess to Almighty God and to you, father, that I
have sinned. He then proceeds to confess his sins,
mentioning at least all the mortal sins he has com-
mitted, as he discovered them in the examination of
conscience. If there are no mortal sins, he men-
tions venial sins, for which he must elicit contrition.
The revelation of conscience must be humble, sincere
and entire. If the penitent knowingly conceals a
mortal sin, the confession is not only worthless but
sacrilegious.
If necessary the priest will assist the penitent by
prudent questions. The accusation of sins being
finished, the priest gives the penitent such admoni-
tion and direction as seem proper. If the priest
finds the penitent well disposed, he imposes upon
him a salutary work of penance and gives him abso-
lution, repeating the following words :
Absolution. * ' May the Almighty God have mercy
THE CONFESSIONAL 235
upon thee, and forgive thee thy sins and bring thee
unto life everlasting. Amen.
**May the Almighty and merciful Lord grant thee
pardon, absolution, and forgiveness of thy sins.
Amen.
''May our Lord Jesus Chrits absolve thee, and I,
by His authority, absolve thee from every bond of
excommunication and interdict, in as much as in my
power lieth and thou standest in need. Finally I
absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the Fa-
ther, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.''
After Confession. While the priest gives him ab-
solution the sinner repeats his act of contrition. If
the sacrament Jias been worthily received, the peni-
tent, however great may have been his sins, leaves
the confessional forgiven. His sins are washed
away. The eternal punishment of hell, which is the
just due of every mortal sin, is remitted. By sanc-
tifying grace the soul is raised from spiritual death
to supernatural life and is once more holy and pleas-
ing to God. The creature is again adopted to the
divine sonship and made an heir to heaven.
In due time after confession the penitent is ex-
pected to perform the works of penance imposed on
him by the confessor — generally the recitation of
certain prayers. . These good works do not, of
course, destroy mortal sin or its guilt. Only God's
grace can do that. They are imposed as a remedy
against relapse, as a means of amendment and as a
punishment to satisfy for the temporal punishment
which is not necessarily nor always remitted with
the eternal punishment due to sin.^
1 See article" on Indulgences under No. 56.
236 CONFESSION
65. OBJECTIONS TO CONFESSION AN-
SWERED.
In the light of what has been said of the institu-
tion of the Sacrament of Penance by Jesus Christ
and its use by Christian people, we may now judge
the worth of the objections commonly made against
the practice of Confession.
Objection 1. **No man can forgive sins but only
God."
Answer 1. The Apostles were men. Christ said
to the Apostles ; ** "Whose sins you shall forgive, they
are forgiven them." It is true that no man can
forgive sins by his own natural power. But no
priest claims to forgive sins by his own natural
power; but by the power of God, as an ** ambassador
of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation." If God
gives men power to forgive sins, then men can for-
give sins. The objector says that no man can
forgive sins. Christ says that certain men can for-
give sins. "Whom shall we believe?
Objection 2. **I need not confess to the priest.
I go directly to God. He can forgive me."
Answer 2. If you refuse to receive the Sacrament
of Baptism, which Christ has left in His Church, will
God, at your demand, baptize you directly? Pen-
ance, as well as Baptism, is a divine ordinance. To
refuse to use either sacrament is to refuse to con-
form to the divine will. God can forgive. But will
God forgive the sinner who proudly disdains His
law and wants to dictate the terms of peace by
which he will be reconciled to the Almighty? The
sinner should be glad to receive pardon, on any
terms that God ordains. Had the lepers in the Gos-
pel ^ refused to go and show themselves to the
priests as Christ commanded them, think you they
»J.uke 17, 14.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 237
would have found themselves cleansed as they went
their way? St. Paul says of Christ; "Being con-
summated He became to all that obey Him, the
cause of eternal salvation. "^
Objection 3, *'If sins are forgiven by perfect con-
trition, why confess them afterward?"
Answer 3. Are you sure that you have perfect
contrition? Penance is the ordinary means of sal-
vation for those who have fallen into mortal sin
after Baptism, as Baptism is the ordinary means of
salvation for all. While perfect contrition does re-^
mit sin, this very contrition always includes at least
implicitly, the will to go to Confession in accordance
with the divine will.
Objection 4. * ' Confession encourages sin by mak-
ing pardon too easy.*'
Answer 4. Rather the notion that you can be
forgiven without confession encourages sin by mak-
ing pardon still easier. Apart from its being
God's chosen way of granting pardon, Confession
with its examination of conscience, its humble self-
accusation, its sorrow and resolution, its penance,
its opportunity of educating the conscience and
insisting on the means of avoiding sin, is even hu-
manly speaking, the most powerful antagonist of
sin.
Objection 5. **Is there not danger of the priest
telling the sins that are revealed to him?"
Answer 5. The priest is under the strictest obli-
gation to preserve the seal of the confessional. Even
the courts hold this trust inviolate. Priests have
suffered death, like St. John Nepomucene, rather
than reveal the sins of their penitents. No names
are mentioned in the^ Confessional. The priest
need not know or even see the penitent. One may
confess to any priest exercising jurisdiction.
»Heb, 5, 9.
238 CONFESSION
Objection 6. '^Is it true that people must pay to
have their sins forgiven?"
Answer 6. Emphatically, No! The priest does
not receive a fee for absolution. Far from charging
money for pardon, the confessor could not accept it
even if it were freely offered to him. The writer
has seen books, written by men who called them-
selves Christians, which not only asserted that Cath-
olic priests demand money for absolution, but even
published what pretended to be the cost of pardon
for each particular sin. These charges are the
basest calumnies. Their authors, while they pre-
tend to work for the glory of God, in reality are
doing the work of the devil who is the father of
lies.
Objection 7. *'It is claimed that the influence of
the Confessional is demoralizing."
Answer 7. Do those who know the Confessional
from experience claim this? The best recommenda-
tion of the work of the Confessional is that parents
want their sons and daughters, husbands want their
wives, wives want their husbands, to frequent the
Sacrament of Penance. When children go to Con-
fession promptly and frequently, parents feel that
all is well with them ; that they are striving to keep
their lives clean. With the regular check of Con-
fession, nothing will be allowed to go very far amiss.
But when Confession is neglected, parents feel they
have reason to worry about the child's spiritual wel-
fare. The youth who comes by himself to his pas-
tor and •tells him of the bad company that has led
to the saloon or worse, is on the way to overcome
such evil influences. Scripture says: *'He that
hideth his sins shall not prosper; but he that shall
confess and forsake them, shall obtain mercy. ' ' ^
Objection 8. *'How do Catholics refute the ex-
» Prov. 28, 13.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 2313
priests and others who expose the secrets of the
confessional?"
Answer 8. The pretended secrets of the Confes-
sional have been a favorite topic with those unfortu-
nate creatures who go about posing as *' ex-priests"
and ** escaped nuns," and making a miserable living
by pandering to mingled bigotry and pruriency.
Bitter experience of scandal and dishonesty has
taught many communities to have nothing to do
with these moral degenerates. They are always out
and otit impostors. Generally they were never Cath-
olics at all. If they were once in the Church, they
are, as Swift says, ** weeds which the Pope has
thrown over his garden wall." In time they are in-
variably their own refutation.
Objection 9. '']\Iany non-Catholic books say that
Confession was instituted by the Lateran Council
in 1215."
Answer 9. The Bible says that it was instituted
by Jesus Christ after His resurrection. The decree
•of the Lateran Council merely insists that Catholics
receive the Sacrament at least once a year. Doubt-
less then, as now, there were members of the Church
who were inclined to neglect the Sacraments. In a
similar way the Church made a rule that Catholics
must receive the Holy Eucharfst during Easter time.
Confession is mentioned in the ancient councils,
in the Fathers and in the Bible. A council at Rheims
in 625, legislates about the jurisdiction of the pas-
tor to hear the confessions of his people during Lent.
St. Augustine (d. 430) writes: *'Let no one say: —
I do penance in secret and before God. God who
knows that I repent in my heart will forgive me. —
Was it said to no purpose then: Wliatsoever you
shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in Heaven."
St. Basil (d. 373) writes: **In the confession of
sins, the same method must be observed as in laying
240 CONFESSION
open the infirmities of the body. For as these are
not rashly communicated to everyone, but to those
only who understand by what method they may be
cured, so the confession of sins must be made to
such persons as have power to apply a remedy."
And he adds: ** Necessarily our sins must be con-
fessed to those to whom has been committed the
dispensation of the mysteries of God." Basil, Au-
gustine, Ambrose, Leo I, Jerome, Chrysostom and
other Fathers speak of Confession.
Of the first Christian converts, St. Luke writes : *
**Many of them who believed came confessing and
declaring their deeds." After declaring that the
priests should be called in to the sick man, St.
James continues: Confess your sins one to another
— or the one to the other.^ St. John says: ''If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins." ^
The Oriental sects that fell away from the Church
many centuries before the Council of Lateran, retain
Confession: which is evidence that the practice of
confessing sins in the Sacrament of Penance pre-
vailed in the Church before their apostasy.
Objection 10. "It is hard and unnatural to con-
fess one's sins."
Answer 10. If it were ever so hard, it would still
be easier than to burn with the sins in hell. But it
is not hard as Catholics know by experience, and as
converts to the faith discover and testify. It is
Christ's way and His is a merciful way, fitted to
the needs of our human nature.
The Sacrament of Penance is supernatural. But
to tell one's faults is the most natural thing in the
world. Far from being something abhorrent to our
nature, confession really corresponds to a want of
the human soul. It is probable that no one ever
•Act. 19, 18. "Jas. 5, 13-16. 'I. John 1. 9.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 241
committed a serious fault without confiding it to
somebody. To have another share the secret that
burdens us, is an instinct of our nature. The mur-
derer confesses his crime or he commits suicide : and
his suicide is his confession. Before going to sleep
at ni^ht the little child puts its arms around the
mother's neck and whispers into her forgiving ear
the tiny fault of the day. In the emotional excite-
ment of the revival or camp-meeting, life histories,
sometimes life tragedies, are blurted out publicly to
an indiscreet world. When the proud sinner grows
weary of his hollow life and would be emancipated
from the rottenness and dead bones within the whi-
tened sepulcher of his heart, and comes to know
himself and be humble, then he feels the want of a
strong and prudent friend to whom he can unbosom
himself; to whom he may pour out the thoughts of
his disillusioned heart; with whom he may advise
about the duty of reparation and the means of spir-
itual peace. Or again, the scrupulous soul, driven
to the brink of despair by fears and temptations,
moans out: What shall I do? Who can help me?
Who can assure me of God's forgiveness?
In the Sacrament of Confession Jesus Christ has
left in His Church, a means whereby consciences
may be revealed to the spiritual physician in peace
and prudence: where without scandal to others or
loss of good name or usefulness, the sins may be dis-
closed in private confession to the priest, who is
strong enough to bear with the sinner and human
enough not to despise him ; who is trained to advise
and guide, and pledged to eternal secrecy of every
word confided to him; who above all is empowered
by God to forgive in His name.
242 CONFESSION
56. INDULGENCES.
One of the grandest pictures in the Christian his-
tory is the scene of the courageous St. Ambrose,
Bishop of Milan, shutting the doors of his Cathedral
in the face of the Emperor Theodosius the ^Great,
and refusing him entrance into the church on aeount
of his crime in allowing the imperial soldiers to
massacre the inhabitants of Thessalonica. The suc-
cessor of the Caesars was thus taught that there is a
power of right higher than the caprice of kings. As
a member of the Christian Church, Theodosius could
be forgiven his sin, upon evidence of sincere repent-
ance. Meantime he must take his place outside the
door of the church with the humblest penitents and
by long penance prove the sincerity of his conver-
sion.^
Early Penances. The Emperor, the same as other
Christians of the time, was obliged to do public pen-
ance for his public sin. This penitential system of
the early days of the Church is associated with the
doctrine of Indulgences. According to St. Basil, a
murderer was obliged to do penance for 20 years;
an adulterer for 15 years. For lapse into idolatry
and other scandals, similar penances were imposed.
Heinous crimes merited the major excommunica-
tions by which public sinners were cut off from the
Church and avoided till they resolved to mend their
ways. Lesser scandals incurred minor excommuni-
cations. Penitents sometimes stood barefooted at
the door of the church asking the prayers of the
faithful. Sometimes they fasted for months on
bread and water. These penances reveal the faith
of the early Christians ; their appreciation of citizen-
ship in the Kingdom of God; and their readiness to
give heroic evidence of repq^itance, if in human
^I. Cor. 5, 5.
INDULGENCES 243
weakness they had forfeited that divine citizenship.
Indulgence. It was well understood that the
works of penance did not remit mortal sin. Only-
God's grace could do that. The penitential works
had to do with the temporal punishment due to sin.
If the penitent fell dangerously ill before his time of
discipline was over, he was at once reconciled and
granted absolution and Holy Communion. What
was lacking in his penance might be supplied by
God's grace in some other way. This same mercy
or indulgence, was sometimes shown to others who
had edified the Church by extraordinary signs of re-
pentance. At the prayer of saints about to suffer
martyrdom, the Church sometimes relaxed her dis-
cipline in favor of certain penitents.
From this indulgent kindness of Mother Church,
comes the word Indulgence. Derived from the Latin
ind/ulgeo, it means originally, to be kind, merciful,
to grant a favor. In English, the gratification of
the passions is only one out of several meanings of
the word indulgence : and a meaning which has noth-
ing whatever to do with' the theological sense of
the word.
Definition. An Indulgence is the remission, out-
side of the Sacrament of Penance, of all or part of
the temporal punishment, which, even after the sin
is forgiven, we have yet to undergo either here or
in Purgatory.
To gain an Indulgence, it is required that we
should be in the state of grace, and have already ob-
tained by true repentance, forgiveness of those sins
the temporal •punishment of which is to be remitted
by the Indulgence : and that we should exactly per-
form the good works prescribed for gaining the In-
dulgence.
A Bible Indulgence. St. Paul granted an Indul-
gence to the incestuous Corinthian, pardoning him
244 CONFESSION
in the name of Christ, and through regard to the
prayers and fervor of the Christians of that city.
This man had committed a terrible crime, and in
punishment thereof the Apostle excommunicated
him, delivering, as he said, ^ ' such a one to Satan for
the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be
saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.'' But
scarcely has a year passed after this terrible excom-
munication, when, moved by the sinner's sincere re-
pentance, Paul writes to the Corinthians to restore
him again to the communion of the faithful, saying :
'^To him, that is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient,
which is given by many. So that on the contrary
you should rather pardon and comfort him, . . .
and to whoin you have pardoned anything, I also.
For what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned any-
thing, for your sakes have I done it, in the person
of Christ. "2
^'In this passage we have all the elements that
constitute an Indulgence. First, a penance, or tem-
poral punishment proportionate to the gravity of the
offense, is imposed; secondly, the penitent is truly
contrite for his crime ; thirdly, this contrition deter-
mines the Apostle to remit the penalty ; fourthly, the
Apostle considers the relaxation of the penance rat-
ified by Jesus Christ, in whose name, and by whose
authority, it is imparted. He adds, indeed, ''If I
have pardoned anything," but, as is evident from
the context, he thereby only signifies that he does
not know whether perhaps the penance already per-
formed may not have been sufficient to satisfy the
justice of God: if it was not sufficieirt, then he re-
mits the rest, in virtue of the power given by Christ,
when He said: ''Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth,
shall be loosed also in Heaven."
"As the Apostle did in this instance, so did the
Ul. Cor. 2, 6-10.
INDULGENCES 245
Popes and Bishops of the early Church on numerous
occasions. Taught by the Apostles, they understood
that the power of the keys was applicable to tem-
poral punishment as well as to the guilt of sin. As
they had power to administer the Sacrament of Pen-
ance, so had they also power to grant Indulgences.
And this remission on the part of the Bishops, was
valid, not only in the sight of the Church, but also
in the sight of God. If they pardoned anything,
they did so in the person of Christ, even as the Apos-
tle had done in the case of the incestuous Corin-
thian. "^
Development. In the course of time the fervor
that marked the primitive Christians decreased.
Sinners were not inclined to do the long and rigor-
ous public penances. To insist upon them would be
to tempt many to fall away entirely from the Church.
But the Scripture is true that God is wont to for-
give the repentant sinner and free him from the
guilt of sin and its eternal punishment, without free-
ing him from its temporal punishment."* Thus God
sent the prophet Nathan to tell David: "The Lord
hath taken away thy sin. Nevertheless because thou
hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to
blaspheme, for this thing, the child that is born of
thee shall die.'' An awful temporal punishment in-
flicted even after the sin and its eternal punishment
were forgiven! The motherly solicitude of the
Church sought to make up what w^as wanting in the
penance of the sinner by opening to his poverty,
the spiritual treasury which she is entrusted to ad-
minister — namely the infinite merits of Christ and
the superabundant prayers and good works of His
saints. Indulgences became rather the rule than
the exception. In place of the canonical penances,
•
• Otten, "Sacramental Life of Church."
* See cases of David (II. Kings 12 and 24) ; of Adam (Gen. 3, 17-20;
Wis. 10, 22); of Moses (Num. 20, 12; Deut. 32, 51-52); of Jews
(Num. 14, 20-23).
246 CONFESSION
a condition of gaining an indulgence might be (be-
sides the receiving of the Sacraments) the recitation
of psalms or other prayers, visiting the sick, alms
given to the poor, a pilgrimage to some holy place,
or other comparatively small works.
Plenary and Partial. The association of Indul-
gences with the remission of canonical penances,
writes Fr. Otten, ''is evident from the very form in
which they are granted. Thus the Church grants
Indulgences of forty days, seven years, seven quar-
antines, and so on; which means that so much tem-
poral punishment is remitted as would have been
cancelled by the practice of canonical penances con-
tinued for these respective periods of time. These
Indulgences are called Partial Indulgences ; because
they are intended to remit only this specified part of
the temporal punishment; what is due over and
above still remains. The same fundamental idea is
involved in Plenary Indulgences. They remit the
whole debt of temporal punishment which a sinner
may have contracted with God, and they are there-
fore equivalent to a remission of all canonical pen-
ances, which of old a penitent would have been re-
quired to perform, in order to satisfy the justice of
God. These canonical penances are indeed no longer
imposed by the Church, yet, as was pointed out be-
fore, God never ceases to inflict temporal punish-
ment for sins, and hence Indulgences are granted
to-day even as was the custom of old; if not as an
actual substitute for canonical penances, at least as
a mild and merciful payment of the debt that stands
against the penitent sinner on the account-books of
God.''
Non-Catholic Misrepresentation. Alms given to
build hospitals, churches and other institutions of
charity, often constituted the good works which,
with Confession and Communion, were conditions
INDULGENCES 247
of gaining Indulgences. Had not Christ said, that
not even the cup of water given in His name would
be without its reward? The reluctance of the Ger-
man princes to let their people contribute toward
the splendid world Cathedral of St. Peter's at
Rome, which Michael Angelo and other men of
genius were rearing at the beginning of the six-
teenth century, did much to precipitate the religious
revolution known as the Reformation. Pope Leo X
had promised the blessing of an Indulgence to those
yj who would contribute to this grandest temple raised
to God, and fulfill also the other conditions of gain-
ing the Indulgence. First alleged abuses of the
collectors, and later the very doctrine of Indul-
gences, were attacked by Martin Luther and others.'
If there were any abuses in the methods of individ-
ual collectors, the Church was not to blame. It is
not easy to raise millions of dollars for a great
world work without meeting with some unworthy
or indiscreet agent. But the doctrine of the Church
on the subject was ever the same truth from the
days of Paul at Corinth, even to our own.
Since the Reformation and the religious excite-
ment it engendered, Pretestauts have very com-
monly entertained the most erroneous ideas about
the Catholic teaching on Indulgences. In fact ene-
mies of the Church have not hesitated to spread the
foulest lies about this doctrine. Poor ignorant peo-
ple are told that an Indulgence is a permission to
commit sin: a seven years' indulgence, a license to
indulge in sin for seven years. Imagine the malice
that would thus slander the Church and break the
Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy nieghbor!" Imagine such calumny
perpetrated in the name of religion itself ! Again it
is said that the Catholic Church selll Indulgences.
»See Chapter 26; No. 81.
248 CONFESSION
The Church never sold an Indulgence. God's bless-
ing cannot be bought or sold. As well say that the
Methodist Church sells blessings when it promises
that God will reward those who with a pure heart,
contribute alms to build a church or to send mission-
aries to the pagans.
Benefit of Indulgences. While not absolutely
necessary for salvation, Indulgences are as beneficial
as they are consoling. Without their help we are
likely to undergo a severe purgatory in the next
world. How often is our contrition for sin, of the
less perfect sort? How few have that ardent love
of God whose divine fire burns away at once every
obstacle to perfect union with Him? The gift of
Indulgences is an encouragement to perform the
works of penance prescribed for their attainment.
Our fasting with Christ,^ during the forty days of
Lent; our going with Him in spirit over the way
of the Cross; or through His whole life in the
Rosary, are penances whose own rewards are aug-
mented by the gift of many graces in the Indul-
gences of which they are the occasion.
As one condition of gaining Indulgences is that
the Christian must first be in the state of sanctify-
ing grace, their announcement on certain occasions
is doubtless the means of moving sinners to awaken
to their miserable condition and seek the grace of
reconciliation with God, in Confession and Holy
Communion. God's grace" takes away the eternal
punishment of sin and hell. The penance given in
Confession, as the Council of Trent teaches,^ makes
the sinner more careful for the future, substitutes
for his vices the contrary virtues and prevents him
from falling into more grievous sins. Finally the
visits to the churches, the public profession of faith,
the prayers and other good works prescribed for a
• Mt. 4, 2. T sess. 14, Ch. 8.
INDULGENCES 249
time like the Jubilee,® lead to the gaining of Plenary-
Indulgence, which removing the temporal punish-
ment still due to sin, finishes the Christian's union
with God and makes him ready for Heaven.
* After the Holy Land fell into the hands of the Turks, the Jubilee
Year (generally each 25 years) enabled people to gain the same indul-
gences by a spiritual pilgrimage nearer home, that were formerly *t>
tached to the pilgrimage to the Holy Laud.
CHAPTER XIV
HOLY ORDERS— THE CHRISTIAN
PRIESTHOOD
57. THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS.
As the passing ^ears bring the Christian youth
to man's estate, he must choose his life work. He
may feel that it is his vocation to consecrate his life
to the service of God and fellow-man in the Chris-
tian ministry. The sacrament by which a layman is
raised to the priesthood is called Holy Orders. In
a certain sense all Christians are priests. On the
altars of their hearts men and women offer spiritual
sacrifices in their internal and external acts of
Christian virtue. At the same time certain men
are set aside and empowered by sacramental ordina-
tion for the special work of the Church's ministry.
The need of such a body of men is apparent from
what has been said about the Sacraments and other
sacred institutions by which Christ carries on His
work in the world. St. Paul calls the Apostles the
ambassadors of Christ, and the dispensers of the
Mysteries or Sacraments of God. Theirs is not a
different or independent priesthood from Christ's.
It is the Christian priesthood. The Apostles and their
successors act as instruments and agents of Jesus
Christ in bringing the graces of His Eternal Priest-
hood to the souls of men.
Christ's Ministers. In the Old Law there was an
250
THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD 251
external and official priesthood. The tribe of Levi
were appointed to minister in the temple. An ex-
press law forbade any other to assume the function.
King Ozias was stricken by God with leprosy, for
having usurped the sacerdotal office.^ The Apostles
were chosen by Christ as the first priests of the New
Law. To them were entrusted the Church, its gov-
ernment, its teaching office, and the administration
of the Sacraments. The New Testament is full of
their priesthood. At the Last Supper Christ em-
powered them with the ministry of the New Cove-
nant in His Body and Blood. "Do this for the com-
memoration of Me." After His resurrection, He
conferred upon them the ** ministry of reconcilia-
tion" from sin. ** Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose
sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them."
Successors of Apostles. It soon became necessary
to ordain many fellow-laborers with the Apostles,
destined to perpetuate their office which is to last
till the end of the world.- We read : ^ '' When they
liad ordained to them priests in every church, and
had prayed with fasting, they commended them to
the Lord." These men are told:'* ''Take heed to
yourselves and to the whole flock wherein the Holy
Ghost hath placed you Bishops to rule the Church
of God, which he hath purchased with His own
Blot)d." The office of the priesthood was conferred
by the sacramental imposition of hands, even when
the candidates were chosen and called directly by
the Divine Spirit. We read:^ ''The Holy Ghost
said to them: Separate me Saul and Barnabas for
the work whereunto I have taken them. Then they
fasting and praying and imposing their hands upon
them, sent them away."
Imposition of Hands. As St. Paul was baptized
i-IT. Par. (Chron.) 26, 18-19. * Act. ?0, 28.
»Mt. 28, 20. »Act. 13, 2-3.
»Act. 14. 22.
252 HOLY ORDERS
as a means of coming into the Church, he was also
ordained for its official ministry.
Paujl ordained Timothy, Titns and others, and in
his letters speaks of their divine office. ''Neglect
not the grace that is in thee, which was given thee
by prophecy with the imposition of the hands of the
priesthood.''^ *'I admonish thee, that thou stir up
the grace of God which is in thee by the imposition
of my hands." ^ ''Impose not hands lightly upon
any man, neither be partaker of other men 's sins. ' ' ®
St. Paul teaches that more than an education and a
call from the people is needed to raise a man to the
Apostolic office: "How shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach unless they
be sent ? I left thee in Crete that thou shouldst or-
dain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee." ^
From the days of the Apostles the Christian priest-
hood has been transmitted from generation to gen-
eration by the Bishops of the Church. The Roman
clergy are as truly priests to-day as they were in
the days when Peter and Paul, dying themselves,
left their successors in the Eternal City. Protestant
ministers have no Sacred Orders and do not even
pretend to be priests, save a few Episcopalians,
whose Anglican ordination is judged invalid by
Rome.
Holy Orders. The Sacrament of Holy Orders ^an
be conferred only by a Bishop. Several preparatory
steps precede the candidate's elevation to the priest-
hood. The fullness of the priesthood is possessed
by the Bishops. The minor steps or orders are
Porter, Reader, Exorcist and Acolyte. The major
orders are those of Subdeacon, Deacon and Priest.
Priest Called Father. As the Church is the com-
mon home of the Christian flock, the priest minister-
ing therein as the representative of God, and for the
«I. Tim. 4, 14. ■'if. Tim. 1, 6. " j, Tim. 5, 22. 'Tit. 1, 5.
^ CLERICAL CELIBACY 253
benefit of the people, is the spiritual father of this
spiritual family.^^ As the father in the home gives
his children their natural life, feeds and clothes their
bodies, trains them to earn their living, watches
over their health and general welfare; so from
cradle to grave the priest watches over the spiritual
welfare of the Christian. Through his hands the
child is born, in Baptism, into the supernatural life.
By him the soul is fed with the words of truth and
the divine food of Holy Communion. He rejoices
with his children in their day of joy, blessing their
marriage and new home. He weeps with them in
their sorrow, kifeeling at the bedside of the dying
and burying the dead. The scripture does not for-
bid to call those father who are the representatives
of the one divine Father in Heaven. Like the father
in the home the priest is a true representative of the
Father in Heaven whose paternity is honored in the
honor given His ambassadors.
58. CLERICAL CELIBACY.
Giving himself in an undivided service to tht
spiritual family that calls him father, the priest has
no other family. He has vowed himself to a life of
celibacy. In doing this he follows the example of
Christ and His Apostles and the recommendations
of Holy Scriptures. The celibacy of the priesthood
is not a divine command, but it is a divine coun-
sel. The rule of celibacy is a law of discipline, not
a dogma of faith. Of this celibacy St. Paul says : ^
"He that is without a wife, is solicitous for the
things that belong to the Lord, how he may please
God But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for
the things of the world, how he may please his wife:
"I. Cor. 4, 15; I. Tim. 1, 2 ; T. John 2. 18.
' I. Cor. 7, 32-33.
254 HOLY ORDERS
and he is divided." St. Paul here covers the v^^hole
case. Nothing earthly should have a claim on a
priest, neither father nor mother, nor brother, nor
sister, nor wife, nor children, may claim him. The
priest, body and soul, belongs to the Church of
Christ. To promote and protect its interests, to live
for its people, to work for them, to die for them
if necessary, to think of them, to provide for their
every want, and pray for them night and day — this
is the mission of the Catholic priest. If he has a
wife and children to work for, he can not give his
whole time and thought and work and the fruit of
his labors to his people. In the words of the Apostle
^'he is divided." The gospel of self-denial must
have a self-denying priesthood to preach it.
St. Paul offers his fellow priests the example as
well as the counsel of an undivided service. ^' 1
would," he writes, ''that all men were even as my-
self, but every one hath his proper gift from God.
. . . But I say to the unmarried and widowed, it
is good for them if they so continue, even as I. " ^
Christ's Promise. When St. Peter said to Jesus:
''Lo, we have left all things and followed Thee," the
Apostle evidently referred to the fact that for the
sake of the Gospel he had severed even the closest
family ties; for Jesus answered: ''Verily I say
unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
or children, or lands, for my sake and the GospeFs
but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this
time . . . and in the world to come, eternal life." ^
Practical Advantages. The priest gives up wife,
children, home, by giving up the very right to these
things. By sacrificing ties that the world holds
most dear, the priest is left free to fight the unceas-
ing battle of the soldier of the cross. The advan-
= 1. Cor. 7, 7-8.
»Mk. 10, 28-30; Mt. 19, 29; Luke 18, 29.
CLERICAL CELIBACY 255
tages which lie with a celibate clergy in the work
of the foreign missions, is admitted by all. The
late Anglican Bishop Bickersteth of South Tokio,
Japan, writes of the missionaries: "Roman Catho-
lics can teach us much by their readiness to bear
hardships. In Japan a Roman priest gets one-sev-
enth of what the Church Missionary Society and the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel allows to
a deacon. Of course they can only live on the food
of the country."* Marshall in his "Christian Mis-
sions" has gathered much testimony in favor of
celibate missionaries.
In our own country, men free from the great re-
sponsibility of providing for a family and of educa-
ting and settling in life a number of sons and daugh-
ters,' can take the better care of the spiritual family
entrusted to them by Jesus Christ. Priests can de-
vote themselves to the building up of poor and
uninviting places where souls are likely to be neg-
lected. Backed by the practical example of disinter-
estedness and' self-denial, the pastor's exhortation to
his flock acquires a new power. He need be no re-
specter of persons. People find little difficulty in
entrusting their confession to a priest bound by the
vow of celibacy. On the other hand marriage would
seem to be an obstacle, especially to confession.
When Hyacinthe Loyson left the Church and mar-
ried, the first point that struck a free-thinker like
George Sand, was: "Will Pere Hyacinthe still hear
confessions ? Is the secrecy of the confessional com-
patible with the mutual confidences of conjugal
love?" Without injustice to a wife or children, the
unmarried priest can give himself and his all to the
Gospel. If need be, he can lay down his life for his
flock, as many priests have done, amid the contagion
of yellow-fever or small-pox. Celibacy allows the
* Life and Letters of Ed. Bickersteth, II. Ed. Lond. p. 214,
256 HOLY ORDERS
priest to live as a soldier of the Cross and to die as a
soldier.
A Higher State. On higher grounds than utilita-
rian considerations, religious celibacy has always ap-
pealed to the Christian instinct as a state befitting
the ministers of Jesus Christ. We could not think
of Christ save as a virgin. He chose to be born of
a mother who had consecrated her virginity to God.
In the Old Law, the great prophets Elias, Eliseus,
Jeremiah, John the Baptist; in the New Law, St.
Paul, St. John the Evangelist, and other disciples
lived in the state of consecrated celibacy. Marriage
is a sacrament of the Christian religion. But, how-
ever holy its state, it is undoubtedly true that the
vow of religious celibacy raises one to an even higher
state. The priests of the Old Law, who transmitted
their priesthood by natural generation, were enjoined
to observe continence during the period when in their
turn, they served in the temple. How fitting is cel-
ibacy to the priests of the New Law, where the
priestly character is imparted by the Holy Spirit in
the Sacrament of Orders and where the priests stand
daily at the altar.
Constant Ideal. Though in the beginning the
Church was obliged to ordain men who were already
married, her higher ideal was ever in her mind. St.
Paul, who presents his own celibacy as a model for
the clergy, urges his brethren to present themselves
as ministers of God in chastity.^ If married men are
ordained, Paul insists that ''a bishop or deacon
should be the husband of one wife."^ This does
not mean that the candidate need be married. St.
Paul prefers that he is not. But if he is married, it
must be but once. In Latin Christendom, where
young men in sufficient numbers are found willing
to give themselves in undivided service, the ideal of
6 1. Cor. 7, 7-8; Tit. 1, 8; I. Tim. 4, 12.
«I. Tim. 3, 3-12; Tit. 1, 6.
RELIGIOUS ORDERS 257
celibacy is realized. In the Greek portion of the
Church, though priests cannot marry, married men
may be raised to the priesthood. Like the Jewish
priests they must practice continence at certain
times. If his spouse dies, the priest cannot marry
again. The Greek Bishops are chosen not from the
married clergy, but from the monks, who of coilrse
are celibates: and who, be it noted, have far more
respect and influence with the people than their mar-
ried brethren. These rules prevail, not only among
the Greeks united with Rome, but also among the
schismatic Greeks, Russians, Armenians, Copts and
other Oriental sects.
The objections brought against clerical celibacy
by writers of a certain class, are hardly w^orthy of
notice. The best physicians agree that the state of
voluntary continence, far from being harmful or
impossible, is very conducive to the best of health
and the finest mental activity. The moral record
of the unmarried priests will compare very favor-
ably with that of married clergymen and others, as
the very readers of the newspapers can observe.
In the United States there are some seven million
unmarried men between the ages of 21 and 45 years.
The Catholic priests of the country are only one-fifth
ofone per cent, of this number. The example of a
celibate clergy is an encouragement to the unmarried
millions, not to lower their moral ideal, but even in
the face of overwhelming passion and possible falls,
to continue the struggle tow^ards its realization in
their lives.
59. THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS AND THEIR
LIFE OF PERFECTION.
The various religious orders and societies of men
and women that adorn the Church are closely associ-
258 HOLY ORDERS
ated with the priesthood in doing the work of Jesus
Christ. Many of the grandest pages of history
chronicle the lives and deeds of the saintly founders
of religious communities and their devoted associ-
ates, who have accomplished very miracles for Christ
and His children. When Europe was a chaos of bar-
barism, the Benedictines, with the motto '*Ora et
Labora,'' prayed and worked for its civilization and
conversion. The Mendicant Friars of St. Francis of
Assisi and St. Dominic, rising in the Middle Ages,
made the heroic zeal of a few the inspiration of
many. Later the Jesuits came to glorify the Church
by their schools of highest education and their for-
eign missions. The people of the United States can
see the daily work of many more of these religious
orders: the Passionists, the Redemptorists, the Sul-
picians, the Paulists, the Christian Brothers, the
Congregation of the Holy Cross, the Marists, Au-
gustinians, Sanguinists, Vincentians, and others.
Orders of Women. The religious orders and con-
gregations of Catholic women are even more numer-
ous than those of men. In the United States alone
there are almost 100,000 consecrated Nuns or Sisters,
whose lives inspired by love of God, are spent in
charity toward fellow-man. The soldiers of the
*' sixties'' gave the name *'the Angels of the Battle-
field,'' to the Sisters who, amid the terrible scenes
of the Civil War, nursed alike the Blue and the
Gray ; and sometimes fell, the victims of bullets not
meant for their generous hearts. Though the Civil
War is over, the battle of life, still rages. Men and
women and children go down every day to ruin and
death and to the danger of hell. In every great
city Sisters of Charity are found ministering in
the name of Christ, to every form of suffering hu-
manity.
In the Orphan Asylums which they conduct, the
RELIGIOUS ORDERS 259
Sisters become mothers by adoption of thousands of
little ones that have been bereft of their natural
parents. At the other en3 of life, we see the Little
Sisters of the Poor acting like daughters to the in-
digent aged. Into their convent homes they receive
those sad old lives; and while they go from door to
door begging for the sustenance of their guests, they
brighten their last days with the comforts of a home
and their souls with the sunlight of that other world
which is their own inspiration. The Sisters of the
Good Shepherd receive into their houses wayward
girls who need to be protected and educated to moral
strength, and fallen women whom they endeavor to
reform to Christian character and train to useful
work, that on going out into the world again, the
unfortunates may be able to earn an honest living
and lead a life that will save their souls. The cour-
age shown by the Sistei's in building and maintaining
their numberless hospitals; their charity which
knows neither race nor creed; the intelligence and
skill displayed by the Sister-nurses at the bedside
and in the operating-room, are universally acknowl-
edged and admired. The men and women of the
religious orders have a large share in the educational
work of the Church. The training of the child for
the fullest and highest life is a work becoming thoir
noble state.
Works of Mercy. The religious orders may be
truly said to give their lives to the performance of
the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
The Corporal Works of Mercy — To feed the hun-
gry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked,
to harbor the harborless, to visit the sick, to visit the
imprisoned, and to bury the dead.
The Spiritual Works of Mercy — To reclaim sin-
ners, to instruct the ignorant, to counsel tlue doubt-
ful, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear wrongs pa-
260 HOLY ORDERS
tiently, to forgive offenses, to pray for the living and
the dead.
Life of Perfection. However different the works
in which they are engaged, all the religious orders
are essentially alike. They are all pledged to the
Life of Perfection. What is meant by this higher
life, the Gospel teaches us : ^
** Behold one came to Jesus and said to Him:
Good Master, what shall I do^that I may have life
everlasting ?
And He said to him: If thou wilt enter into life
keep the commandments.
He said to Him, which? And Jesus said: Thou
shalt do no murder; Thou shalt not commit adul-
tery ; Thou shalt not steal ; Thou shalt not bear false
witness ; Honor thy father and thy mother ; and Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
The young man said to Him: All these I have
kept since my youth. "What is yet wanting to me ?
Jesus saith to him : If Thou Wilt Be Perfect, go
sell what thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come, follow
Me.''
Here Jesus Christ distinctly points out two ways
in which men may serve God. The way of salvation
consists in keeping the Commandments. This obli-
gation rests upon everybody. It can be and
should be practiced in every position in life. If we
keep the Commandments we shall be saved. We
shall escape Hell. We shall at least get to Heaven.
Besides the way of salvation, there is the higher
way of perfection. Not all are capable of it. It is
the destiny of the few rarer souls who are drawn
close to God, If thou wilt be perfect, says Christ,
go sell all thy goods, and give them to the poor ; and
coipe, follow Me. These shall be rich in Heaven.
»Mt. 19, 16-21.
RELIGIOUS ORDERS 261
Three Vows. The way of perfection is the path
chosen by the men and women in the religious orders.
Whatever may be the good works with which they are
occupied, their first and common work is to glorify
God by devoting themselves to the life of perfection.
To be a member of a religious order does not mean
that one is perfect: but that one professes to prac-
tice the evaiigelical counsels — poverty, chastity and
obedience — which are means of perfection.
The members of the. religious orders follow Christ
in chastity. What was said about the celibacy of
the priesthood applies with much the same force to
the vow of chastity of the orders. Secondly, they
fulfill the counsel of Christ about distributing their
goods to the poor. They may, as an order, hold the
titles to valuable lands and buildings — hospitals, col-
leges, asylums. But they are only the legal trustees
of estates that belong to Jesus Christ, and which
they administer in His name for the benefit of man-
kind. As individuals the members possess nothing.
The individual has no money either to spend on him-
self or bequeath to his relatives. Thirdly, they fol-
low Christ in obedience to all lawful authority, in
which they hear His voice. The different orders
have been founded by saintly men and women. Each
order has its Rule, the proper observance of which
makes possible the realization of the order ^s purpose.
The members elect their own superiors for a defi-
nite term of office. All promise proper obedience to
these lawful superiors who must administer the in-
stitution and direct its work.
Thus poverty, self-restraint, obedience, which
many in the world must endure against their will,
are ennobled by being adopted voluntarily and for
the sake of God. In the religious orders labor finds
a new dignity in unselfishness. Zeal finds oppor-
tunity directed by wisdom. The poorest girl, full
262 HOLY ORDERS
of charity to do something for others, but helpless
while she stands alone, becomes in the convent, part
of an organization mighty enough to influence the
whole world. The three vows of the Jesuits and
other teaching orders, are the endowment of the
schools of which they are the masters. Their indi-
vidual talents united in their community life and
husbanded by prudent directors, have produced
monuments of scholarship and zeal beyond the hope'
of any individual ambition.
Growth in Holiness. Consecrated in humility, self-
discipline and calm repose, the lives of men and
women who have heeded the call to higher things,
grow with God. In the retirement and meditation
of the cloister they gather the moral strength by
which they may help the weak; and they strive for
their own perfection that in sanctity they may
glorify God. Hours of silence and contemplation
are not lost. ^'Creative force," says Bishop Spald-
ing, ** secretes itself. It grows in solitude and hid-
ing: craves silence and obscurity: wraps itself in
mystery. "Where it works, the soul bows in awe
and holy shame: and from those who live in ^ the
glare and noise of the clamorous world, its sacred
powers depart. . . . The negative exists for the pos-
itive. Rest is for the sake of action. If night buries
us in darkness, it is that we may be all alive when
day breaks. Silence and solitude are for refresh-
ment of spirit. Continence is for self-control and
strength; humility for good sense; abstinence for
health. Self-denial is for greater ability to help
others; voluntary poverty is for their enrichment:
obedience is for the sake of liberty and the common
welfare. ' '
Three Guiding Angels. In his ' ' Mornings in Flor-
ence," Ruskin pays a splendid tribute to the influ-
ence of the Mendicant Orders of the thirteenth
RELIGIOUS ORDERS 263
century, on the art of Tuscany, and speaks of the
three religious vows as three guiding angels.
*'Now the Gospel of Works, according to St. Fran-
cis," he writes, *'lay in three things. You must
work without money, and be poor. You must work
without pleasure, and be chaste. You must work ac-
cording to orders, and be obedient. Those are St.
Francis' three articles of Italian ^pera, by which
grew the many pretty things you have come here
to see. And now if you will take your opera-glass,
and look up to the roof above Arnolfo's building,
you will see it is a pretty Gothic cross vault in four
quarters, each with a circular medallion painted by
Giotto. That over the altar has the picture of St.
Francis himself. The other three, of his Command-
ing Angels. In front of him over the entrance arch.
Poverty. On his right hand. Obedience. On his
left, Chastity.''
The Sister of Charity. The orders of women are
revered by all honorable men. To the noble and en-
lightened, the Sister of Charity is the symbol at
once of human virtue and of divine religion. She is
not of the world and yet she is in the world. Though
she has chosen the humble retirement of the
convent, "the calls of mercy make her modest garb
familiar to the busy street. She is the spouse of
Christ. And His family — the needy, the sick and
the orphans find a home within her convent walls.
A Sister may leave the order and return to the
world, if she finds she has not a vocation for the work.
But once she has exchanged the dress of the
world for the nun's modest veil and habit, she sel-
dom turns back from the way of perfection and its
noble works. She has left parents and brethren and
home, and behold she becomes the sister of human-
ity. ** There is no man," says Jesus Christ, ''who
hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or
264 HOLY ORDERS
father, or cliildren, or lands for My sake and for the
Gospel's sake, but shall receive a hundred fold now
in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and
mothers and children and lands, with persecution:
and in the world to come, eternal life. ' ' ^
Some Orders and Pounders.
Died A. D.
St. Paul, first Hermit 342
St. Anthony, Patriarch of Monks 356
St. Francis of Sales, Visitation Nuns : . 1622
St. Peter Nolasco, Order of Our Lady of Mercy 1258
St. Romuald, The Camaldoli 1027
St. John of Matha, Trinitarians 1213
St. John of God, Brothers of Charity, for the sick .... 1550
St. Benedict, Order of Benedictines 543
St. Francis of Paula, Order of Minims 1507
St. Albert, Compiler of Carmelite Rules 1214
St. Paul of the Cross, Passionist 1775
St. Peter Celestine, Founder of Celestines 1296
St. Philip Neri, Oratorians 1595
St. Angela of Brescia, Ursulines 1540
St. Norbert, Premonstratensians 1134
St. Juliana Falconieri, the Mantellate Servites 1340
St. John Gualbert, Valombrosa 1073
St. Camillus de Lellis, for Visiting the Sick 1648
St. Vincent de Paul, Lazarists and Sisters of Charity . 1660
St. Jerome Emilianus, The Somasky 1537
St. Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits 1556
St. Alphonsus, Liguori, Redemptorists 1787
St. Dominic, Order of Friars Preachers 1221
St. Cajetan, Theatines 1547
St. Clare of Assisi, Poor Clares 1253
St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Visitation Convents . . . 1641
St. Bernard Ptolemy, Olivetans * 1348
St. Philip Benizi, Promoter of Servites of Mary 1285
St. Joseph Calasanctius, Order of the Pious Schools . . 1648
St. Augustine, Augustinians 430
St. Francis of Assisi, Order of Friars Minor 1226
St. Bruno, Carthusian Monks 1 101
St. Teresa, Reformer of the Barefooted Carmelites . . 1582
St. Ursula, Patroness of Ursulines 650
St. Charles Borromeo, Oblates of St. Charles 1584
St. Felix of Valois, Trinitarians 1225
2Mk. 10, 29-30.
CHAPTER XV
MARRIAGE— THE CHRISTIAN HOME
60. THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY.
Matrimony is the vocation of most men and women.
The love that draws together youthful hearts, looks
forward to holy wedlock as the state in which it
will receive stability and consecration. Leaving fa-
ther and mother and cleaving together, the married
couple become a new social unit. Marriage is a
condition of the greatest importance to the indi-
vidual and society. It is more than a wedding-day.
It is the life-work of a man and woman whose dignity
in this world and whose fate in eternity, depend
largely upon its worthy fulfillment. It is the home :
the nursery of virtue and character and future men
and women. Parents are the earliest representatives
of God to the children entrusted to their care. More
than any other agency, the home makes or mars the
child. Marriage is the cornerstone of society, which
is made up of home units.
In view of the far-reaching responsibilities of the
marriage state and its manifold difficulties, to cope
with which husband and wife need the help of God,
we are not surprised to find that matrimony is num-
bered among the sacraments which sanctify .with
divine grace and raise to the supernatural, the Chris-
tian life.
Sacrament. Jesus Christ, who blesserd the wed-
2^65
266 MARRIAGE
r
ding of Cana by His presence and first miracle, and
by His legislation rescued marriage from the degra-
dation into which it had fallen, elevated Christian
marriage to sacramental dignity.
St. Paul compares the fellowship of Christian hus-
band and wife, cemented by the grace of God, to
the union of Christ with His Church, which union is
supernatural and sealed by divine grace. The Apos-
tle writes:^ ''Let women be subject to their hus-
bands, as to the Lord: because the husband is the
head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church.
He is the savior of His body. Therefore as the
Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be sub-
ject to their husbands in all things. Husbands love
your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and de-
livered Himself up for it that He might sanctify it,
cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of
life. ... So also ought men to love their wives as
their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth
himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but
nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doeth
the Church : because we are members of His body, of
His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a
man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh: this is
a great sacrament ; but I speak in Christ and in the
Church.''
The sacrament of matrimony consists in the mar-
riage contract itself: so that whenever a Christian
man and woman are lawfully united in marriage,
they receive also the sacrament of matrimony: and
on the other hand, if for any reason they should not
receive the sacrament, the contract itself would be
null and void. For Christ raised the marriage union
to. the dignity of a sacrament. He did not add the
character of a sacrament to it, by way of supple-
»Epli. 5, 22-32.
* SACRAMENT OP MATRIMONY 2G7
ment, as something accessory and separable. The
minister of this sacrament is not the priest, but the
contracting parties themselves, and that by the very
act of the marriage agreement or mutual consent.
Impediments. The welfare of society demands
that the power of making a contract of such im-
portance as marriage should be controlled by the
proper legislative authority. The Church as the cus-
todian of the sacraments proclaims several impedi-
ments which, under certain conditions, prevent par-
ties from being joined in lawful wedlock and render
their attempted marriage contract null and void.
These annulling impediments are either of divine
law or of ecclesiastical institution. They are im-
puberty; impotence; violence or compulsion; abduc-
tion and detention; error regarding the person's
identity; crime — murder of spouse, or adultery, or
both, looking to marriage with the accomplice; cer-
tain relationships ; an existing marriage ; sacred or-
ders or solemn religious vows; disparity of religion
— when one of the parties is not baptized; clandes-
tinity — a Catholic must be married before a priest
and witnesses. There are some lesser impediments
that do not nullify the contract.
The Church can dispense from certain impedi-
ments: but it is only for grave reasons that dispen-
sations can be granted. The more easily to discover
any possibly existing impediments, the bans are or-
dinarily published at Mass on three Sundays before
the marriage.
Mixed Marriages. To promote both the domestic
peace and the eternal salvation of her children, the
Church is opposed to mixed marriages, as those are
called where husband and wife are not of the same
faith. There will always be more than enough ele-
ments of dissension asserting themselves and threat-
ening the family unity and peace, without husband
268 MARRIAGE
and wife being divided on the very important and
far-reaohing matter of religion. Two who share the
same joys and sorrows, hearts that beat in unison
to the same memories and hopes, lives merged into
one for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sick-
ness and health, even unto death, should not be di-
vided when they approach their common God, in
adoration, in petition in the hour of need, and in
grateful thanksgiving for blessings in common en-
joyed. In the guiding faith and- sustaining hope
and transforming charity of religion, with its pious
practices to encourage and its divine sacraments to
sanctify, man and wife should still be one and so be-
queath to their children, as their richest legacy, the
heirloom of their common faith.
That religious differences are not only a source of
disunion in families, but very often end by destroy-
ing altogether the religion of the home, appears from
the following data published in Association Men
(November, 1901). The figures are derived not
from Catholic sources, but fron^ a census of men be-
tween 16 and 35, in representative ci1;ies, towns and
rural districts through the country:
"Where one of the parents is Catholic and the other
Protestant, only 34 per cent, of the young men be-
long to any church.
Where both parents are of the same Protestant de-
nomination, 68 per cent, of the young men are church
members.
Where both parents are Catholics, 92 per cent, of
the young men go to church.
In other words, from the Catholic families of the
country, only 8 young men out of 100 are lost to the
Church: from the Protestant families where the
parents are of the same denomination, 32 young men
in 100 are lost to organized Christianity: while in
the families of mixed Catholic and Protestant mar-
. DIVORCE 269
riages, 66 young men out of 100 are lost to all clmrch
afifiliation. Two-thirds of the sons of mixed mar-
riages going to swell the army of the great un-
churched who are drifting back to paganism! What
a terrible responsibility on the souls of the parents!
The Church grants dispensations and consents to
witness mixed marriage^ only when coerced by
grave reasons, and after taking measures to remove
their danger or at least reduce it to a minimum.
Unity of Marriage. The Christian religion stands
for the unity of marriage ; the union of one man
with one woman. In restoring marriage to its pris-
tine dignity, Christ struck a mortal blow at polygamy
which has generally characterized pagan marriage.
Polygamy may not be contrary to the primary end
of marriage, that is, the propagation of the race.
It was indeed permitted to the ancient Jews. But
it is not in accordance with the secondary end of
marriage, the mutual love and help of husband and
Avife. Christ taught: ''Have ye not read that He
who made man in the beginning made them male and
female ? And they two shall be in one flesh. There-
fore now they are not two but one flesh. '^^ Polyg-
amy means the degradation of woman. In driving
polygamy from the civilized and Christian world,
the religion of Christ has elevated woman to her
rightful position as man's equal and helpmate.
61. DIVORCE.
In restoring marriage to the condition of its divine
institution, Christ condemned the divorce which dis-
graced the Jewish as well as the pagan w^orld. In
the ancient Roman Empire, w^hich was beginning
the career of decadence that was to end in its ruin,
marriage had sunk to a depth of degradation that
«Mt. 19, 4-6.
270 MARRIAGE
•
was pagan indeed. Men* dismissed their wives at
their pleasure. Noble ladies were the consorts of
many successive husbands. Though such women oc-
cupied the place of wives, they were seldom crowned
with the glory of motherhood. No law protected
the unwelcome babe from murder at the hands of its
own father. When marriage fell off alarmingly, the
emperors encouraged paternity in vain. The home,
the cornerstone of society, was decayed, and the
whole social fabric tottered to its fall. Among
the Jews the lax school of Hillel contended against
the stricter school of Schammai, that divorce should
be granted not for few but for many reasons.
What is Divorce? Christ condemned the teachings
both of Hillel and Schammai. He abolished the di-
vorce which implies the dissolution of the marriage
bond and hence the freedom of the divorced man
and woman to marry new partners. For grave rea-
son, He allows a separation which implies the cessa-
tion of the common life but leaves the marriage bond
intact. This distinction between divorce a vinculo,
and separation a toro et mensa, is recognized by-
many states. Civil jurisprudence uses the word di-
vorce for both the breaking of the bond and the sep-
aration from bed and board, but recognizes their dis-
tinction. It defines divorce as ^'the dissolution or
partial suspension by law of the marriage relation."
Declaration of nullity is sometimes improperly called
divorce: for if the marriage contract was null and
void from the beginning, on account of some annul-
ling impediment, the declaration of the nullity by
the proper authorities cannot be said to divorce the
parties who were never really married.
The Church taught the law of Christ to the na-
tions which she Christianized, and as the Catholic
doctrine penetrated the national life, the laws of
Europe reflected the divine truth, that in Christian
DIVORCE l>71
marriage, when the marriage is valid and consum-
mated, there can never be an absolute divorce.^
The marriage was "for better or worse, for richer
or poorer, in sickness and health, till death do us
part." This law of Christ is not only carried out
in the lives of individual Catholics, but still im-
presses the legislation of the countries that are pre-
dominantly Catholic. Inltaly, Spain and Portugal
there is no absolute divorce. Austria-Hungary
grants no absolute divorce to members of the Cath-
olic faith. In Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia,
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Cuba,
only limited divorce or separation is permitted. In
the upheaval of the French Revolution, France re-
pudiated the Christian law and adopted divorce ; ab-
rogated divorce in 1816; and reintroduced it in
1884.
1,274,341 Divorces. With the so-called Reforma-
tion in the sixteenth century, came the denial of
the sacramental character of marriage and the rec-
ognition of absolute divorce by those who went out
from the ancient Church. The divorce evil has
reached its climax in the twentieth century and in
the United States. Divorce stalks in the highest so-
ciety. Women are neither shamed nor ashamed for
living with another woman's husband, when the di-
vorce court has licensed the co-habitation. Institu-
tions that are loud in denouncing the polygamy of
Utah, are silent abaut the tandem polygamy in their
midst. The spread of divorce has been accompanied
by the fearful crime of race-suicide ^ which is likely
to follow loss of faith in the sanctity of marriage and
the home. In the measure that men cut loose from
the moorings of Christian faith, they drift downward
toward pagan degradation.
The federal government in 1908 issued a Census
» Cf. Pauline privilege, I. Cor. 7, 12-15.
«Gen. 38, 9-10.
272 MAERIAGE
Bulletin upon marriage and divorce in the United
States. The growth of divorce is unprecedented.
The number of our divorces exceeds that of any
Christian nation, if not of all Christian nations com-
bined. The only modern nation that surpasses us in
this infamy is pagan Japan.
In 20 years, 1867-1886 328,716 divorces.
In 20 years, 1887-1906 945,625 divorces.
In 40 years, 1867-1906 1,274,341 divorces.
At the beginning of this 40-year period, divorces
occurred at the rate of 10,000 a year : at its end, 66,-
000 a year. From 1890 to 1900, the population in-
creased 21 per cent., while divorce increased 66 per
cent. In 1870 there were 29 divorcs per 100,000
population; in 1905 there were 82. Two-thirds of
the divorces were granted to the wife and only 10
per cent, of these on the grounds of adultery. Of
those granted to husbands 28 per cent, were for adul-
tery. Only 15 per cent, of all divorces were con-
tested. Of the divorced couples married in foreign
countries, 36.9 per cent, were married in Canada;
12.7 per cent, in England; 16.1 per cent, in Ger-
many; 1.9 per cent, in Ireland. About 50 per cent,
of the divorced couples have children.
Cause and Cure. The million and quarter divorces
in four decades, in our country, involved the lives
of two and one-half million men and women and
probably more children. Five millions of lives
blighted by what has been called the American sin !
About 75 per cent, of the boys in two reformatories
(one in Ohio, the other in Illinois), were found to
come from families broken up by death or divorce,
** mainly by divorce.'' In disrupting the family, in
stripping parents of their honor and influence with
their children, in scandalizing the little ones, and
robbing them of parental example and the home
training which is the most decisive factor in their
DIVORCE 273
education, in destroying the home and the life work
that marriage and home stand for, divorce reveals
itself even to (^ur natural reason as an intolerable
evil. The causes of divorce are lack of virtue, —
pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth. In
a word the cause is neglect of duty to fellowman
and to God. The remedy for divorce is religion:
faith in God and obedience to His law.
Law of Christ. The law of Jesus Christ on this
subject, is recorded in half a dozen places in the
New Testament. The Pharisees came to Jesus tempt-
ing Him and saying : ''Is it lawful for a man to put
his wife away for every cause?"
He answered and said to them: ''Have ye not
read that He who made man in the beginning made
them male and female? And He said: For this
cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall
cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
Wherefore they are no more two but one flesh.
What Therefore God Hath Joined Together, Let Not
Man Put Asunder."
They said to Him: "Why then did Moses com-
mand to give a bill of divorce, and to put away?"
He said to them : ' ' Moses, because of the hardness
of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives.
But From the Beginning It Was Not So. And I say
to you. Whosoever shall put away his wife, except
it be for fornication, and shall marry another, com-
mitteth adultery: and he that shall marry her that
is put aw^ay, committeth adultery."^
Here Jesus Christ insists on the indissoluble nature
of the marriage contract. He allows a separation in
case of marital infidelity. But He warns His hearers
that "he that marrieth her that is put away, commit-
eth adultery"; just as the husband who put her
away, shall be guilty of adultery if he marries an-
»Mt. 19, 3-9.
274 MARRIAGE
other. Some non-Catholic writers think that in
Matthew's text they find justification for re-mar-
riage after marital infidelity. But in this they err.
When this obscure passage from Matthew is read
in the light of the other statements of Christ's teach-
ing on divorce, which are to be found in the inspired
writings, it will be found that Christ allows a sepa-
ration from bed and board, but no absolute divorce.
St: Luke writes: ''Every one that putteth away
his wife and marrieth another, committ^th adultery:
and he that marrieth her that is put away from her
husband, committeth adultery."*
St. Mark records: ''Whosoever shall put away
his wife and marry another, committeth adultery
against her : and if the wife shall put away her hus-
band and be married to another, she committeth
adultery. ' ' ^
St. Paul writes: "To them that are married not
I, but the Lord commandeth, that the wife depart not
from her husband : and if she do depart, that she re-
main unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband."^
"Whilst her husband liveth, she shall be called an
adulteress, if she be with another man."^
"A woman is bound by the law as long as her
husband liveth : but if her husband die, she is at lib-
erty; let her marry whom she will."^
The teaching of the inspired writers, and the
teaching of the Catholic Church since their time to
our own, echo the words of the divine Master:
"What God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder. ' '
♦Luke, 16, 18. » I. Cor. 7, 10-11. • I. Cor. 7, 39.
»Mk. 10, 11-12. 'Rom. 7, 3.
CHAPTER XVI
EXTREME UNCTION
62. EXTREME UNCTION— THE DYING CHRIS-
TIAN.
The Christian Religion, which with sacramental
helps has followed man through the several stages
of life, does not forget hiin in the weary days of
sickness and the supreme hour of death. Then the
soul craves consolation and encouragement, and is
often in peculiar spiritual peril. The Good Samari-
tan, Jesus Christ, comes in the person of His ambas-
sador, ** pouring in oil'^ and repeating words of heal-
ing for body and soul. Jesus Christ is our Great
Physician. He knows human nature *s every want.
The child can say : I have a God who was once a lit-
tle child as I am. The old man racked on the bed of
pain, turns with greater confidence to the risen
Christ when he recalls the agonized cries of the
Cross. In His earthly life Christ ever showed the
keenest sympathy for the sick and suffering. After
the ills of the soul, the ills of the body engaged His
kindest attention. He is still our Savior. His sym-
pathy for suffering humanit}' has not lessened. It
is not surprising then to find in His Church a sacra-
ment for the sick and dying.
Anointing. In the following words the Holy
Ghost, through the Apostle St. James,^ leaves written
record of Extreme Unction, the sacrament that
brings comfort and spiritual strength and often bod-
ily health to the dying Christian.
**Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in
1 Epistle of St. James, 5, 141 5.
275
276 EXTREME UNCTION
the priests of the Church ; and let them pray over
him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord :
and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man and
the Lord shall raise him up ; and if he be in sins, they
shall be forgiven him. ' '
Sacrament. In administering the Sacrament of
Extreme Unction, the priest anoints in the form of a
cross, the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands and feet,
with oil of olives consecrated by the Bishop : and he
prays that the sins may be forgiven which the sick
man has committed through the different bodily
senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, speech, touch and
the straying of the feet. The anointing with oil, sig-
nificant of healing and strength, is symbolic of the
spiritual grace conferred. The anointing and prayer
of faith is made, as St. James says, in the name of
the Lord. The effect, the inspired writer tells us,
are the forgiveness of the patient's sins, if he be in
sin; and his raising up. Here then are the matter
and form, the outward sign and the inward grace,
and the institution by Christ, which characterize ev-
ery sacrament.
The gift of this sacrament is prefigured in the
anointing recorded in the Gospel of St. Mark. At
the command of Jesus the Apostles ''going there-
fore preached that men should do penance ; and they
cast out many evil spirits; and anointed with oil
many that were sick and healed them."^ The sac-
rament here insinuated, and elsewhere described by
St. James, has been administered by the Church
constantly since the time of the Apostles. The Fa-
thers of the different centuries bear it eloquent testi-
mony. The anointing of the sick is counted as one
of the seven sacraments also by the Oriental sects
that left the unity of the Church in the early cen-
turies.
'Mt. 6, 12-13.
THE DYING CHRISTIAN 277
Effect. Of the effect of Extreme Unction the
Council of Trent says: "This effect is the grace of
the Holy Ghost whose unction blots out sins, if any
remain to be expiated, and the consequences of sins ;
and alleviates and strengthens the soul of the sick
person by exciting in him a great confidence in the
divine mercy, sustained by which he bears more
lightly the troubles and sufferings of disease, and
more easily resists the temptations of the demon
waiting for his heel; and sometimes, when it is ex-
pedient for the soul's salvation, recovers bodily
health.''
The effects of Extreme Unction are the healing of
the soul and so far as is expedient for salvation, the
healing of the body also. The first purpose of the
sacrament is to confer grace and remit sin : a condi-
tional and subordinate end is the recovery of the
body. It remits not only venial faults and the re-
mains of sin, but may remit, even mortal sin itself.
It is the complement of Penance. The sick man may
be excused on account of his physical condition,
which leaves him unable or even unconscious, from
confessing his sins or eliciting an act of perfect con-
trition. Extreme Unction will remit his sins if there
exists in. his soul sorrow for them elicited in an
act of attrition not afterward revoked ; which habit-
ual attrition is likely to be present in the Chrstian
soul.
One of the effects or remains of sin is the spiritual
debility and depression caused by the consciousness
of having sinned. The sacrament of the dying helps
the sick man, with resolute courage to repel the as-
saults of the tempter in what is likely to be the last
and decisive conflict in the warfare of eternal sal-
vation. Wlien the outlook of eternity is brought
vividly before the Christian by the probability of
death, the sacrament confers the grace specially
278 EXTREME UNCTION
needed to fortify him in facing the tremendous is-
sue.
Testimony of Holmes. Oliver Wendell Holmes,
the New England writer, who was a physician by
profession and practice, records in his ' ' Over the Tea
Cups," his observation of the effect of the sacraments
upon the dying Christian. Though he cannot ob-
serve the deeper effects of the sacraments upon the
soul, and though he misses the true explanation of
the effects which he does observe, his observations
are valuable as the testimony of an eminent non-
Catholic physician to a fact.
He writes: '*So far as I have observed persons
nearing the end of life, the Roman Catholics under-
stand the business of dying better than Protestants.
They have an expert by them, armed with spiritual
specifics, in which they, both patient and priestly
ministrant, place implicit trust. Confession, the
Eucharist, Extreme Unction, these all inspire a con-
fidence which, without this symbolism, is too apt to
be wanting in over-sensitive natures. ... If Cow-
per had been a good Roman Catholic, instead of hav-
ing his conscience handled by a Protestant like John
Newton, he would not have died despairing, looking
upon himself as a castaway. I have seen a good
many Roman Catholics on their dying beds; and it
has always appeared to me that they accepted the
inevitable with a composure which showed that their
belief, whether or not the best to Jive by, was a bet-
ter one to die by, than most of the harder creeds that
have replaced it.''
Bodily Health. Of the physical improvement
which often follows the reception of Extreme Unc-
tion, the Catholic Encyclopedia says: *'As a condi-
tional and occasional effect of Extreme Unction
comes the restoration of bodily health; an effect
which is vouched for by the witness of experience
THE DYING CHRISTIAN 279
^
in past ages and in our own day. Theologians have
failed to agree in stating the condition on which this
effect depends, or in explaining the manner in which
it is produced. 'When it is expedient for the souPs
salvation/ is how Trent expresses the condition.
... Of several explanations that are offered, the
simplest and most reasonable is that which under-
stands the condition mentioned, not of the future
and perhaps remote event of actual salvation, but
of present spiritual advantage, which, independently
of the ultimate result, recovery may bring to the
sick person: and holds, subject to this condition,
that this physical effect, which is in itself natural,
is obtained mediately through and dependently upon
the spiritual effects already mentioned. The forti-
fying of the soul by manifold graces, by which over-
anxious fears are banished, and a general feeling
of comfort and courage and of humble confidence in
God's mercy and peaceful resignation to His will are
inspired, reacts as a natural consequence on the phys-
ical condition of the patient, and this reaction is
sometimes the factor that decides the issue of certain
diseases. This mediate and dependent way of effect-
ing restoration of health is the way indicated by the
Council of Trent in the passage quoted above, and
the view proposed is in conformity with the best and
most ancient theoretical teaching on the subject and
avoids the seemingly unanswerable difficulties in-
volved in opposing views. Nor does it reduce this
effect of Extreme Unction to the level of those per-
fectly natural phenomena known to modern science
as 'faith cures.' For it is not maintained that re-
covery will follow in any particular case unless this
result is spiritually profitable to the patient — and of
this God alone is the judge — and it is admitted that
the spiritual effect from which the physical con-
naturally results, is itself strictly supernatural.''
280 EXTREME UNCTION
Nunc Dimittis. If the sick man is not destined to
recover, then strengthened by the divine sacraments,
the plenary indulgence given in the hour of death,
the prayers of his Church and friends, he can say
his ''nunc dimittis" with calm faith and hope, as he
awaits his summons.
''Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, Lord, ac-
cording to thy word in peace: Because my eyes
have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared
before the face of all peoples: A light to the rev-
elation of the gentiles and the glory of thy people
Israel."^
•Luke 2, 29-32.
CHAPTER XVII
THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
63. THE LAST THINGS.
The Christian life is not ended when the Church
has chanted her Requiem over the dead ; and blessed
the fallen "temple of the Holy Ghost/* with tears
and prayers, with holy water and the incense of
sweet spices; and laid the mortal remains in the
bosom of Mother Earth. The soul is immortal and
lives on even when its mansion of clay has fallen
back to the native dust. How fares it with the
dead, when they have lifted that veil which divides
time from eternity and entered the spirit land, to-
ward which we all are moving like a mighty proces-
sion, but from whose shores no one returns?
The Scriptures tell us that every man shall go into
his eternity. When the night of death cometh when
no man can work,^ the soul shall turn from its judg-
ment, toward heaven or hell, accordingly as it has
* accomplished or failed to accomplish during the pro-
bation time of life, the one work for which it was
created. ''What doth it profit a man,'* says Jesus
Christ, ''if he gain the whole world and suffer the
loss of his own soul ? Or what exchange shall a man
give for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come
in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and
then will He render to every man according to his
works.'' 2
iJohn 9, 4. 2Mt. 16, 26.
-281
282 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
The Judgment. Immediately after death comes
for each soul its Particular Judgment. The soul is
not in the grave with the body. "The dust shall
return to its earth from whence it was, and the
spirit, to God who gave it.'^^ "I desire to be dis-
solved and to be wdth Christ,"^ wrote St. Paul, ex-
pressing the confidence of receiving his reward im-
mediately after death. But the obtainment of his
reward presupposes that his works should be ac-
knowledged — in other words, that he should be
judged. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and
after this the judgment.''^ The soul's condition of
merit or demerit or need of purgation, carries it to
its own place.
At the end of time the General Judgment will
make manifest to all, the justice, wisdom and good-
ness of God in His dealings with man, which the
individual may not always recognize in the govern-
ment of this world. Thereafter nc one may com-
plain in the words of the psalmist: "Behold these
are sinners and yet abounding in the world they
have obtained riches. And I said, then have I in
vain justified my heart and washed my hands among
the innocent, and have been scourged all the day. ' ' ^
St. Paul writes: "According to thy hardness and
impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thyself wrath
against the day of wrath and revelation of the just
judgment of God. ' ' ^ The final judgment will mani-
fest also the glory and triumphs of Christ. "The
Son of Man shall come in His majesty and all the
angels with Him : then shall He sit upon the seat of
His majesty, and all nations shall be gathered to-
gether before him."^
•Ecoles. 12, 7.
*Phil. 1, 23; Cf. Act. 1, 25; Luke 16, 22; 23, 43.
6Heb. 9, 27. ^ Rom. 2, 5-8.
«Ps. 72. 'Mt. 25, 31-33.
THE LAST THINGS 283
The Apocalypse paints a thrilliug picture of the
universal vindication : ® * * I saw a great white
throne and One sitting upon it, from whose face the
earth and heaven fled away ^^ and there was no place
found for them. And I saw the dead, great and
small standing in the presence of the throne. And
a book was opened . . . which is the Book of Life.
And the dead were judged by those things which
were written in the Book according to their works.
And the sea gave up its dead that were in it.^^ And
death and hell gave up their dead that were in them.
And they were judged every one according to their
works. ^'
Heaven. After the particular judgment the souls
of those who are perfectly pure, are at once admitted
to the contemplation of God face to face. Heaven is
the abode of the blessed where they enjoy, in the
company of Christ and the angels, the immediate
vision of God. **The just shall enter into eternal
life.'* ^2 They shall reign for all eternity." The
eternal happiness of the blessed consists in their con-
templation of God, or the Beatific Vision. ''We
now see through a glass, in a dark manner ; but then
face to face. Now I know in part ; but then I shall
know even as I am known. ' ' " The Beatific Vision
is not due to our human nature. It is only by their
elevation to the supernatural order that the blessed
are capable of this direct contemplation by which
they possess God. With this direct vision is coupled
the intensest love of God. The infinite beauty of
Him whom the blessed contemplate in all His per-
fections, draws them irresistibly to Him. From
this possession of the Infinite Good arises unspeak-
•Apoc. 20, 11-13.
""Heaven and Earth shall pass away," i.e. the natural sky, stars,
etc., often called heaven.
11 See No. 51. Note 11. "Apoc. 22, 5.
" Mt. 25, 46. " I. Cor. 13, 12.
284 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
able delight. ''Enter into the joy. of the Lord ""
In addition to the contemplation of God and the
love and joy resulting from it, the blessed enjoy ac-
cessory goods which add to their happiness. The so-
ciety of the angels and saints is such a source of
happiness; as will be also, after the resurrection,
the delight and glory of the body and its senses. St.
Paul has written of heaven with admirable dignity
and truth: *'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what
things God hath prepared for them that love him." "
Hell. As human pen cannot describe the bliss of
heaven, neither can it picture the misery of hell.
The soul that death finds separated from God by
mortal sin, remains cut off from Him for all eternity.
Having destroyed its own supernatural life, the soul
goes down to the grave of hell. On the guilt of mor-
tal sin the judgment passes the sentence of eternal
punishment. *' Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire.'^^^ Here is expressed the twofold
pain of hell : the pain of loss and the pain of sense.
The pain of loss of God is by far the most terrible
punishment of hell. ** Depart from me, ye cursed!' •
This punishment corresponds to the malice of sin in
turning away from God, our last end. The second-
ary punishment is the pain of sense inflicted espe-
cially through hell-fire and the company of the
damned. It corresponds to the malice of sin in turn-
ing to, and serving creatures instead of God. ** De-
part into everlasting fire.''
Eternal. That the punishment of hell is eternal,
is the testimony of the various sources of revelation.
Holy Scripture is explicit on the point. *' Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. . . . And
»Mt. 25, 21. "I. Cor. 2, 9. "Mt. 25, 41-46.
THE LAST TfflNGS 285
those shall go into everlasting fire, but the just into
everlasting life/*^® As the reward of the just is
without end, so the punishment of the damned,
which is contrasted with it, is also without end.
Jesus Christ himself tells us that the fire of hell is
not extinguished and the worm of conscience dieth
not/® The Church in her condemnation of the uni-
versalist doctrine of Origen, and in the definitions
of the Fourth Lateran Council, declared her belief
in the everlasting punishment of hell.
Eternal punishment corresponds to the malice of
sin, which as an offense against the infinite good, in-
volves 'a quasi infinite malice. In it mortal sin,
which is a voluntary separation from God, is
punished by its own choice. The loss of God is the
essence of hell. The greatness of the sanction is in
proportion to the greatness of the prize at stake.
Many doubtless, who are now enjoying eternal bliss,
would have failed to attain their end if anything
less than eternal loss had been made the penalty
of that final failure.
The thought of an eternal hell is an appalling one.
Little wonder that it is the subject of controversy
and denial. But however repugnant to human feel-
ings, the doctrine of hell is vouched for by the com-
mon consent of men as -well as by the teachings of
revelation. It is found in the religions of all na-
tions, ancient and modern, civilized and barbarian.
For Christians, the measure of its awfulness is the
sacrifice made by Jesus Christ to save men from its
abyss. Hell is something less idly to discuss than
resolutely to avoid. Man goes to hell not by God's
will, but by his own willful rejection of God. In his
damnation man frustrates the will of God, who
created us for everlasting happiness, even as the
i«Mt. 25, 41-46. "Mk. 9, 46; Luke 3, 17.
286 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
sin which leads to damnation was man's dejfiance of
the Almighty's law.
The denial of -hell is oftenest based on sentiment
addressed to human feeling. The pictures of phys-
ical torture born in the poetic fancy of Dante or
Dore, are emphasized. The true measure of hell is
not man's capacity for suffering but the infinite
worth of what he has lost. This nobler truth that
the essence of hell is the loss of God, is lost sight
of. This supremely great suffering of loss is not
realized, because the infinite good — the same God, is
not appreciated.
Justice. It is of course impossible for man fully
to understand God's relation to the condition of the
lost. A ray of reflected light may reach us from
an analogy between nature and its Creator. Na-
ture nourishes man bountifully. It makes his life
a joy and a priceless boon, while his life is lived
according to its laws. It even forgives and heals
the wounds of those who have transgressed its laws,
so long as the transgressor retains the vital strength
to assimilate its balm. So men say that nature is
good and bountiful. But the same nature is in-
exorable in her laws and smites even with death
those who over-step the bounds. Man falls into the
fire or water, from the railroad train or the aero-
plane; he takes poison; he refuses food; he ex-
hausts his strength; — and he dies. Shall we say
that the same nature which we called bountiful
when man observed the laws that were for his
welfare, is now cruel when man ruins himself by
running counter to the laws of his own being ? The
passions which we ascribe to nature are the reflec-
tion of our own feelings. Nature is ever the same.
It is just. And God is just. Jesus Christ wept
with sorrow over the Jerusalem that He loved, even
THE LAST THINGS 287
tvhile he announced the doom the citj^had brought
upon itself as the inevitable harvest of its sowing.
Fire. As to the nature of the fire of Hell, spoken
of by the Scripture, the Church has defined noth-
ing. If fire is used as an instrument by God for the
punishment of the wicked, it could presumably,
afiSict the spirit directly without the medium of the
body. It is a question whether it is not the soul
rather than the bones, or muscles or nerves, which
suffers pain from fire and other things, in our pres-
ent life. However, St. Thomas Aquinas seems to
describe the fire as confining and imprisoning rather
than burning the lost souls. The Jesuit Hunter, in
his Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, contrasting the
fires of Earth and Hell, says: *'The one comes from
God as Avenger of His law; the other from the
same God as Author of Nature. The one is kindled
by the breath of God; the other consists in certain
chemical operations.'' St. Augustine avows his
ignorance of the nature of the fire of Hell.
We know that the soul can suffer. Even in this
world there are sufferings w^orse than the. pain
that racks the bodily senses. Greater is the torture
of the mind ; the anguish of the spirit ; remorse that
bites like a serpent; fear that murders sleep; the
sense of loss in the failure of life's great ambition,
in friendship betrayed, in marital infidelity that
drives to murder, in disgrace that invites suicide, in
despair that strikes man impotent. Even the forced
company of two fellow spirits whom guilty love
drew down to hell — their love now turned to deadly
hate, their curses of mutual recrimination in which
each accuses the other of the scandal that meant
the ruin of ft soul's inheritance, the murder of su-
pernal life-^is this not very hell ! The inward
never-ceasing anguish and remorse of the lost are
288 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
described ad^ worm that never dies. This torment
is increased by the clear consciousness that they
themselves are the cause of their damnation and
by the thought of the brief enjoyment for which
they bartered their eternal happiness.
Loss of God. ''The wages of sin is death." The
death of the soul is not annihilation but separation
from God. The corruption of the body separated
from its principle of life, is not as terrible as the ruin
of the soul separated from God. God is eternal life.
Separation from God, — the infinite truth and good
and beauty, the eternal life and happiness, — ^is hell.
Hell is everlasting death. Sin is spiritual suicide.
If the punishment is appalling, it is because the
prize is supreme. The misery is proportionate to
the good that is lost. The fall from the heights
of heaven can be measured only by the depths of
hell. Christ truly says that it were better for a
man to cut off his hand or foot and pluck out his
eye, if these be the occasion of sin, and to go lame
and blind into the Kingdom of God, than to be
cast into the hell of unquenchable fire, where their
worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished.
64. PURGATORY AND PRAYER FOR THE
DEAD.
Christian revelation teaches us that besides heaven
into which no imperfection can enter, and hell from
which there is no redemption, there is a state in
which the souls of the just who in this life were
not perfectly cleansed, shall undergo purifying suf-
fering before being admitted into heaven. This
state of purgation is properly call^ purgatory.
The defined teaching of the Church is expressed in
the words of the Council of Trent: ''That there is
PUllGATORY • 289
a purgatory and that the souls detained there are
benefited by^he prayers of the faithful and especially
by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar/'
The doctrine of purgatory follows as a postulate
of reason from other teachings which Christians
liold as undoubtedly true. Thus it is true that
nothing imperfect shall enter heaven.^ It is also
true that with the pardon of sin, is remitted its
eternal punishment, but not always its temporal pun-
ishment.- Now doubtless many people die guilty of
venial sin and therefore not perfect but liable to
penalty; and many die w^ithout fully satisfying for
the temporal punishment due to forgiven sins.
What becomes of these souls? We must say either
that they are damned, w^hich would be impious since
they are in the state of sanctifying grace ; ^ or that
they are in heaven with their shortcoming, which is
impossible ; or that death itself cleanses and absolves
them, which is an unwarranted assumption; or
finally, that there is a state of purgation for a time
after death, where these souls **pay the last farth-
ing" of their debt and are cleansed. Purgatory is
the only reasonable solution of the problem.
Vestibule of Heaven. Purgatory is not a second
probation. Our spiritual condition at the moment
of death decides whether our eternity shall be
heaven or hell. *'If the tree fall to the south or to
the north, in whatsoever place it shall fall, there
shall it lie.'' The test of the judgment is whether
we are found clothed with the wedding garment of
sanctifying grace — whether we have saved our souls.
Venial fault and temporal punishment due to sin,
are not incompatible with sanctifying grace. The
wedding garment may have a little of the dust of
the world upon it. The souls who go to purgatory
»Apoc. 21. 27.
*Cf. No. 56 (Indulgences).
»Cf. No. 52 (venial sin).
290 THE CHRISTIANAS ETERNITY
are saved. They are certain of heaven, and shall
reach it as soon as they are prepared lor it* Pur-
gatory has been called the vestibule of heaven. The
power to merit has passed with the time of pro-
bation. In purgatory the souls can themselves wipe
out their debt only by suffering. Yet purgatory
speaks of forgiveness as well as penalty : — of penalty
on the part of those who suffer there; of forgive-
ness on the part of God who is moved by the prayers
and good works of the living to remit that penalty
either wholly or in part.
Shakespeare puts an expression of purgatory into
the mouth of Hamlet 's father.
"1 am thy father's spirit;
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day, confined to waste in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away."
In Old Testament. The chosen people of God in
the Old Law believed in purgatory, and in the
temple of God at Jerusalem offered sacrifice for
the dead as well as for the living. We read in the
second Book of the Machabees that the Jewish sol-
diers prayed for their fallen comrades who, they
trusted, had fallen asleep with godliness, in spite
of their sin of disobedience ; and that the valiant
leader Judas had sacrifice offered for the repose of
the souls of the dead soldiers. ''And making a
gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver
to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins
of the dead, thinking well and religiously concern-
ing the resurrection. For if he had not hoped that
they that were slain should rise again, it would have
seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead.
... It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought
PURGATORY 291
to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from
sins."*
Protestants for the most part, deny the Books of
the Machabees a place among the canoniqal scrip-
tures. The repudiation of these inspired writings
by the reformers is thus characterized by Charles
Augustus Briggs, the most eminent Protestant
biblical scholar of America: ** There can be no
doubt that the rejection of II Machabees, was due
in great measure to its support of the Roman Cath-
olic doctrine of sacrifices for the dead."'' Waiving
the question of their canonicity, all agree that the
Books are good Jewish history. As historical docur
ments they testify to the Jews' belief in the middle
place and to their practice of praying for the dead.
Indeed the Jews have retained this custom to the
present day.* The Jews at the time of Christ be-
lieved in the place of purgation. Christ far from
correcting this belief, as He would have done were
it false, assumes and endoi*ses it in His teachings.
The Last Farthing. In the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus warns His hearers to be at peace with their
adversaries, lest they be suddenly delivered to their
Judge, and by him cast into the Prison. And Jesus
adds: '*I say to thee, thou shalt not come out
thence, till thou hast paid the last farthing."^
Hence Christ speaks of a prison in the other world
in which souls shall be detained until the last farth-
ing due to divine justice is paid. Heaven is no
prison : and from hell there is no release. The Jews
would readily understand Christ to refer to the
temporary place of purgation which their faith
taught to be a feature of God's providence.
*II. Mach. 12, 43-46.
"» Study of Holy Script. Ch. 6, p. 145.
• Jewish Prayer Book. Phil.
»Mt. 5, 25-26.
292 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
Again Jesus tells the Jews that the ''sin against
the Holy Ghost shall be forgiven neither in this world
nor in the world to come. ' ' ® We may infer from
these words that there are some sins that will be for-
given in .the world to come as also in this world, but
not the sin against the Holy Ghost. Sin will not be
forgiven in heaven, as nothing defiled can enter it:
nor in hell where the fire is not extinguished. There
must be a third state where purgation takes place.
St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Isidore and
other Fathers see this implication in Christ's words.
It were a brave man who would question the logical
acumen of these intellectual giants. Their commen-
tary has the value also of reflecting the Christian
faith of the early centuries.
Faith of Early Christians. Many of the Christian
writers of the first centuries, including Origen, SS.
Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Hilary, Gregory, see a
simile of purgatory, if not a reference to it, in the
words of St. Paul: ''For other foundation no man
can lay, but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold,
silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every
man's work' shall be manifest. For the day of the
Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in
fire. And the fire shall try every man's work, of
what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he
hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If
any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he
himself shall be saved yet so as by fire."®
The Fathers in noting what they considered al-
lusions to purgatory in the texts of Scripture, bear
witness to the Church 's belief in the doctrine. Like
the Fathers of the first centuries of Christianity, -^e
believe in purgatory and the charity of prayer for
the dead, because these doctrines are taught by the
8Mt. 12, 32. *•!. Cor. 3, 11-15.
PURGATORY "^ 293
Cliiirch which Jesus Christ has left in the world as
the teacher of His religion, and which He has en-
dowed with the infallibility which assures us that its
teachings are the truth.
Prayer for the Dead. As those in purgation are
suffering and are subjects for God's mercy and
grace, the practice of praying for the dead follows
naturally from the doctrine of purgatory. As sacri-
fice and prayer were offered for the dead in the
temple of God in the Old Law, so in the New Law
the sacrifice of the Mass is offered daily for the dead
as well as the living; and in every Catholic house-
hold the dear ones who have gone into eternity are
remembered in the prayers of their brethren. The
Oriental sects that fell away from the unity of the
Church in the early ages, have ever retained this
Catholic practice, to whose antiquity they thus
testify. The Fathers of every age and country
speak of the Christian custom of praying for the
dead.
Tertullian of Africa, in the second century, says
that "the faithful wife will pray for the soul of her
deceased husband, particularly on the anniversary
day of his falling asleep (death). And if she fail
to do so, she hath repudiated her husband as far
as in her lies."
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in the fourth century,
writes: "We commemorate the Holy Fathers and
Bishops and all who have fallen asleep from amongst
us, believing that the supplications which we pre-
sent w^ill be of great assistance to their souls, while
the holy and tremendous sacrifice is offered up."
St. Ephra?m, the Syrian, who died in 379 says : *'I
conjure you, my brethren and friends, in the name
of that God Avho commands me to^eave you, to re-
member me when you assemble to pray. Do not
bury me with perfumes. Give them not to me, but
294 ^HE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
to God. Me, conceived in sorrows, bury with lamen-
tations; and instead of perfumes, assist me with
your prayers; for the dead are benefited by the
prayers of living saints.''
The Greek doctor, St. Chrysostom who died in
407, writes: ''It was not without good reason or-
dained by the Apostles, that mention should be
made of the dead in the tremendous mysteries, the
Mass, because they knew^well that they would re-
ceive great benefit from it."
The Latin Fathers bear the same witness. St.
Ambrose, who died in 397, on the death of the Em-
perors Gratian and Valentinian, says: "Blessed
shall both of you be, if my prayers can avail any-
thing. No day shall pass you over in silence. No
prayer of mine shall omit to honor you. No night
shall hurry by without bestowing on you a mention
in my prayers. In every one of the oblations, will
I remember you."
St. Jerome who died in 420, in a letter of con-
dolence to Pammachius, on the death of his wife
Paulina, writes: "Other husbands strew violets
and roses on the graves of their wives. Our Pam-
machius bedews the hallowed dust of Paulina with
balsams of alms."
St. Augustine who died in 430, relates that when
his mother w^as at the point of death, she made this
last request of him : ' ' Lay this body anywhere ; let
not the care of it in any way disturb you. This
only I request of you, that you would remember me
at the altar of the Lord, wherever you be." And
that pious son prays for his mother's soul in the
most impassioned language: "I therefore, God
of my heart, do now beseech Thee for the sins of my
mother. Hear ^me through the medicine of the
wounds that hung upon the wood. . . . May she,
then, be in peace with her husband. . . . And in-
PURGATORY 295
spire, my Lord, . . . Thy servants, my brethren,
whom with voice and heart and pen I serve, that as
many as shall read these words may remember at
Thy altar, Monica, Thy servant. ..."
Voice of Nature. The petition to her son, by the
valiant Christian mother of the fourth century, is
the same as the poet Tennyson put into the mouth
of the dying King Arthur. It is the voice of nature.
*I have lived my life, and that which Iliave done
May He within Himself make pure; but thou.
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or ^oats
That nourisli a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of praj'er
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."
A Grand Faith. The doctrine of purgatory com-
mends itself to the Christian reason and the human
heart. It gives consolation to the mourner and en-
couragement to the repentant sinner. It affords oc-
casion of exercising charity to the departed, of re-
pairing the ingratitude of thoughtless days, of
strengthening the bond of love that even death can-
not break. It recalls the thought of death and turns
the mind from the baubles of the world. It deters
the soul from venial sin, which without purgatory
would lack a proper sanction. It manifests most
splendidly the infinite justice, majesty, and sanctity
of God, who abhors even the shadow of sin : and it
reveals the greatness of the glory of the heavenly
court which demands such purity, and the nobility of
the soul which is capable of such perfection.
296 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
65. THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT.
The Church militant on earth, the Church suffer-
ing in purgatory, the Church triumphant in heaven,
this splendid conception of the Catholic Church,
realizes in a surpassing sense the brotherhood of man
in the Fatherhood of God. Bound together in sym-
pathy and love and the charity of prayer, the three
portions of the Kipgdom of God constitute the Com-
munion of Saints — the Catholic Church. Having ob-
served the Church militant and the Church suffering,
it remains for us to contemplate the Church trium-
phant.
The Saints. The Saints (the title is commonly re-
stricted to the members of the Church triumphant)
are those children of the human race who have
reached heaven. We all of us are destined to be
saints. "We shall be Saints or we shall be lost.
There is a countless multitude of Saints of all na-
tions and tribes and tongues, whose sanctity and
heavenly reward are known to God but not to earth.
There are other men and women whose heroic virtue
has attracted the notice of the Church, and w^ho,
after the most exacting scrutiny of their lives, have
been enrolled on the canon or list of God's heroes
and held up to the world as models of the Christian
life. These are the canonized Saints. Every de-
partment of life has its heroes: men who have
reached the mountain heights of success in their par-
ticular work. They become an example and inspira-
tion to their fellow toilers. Literature, science, art,
statesmanship have their glorious names and tower-
ing forms. So has religion. The Saints who reign
with God in heaven, have attained life's one su-
preme purpose. However lowly or great may have
been their station in life, they have made a splendid
THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 297
success of life itself. The Saints are the heroes of
life.
Beatitudes. The Saints are an integral part of
the Church of Christ. They are the fruits of His
Redemption. Without Silints the Church would be
a failure : a year of sowing and toil, without a har-
vest. The Church celebrates the memory of a Saint
on the anniversary of his death — his birthday in
Heaven. On the first of November she commemo-
rates the multitudes of the Blessed whose names and
deeds are known to God alone. In the Gospel of
that day she reads the Beatitudes, suggesting the
ways which the Saints have trod.
** Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com-
forted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after right-
eousnsss, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see
God.
Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be
called the Children of God.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for right-
eousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven. '^
Divine Love. The most unsympathetic come to
love a Saint when they really learn his history.
At the tomb of St. Charles Borromeo in the Milan
Cathedral, Mark Twain was inspired to write these
lines :
''Now we shall descend into the crypt, under the
grand altar of Milan Cathedral, and receive an im-
298 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
pressive sermon from lips that have been silent and
hands that have been gestureless for these three hun-
dred years.
*'This is the last resting place of a good man, a
warm-hearted unselfish man ; a man whose whole life
was given to succoring the poor, encouraging the
faint-hearted, visiting the sick; in relieving distress,
whenever and wherever he found it. His heart, his
hand and his purse were always open. With his
story in one 's mind, we can almost see his benignant
countenance moving calmly among the haggard faces
of Milan in the days when the plague swept the city ;
— brave when all others were cowards, full of com-
passion where pity had been crushed out of all other
breasts by the instinct of self-preservation gone mad
with terror, cheering all, praying with all, helping
all with hand and brain and purse, at a time when
parents forsook their children, the friend deserted
the friend, and the brother turned away from the
sister while her pleadings were still wailing in his
ears. This was good Saint Charles Borromeo, bishop
of Milan.''
The divine love that showed itself in the charity
of St. Charles is the secret of the life of every Saint.
However different may be the works of the Saints,
it is always the same supernatural love of God that
inspires and sanctifies them : be they expressed in the
poverty of a Francis of Assisi, the innocence of an
Aloysius, the zeal of a Patrick, the labors of a Bene-
dict, the charity of an Elizabeth, the mystic con-
templation of a Theresa, the fortitude of an Agnes,
the eloquence of a Bernard, the silence of a John
Nepomucene, the learning of a Thomas Aquinas, the
penitence of a Magdalene, the tenderness of a John,
the energy of a Paul, the generosity of a Peter.
Honor Due the Saints. Justice and wisdom alike
teach us to give honor to whom honor is due. To
THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 299
honor merit is noble. Reverence is neither supersti-
tion nor servility but appreciation of worth. As we
celebrate the memory of the nation's heroes of sword
and pen, we do not forget the glory of the heroes of
the Cross. We honor the Saints, as we do other rare
men, by adorning their tomb, by preserving and re-
specting their relics, by erecting their statues, by
recounting their deeds in song and story. But we
honor the Saints most by striving to imitate their
virtues.
In the lives of the Saints we discover w^hat God's
grace can do for our common humanity. Because
they have given themselves over to God's will and
cooperated with His grace, they become models for
us to copy. In them we see the love and power of
God. In them as in mirrors, we behold the image
of God's holiness. Good as well as evil is taught
more by example than by precept. The life of an
angelic mother becomes a man's argument for the
reality and worth of religion. We see the beauty
of the sun not alone by turning our eyes upon its
blazing orb, whose splendor would blind us, but by
beholding the landscape which the sun's light and
warmth have adorned with rich vegetation and
lovely flowers and joyous life. The beauty of God
is revealed to us in good men and women, when our
eyes might not recognize Him apart from these re-
flections of His glory. The glory of the Saints is the
reflected glory of God. When we honor the Saints,
we through them give honor to God.
Relics. To hold in veneration the relics of great
men is a mark of respect as ancient as it is universal.
England has made a. Shakespeare museum of the
bard's home. The United States spent a fortune
seeking in the old cemeteries of Paris and burying
beneath a splendid monument at Annapolis, a body
which may or may not be that of Paul Jones.
300 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
Christians treasure the relics of the Saints. Need-
less to say we do not worship them, any more than
we pay divine honor to the Saints themselves. These
relics are generally preserved in a church because
they belonged to the heroes of religion. Bhould it
happen that some supposed relic is not authentic,
that cannot detract from the life it recalls. Many
miracles are attributed to the application of sacred
relics to the bodies of the sick. We read in scrip-
ture that the shadow of St. Peter cured the sick ; ^
as did the use of the cloths which had touched the
body of St. Paul.2
Prayers of the Saints. As our brethren m the
adopted family of God and our fellow-members of
the mystic body of Christ,* the Saints love and pray
for the souls in the church militant on earth and
suffering in purgatory. And we, communing with
those great spirits, ask their prayers. The charity
of prayer is one of the first duties of the Christian
religion. The Holy Spirit inspired the precept:
*'Pray for one another that you may be saved, for
the prayer of a just man availeth much.''* "What
men are more just than the Saints? Whose charity
is greater? Whose prayer more fervent? While
busy on earth, St. Paul prayed without ceasing for
the members of the church.^ In heaven where
charity never faileth, doubtless Paul's prayers for
us are even more ample and efficacious. St. John
speaks of the prayers of the Saints as a sweet odor
about the throne of God.^
The prayers of the Saints do not detract from the
mediatorship of Christ, any more than do our prayers
for one another. Christ saves us by His own power.
The Saints pray to God that His grace may be
abundantly poured out on us unto salvation. Every
lAct. 5, 15-16. *Jas. 5, 16.
»Act. 19, 12. »I. Tim. 2. 1-6; II. Tim. 2, 16-18.
•Rom. 12, 5. •Apoc. 5, 8; 8, 3-4.
THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 301
prayer is through Christ. In the very same breath
in which St. Paul says that Christ is our one medi-
ator of redemption, he also bids us to pray for one
another. "I desire first of all that supplications,
prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for
all men. . . . For this is good and acceptable in the
sight of God our Savior who will have all men to
be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God and one mediator of God and
man, the man Jesus Christ who gave himself a re-
demption for all.''^
As the guardian angel of the child sees the face
of God in Heaven, and the angels there rejoice over
a single sinner who repents,® so the saints receive
their knowledge and hear our prayers, through God's
knowledge revealed to them in the Beatific Vision.
The Virgin-Mother of God. A unique place
among the Saints is that of Mary, the mother of our
divine Lord. Mary's greatness arises from her di-
vine maternity. The Holy One born of her is the
Son of the Most High.*^ Jesus Christ is God as well
as man. Mary gave Him the flesli,and the blood in
which He clothed His divinity. The Council of
Ephesus, A. D. 431, called Mary the Mother of God.
This was not a new title. Elizabeth had addressed
it to her favored cousin: ** Whence is it that the
Mother of my Lord comes to visit me?" ^^ The title
emphasizes the truth that the person born of Mary,
is God as well as man. Men honor Mary by this
glorious title. God honored her by choosing her for
the work which this title expresses. The tribute
paid to Mary is but the natural reflection of our
faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
It was Mary's privilege to possess with the dig-
nity of the divine maternity, the glory of conse-
crated virginity. She is the Virgin-Mother. St.
U. Tim. 2, 1-6. "Luke 1. 35.
8 Luke 15, 10; 18, 10. "Luke 1, 43.
302 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
Joseph was the protector of the divine child and of
His mother. The ''brethren of Christ" mentioned
in the Gospel, are not His brothers, but more distant
relatives, as careful study will show. The perpetual
virginity of Mary has been from the beginning the
common faith of Christians. Luther, Calvin, Beza,
Zwingli and other Protestant writers teach it.
Mary's words to the Angel: "How can this be,
since I know not man?" reveal her resolution to re-
main a virgin. ^^ The fact that Mary gave up her
only Son in Jesus Christ, is eloquently told in the
words uttered by Christ on the Cross, in which He
commends the bereaved Mother to the care of the be-
loved St. John. 12
Immaculate Conception. Mary was united with
God not alone by the ties of motherhood, a union to
which no other creature can ever aspire, but also by
a unique favor of grace. As a fitting preparation
for her divine maternity, Mary was endowed with
sanctifying grace from the first moinent of her con-
ception. She who was destined to give His human
nature to the Soi* of the all pure God, was for His
sake and by His power, preserved from the stain
of original sin. The second Eve whom God put at
enmity with the serpent, and who in her seed, was to
crush its head, was not less highly favored by grace
than was the first Eve. The Messenger of God could
truthfully address her: "Hail, full of grace; the
Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among
women. "1^ In defining the Immaculate Conception
of the Mother of God, the Church placed upon the
brow of Mary a final crown, linking all her glories
as they have been cherished in the Christian faith
from the beginning.
Mary Our Model. Mary cooperated with the grace
lavished upon her. She did her part to be worthy
"Luke 1, 34. " john 19, 27. "Luke 1, 28.
THE CUUliCH TRIUMPHANT 303
of her sublime vocation. In her fidelity to God she
becomes the highest model for those who would be
saints. At the call of the Angel's voice she places
herself at God's disposal. "Behold the handmaid
of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy
word.''^* Mary lived Christ's life with Him day
by day, for the three and thirty years of His earthly
sojourn. In humility and faith she shared his pov-
erty and suffering. Content to trust in God's ways,
however hard for human mind to understand, she
was satisfied with the possession of God alone. From
the manger crib of Bethlehem, to the Cross beneath
which she stood, ^^ even though the sword of sorrow
pierced her soul, Mary was faithful. The faithful
Mother of Heaven's King now rejoices with her di-
vine Son in Heaven.
The children of the Church of Christ on earth,
have ever loved Mary as a sister and a mother. As
she was united with Christ on earth and now reigns
with Him in Heaven, she is not separated from Him
in our memory and affection^ There is ever a place
of honor for the mother, in the home of the Son.
Treading in Mary's footsteps we are sure to follow
Christ. The Assumption of Mary into Heaven after
her death, is tRe hope and promise of the reward
we shall receive, if in our measure and place, we are
faithful to God as she was. In a tribute to Mary
our model, the type of the pure maiden, the faithful
spouse, the loving mother, Ruskin says : ** There has
probably not been an innocent cottage home through-
out the length and breadth of Europe during the
whole period of vital Christianity, in which the
imagined presence of a Madonna has not given
sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the
sorest trials of the lives of women : and every bright-
est and loftiest achievement of the arts and strength
"Luke 1, 38. "John 19. 25.
304 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
of manhood has been the fulfillment of the assured
prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden: 'He that is
mighty hath magnified me, and Hol}^ is His name.' "
Magnificat. In the Church triumphant in Heaven,
the saints rejoicing with their Queen before the
face of the Eternal God, may make their own her
canticle : ^^
*'My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
Because He hath regarded the humility of His
handmaid: for behold from henceforth all genera-
tions shall call me blessed.
Because He that is mighty hath done great things
for me: and holy is His name.
And His mercy is from generation unto genera-
tions: to them that fear Him.
He hath showed might in His arm: He hath scat-
tered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put dotvn the mighty from their seat:
and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things: and
the rich He hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel, His servant: being mind-
ful of his mercy.
As He spoke to our fathers: to Abraham and to
his seed forever/'
66. RESUME OF PART THREE— THE CHRIS-
TIAN LIFE
Our chapters have shown that the essential char-
acter of the Christian life, is union with God. Like
the Old Law, the Christian religion has its sacred
covenants between man and God. They promote the
union. With their outward sign and inward grace,
"Luke 1, 46-55.
RESUME OF PART THREE 305
they at once reach down to the lowliness of our hu-
man nature and upward to the divine life of God.
Beautiful as may be the significant ceremonies that
surround their reception, the grace of God which
they infuse into the soul dominates all, as the life
is more than the raiment.
Goethe's Summary. Without perhaps being able
to appreciate their essential nature, Goethe has
penned a remarkable picture of the sacraments of
the Church as they consecrate the Christian life. ^
''Here a youthful pair join hands; the priest pro-
nounces his blessing upon them, and the bond is in-
dissoluble. It is not lonjg before this wedded pair
bring a likeness to the altar : it is purified with holy
water, and so incorporated into the Church, and it
cannot forfeit this benefit but through monstrous
apostasy. The child in the course of life goes on
progressing in earthly things of his own accord; in
heavenly things he must be instructed. Does it
prove on examination that this has been fully done,
he is now received into the bosom of the church,
as a voluntary professor, not without outward
tokens of the weightiness of this act. Now he
knows his advantages and also his duties.
*'But, in the meantime, a great deal that is strange
has happcjned to him: through instruction and af-
fliction he has come to know how critical appears
the state of his inner self, and there will constantly
be a question of doctrines and of transgressions.
Here, in the infinite confusion in which he must
entangle himself, an admirable expedient is given
him, in confiding his deeds and misdeeds, his in-
firmities and doubts, to a worthy man, appointed
expressly for that purpose, who knows how to calm,
to warn, to strengthen him, to chasten him like-
wise by symbolical punishments, and at last, by a
* Autobiographical notes. We have condensed the lengthy quotation.
306 THE CHRISTIAN'S ETERNITY
complete washing away of his guilt, to render him
happy.
"Thus prepared, and purely set at rest by several
sacramental acts, he kneels down to receive the
host ; it is no common eating and drinking that satis-
fies; it is a heavenly feast, which makes him thirst
after heavenly drink.
**And what has been so well tried through the
whole life, is now to show forth all its healing power
at the gate of death. According to a trustful cus-
tom, inculcated from youth, the dying man receives
with fervor those significant assurances; and there,
where every earthly warranty fails, he is assured,
by a heavenly one, of a blessed existence for all
eternity. He feels perfectly convinced that neither a
hostile element nor a malignant spirit can hinder
him from clothing himself with a glorified body, so
that, in immediate relation with the Godhead, he
may partake of the boundless happiness which flows
forth from Him. And so, through a brilliant cycle
of equally holy acts, the beauty of which we have
only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave,
however far asunder they may chance to be, are
joined in one continuous circle.
**But all these spiritual wonders spring not, like
other fruits, from the natural soil. We must sup-
plicate for them from another region. Here we meet
the highest of these symbols. "We are told that one
man may be more favored and empowered from
above than another. This great boon, bound up
with a heavy duty, must be communicated to others
by one authorized person to another; must be pre-
served and perpetuated on earth by spiritual inherit-
ance. In the very ordination of the priest is com-
prehended all that is necessary for the effectual
solemnizing of those holy acts by which the multi-
tude receive grace. And thus the priest joins the
EEeUME OF PART ^HREE 307
line of his predecessors and successors, in the circle
of those anointed with him, representing the highest
source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as
it is not he, the priest whom we reverenge, but his
office; it is not his nod to which we bow the knee,
but the blessing which he imparts.''
PAET FOUK
THE CHURCH IN HISTORY
67. NEED OF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
To have a right appreciation of the Christian re-
ligion, one must know something of its history as
well as its precepts of faith and morals. Chris-
tianity is not merely a theory. It is a living thing
which has occupied a very large place in the world
for the past 1900 years. To know it only in the
social and political environment of the 19th and
20th centuries, would be to miss its proper propor-
tions and relation to other institutions, as well as
the achievements which have tested and proven the
worth of its teachings and the vitality of its consti-
tution.
The Church was born into a world very different
from our own. She witnessed the delirious agonies
of dying paganism and the crumbling of a once
splendid civilization, in the passing of the ancient
Roman Empire. She went down into the dark valley
of barbarism and led the tribes of northern Europe
upward to the mountain heights of our present civili-
zation. While for twenty centuries she has passed
on the divine fire from generation to generation of
trusted hands, she has had to apply her same eternal
principles to many different problems of society and
diverse conditions of time and place. She has strug-
308
HISTORICAIi PERSPECTIVE 309
gled with a thousand enemies ; rejoiced with a thou-
sand friends ; compromised in a thousand indifferent
matters. She was once the sole teacher of Europe.
Hence it is that her ideas are woven into the very
fiber of our civilization : and no less has every stage
in the evolution of that civilization left its impress
and memory on the human side of her institutions.
** History/' says Cicero, ''is the witness of time, the
light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of
life, the messenger of antiquity. '^ There are tourists
who see nothing more in the ruins of Pompeii than
in the fire-swept district of an American city; who
wander through the galleries of art hardly know-
ing whether Apollo was a Roman emperor or a
Greek poet; who steam up the Rhine quite ignorant
of the legends of its rocks and castles, or the his-
tory of the peoples that have lived and battled on
its shores; w^ho measure each country at a glance,
and by their own standards, complacently innocent
of a word of its language, the interior of its homes,
its natural resources, climatic peculiarities, or social
antecedents. If such travelers discourse on Europe,
it is generally only to amuse or grieve the informed,
and to mislead the ignorant. Similarly one cannot
pretend to discuss the Christian religion or the cus-
toms and institutions which have grown out of its
activity in various ages and lands, without being
familiar with the outlines, at least, of its history;
and so able to look down the vista of time and see
things in their true relation and perspective.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CHURCH AND THE PAGAN
KOMAN EMPIRE
68. THE ROMAN EMPIRE
At the birth of Jesus Christ, Octavius reigned as
the first emperor of the Roman Empire, with the
divine title of Augustus. In his hands was centered
the political government of practically the then
known world. From the forum of Rome military
roads led to Spain and Gaul, to the Rhine and the
Danube. The barbarous Britons, whose island
Caesar had just invaded, the Greeks whose culture,
in some ways, has not been surpassed, were alike
governed by the city whose genius for organization
even surpassed her military valor. Besides western
Europe, the Empire included the provinces of Pan-
nonia, Dacia, Mesia, Thrace, in eastern Europe;
northern Africa and the other Mediterranean coun-
tries; Palestine, Assyria, Parthia, Armenia, Arabia,
the remnants of the ancient monarchies of Alexan-
der, Darius, Cyrus, and Nebuchadnezzar.
Latin and Greek. The languages of the empire
were Latin and Greek. After Alexander the Great,
Greek culture had spread throughout the civilized
East. The Roman Latin was diffused from every
army post throughout the "West. The title of the
Cross of Jesus was written by Pontius Pilate, the
Roman governor of Judea, in Latin and Greek as
310 «
THE ROMAN EMPIRE 311
well as Hebrew. The use of these two languages
not only facilitated the union and government of
the empire, but later the spread and cohesion of
the Church. They were destined to play for ages
a remarkable part in the culture and religion of
the world.
Augustan Age. Rome developing through king-
ship and democracy to empire, had at length con-
quered the world. The battle of Actium, 31 B. C,
ended the civil wars which had followed upon the
assassination of Julius Caesar. Peace reigned with
Augustus. The doors of the temple of Janus, shut
only in periods of universal peace, were now closed
for the third time in the 700 years of Rome's ex-
istence. The age of Augustus marked the zenith
of Roman art and literature as well as government.
Virgil, Livy, Horace, and Ovid lived. Cicero, Sal-
lust, and Nepos had just passed away. But be-
neath the external glories, the elements of decay
were already at work. Tiberius, the successor of
Octavius, was a worthy forerunner of Nero. Such
was the political world into which Jesus Christ
was born 1900 years ago.
Pagan Gods. In the Roman Empire religious wor-
ship was a department of government, and the of-
ficial religion was polytheism, or that form of pa-
ganism which worshiped many gods. The six
greater gods of the Romans, were Jupiter, the chief ;
Neptune, god of the sea ; Vulcan, of fire ; Apollo, of
the sun, beauty, and art; Mars, of war; Mercury,
of business and trickery. The six greater goddesses
were Juno, the chief wife of Jupiter; Minerva, god-
dess of wisdom; Diana, of hunting; Ceres, of agri-
culture; Vesta, of the home; Venus, of beauty and
love.
312 CHURCH AND PAGAN ROME
Among the minor deities of the Olympian family
were Bacchus, god of wine; Pluto, of the dead;
Latona, another wife of Jupiter ; Cupid, Saturn, and
innumerable nymphs, fauns, satyrs, and demigods,
identified with rivers, mountains, and towns, as well
as with every affection and passion of mind and
body. The paganism of the ancient civilized world
seems to have been a nature-worship personifying
and clothing in fantastic myth and legend, every
natural element.
The empire allowed conquered nations to retain
their gods, and even brought them to Rome and
placed them in the Pantheon with its own; though
the vanquished were obliged to observe also the
national worship. So that besides her own state offi-
cers of religion, Rome sheltered the priests of every
superstition. In the provinces, Egyptians adored
cats and other animals; their neighbors burned hu-
man beings in honor of Moloch or drowned them
to please other deities. Finally Rome apotheosized
members of the imperial family and offered sacrifice
to them, in some cases even during their lives.
Pagan Religion. The realization of the future life,
the all-seeing eye of an infinitely pure and just God
upon every action of the humblest life, the reward
of virtue and the punishment of vice, which are
the daily thought of Christian faith and the founda-
tion of moral character, were no such staple of the
pagan religion. The gods were acknowledged to
be impotent to secure future happiness. Men lived
to enjoy the present and the gods themselves set the
example of immoral lives. Little concerned with
human affairs, Jupiter on Olympus was supposed to
take part in the quarrels of his divine associates,
and freely indulge in acts which all lofty moral
codes have forbidden.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE 313
Temples and statues were everywhere. Priests
presided over ceremonies. Augurs and haruspices
pretended to discover the will of the gods from the
flight and entrails of birds. In the name of re-
ligion the temples were polluted with shameless
orgies. Feasts and games, as well as sacrifices, hon-
ored the gods. The state injected the tests and prac-
tices of its worship into the daily affairs of its
soldiers, office-holders, and citizens. This led to the
easy detection of Christians, especially among men,
whose recorded martyrdoms far exceed those of
women. Cajsar assumed the title of Pontifex Maxi-
mus and discharged the duties of High Priest, the
better to control the populace through the supersti-
tions and amusements of their religion.
The mythological taleis of Rome and Greece in
the epics of Virgil and Homer delight us, after
centuries, by their exquisite grace and imagination.
But they come to us merely as poetry selected and
refined by the touch of genius. In the Venus de
Milo, the Apollo Belvidere, the Faun of Praxiteles,
and other statues that remain to us from the past,
sculpture enchants us with forms of quite ideal
beauty. But the statues are to us only works of
art. It is a different thing when these fancies and
fictions are the gods and religion of a mighty peo-
ple, their only deities, impotent and dumb, yet usurp-
ing the place of the one living God, whose truth and
love alone can fill the soul-hunger of man.
Society. The weakness of paganism came out in
every department of social life. The father might
annul his marriage, expose his unwelcome children,
dismiss and even kill his wife. The position of
woman was generally without dignity or public es-
teem. The poor were outcasts. Institutions of pub-
lic charity were unknown. The amusements of the
theater were cruel and bloody. Perhaps the weak-
314 CHURCH AND PAGAN ROME
ness' can best be seen in the slavery which disre-
garded the natural rights of man and reacted on
the masters and their children to their utter corrup-
tion.
Slavery. Slaves made up a large part of the pop-
ulation of the empire. They were the victims of
foreign conquests or were unfortunate debtors.
Gibbon estimates their number at sixty millions.
"William Blair supposes that in Rome there were
three slaves to one freeman. One hundred thou-
sand captives taken by Titus in the Jewish war, were
sold as cheap as cattle. Rich senators owned
20,000 slaves. Horace regarded two hundred as a
suitable establishment for a gentleman. The slaves
who were white as well as black, cultivated Greeks
as well as barbarians, performed all manual work,
and acted as schoolmasters, secretaries, artists, and
even physicians. Their numbers furnished athletes
and gladiators for the public circus and Colosseum,
where they battled with wild beasts and fought
each other to the death, to gratify the Romans' blood-
thirsty love of cruel amusements. Thus five hun-
dred gladiators figured in a single day in the games
given by the Emperor Gordianus.
The slave was the master's property to be out-
raged, scourged, or crucified. If a Spartacus rose
up and slew the master, every slave of the estate
was condemned to death. But vengeance came.
The refined Greek who could be made to obey the
most offensive orders of a capricious Roman, taught
that Roman the vices which left him a degenerate.
The barbarian who toiled without remuneration or
thanks, thereby led the master to indulge his ease
and become a weakling. Slavery, losing sight of
the brotherhood of man in the destiny and dignity
of the soul, destroyed all manliness of character,
created contempt for honest labor, cursed Rome by
THE ROMAN EMPIRE 315
making her citizens first cruel, then idle, then weak
and finally powerless.
Citizenship. The patriotism of the days of the
republic faded away before the despotism by which
one man ruled all classes and bestowed all offices
and honors, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Cas-
pian Sea. The lands of conquest fell into the hands
of powerful families. In the time of Cicero only
two thousand citizens possessed independent prop-
erty. Senators owned whole provinces. This
wealth was lavished in luxury never paralleled.
*'Quo Vadis" describes a banquet of the Emperor
Nero. Patriotism and honor, art, literature and ora-
tory began to be forgotten amid avarice and sensu-
ality. The highest men practiced unspeakable per-
versions without secrecy or reproach. Cooks, come-
dians and dancers received the consideration which
Athens once gave to artists and philosophers. Men
sought only the means with which they could pur-
chase pleasure. No dignitary was respected for his
office: nor office prized, save for its gains. Money
was the first consideration in matrimonial alliances.
The unfortunate debtor was sold with his children
at auction, or cut to pieces ^nd distributed among
his creditors. ^
The rich and poor drifted farther apart. The lat-
ter were finally dependent and helpless. While they
took away their political rights, emperors flattered
the common citizens, amused them with shows and
fed them with the pillage of African granaries, till
they lost every semblance of character and inde-
pendence. Pestilence, famine, and squalor thinned
their ranks. The helpless were left to die. There
was no institution of charity for the sick or old,
such as fill our Christian world. And these were
Rome's citizens.
^ Seneca : — Law of the 12 Tables.
316 CHUKCH AND PAGAN ROME
The Emperor. A glimpse at the lives of the Ro-
man Emperors will give perhaps the best insight
into the moral world when Christianity began its
work of regeneration: and will help the reader to
realize the greatness of the difficulties which the
new religion had to overcome and of the benefits
it has conferred. Tiberius (A. D. 14-37), the suc-
cessor of Augustus, says Tacitus, '' abandoned him-
self to every sort of profligacy and detestable
cruelty, following no guide but his abominable in-
clinations till he was murdered by the praetorian
commander." Caligula (37-41), spent sixty-three
million dollars in one year on games and entertain-
ments and refilled the treasury by the confiscation
and murder of the wealthiest citizens. He delighted
to watch the blood and agonies of his victims ; housed
in a palace and entertained at table his horse, which
was the object of his affections; built a temple and
sacrificed to himself as a god. He was stabbed by
the tribune Cherea. Claudius (41-54), a degenerate,
was poisoned by his wife Agrippina, after murdering
his wife Messalina, 35 senators and 300 knights.
Nero (54-68), at eighteen poisoned his brother at
table and saw him expire in agony without betray-
ing the least emotion. He murdered his mother
Agrippina, his wives Octavia and Poppea. The lives
of the most illustrious Romans were the sport of his
tyranny. He built his famous house of gold; loved
a monkey, which he buried with royal pomp ; perse-
cuted the Christians, including Peter and Paul, to
divert from himself, it is said, the accusation of hav-
ing burned Rome. He killed himself at the age of
31, to escape the vengeance of the pople.
Galba, Otho, and Vitellius (68-69), were all made
emperors and murdered within a year. After a
period under worthier emperors, the brief hundred
years from Commodus (180) to Diocletian (284) wit-
SPREAD OP CHRISTIANITY . 317
nessed the violent deaths of thirty out of the thirty-
four emperors raised to the dignity of the imperial
purple. It would be hard to say which of these
names is most odious: Commodus, monster rather
than man, strangled by his own household ; or Cara-
calla, fratricide, murdered at 29 by a centurion;
or Heliogabalus, degenerate, slain by the disgusted
soldiers; or Diocletian, who blinded with the blood
of innumerable martyrs, thought he had wiped out
the Christian name.
Need of Savior. Meanwhile petty poets flattered
the tyrants. The wise retired from active life in
despair and misanthropy or turned to the Christian
religion. Cynics like Petronius, when they w^earied
of pleasure or feared the imperial frown, opened
their veins. Suicide was so common as to attract no
attention. When vitality has fled, the corrupt body
.must die. In pagan Rome, principle, patriotism,
virtue, had all passed away: and pagan Rome was
dying. The philosophers well said in their despair,
that only a God could save the world.
69. SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
Within the life-time of the Apostles sent by Jesus
Christ to bear His message of salvation to the world,
began that miraculous spread of the Christian re-
ligion, which has been looked upon as an evidence
of its divinity. Peter was active at Jerusalem, An-
tioch, and Rome. Paul journeyed through Asia
Minor, Greece, the islands of the Mediterranean,
Italy, and perhaps Spain. Tradition assigns James
as Bishop of Jerusalem; Matthew to India and
Ethiopia; Thomas to India; Andrew to Scythia;
Bartholomew to South Arabia; Simon Zelotes and
Matthias to Africa. Thaddeus was at Edessa.
Philip died at Phrygia. Mark was Bishop of Alex-
318 CHUECH AND PAGAN ROME
andria. John, the only Apostle who did not di(i
in martyrdom, though he suffered its torments, toiled
in many places including Rome, Patmos, and Ephe-
sus.
Spread of the Church. The rapid growth of the
Church is evidenced by- the exclamation of Tertul-
lian, born about the year 160, in his Apology ad-
dressed to the Roman Senate : * ' We fill your cities,
towns, senates, and armies; leaving you only your
temples and theaters.'' This was not literally true,
else Rome might never have fallen. But while pa-
ganism still ruled, and its followers were the great
majority, it was true that the Christian leaven was
everywhere influencing individual lives and gaining
disciples for Christ. Christian soldiers carried the
new faith with its hope and charity, to the outposts
of the army. The incident of the thundering legion
reveals a whole company of Christians in the ranks
of Marcus Aurelius. A century after Tertullian,
by the time the first Roman Emperor embraced
Christianity, and 300 Bishops could assemble at the
Council of Nice, and the name pagan was given to
the heathens who predominated only in the country
places, the remark of Tertullian would not be far
from the facts.
Church at Rome. Christians were from the first,
numerous in Rome. The great Apostles Peter and
Paul, both saw the advantages presented by the
capital of the Empire, as a center from which to
facilitate the spread of the Church. St. Peter wrote
his first epistle from this western Babylon, whose
conversion he had the courage to undertake. ^ Be-
fore St. Paul's first visit to Rome, the faith of its
Christians was an encouragement to their brethren
throughout the provinces. ^ Claudius confounding
the Christians with the Jews, banished them from
iSee No. 16. « Rom. 1, 8.
SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 319
Rome. But they were soon back, making converts
among all classes, in the jails, the army, and even the
imperial palace. Flavins Clemens, and his wife, St.
Domitilla, were relatives of the Emperor Domitian.
Many converts were people of influence.
Charity. The distribution of alms and the care
of the poor, became through the contributions of the
wealthier, a telling practice of the early Church.
Offerings were made by the faithful every Sunday,
whence a large system of benevolence arose. This
led to the districting of the city into deaconates.
When the deacon Lawrence was ordered to sur-
render the treasure of the Church, he presented to
the magistrate a multitude of the maimed and needy.
Rich families converted their palaces into schools,
hospitals, and chapels ; and on the eve of martyrdom
often gave their property to the poor. The Chris-
tians, however mediately perhaps, influenced Nerva
and Trajan to make some public provision for or-
phans: while their pervading charity made the
pagans admire : **How these Christians love one an-
other!''
Causes of Propagation. The causes of the rapid
spread of Christianity were: 1. The force of truth
in the religion of Jesus Christ, satisfying the most
learned, and intelligible to the lowliest. 2. The
miracles of the Apostles and their successors. 3.
Their authority as eye-witnesses of the' resurrection.
4. Their appeal to the fulfillment of the Jewish and
Sibylline prophecies. 5. The pui^e and virtuous lives
of the Cliristians amid disgustingly immoral sur-
roundings. 6. The zeal of the neophytes, shared
alike by nobles, masters, and slaves, who in Chris-
tianity found their common brotherhood in God. 7.
The example and miracles of the martyrs. 8. The
wonderfully wise organization of the Church.
The historian Gibbon supposes that these reasons
320 CHURCH AND PAGAN ROME
account for the propagation of Christianity on purely
natural grounds. But these very reasons suppose the
supernatural and divine. Why were the early Chris-
tians so zealous and their belief so vital as to in-
fluence others to join them ? Their sanctity effected
conversions, but what caused that sanctity. If mira-
cles were really performed they prove the divinity
of Christianity. If they were not, then as St. Au-
gustine observes, the Christian progress without
them, was itself a miracle. The organization of
the Church attracted and held inquiring minds, as
it does still. But who fashioned that organiza-
tion uniting the most discordant elements? It was
clearly above the power of the first Apostles to do.
Thus we see these causes were themselves effects
of one great cause. The cause of the causes was
divine.
70. PERSECUTION AND TRIUMPH.
The activity and success of the Christians in win-
ning the world to Christ, did not proceed without
violent opposition from paganism. Under Nero, laws
were made and put into execution for the suppres-
sion of the new religion. Among the victims of
this persecution were Peter and Paul, singled out
as the leaders of the Christians. The spirit of perse-
cution continued for 300 years till the conversion of
Constantine, — now lying dormant, now breaking out
in awful slaughter. According to St. Augustine,
it was particularly active under Nero, Domitian,
Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimus Severus, Maxi-
minus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian.
Martyrdom. The alternative of apostasy or death
by torture, was offered to Christians who were perse-
cuted through the provinces as well as in the city,
and with such slaughter at times that men like Dio-
PERSECUTION AND TRIUMPH 321
•
cletian could imagine that they had wiped out the
Christian name. Of the first persecution, the pagan
historian, Tacitus, writes : ^ * ' An immense multitude
of the Christians were condemned. To their suf-
ferings Nero added mockery and derision. Some
were covered with the skins of wild beasts to be
devoured by dogs ; others were crucified ; many were
covered with inflammable material and set afire at
night to burn as torches in the public gardens."
The historian Eusebius witnessed with his own eyes
some of the horrors of the Diocletian era. Dungeons
and prisons were filled, he says, with bishops, priests,
deacons, and the faithful people. These were of-
fered their liberty if they would sacrifice to the pa-
gan gods, or excruciating death if they refused. He
saw many decapitated, others burned alive. "Who
can tell, ' ' he says, * ' the numbers of these martyi*s in
every province?"
In his Apocalypse, - St. John, who was tortured
with boiling oil and exiled to Patmos, under Domi-
tian, describes the capitol of the pagan empire, the
new Babylon which had kingdom over the kings
of the earth, as the scarlet women drunk with the
blood of the martyrs and doomed to destruction
for her abominations. History verily witnessed the
fall of pagan Rome and the triumph of Christianity
in the eternal city.
The Circus and* the Colosseum of Vespasian are
said to have been favorite places for the torture
of Christians. Eighty-five thousand people could,
from the marble benches of the Colosseum, watch
the sport which cost human lives. To the amuse-
ment afforded by the bloody combats of gladiators,
slaves, and wild beasts, the slaughter of Christians
added the gratification of the terrible passion of re-
ligious hatred. How many Christians suffered death
1 Annals 15, 44. = See No. 16.
322 CHURCH AND PAGAN ROME
•
in the first 300 years of our era, will never be known
on earth. Some estimate the number as several mil-
lions. From St. Peter, who was crucified under Nero,
to the days of peace under Constantine, practically
every Bishop of Rome bore testimony to the faith
by his blood; their more conspicuous position as
chief pastor of the Church marking one Pope after
the other for martyrdom.
Catacombs. The catacombs afforded a place of
concealment to the early Christians pursued by perse-
cution. These subterranean cemeteries, dug out of
the soft, granular tufa, stretch in every direction
under different parts of Rome. Their labyrinths,
in which the stranger would be almost immediately
lost, were the asylum of safety and the sanctuary
of worship for the Christians, as well as the burial
place of their dead. At first private cemeteries of
rich families, opened to the use of the brethren, we
find under Pope Zephyrinus (A. D. 202-219), the pub-
lic Christian cemetery of Calixtus; and under Pope
Fabian (A. D. 236-251), several community cata-
combs. These ramifications of underground vaults,
with their galleries, sometimes consisting of several
tiers ranging one below the other, aggregate many
miles, and were the burial place of numerous Chris-
tian martyrs and confessors of the faith.
The early Christians justly regarded their
martyred brethren as heroes of ' religion and pre-
served their memory as an example to future genera-
tions and as a bond of union between the Church
militant on earth and triumphant in heaven. The
bodies of the martyrs were treated with religious
reverence, as the temples of the Holy Ghost and of
saints of God. Their tombs in the catacombs were
the tables on which the Holy Eucharist was cele-
brated. On the marble slabs which enclose the
graves, as well as on the walls of the catacombs, are
PERSECUTION AND TRIUMPH 323
found inscriptions, pictures, and Christian emblems
which reveal the faith and practices of the primitive
Christians; and are interesting to the apologist as
well as to the antiquarian, since they explain the
origii; of many customs still continuing in the
Church.
Anti-Christian Writings. Paganism attacked the
rising faith with the pen as well as the sword. Able
writers endeavored to refute Christianity and to
rehabilitate polytheism. Celsus the philosopher
tried in his *'Word of Truth," to discredit the new
religion with calumny and contempt. Lucian the
satirist made it the butt of his ridicule. Porphyrins,
the Neo-Platonist, wrote fifteen books against Chris-
tianity. His school of philosophy, like the Neo-
Pythagorean, offered a fierce contest, both by ex-
citing the hatred of governors and people, and by
defending paganism, giving to its myths an alle-
gorical interpretation, introducing into it elements
borrowed from Christianity, and to offset Jesus
Christ, idealizing as a god the philosopher and ma-
gician Apollonius of Tyre.
These attacks brought out the Christian writers
in defense of their faith. The fathers,^ among
whom were gifted men who themselves had been
teachers in pagan schools of rhetoric and philosophy,
explained the real teachings and practices of the
Christians, and pointed out the virtue and innocence
of their lives and their loyalty to the Emperors
in all the duties of a citizen.
Causes of Persecution. Many causes combined to
stir up the hatred of the pagans against Christianity,
and to lead even men like Marcus Aurelius to be
persecutors. The origin and death of Christ and
the social condition of the Apostles perplexed fhe
heathen mind and repulsed their fastidiousness.
«Cf. No. 37.
324 CHURCH AND PAGAN ROME
The pride of reason balked at the mysteries of
Christianity; and the self-indulgence which never
knew a curb, still more at its self-denial and humil-
ity. The business interests of those who catered to
the vast machinery of pagan worship, were jeopar-
dized. The Romans who tolerated all foreign deities
without excluding their own, resented the Christian
claim to be the one true religion. Military emperors
counted as a danger to the state, the Christian sol-
diers' refusal to take part in the worship managed
by the state or to swear by the genius of the Im-
perator. Slanderers accused the Christians of every
abomination from treason and atheism to murdering
children and drinking their blood. Every calamity
was blamed on the revilers of the national gods,
and the remedy was *'The Christians to the
lions.''
The battle of the Milvian Bridge (A. D. 312), was
the beginning of a new epoch for Christianity.
Eusebius and other contemporaneous writers as-
sociate the conversion of the Roman Emperor Con-
stantine the Great, with the beautiful story of the
dazzling cross appearing in the heavens on the eve
of the conflict with Maxentius, and bearing the mes-
sage, "In this sign thou shalt conquer." In the su-
preme moment when brooding over the uncertain
outcome of the unequal struggle with his rival for
the empire, Constantine abandoned the impostures
of paganism and called upon the God of his mother
Helena. While Constantine remained long under
instruction and preparation as a catechumen, he
meantime worked constantly and prudently to have
Christianity gradually become the recognized re-
ligion of the state. As a statesman, he saw that
Christianity spread far and wide, had left paganism
meaningless as a moral force : and he hoped it might
be able still to infuse life into the decaying empire.
PERSECUTION AND TRIUMPH 325
But Providence had set for the Church a greater
mission, which history was soon to reveal.
Christ Reigns. The edict of Milan (A. D. 313),
granted to the Christians perfect toleration, and
restored their civil rights and their confiscated
property. The Church became exceptionally privi-
leged. It could free slaves in particular cases.
Sunday, which from the time of the Apostles had
beep kept holy to the Lord, was made likewise the
civil day of rest. Bishops were given certain judicial
authority and ranked in honor above civil magis-
trates. Practices most offensive to Christian feeling
and teaching were abolished, as the bloody combats
of gladiators, the destruction of new-born infants,
and the punishment of crucifixion. Little by little
heathen worship was suppressed.
The new eastern capital, Constantinople, which
Constantine built (330) on the site of Byzantium,
was a Christian city, adorned with splendid churches
and inhabited mostly by the faithful. Jerusalem
and its holy places were reclaimed. St. Helena re-
placed with churches the temples of Venus and
Jupiter erected by Hadrian on the sites of Christ's
passion and death; and was rewarded by the dis-
covery on Mt. Calvary of the true Cross.
Thus after 300 years of struggle and suffering
Christianity was triumphant. Julian the Apostate,
nephew of Constantine, indeed* attempted to restore
paganism. But his reign of twenty months w^as
only a passing cloud. The cause of victory was the
internal strength of the Christian religion, the in-
evitableness of truth. The fruit was the liberty of
man in the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ had
taught that man should be free to know, love and
serve God. By th'e exercise of this liberty, servitude
w^as vanquished. For three centuries the martyrs
boldly declared their faith; and then died for it.
326 CHURCH AND PAGAN EOME
And in three centuries they were masters, that is
free. The kingdom of Christ was mightier than the
Kingdom of Caesar; and the capital of the passing
empire was destined to be the capital of the Christian
Church.
CHAPTER XIX
THE MIGRATION AND CONVERSION
OF THE NATIONS
71. THE MIGRATION OF THE NATIONS.
The migration of the nations is the key to the
history of Europe for the thousand years after the
fall of the Roman Empire. New barbarian tribes
swept away that Empire. Their development from
the chaos of savage desolating hordes, to their union
in the new Christian Empire of Charlemagne, then
to their later achievements in art and science, and
so up to their present position as the leading nations
of the world, is the work of slowly refining centuries,
and marks the periods known as the middle ages
(A. D. 476-1500) and modern times. Their conver-
sion to Christianity and civilization was the work of
the Catholic Church and abides as one of her glories.
The Rhine and the Danube \vere the north-eastern
boundaries of the Roman Empire. Within these
boundaries, to the south and west dwelt the Aryan
tribes that had come to Europe in prehistoric times :
— some Teutons; more Celts, as the Gauls, Britons
and Gaels. Conquering Roman legions and provin-
cial governments had brought them considerable
civilization; while by the fourth century, the zeal
of apostolic missionaries, backed by the example
of converted soldiers and the influence of Constan-
tine, had planted flourishing Christian missions
everywhere among them.
The Barbarians. To the north and east of the
327
328 MIGRATION AND CONVERSION
river borders of the empire, dwelt the Visigoths,
Ostrogoths, Alemanni, Franks, Vandals and other
rude and powerful Teutonic and probably Slav
tribes, against whose occasional incursions the
Roman legions had long guarded their frontiers in
vain. In the unknown territory behind these na-
tions, roamed the Huns, a Turanian race of the Turk-
ish family, driven from China or Tartary a few cen-
turies previously.
In the year 375, these savage Huns crossed the
Volga. Their irruption upon the Aryan tribes set
the whole seething mass of barbarians in motion.
"Westward across the empire their course of depre-
dation took its way. Strong nations dislodged
weaker tribes and in turn succumbed to more power-
ful confederations. Europe became the battle
ground of contending tribes who strove fiercely for
the fairest provinces of the empire, from the inva-
sion of the Goths who fled before the Huns in 378,
to that of the Longobards in 570.
Imperial Rome that for 600 years had seen no
enemy before her gates, and for 800 none within her
walls, was besieged by the Goths under Alaric in
408, and spared for an enormous ransom, only to be
again besieged and sacked by him in the following
years.
Battle of the Nations. In 451, near Chalon-sur-
Marne, on the Catalaunian Fields was fought the
terrible Battle of the Nations. On the one side were
the Huns under Attila, reenforced by a vast medley
of conquered tribes swelling their army to 700,000
men. On the other side, Visigoths, Burgundians,
Alans, Franks, Saxons were mustered with the
Romans. On the field of battle remained 160,000
dead. But their blood saved Christianity and the
hopes of Aryan civilization from the destruction
menaced by Turanian savagery and heathenism.
MIGRATION OF NATIONS 329
Attila and Pope Leo I. Breathing vengeance for
his defeat, Attila the Hun crossed the Alps with his
hordes, and with ruin ever marking his path, swept
down toward Rome, eager to sack the capital de-
serted by the Csesars and add its treasures to his
spoils and crush out this one remaining light of
western civilization. liis victorious march was
arrested not by a Roman army, but by the Roman
Pontiff, Pope Leo I, who unarmed, came out to meet
the ''Scourge of God,'' and warn him away from the
place sacred to the Saints Peter and Paul ; and who
indeed, as if by a miracle, thus successfully stayed
the devastation and saved Rome.
The same saintly Bishop of Rome, in 455, met out-
side the gates of the city, Genseric the Vandal,
driven from Spain by the Goths; and again Leo
saved the citizens from slaughter and the captives
from torture; though he could not prevent the
Vandal hordes from wantonly destroying priceless
works of art, and carrying off immense riches as
well as 60,000 captives, to their new kingdom in
Africa.
Fall of the Empire. In 476, came the end of the
Roman Empire. Odoacer, chief of the Heruli,
stripped the purple off the young Romulus Augustus,
and overthrew the tottering throne of the Caesars.
The weakness of many emperors, the fickle despotism
of armies, civil wars and moral enervation, pre-
pared the empire thus to fall before the incursion of
the barbarian nations, 1229 yeai*s after the founding
of the city and 507 years after the first emperor.
After the fall of the western Empire, Italy was
subject to the successive sway of the Heruli, Ostro-
goths and Lombards. Africa was conquered by the
Vandals. North-western Spain fell to the Suevi.
The Visigoths subdued the rest of Spain and south-
ern France. The Burgundians, Alemanni, Thurin-
330 MIGEATION AND CONVERSION
gians, Saxons and Franks divided Germany and
Gaul. Britain was seized by the Angles, Saxons,
and Jutes.
The Dark Ages — ^In these centuries of migration,
ruthless barbarity and bloody war destroyed most
of the work that civilization and Christianity had
already accomplished in Europe. The provincial
towns of Speyer, Mainz, Strasburg and Rheims were
smoldering ruins. Treves was sacked ^ve times.
The buildings of the imperial government and of
the Christian missions, were alike wiped away.
Heaps of corpses and smoking villages traced the
course of march and counter-march. "Whole districts
became deserts, inhabited by bears and wolves. In
the far north, the Saxon invasion passed like a wave
of destruction over Britain. The irruptions of
Alaric, Attila and Genseric left fair Italy a ruin in
the south.
Gregory the Great. Pope Gregory I (590-604),
whose noble personality towers as a redeeming
glory in those troublesome times, leaves us a pitiful
pen picture of the social desolation around him.
Among millions of the intruding barbarians, the
crudest useful arts and sciences were unknown.
Their tribal dialects were without alphabet or litera-
ture. Might was right. Heathen superstitions took
the place of religion. Drinking, idleness and blood-
shed were the occupation of life. For the civiliza-
tion of these nations there was need of a mighty
organization able to afford sanction and security and
knowledge and justice. And the one political power
for 500 years, had crumbled away -before them.
72. CONVERSION OP THE NATIONS.
While the empire of the Cagsars was falling to
pieces, the Church was multiplying its numbers and
CONVERSION OF THE NATIONS 331
developing its organization. When the barbarity
and heathenism that deluged Europe in the migra-
tion of nations, called for a power able to bring order
out of chaos, the empire had passed away. The
Church remained. She was the only institution that
might be looked for, to cope with the task. The
century and a half of freedom from Constantine the
Great to the young Augustus, was for the Church a
golden age of unlost opportunity. Councils national
and provincial, held repeatedly in the east and the
west, reveal the growth of the Church in the number
of Bishops. The general council held at Nice A. D.
325, was attended by 318 Bishops ; that of Chalcedon
A. D. 451, by 630. The names of Athanasius (d.
373), Ambrose (397), Chrysostom (407), Jerome
(420), Augustine (430), Cyril of Alexandria (444),
Pope Leo the Great (461), Pope Gregory the Great
(604), — the greatest men of the age, attest the genius
that illuminated the Christian schools and adorned
the episcopal thrones. Their union with the Bishop
of Rome, gave to the Christian forces scattered
throughout the world, a solidarity and influence
which made a spiritual empire indeed of the King-
dom of God on earth. When the crisis came, the
Church was prepared to meet it. Holding in her
hands the elements of our civilization — the in-
heritance of Greek culture, the tradition of the Ro-
man genius for government, the religion of Jesus
Christ — she faced the barbarians. She was the one
light to dispel the gloom of the dark ages. For cen-
turies to come, her missionaries will be found toiling
among our rude ancestors ; teaching them agriculture
and trade and law and letters as well as faith and
piety. "We shall notice briefly the conversion of the
nations of modern Europe.
Ireland. Ireland honors as her great Apostle, St.
Patrick. In 432, he, with assistant missionaries, was
382 MIGRATION AND CONVERSION
sent by Pope Celestine I, to bring the faith to the
Scots, as the Irish were then called ; ^ and whose
language and manners Patrick had learned while a
youthful captive in their land. Patrick was edu-
cated at the schools of St. Martin at Tours and of
Lerins in, Gaul; was appointed Bishop at Rome;
and approached his mission with every advantage
of knowledge and piety. His success is unparalleled
in history. In about fifty years, a whole nation was
won over from Druidism to Christianity, without the
shedding of a drop of blood. The shamrock, whose
three-leaved stem Patrick chanced to use in explain-
ing the mystery of the Trinity, remains the national
emblem. Patrick lived to see Ireland converted and
planted with monasteries of fervent men and women.
Scotland. St. Columba, or Columbkille, born in
Ireland in 521, is the Apostle of the Caledonians or
Highlanders. On the '* stone of destiny" — still used
in the coronation of English rulers, he anointed
Aidan Fergus, King of the British Scots. At his
death in 597, he left Christianity firmly established
in the Hebrides and northern and western Scotland,
with his disciple St. Machor, Bishop of Aberdeen,
and his monastery on the Island of lona a fountain
of science and virtue.
The Lowland Scots or Picts had for their first
Apostle, St. Ninian, a Briton consecrated Bishop at
Rome and commissioned to Scotland by Pope Siri-
cius, about 394. His successful work was continued
by St. Palladius, once the deacon of Pope Celestine,
who sent to the Orkneys, St. Servanus. His disciple
St. Kentigren evangelized Cambria and founded the
Bishopric of Glasgow.
England. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes, pagan
tribes of North Germany, came to Britain through
the appeal of the natives (449), whose country
»Ven. Bede.
CONVERSION OF THE NATIONS 333
abandoned by the Romans, was harassed by the Picts
and Scots. The Teutons repelled the Scottish in-
vaders, but only to retain Britain as their own per-
manent home. The native Britons were either slain
or driven from their country, some across the channel
to become the Bretons of northern France, others
into the mountain recesses of Wales.
Native Britons. Before the Teuton invasion,
Christianity had made some headway among the old
native Britons, through the Roman influences. St.
Alban was martyred on the island, A. D. 303, by the
agents of Diocletian. While the idea that Peter or
Paul planted the faith in Britain is quite unsup-
ported by history. Venerable Bede states,^ that as far
back as the second century, missionaries \yere sent
thither by Pope Eleutherius (177-192) at the request
of the British Chieftain Lucius. The Myvyrian
Archaeology of Wales names these missionaries as
Elvan, Fagan, Medwin and Damian. Near Llandoff
are four churches named for the chief Lucius or
Llearwig, Dyfan, Ffagan, and Medwy.^ The pres-
ence of British bishops at the Councils of Aries in
314, Sardica in 347, and Rimini in 359, shows the
Catholicity of the Church in Britain, in its union
with the Church on the continent. Pope Celestine I
in 429, as we learn from his secretary, Prosper of
Gaul, commissioned St. Germanus of Auxerre and
St. Lupus of Troyes to their successful task of pro-
tecting the Church in Britain from the heresy of
Pelagius. When these old Britons were despoiled
of their fatherland by the Teutons, they took their
faith with them into the land of exile: Bretagne re-
maining conspicuously faithful to this day ; and
Wales honoring as its Patron, St. David, its Bishop
of Menevia who died A. D. 601.*
'History, Bk. I, Ch. 4.
» Rees' Welsh Saints, p. 84.
* Annals Cambria.
334 MIGRATION AND CONVERSION
The Anglo-Saxons. Meanwhile Hengist and
Horsa, at the head of the piratical Teutons, set up
their kingdom of Kent. Every trace of Christianity
and Roman or Celtic institutions became extinct.
For the next century and a half, the Anglo-Saxons
retained their heathen religion. England as we
know it to-day, owes its Christianity to the zeal of
Pope Gregory the Great and his missionaries. Be-
fore his election to the Papacy, Gregory one day saw
in Rome a number of fair-haired and blue-eyed chil-
dren, who, he was told, were Angles. Captivated by
their innocence and beauty, the tender-hearted priest
exclaimed, "Angles, indeed they seem more like
Angels ! ' ' When he learned that they were without
baptism or the knowledge of Christ, he conceived an
intense desire to evangelize this promising race.
Prevented by his election to the Papacy, from going
himself to England, Gregory sent Augustine with
thirty-nine Benedictine monks, in 596, to lead the
Anglo-Saxons out of heathenism into the fold of
Christ.
So great was his success that ^ve years later,
Augustine who had been made Bishop by Gregory,
was authorized to found twelve suffragan bishoprics
to his own metropolitan See of Canterbury in Kent,
The East Saxons with their king, Soberet, were con-
verted by St. Mellitus, a companion of Augustine,
who in 604, became first Bishop of London. St.
Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, baptized
(627) King Edwin of Northumbria and many of his
subjects, whose conversion was completed by St.
Aidan of lona, under King Oswald. East Anglia,
whose king Copwalk embraced Christianity in 627,
was evangelized by the Burgundian Bishop Felix.
St. Birinus sent by Pope Honorius, was the Apostle
of Wessex and baptized King Cynegils at Dorchester
in 635. The conversion of the Kingdom of Mercia
CONVERSION OF THE NATIONS ;i3.0
began in 655. Sussex received the faith about 680,
through St. Wilfred.
Ranke in the first chapter of his History of the
Popes thus speaks of the conversion of the English
nation.
*^It chanced that certain Anglo-Saxons, being ex-
posed for sale in the slave market of Rome, attracted
the attention of Pope Gregory the Great; he at once
resolved that Christianity should be preached to the
nation whence these beautiful captives had been
taken. Never, perhaps, was resolution adopted by
any Pope whence results more important ensued.
Together with the doctrine of Christianity, a venera-
tion for Rome and for the Holy See, .such as had
never existed before in any nation, found place
among the Germanic Britons. The Anglo-Saxons
began to make pilgrimages to Rome ; they sent their
youths thither to be educated ; and King Offa estab-
lished the tax called *St. Peter's Pence' for the re-
lief of pilgrims and the education of the Clergy. ''
To Wilfred, one of the disciples of the Celtic St.
Aidan, is due the settling of the controversy between
the old Welsh bishops and their new Anglo-Saxon
brothers, about the calculation of Eastern day.
Both sides saw the wisdom of union even in this
matter of mere discipline: and at Whitby, in 664,
agreed that the local custom should give way to the
Roman calendar used not only by the Anglo-Saxons,
but by the universal church. King Oswy argued
that Rome represented the first Apostle, St. Peter,
*'that doorkeeper whom I will not contradict, lest
when I come to the doors of the Kingdom of
Heaven, there will be none to unbar them.'' ^ Thus
within a century of the landing of Augustine, the
whole Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy was brought into the
fold of Christ.
»Bede Hist. Bk. Ill, Ch. 25.
336 MIGRATION AND CONVERSION
The Franks. Clovis, King of the Franks, was bap-
tized with 3,000 of his followers and their families on
Christmas, A. D. 496, by St. Remigius at Rheims.
Like another Constantine, Clovis vowed on the eve
of the battle of Zuelpich, to embrace the religion of
his Burgundian wife Clotilda, if Christ gave him vic-
tory over the Alemanni. Thus began the conversion
of the ''eldest daughter of the Church/' But
though the Merovingian kings and their followers
adopted Christianity, they did not at once cease to
be barbarians. Only gradually did the Church suc-
ceed in taming their wild passions, and that mostly
through Irish monks under St. Columbanus.
Germany. The great Apostle of Germany is ^in-
frid, better known as Boniface, who left his native
England in 716, to share in the evangelization of the
unconverted German tribes. At Rome, he obtained
from Pope Gregory II, an apostolic mission to all
northern Germany; and on a second visit in 723,
consecration as Bishop and the name Boniface. At
Geismer he felled with his own hands, the Thunder-
ing Oak sacred to the god Thor. After thirty-nine
years of apostolic toil, he was martyred (755) by the
pagan Frisians. But he had lived to sec most of the
tribes converted ; to do signal service for Church and
State ; to crown Pepin the Short, King of the Franks ;
and to found many monasteries and bishoprics des-
tined to carry on his work.
Other missionaries among the Teutons whose
memory is blessed by a grateful posterity, were St.
Fridolin among the Alemanni; SS. Columbanus and
Gall among the Swiss; St. Valentine in the Tyrol;
St. Severinus in Austria ; St. Rupert in Bavaria ; SS.
Colman and Kilian in Franconia ; SS. Goar and Dysi-
bod on the Rhine ; SS. Amand and Omer in Belgium;
St. Willibrord in Holland ; St. Willehad, who finally
converted the Saxons and founded Bremen, after
CONVERSION OP THE NATIONS :;;}?
seeing his work repeatedly destroyed and his com-
panions massacred.
Scandinavia. The Norsemen learned of the Chris-
tian religion through their piratical excursions to
foreign shores; and Denmark and Sweden received
the faith through Anschar, Bishop of Hamburg and
Bremen, w^ho died in 847, after an apostolate of 34
years. But the Church was firmly established in
Norway through the efforts of its royal saint, King
Olaf II (1019-1033) ; and in Denmark through King
Canute the Martyr. Christianity was adopted by
the popular assembly in Iceland, A. D. 1000 ; priests
having been brought thither by Leif Ericson, who
was converted in Norway by Olaf I. Leif brought
priests to Greenland, which had been discovered by
his father, Eric the Red, in 982 and planted with
colonies of Northmen; and to Yinland, discovered by
himself about 1001, and now known to be the North
American coastland. The greatest of Leif*s Norse
missionaries w^as an Eric Gnupsson, who was ap-
pointed Bishop of Greenland and Vinland in 1112,
and was thus the first American bishop. The
Church continued to flourish in Greenland for 300
years, but the Norse settlements were finally wiped
away by the Eskimos. The conversion of the war-
like seafaring Northmen was of great importance for
the peace and civilization of the rest of Europe.
The Slavs. The brothers Cyril and Methodius are
honored as the great Apostles of the Slav nations
w^hich possessed themselves of eastern Europe in
the sixth and seventh centuries, and whose myriad
children flock to America to-day. St. Cyril invented
an alphabet for the Slav language, as Bishop Ulfilas
had invented the Gothic alphabet. Cyril and Meth-
odius made a translation into the Slavonian tongue
of the Bible, as well as the liturgy of tRe Mass,
which is used to this day both by many ' ' orthodox * '
338 MIGRATION AND CONVEKSION
and uniate Slavs.^ This use of the vernacular in the
Mass, when called into question by the Germans and
reported to Rome, was sanctioned by Pope Hadrian
II. and his successors. The saintly brothers who
had come to Rome in the matter, were both raised
to the episcopal dignity. Cyril died in Rome in
869, while Methodius continued his labors till his
death in 885. These saints worked especially among
the Moravians, Bulgarians and Boheipians. Poland
was christianized through Bohemia in 967.
Other Nations. The Croatians and Servians were
converted by Roman missionaries about 700. Rus-
sia received the faith through missionaries from
Constantinople during the tenth century. The Mag-
yars, a warlike Finnish tribe, migrated about 890
from Asia. For more than half a century they were
the terror of all Europe, and devastated Germany,
France and Italy, till their captives were almost as
numerous as their tribesmen. They were gradually
subdued by Christianity which was finally founded
among them through their patron, St. Stephen (997-
1038). They settled in Hungary, where their valor
was arrayed as a future outguard of the Christian
Empire against the Mohammedan Turks.
* Schismatic Greeks, Slavs of Russia, etc., call themselves "Orthodox."
These united with Rome are called "Uniate."
CHAPTER XX
73. THE CHURCH AND THE CHRISTIAN
EMPIRE.
On Christmas clay in the year 800, the great
Frankish King Charlemagne was crowned Em-
peror of the Holy Roman Empire, in St. Peter's
Church at Rome, by Pope Leo III. Thus arose,
through a series of providential circumstances, a
power, old in name, but new in meaning, which un-
der many vicissitudes was to be the political center
of Europe, for the next thousand years. The new
Christian Empire was for the federation of the
princes of Europe, for the promotion of peace and
civilization. It was to consolidate the best results
of the migration of nations and to weld its many dis-
cordant elements into a strong Christian union.
The Holy Roman Empire came as the culmination of
generations of toil on the part of the Church, in
teaching the barbarous and warring tribes, the prin-
ciples of society, the art of government and the
wisdom of union. It marks the progress of the new
nations since the fall of the ancient empire, 324 years
before: and the transition to the second period of
the Middle Ages. We emerge from the Dark Ages
into the Ages of Faith.
Its Significance. The new empire was the creation
of Pope Leo III, in conferring upon Charlemagne
the protectorate of the Universal Church and the
guardianship of public morals. It gave Charles no
new territorial power but a supremacy of dignity
among. the other princes. The office was not heredi-
339
340 CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN EMPIRE
tary. The emperor was the president, so to say, in
a senate of Christian sovereigns. Upon him, in a
special way, devolved the duty to act as the pro-
tector of the wronged, the vindicator of public jus-
tice and the peace-maker among the Christian rulers.
The creation of the empire by the free act and sanc-
tioning influence of the Pope, evidences the activity
of the Church in everything that made for the good
and peace of the great Christian family, weaving
Christian principles into the whole fabric of the do-
mestic and national life and causing the successor
of St. Peter to be hailed, in every way, the Father of
Christendom.
Church and State. In the nature of things, the
Church and State in the Middle Ages were bound to
be intimately related. The nations were being con-
verted from paganism to Christianity and the
Church was the embodiment of that religion. In
their paganism the Teutonic nobles had shared the
priesthood. Now the Christiai^ Bishops ranked with
the secular nobles. Moreover as they struggled out
of barbarism, men discovered on every hand, the
need and value of learning; and the Church was
their one teacher. The youths who could realize
that the pen was at least as noble as the sword, and
that conquest of self in painful study, was as hon-
orable a victory as the slaughter of others, were
drawn to the monastic schools and became priests
and bishops. By their superior knowledge they ob-
tained a guiding influence in legislation, and infused
into it the Christian spirit of mercy and brother-
hood.
Ecclesiastics, who spent their time in study and
the contemplation of things human and divine,
seemed as well qualified to administer justice intel-
ligently and impartially as those who had passed
their lives in the profession of arms. In Spain, King
CHUKCii AND CHKliSTiAX EMPIRE ^^41
Reccared commanded the secular judges to attend
the ecclesiastical synods, in order that they might
learn the law ; while he instructed bishops to watch
over the administration of justice. Similar pro-
visions were made in the Prankish kingdom. Speak-
ing of the relation of Charlemagne and his people
to the Holy See, even Voltaire says: "If at this
time the Kingdom of Charlemagne alone possessed
some measure of culture, this is probably to be
ascribed to the fact that the emperor had made a
journey to Rome."
Mutual Recognition of Rights. This cooperation
of the Catholic Church and the federation of Chris-
tian States, was, amid the circumstances of the Mid-
dle Ages, as practical as it was inevitable. It proved
as helpful to the one side as.to the other. Without it,
it is difficult to see how the problems of those times
would have been worked out. Pope and Emperor
were to work in harmony in parallel lines of action.
The Church in things spiritual, the State in things
temporal, were distinct, supreme and independent.
The State assisted with its influence, the activities of
the Church. The Church supported the State in its
legitimate sphere. By their mutual homage they re-
ciprocally^, recognized and agreed to respect each
other's rights in their great work of leading mankind
to its appointed destiny.
Henry IV and Gregory VII. While this plan was
ideal indeed, there were plenty of occasions, in the
development of the free, healthy and virile young
nations, for contention between the two powers.
Ambitious princes whose w^ild blood had been little
cooled by the waters of Baptism, w^ere ever ready
to override the rights of the Church, and mistaking
dictation for protection, to thrust into its episcopal
sees their own unworthy creatures. Kings itching
for the gold of simony or anxious to control the
342 CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN EMPIRE
Church, abused the privilege of investiture which
the Popes were thus obliged to withdraw from them
at whatever cost. Such princes, as in the case of
Henry IV, were sometimes brought to Canossa by
intrepid pontiffs like Gregory VII.
Anti-Popes and Intruders. Again political in-
triguers and powerful lords, Christian only in name,
took advantage of troublesome times to lay violent
hands not only on richly endowed abbeys and bish-
oprics, which they seized for their younger sons, but
even upon the Papacy itself. More than once the
favorites of ruthless monarchs, in the day of their
short-lived power, usurped the defenseless throne of
Peter ; or as anti-popes, contested the supremacy and
stood ready to divide the obedience of Christendom
and rend the body of Christ.
Thus in the iron age of the ninth century, when
Saracens and Hungarians overran Italy, and Chris-
tian princes enslaved instead of protecting the Pope,
the party of Duke Lambert of Spoleto thrust upon
the papal chair its first unworthy incumbent, Stephen
VII, who unearthed and outraged the body of
his predecessor, Formosus. The indignant people
dragged the intruder from his throne to a wretched
death. A typical Anti-Pope was Wilbej^ of Ra-
venna, who called himself Clement III. A subservi-
ent politician who was appointed to his meaningless
office by the Emperor Henry, after that monarch had
gone through the impotent farce of deposing the
great Hildebrand; Wilbert was forgotten with the
failure of his master's schemes. While usurpers of
the Papacy were few, those of abbeys and sees were
numerous. The scandals of occasional intruders are
not to the shame of the Church, which in such cir-
cumstances deserves only our sympathy ; as the good
majority who carried it through the crisis, merit our
admiration. In spite of not infrequent friction, the
CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN EMPIRE 343
Church and State went on in their work, and their
relations were on the whole, useful and proper, as
they were inevitable.
Torch-bearers. It is a §reat principle which must
be kept in mind in reading history, that while the
Church is ever the same divine society in her doctrine
and constitution, her posts are manned anew in each
generation by the men of that generation, subject to
the influences and limitations of their times. In the
light of this principle, we wonder only that there
were so many heroes and saints among the Christian
torch-bearers of that unfolding epoch. If conflicts
of kings often raged around the papal throne, it was
because the Popes generally realized the responsibil-
ity of their office. The spiritual authority of the
Christian religion, embodied in the Popes, exemplified
to barbarian chiefs that there is a higher law than
the law of might. It represented God, whose attri-
butes it held up as the measure of right; whose in-
finite majesty is no respecter of persons ; whose jus-
tice rewards or punishes the most hidden movements
of the soul.
"It is doubtlessly true to say,'' writes the illustri-
ous Herder, * ^ that the Roman hierarchy was a neces-
sary power, without which there would have been
no check upon the untutored nations of the Middle
Ages. Without it, Europe would have become the
theater of interminable conflict and have been con-
verted into a Mongolian desert.'* **In those *dark'
ages,'' says Coquerel, "we see no example of tyranny
comparable to that of the Domitians. A Tiberius
was impossible then. Rome would have crushed him.
Great despotisms exist when kings believe that there
is nothing above themselves." And Guizot adds:
"When a pope or bishop proclaimed that a sovereign
had lost his rights, that his subjects were released
from their oath of fidelity, this interference was often
344 CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN EMPIRE
in the case to which it was directed, just and salu-
tary. It generally holds that where liberty is want-
ing, religion in a great rneasure supplies its place.
In the tenth century, the oppressed nations were
not in a state to protect themselves or to defend their
rights against civil violence. Religion in the name
of Heaven, placed itself between them.''
CHAPTER XXI
74. TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES.
The influence of the papacy as the family center
and peace tribunal of Christendom in the middle
ages, must not be confused with the political sover-
eignty of the Popes over the city and neighborhood
of Rome. This latter is known as the temporal
power of the Pope, as distinguished from his spirit-
ual pastorate of the universal Church. The origin
of the temporal power is to be sought in the social
and political upheavals consequent to the fall of the
ancient empire and the migration of the barbarous
nations. For more than a thousand years this sover-
eignty over the nominal kingdom of little more than
a city, was exercised by the Popes, and came to have
great international and religious significance. It
ceased for the time being at least, with the invasion
of the Eternal City in 1870, by Garabaldi and the
troops of the Piedmont King, Victor Emmanuel.
Origin. The temporal sovereignty was a natural
result of the circumstances of the times. It was not
founded on any particular action of the Popes, but
arose from the conditions which compelled them to
be, what the emperors would not and could not be,
the protector of the people in times of extraordinary
distress. The granting of many legal powers to
the Popes by Constantine and subsequent emperors,
such as authority to free slaves, to act as legal arbi-
ter and judge in trials, to administer the poor laws,
etc., accustomed the Roman people to see in the
345
346 TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES
Popes the best protectors of their temporal interests.
Much land had in the course of time been entrusted
to the Popes, as endowments for churches and char-
itable institutions. The wise use of this Patrimony
of St. Peter and the generous care of the coloni or
cultivators who were attached to it, were a preparing
cause. The Romans remembered, too, that the Pope,
who was one of themselves, had more than once
saved the city from savage devastation. When the
empire crumbled to pieces before the barbarians, the
last of the Caesars was deposed by the invading
Heruli (476), who in turn were soon to be slain and
supplanted (490) by the 200,000 warriors of the Os-
trogoths, who again would be followed by the Lom-
bards. The Romans more and more gathered around
the Pope, whose position as head of all the Chris-
tian churches in the world, raised him to an influence
which must be useful to them abroad as it was ap-
preciated by them at home. But the Pope was not
yet the formal King of Rome.
Donation of Pepin. In 533, Justinian I, Emperor
of Constantinople, sent his general, Narses, to defeat
the Ostrogoths. Central Italy was made a depend-
ence of the eastern empire, whose Exarch resided at
Ravenna. But the distant master's hold on Italy
was weak. The Lombards poured down from the
Alps and seized one portion after another of the Ex-
archate. Their l^ng, Astolf, was threatening Rome,
taking towns and cities as he came. The impotent
eastern Exarch had fled. The Byzantine power in
Italy was extinct. Yet Pope Stephen, with the loy-
alty the Popes had always shown even to the worst
emperors, ^sent message after message to Constantine
V, asking protection for Rome. Neither armies nor
answer came. As a last resort, Stephen called upon
Pepin the Short, King of Gaul and son of Charles
Martel. Pepin restrained the Lombards, instituted
TEMPORAL POWER OF POPES 347
order and laid on the tomb of St. Peter, the keys of
Rome, with the document establishing the Pope as
the sovereign of the eternal city, A. D. 756.
Significance. . The temporal power, begun in what
seemed the accidents of the fifth century, was a
providence destined to concern a larger world than
central Italy. It left the Popes free from the control
of any one government. As a convenience, not to
say absolute necessity, to the Primate of a Church
which is Catholic and international or rather super-
national, it has its counterpart in our own District
of Columbia. As Washington gives to the federal
government a home where it is outside of the control
of any single state and so free to work impartially
for all, so Rome as the city of the Popes, gave the
Church freedom to deal with her spiritual children
in every country. The papal dynasty begun in the
middle of the eighth century, continued with many
an interruption through invading foe, till our own
day. Without the Popes, Rome might be no more to-
day than Antioch or Jerusalem, its monuments in
ruins, its visitors a memory.
Gibbon^ defends- the temporal dominion of the
Popes and considers their title the free choice of a
people whom they had redeemed from slavery.
Ranke writes:- ''There is also, as it appears to
me, an inconsistency in the fact that the Pope should
exercise on all sides the supreme spiritual power
and yet remain himself subjected to the emperor.
There needed but a certain complication of political
affairs, and the Pope might have been prevented, by
his subordination to the emperor, from performing
the duties imposed on him by his office as common
father of the faithful."
Prisoner of Vatican. Since 1870, the Popes have
maintained independence from undue meddling with
1 "Decline and Fall." Cin. 1859, Vol. II., Ch. 10.
' "History of the Popes," Ch. 1.
348 TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES
the affairs of the Church through the world, by pre-
serving at least the principle of sovereignty, in their
continued protest. The new Italian government
seems to acknowledge the papal rights even while de-
spoiling them, by its **law of extra-territoriality*'
in favor of the Vatican, the Cathedral and the Chan-
cery, and by the guaranteeing to the Pontiff the
immunities and respect proper to a Sovereign.
Meantime, the prisoner of the Vatican, with soul un-
conquered, governs the Universal Church and waits
for the unfolding of history.
^
CHAPTER XXII
75. THE CRUSADES.
With the rise of Mohammedanism in 622, came a
menace to the Christian religion and to the civiliza-
tion that was being developed upon its foundations,
v^hich hung over Europe for centuries to come. The
fanatics of Islam swept over the provinces of Asia
and northern Africa like a withering flame. With
fire and sword the new superstition was propagated
in regions that had witnessed the labors of the
Apostles and boasted of the glories of the early-
Church. Many Christians were perverted through
terror or seduced by the sensual pleasures of the
new faith. More remained faithful to Christ, only
to be massacred, or enslaved for the harem, the gal-
leys or the ranks of the Janissaries. Later Moham-
medanism would luring to the forces of the Semitic
Saracens, the terrible might of the Turks. The
struggle of Europe for its civilization and religion
against the Mussulman aggression, did much to shape
the Middle Ages and justify the wisdom of the fed-
eration of its princes in union with the Popes.
Mahomet was born in Arabia in 569. His fol-
lowers called themselves Islam, submission to God;
or Moslem or Mussulmans, dedicated to God. The
Turks were first the subjects, then the soldiers, and
finally the masters of the Saracens. They adopted
Islam as their faith, giving as it did, religious sanc-
tion to their passions, ferocity and greed. The Arabs
349
350 THE CRUSADES
or Saracens were called Moors by the Spaniards,
because they came over from Mauretania, the modern
Morocco.
Saracens in Spain. From the conquest of north-
■^ern Africa, the Saracens crossed to Spain, A. D.
711, under Tarik, landing at the rock Gibraltar,
which has since borne his name (Gabel Tarik). The
Spaniards were driven to the mountains of Asturia
or enslaved under Moslem rule. At once the rem-
nants of their race began the unremitting war in de-
fense of their home, which lasted almost 800 years,
till full success crowned their heroic efforts with the
expulsion of the Moors from Spain after the fall of
Granada, A. D. 1492, under Ferdinand and Isabella.
In these events are to be found the origin of the Span"
ish Inquisition.^
Battle of Tours. France was next invaded by the
Saracens. Between Tours and Poitiers (732)
Charles Martel led the united Christian forces
against Abderame, who with 400,000 followers had
devastated the thousand miles from the Rock of Gib-
raltar to the river Loire. Here in a battle lasting
nine days, the Aryan race triumphed over the in-
vading Semitic, as on the Catalaunian Fields they
^ The Spanish Inquisition, instituted in l4»0, under Ferdinand and
Isabella, primarily to control the "Christian" Jews and Moors, — whose
conversion was often only a pretense to enable them to remain in Spain
after the expulsion of the alien races — was doubtless looked upon by
Spain, at the time, as the proper and necessary method of attaining a
desired result. Ranke, Guizot, Menzel, the Britannica and the Amer-
ican Encyclopedia regard the Inquisition as "more political than re-
ligious, and destined rather for the maintenance of order than for the
defense of faith." It is most unjust for non-Catholic writers to blame
the Catholic Church for the cruel abuses of this tribunal. Sixtus IV,
Leo X, Paul III, Paul IV, and other Popes raised their voices in pro-
test against those abuses. Catholics have nothing but condemnation for
them. Non-Catholics who would make a controversial argument of the
Spanish Inquisition should reflect that the worst cruelties of the Spanish
court were repeated by the English Court of High Commission by which,
after the Reformation, that country long persecuted its Catholicf subjects,
not as traitors, but for demanding the liberty of conscience to remain in
the faith of their fathers. It is unfortunate that both Llorente and Lea,
the historians of the Spanish Inquisition, use history, not as the torch
of truth but as a weapon of unjust attack.
THE CRUSADERS 351
had triumphed over the Turanians. This day was
really the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire,
though it was the grandson ,of Charles Martel who
first wore its crown.
Saracens at Rome. The power of the Saracens in
Europe was far from ended by the Battle of Tours.
A century later, A. D. 855, Mussulman armies came
up to the walls of Rome and sacked St. Peter's. The
Eternal City still bears the scars of their fanatical
destruction. In time the Mohammedan Turks be-
came masters of Jerusalem and Constantinople and
returned again and again to thunder at Vienna, the
eastern door of Europe.
Christian Empire. This terrible Moslem power,
for centuries fighting for the possession of Europe,
would never have been held back, without that fed-
eration of the Christian princes under the Popes,
uniting all the forces of Europe in the Holy Roman
Empire. Rome, instead of Constantinople, might be
to-day the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and the
states of Europe might share the fate of the once
highly civilized and Christian provinces of the East,
where now the cry of massacred Armenians and of
enslaved and outraged womankind falls upon merci-
less ears. Gibbon well says that instead of the Bi-
ble, '* perhaps the interpretation of the K(^an would
now be taught, in the schools of Oxford, and her pul-
pits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the
sanctity and truth of the revelations of Mahomet.'* ~
H. M. Dadourian of Yale College, estimates the re-
cent massacres of Christians by Mohammedan fanat-
icism as follows: A. D. 1822, 50,000 Greeks; A. D.
1850, 10,000 Nestorians and Armenians ; A. D. 1860,
11,000 Maronites and Syrians; A. D. 1876, 10,000
Bulgarians ; A. D. 1894-96, 100,000 Armenians ; A. D.
1909, 23,000 Armenians. '*Only a native of Tur-
8 "Decline and Fall," Vol. 2, Ch. 13.
352 THE CRUSADES
key,'* he says, ''can have any adequate idea of the
sufferings which the helpless Christians had to en-
dure during the intervals between massacres.'^ We
may trust that the victorious war of the Balkan al-
lies (1912) will make Turkish misrule no longer pos-
sible in even the farthest corner of Europe.
Crusades. In the wars with the threatening hosts
of Mohammedanism, which developed into the Cru-
sades, the Popes were ever at the head of Christian
Europe, holding together the leaders and encour-
aging the people. The eloquence of Pope Urban II
at Clermont (1095), endorsed the enthusiastic "God
wills it," of Peter the Hermit, and sent Godfrey de
Bouillon and his companions to the relief of -Jerusa-
lem. When the Church converted and the Empire
absorbed the fierce Magyars, w^ho were themselves
long a terror to the civilized nations, this warlike
people were thus turned into the valiant defenders
of the eastern door of Europe. Church and state co-
operated at Belgrade and Vienna. The Cardinal Ju-
lian commanded with the splendid Hunyady, the
Christian allies that routed the Turks at Sophia.
Later the Polish King Sobieski joined the forces of
his personal and national rival, the Emperor Leo-
pold of Austria, an the last defense of Vienna, only
through the influence of the papal legate and as a
Christian prince. To the foresight and energy of
Pope Pius V, was due the supreme victory of the
Christians over the Turks at Lepanto, A. D. 1571,
which crushed forever, it is to be hoped, their men-
ace to Europe.
Effects of Crusades. Incidentally the Crusades
benefited Europe by making its nations better ac-
quainted with each other, as well as with the more
Oriental peoples. While they gave experience and
promoted solidarity, they increased knowledge of
both letters and science, and opened up a splendid
THE CRUSADES 353
commerce. A fine moral effect was the turning the
minds of men from their petty personal and local
feuds, to the grand ideas of united Christendom de-
fending its homes, its civilization and its religion.
Again the orders of knighthood developed the spirit
of chivalry with its noble ideals and its lessons of
self-restraint. One of the dreams of Columbus was
to rescue the Holy Sepulcher and deliver Jeinisalem
with the gold which he hoped to find in his discov-
eries.
The Church gained in influence through the part
she took in the Crusades. She found herself the
natural leader in a movement that engaged the na-
tions for centuries. To the Popes, as the head of
the Christian family, more than to any other influ-
ence, may we be grateful that the Crescent did not
supplant the Cross on the dome of St. Peter's in the
Capital of the West, as it did (1453) on the towers of
Santa Sophia, in the eastern capital of Constantine,
where it remains to this day.
CHAPTER XXIII
76. THE MONASTERIES OF THE MIDDLE
AGES.
The promotion of civilization among our ancestors
called for the efforts of many men, working not sin-
gle-handed, but united in obedience to a great plan
and in denial of selfish and merely personal ends for
the sake of its accomplishment. Hence much of the
activity of the Church during the development of
the nations, expressed itself through the monastic
institutions. The missionary center of the dark ages
grew into the school and town of the middle ages and
the university of the renaissance.
St. Benedict. The patriarch of the western monks
is St. Benedict. The monastery of Monte Cassino,
near Naples, founded by him in 529, is to this day,
what it has been through the intervening fourteen
centuries, a home of science and virtue, a nursery
of cultured scholars and pious apostles. Monte Cas-
sino is a type of the 37,000 houses counted by this or-
der in the height of its useful and zealous labors.
The rule framed by Benedict is well called a master-
piece of wisdom and prudence. Its few and simple
precepfl are well calculated to train men in detach-
ment from worldliness and in Christian perfection
through the evangelical counsels. As Longfellow
says:
"He founded here his convent and his rule
Of prayei- and work, and counted work as prayer.
The pen became a clarion, and his school
Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air."
354
MONASTERIES OP MIDDLE AGES 355
Irish Monks. Tin- juunasteries of Ireland, famous
from the days of St. Patrick, won for her the name
of the ''Isle of Sages and Saints/' Through the
seventh, eighth and ninth centuries her institutions
of men and women were the most illustrious seats of
learning in the west. From these nurseries came
the Irish missionaries who made all Europe their
spiritual debtor. To the monastic schools of Ireland
flocked students from Germany, Gaul, Scotland and
England. St. Aldheim, whom King Alfred called
the prince of English poets, writes that students
went over from England ' * numerous as bees. ' ' These
schools were famous for their Greek as well as for
their Latin classics, ^and philosophy and theology.
Students were taught and boarded free of cost, and
imbibed the virtue and culture that made many of
them'celebrated as scholars and saints. Outside their
own country the Irish maintained 13 monasteries in
Scotland, 7 in France, 12 in Armoric Gaul, 7 in
Lotharingia, 11 in Burgundy, 9 in Belgium, 10 in
Alsatia, 16 in Bavaria, 15 in Rhetia, Helvetia and
Suevia, besides others beyond the Rhine.^
Work of the Monks. The monks included lay-
men as w^ell as priests. They must be poor and
support themselves by the labor of their hands.
They must w^ork and pray. Towns all over Europe
trace their origin to the monastic centers of the
early missionaries. The monastery was the school
of religion for all, since each must know and serve
God. While the monks preached the Gospel, they
also drained the swamps, cleared the forests, tilled
the soil and exercised the industrial arts. Dressed
in the rude garb of the country, the monks thus
gave to the natives who settled around them an ob-
ject lesson in the method and dignity of labor;
while their example of prayer and self-restraint
^Thebaud: The Irish Race. •
356 MONASTERIES OF MIDDLE AGES
taught the conquest of self and the union of the
humblest lives with God.
Their Schools. The monastery like the cathedral
was the public school of letters for all who could
be so trained. The divine fire of knowledge was
entrusted to the keeping of the more promising
youths, who in turn would transmit it to the next
generation. Such a one was the illustrious Venera-
ble Bede, the first historian of England, who toiled
in his monastery for fifty years and died (735) dic-
tating his translation of the Gospel. The art of
printing was not discovered till the 15th century.
Throughout those long ages, every book was writ-
ten out by hand ; and generally with an elegance of
art which makes those illuminated parchments the
glory of the modern libraries fortunate enough to
possess them. In monastery and convent the scrip-
torium or writing-room, for the multiplication and
preservation of manuscripts, was the scene of a
labor as exhausting to the faithful toiler as it has
been beneficial to posterity. To the monastic love
of learning we are indebted for the preservation,
in the face of so many adverse circumstances, of
the Bible and the treasures of early Christian and
classical literature that link us with a glorious an-
tiquity and make us the inheritors of its riches: as
well as for the historical annals, the poetry, the
philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages. For
centuries the monks were the principal teachers of
art and science. Charlemagne brought the British
monk Alcuin to preside over his Palatine school.
Ever marching at the head of the fast advancing
civilization, these Christian schools were the be-
ginning of the great Universities.
Their Great Monument. The Middle Ages are
dark ages only for those who are ignorant of them.
Scholars wax enthusiastic over them in proportion
MONASTERIES OF MIDDLE AGES 357
to the thoroughness with which they have studied
their history. Montalembert in his ''Monks of the
West/^ does not raise a monument to their achieve-
ments, but shows that our own civilization is their
great monument. In the old fable, the little wren is
the king of all the birds. It reaches the highest
height. It did so, however, not by itself, but be-
cause in the test it perched itself upon the head of
the eagle^and was lifted to the clouds by the giant
bird upon whose mighty crest its own insignificant
feet rested. If in many things we are superior to
our ancestors of the past ages, we do well gratefully
to remember that it is largely because we stand on
the shoulders of giants whose genius and toil pre-
pared our way and made possible our condition.
While the inheritance of the centuries may give
to us a more favorable environment, it may well
be asked what age has produced more excellent ed-
ucators than Alcuin, Venerable Bede, St. Bruno,
Scotus Erigena, Roscelin; or bishops more admira-
ble than Hildebrand, Anselm,^Lanfranc, Dunstan;
or kings more worthy than Alfred the Great, St.
Edward, Canute, Charlemagne, the greater leaders
of the middle period of the Middle Ages.
Tributes. Edmund Burke writes of those days:
*'To the spirit of the Catholic Church and to the
monks of the Middle Ages, Europe is mainly in-
debted for her present civilization." Mrs. Jameson
says: ''But for the monks, liberty; literature and
science had been extinguished." "It is evident,"
says Leibnitz, "that both books and literature have
been preserved by the monasteries." James Whit-
ney writes: "The power of the mediaeval world
lay partly in the loftiness of its ideals, partly in the
strength of its institutions. No age ever showed
in individual lives a keener sense of duty or a greater
readiness for self-sacrifice. The ideals of the lives of
358 MONASTERIES OF MIDDLE AGES
the mendicant friars, the greater bishops and the sim-
ple parish priests, could hardly be surpassed."
**Hume and Robertson/' says Goldwin Smith,
*'have long been consigned to disgrace for their
want of accurate erudition, especially in relation
to the Middle Ages, which to them were merely the
Dark Ages: while to the mediaevalist of our day
they appear to be special ages of light." In his in-
troduction to the Dark Ages, Maitland^speaks of
monasteries "as a quiet and religious refuge for
helpless infancy and old age, a shelter of respecta-
ble sympathy for the orphan maiden and the deso-
late widow; as central points whence agriculture
was to spread over bleak hills and barren downs
and marshy plains, and deal bread to millions per-
ishing with hunger and its pestilential train; as
repositories of the learning which then was, and
well-springs of the learning which was to be; as
nurseries of art and science, giving the stimulus,
the means, and the reward to invention, and aggre-
gating around them every head that could devise
and every hand thai: could execute ; as the nucleus
of the city, which in after days of pride should
crown its palaces and bulwarks with the towering
cross of its cathedral."
CHAPTER XXIV
CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
77. THE BOOK OF THE WORDS.
The Renaissance signifies commonly the rebirth
of Greek tastes and ideas in western Europe,
through the Greeks who fled from the east after
the fall of Constantinople into the hands of the
Turks in 1453. To this Greek influence is some-
times erroneously credited all the artistic and lit-
erary glory that marked the close of the Middle
Ages. The history of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries reveals, on the contrary, that our culture
is truly the development of the influences which
had been long and steadily at work. After the pa-
tient preparation of winter, the tree suddenly puts
forth its bright blossoms. So the labor of the ear-
lier and humbler periods of the Middle Ages, at last
burst forth with their natural flowers of fruit ifi
the spring of the thirteenth century. Indeed so
much is the thirteenth century — in the middle of
the Middle Ages, and over 200 years before the fall
of Constantinople, — a golden age, that many others
with Matthew Arnold, consider it the greatest and
most interesting period in the history of Christian-
ity after its primitive days. The thirteenth century
grew out of the centuries that preceded it : and the
fourteenth and fifteenth were impossible without
the thirteenth.
369
360 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Religion Its Inspiration. Permeating the whole
century as its breath of its life, is the Christian re-
ligion. It came into the lives of the lowliest people
through the ministry of the mendicant friars. In
the Universities it joined with the dialectics of
Aristotle to form the Christian philosophy of
Thomas of Aquin and the other sons of St. Dominic.
The mysticism of St. Francis of Assisi is its worthy
practice in life. The Gothic Cathedral is its ex-
pression in stone. The painting of Cimabue, the
marbles of Giotto, the poetry of Dante, are inspira-
tions of religion. The age was glorified by great
and saintly men on the thrones of Church and State,
as well as in the cloister and the school.
Ruskin says that the proper estimation of the ac-
complishment of a period in human history can only
be obtained by the careful study of three books, the
Book of the "Words, the Book of the Deeds, the
Book of the Arts. Under these heads we need only
to indicate the men and movements of the 13th cen-
tury and the years close to it, and their influence
bearing fruit through the 14th and 15th centuries,
to see the glorious civilization of Catholic Christen-
dom at the end of the Middle Ages and the dawn
of our modern times.
Literature. This period heard the lyrics of Pe-
trarch in Italy, of the Troubadors and Trouveres
of France, the Minnesingers and Mastersingers of
Germany. Its poets christened their old folk-lore
songs. From it come to us the Nibelungen-lied and
the Gudrun, the Golden Legends, the legends of
Arthur and the Round Table, of Percival and the
Holy Grail.^ Spain then created the romance of
the '*Cid''; France the ''Romance of the Rose'';
Germany the tales of ''Reynard the Fox."
Meanwhile the religious poets sang the sorrows of
* Used by Wagner, Longfellow, Tennyson, etc.
BOOK OF THE WORDS 361
Christ and his holy mother in the plaintive ''Stabat
Mater"; or the terrible majesty of the last judg-
ment in the ''Dies Irae." Oftener with the note of
joyous life which marks the art of that virile age,
they sang triumphantly the ''Pange Lingua Glori-
osi, " " Paschali Jubilo, " " Sacris Solemniis. ' ' Again
they sang reverently **Veni Sancte Spiritus/' '*Ad-
oro Te Devote," "Jerusalem the Golden"; or
praised the good God of all creatures with St. Fran-
cis in his ''Canticle of the Sun." After seven hun-
dred years all of these works live as literature.
Dante. As the fitting crown of a glorious cen-
tury, Italy," in 1265, brought forth Dante Alighieri,
one of the few supreme poets of all time. This poet,
whom posterity classes with Homer and Shakes-
peare, aspired to rank only with certain of his for-
gotten contemporaries who thus indirectly reveal
the culture of their day. In his "Divina Corame-
dia" Dante immortalizes the genius of his age;
sums up its philosophy; reflects its art and poetry,
its strifes and loves, its conscious power and its di-
vine ideals.
Dante was conscious of the influence of the men-
dicant orders that sprung up in his day, and pays
to their founders the tribute of sanctity which the
world has not ceased to repeat.
*'L*un (Francis of Assisi) fu tutto Serafico in ar-
dore,
L'Altro (St. Dominic) per sapienza in terre fue,
Di Cherubico luce uno splendore."
The Universities. By the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries the greater monastic and cathedral schools
were developing into our universities. Many of
the greatest institutions of higher learning have
preserved through the seven intervening centuries,
aot only their names, but with little ^ modification
362 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
their original constitutions, which have been the
models for all later schools of higher educa-
tion.
The University of Paris grew up around the old
cathedral school. Its Latin Quarter beneath the
shadow of Notre Dame still boasts of the college
founded in 1250, for poor students, by Robert de
Sorbonne, chaplain of St. Louis. While maintain-
ing faculties in all the professions as well as in the
liberal arts, Paris was preeminent in philosophy,
and theology, Salerno in medicine, Bologna in law.
Oxford cultivated theology and the liberal arts and
grew out of monastic schools going back* to the days
of Alfred.
The early Universities received their charters
from the Pope, and with them his protection and
assistance. To enumerate these foundations of the
13th, 14th and 15th centuries will bear witness to
the culture fostered by the Church in every land;^
for nothing can indicate better the character and
civilization of an age than its schools. "What these
schools taught is revealed by the deeds, the art and
the letters which their age has left. In his inaug-
ural address as president of Aberdeen University,
Thomas Huxley said of these mediasval schools: *'I
doubt if the curriculum of any modern university
shows so clear and generous a comprehension of
what is meant by culture as this old Trivium and
Quadrivium does."
A. D. 1200-1300. The 13th century saw the char-
tering of the following great Universities, several
of which date their character as General Schools
to the previous century: Salerno, Paris, Bologna,
Orleans, Modena, Reggio, VillaiSlfva, Vicenza, 1204;
Palencia, 1214; Arezzo, 1215; Padua, 1222; Naples,
1225; Vercelli, 1228; Toulouse, 1233; Salamanca,
1243; Piaceajza, 1248; Oxford, 1249; Seville, 1254;
BOOK OF THE WORDS 363
Cambridge, 1257 ; Perugia, 1276 ; Montpellier, 1289 ;
Lerida, 1300; Lyons, 1300.
A. D. 1300-1400. The 14th century added the fol-
lowing Universities: Rome, 1303; Avignon, 1303;
Angers, 1305; Coimbra (Lisbon), 1309; Treviso,
1318; Florence, 1320; Dublin, 1320; Cahors, 1332;
Grenoble, 1339; Pisa, 1343; Prague (Bohemia),
1347; Valladolid, 1346; Sienna, 1357; Huesca, 1354;
Pavia, 1361; Cracow (Poland), 1364; Vienna, 1364;
Orange, 1365; Erfurt, 1376; Heidelberg, 1385; Co-
logne, 1388; Ferrara, 1391; Palermo, 1394.
A. D. 1400-1500. - The 15th century inaugurated
more great Universities : Ingolstadt, 1401; Wuerz-
burg, 1403; Turin, 1405; Leipsic, 1409; Aix,
1409; Valencia, 1410; St. Andrews (Scotland),
1411 ; Rostosk, 1419 ; Cremona, 1413 ; Louvain, 1426 ;
Portiers, 1431; Caen, 1437; Bordeaux, 1441; Treves,
1450; Glasgow, 1450 ; Valence, 1452; Freiburg, 1455;
Greifswalde, 1456 ; Basle, 1459 ; Nantes, 1463 ; Bour-
ges, 1465; Ofen (Buda), 1465; Presburg, 1467; Sara-
gossa, 1474; Mainz, 1476; Tubingen, 1477; Upsala
(Sweden), 1477; Copenhagen, 1479; Avila, 1482;
Aberdeen, 1494; Alcala, 1499.
Doctors and Saints. Universities sprang up and
multiplied because there were great men to hear
whom students were drawn in thousands. They
discuss^ the problems that ever concern mankind:
human life and destiny and relations. But like
Plato, Augustine and the other great philosophers,
they discussed these questions in such a way that
their thoughts still fascinate the deepest minds.
Oxford and Paris Universities are said to have had
as many as 30,000 students at one time.
The Golden Age of Athanasius and Augustine
returned in the genius of the scholastics. A perma-
nent place in the history of culture belongs to Abe-
lard, St. Bernard, Robert Pulleyne, Peter Lombard,
364 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
John of Salisbury, Albertus Magnus, Richard
and Hugo of St. Victor, to the English Franciscans
Alexander of Hales and Dun Scotus, Vincent of
Beauvais the cyclopaedist of his age, and to its great
doctors of law, Raymond of Pennafort, Gratian and
Irnerius of Bologna. After centuries of time the
Franciscan Bonaventura is still the Seraphic doctor.
His Oxford brother, Roger Bacon, who studied the
book of Nature, as well as Revelation, is honored by
his fellow scientists, who use his magnifying glass.
The writings of St. Thomas of Aquin, who grappled
with every possible difficulty which the keenest mind
could bring against the Christian religion, and set
his theology in the strong frame work of the Aris-
totelian philosophy, leave him still the '^ Angel of
the Schools. ' ' The ' ' Imitation of Christ ' ' of Thomas
a Kempis, who came a little later, but came to stay
forever, has held a place in thoughtful minds second
only to the Gospels.
78. THE BOOK OF THE DEEDS.
The men and women whom an age reveals as its
leaders are an indication of its greatness or its pet-
tiness. The dawn of the period of which we speak,
saw upon the thrones of Europe Frederick Barba-
rossa, Rudolf of Hapsburg, Philip Augustus, Richard
the Lion Hearted, Louis IX, the royal Saint of
France. Blanche of Castile and Elizabeth of Hun-
gary, saintly queens of the court, Clare of Assisi,
queenly saint of the cloister, mark the dignity of
woman at the time and foreshadowed Catherine of
Siena, Joan of Arc and Isabella of Spain.
On the papal throne, during the thirteenth cen-
tury alone, sat the truly great Innocent III, the sci-
entist John XXI, the patron of learning Honorius
IV, the humble St. Celestine V, and the misunder-
BOOK OF THE DEEDS 365
stood genius, Boniface VIII. There were great men
also on the episcopal thrones. The bishops rightly
chosen f|Dm the ranks of the clergy for their su-
perior ability, were generally scions of the common
people. The elevation of such natural leaders to
influence, even to the more than royal power of the
papal chair, fostered democracy, curbed tyranny, en-
couraged the hopes and protected the rights of the
people.
Magna Charta. One of these bishops was Stephen
Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. His predeces-
sor, St. Thomas a Becket, had been murdered at
the altar by the villains of Henry II, for his op-
posiliuu to the king's trampling on law-given and
time-honored English rights. Langton was destined
to wrest successfully from the grandson of Henry,
that incomparable document, the Magna Charta of
constitutional liberties. This charter framed in the
thirteenth century by the Catholic Archbishop and
Barons of England, with its rights of Habeas Corpus
and trial by jury, its principle of "no taxation with-
out representation,'' and its practical death-blow to
arbitrary power in kings, is the greatest bulwark
of civil liberty, the cornerstone of constitutional gov-
ernment in England, and the foundation of American
constitutional freedom.
The historian Green, speaking of Langton upon
his return to his native land after his consecration
by Pope Innocent III, says, *'From the moment he
landed in England he assumed the constitutional
position of the Primate, 'as champion of the old
English customs and law, against the personal des-
potism of the kings." Acting under his counsel
the barons extorted from King John, at Runnymede,
in 1215, the Great Charter. Says Hallam: ''Two
great men, the pillars of the Church and State, may
be considered as entitled beyond the rest, to the
366 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
■*
glory of the monument, Stephen Langton, Archbishop
of Canterbury, and William Earl of Pembroke. To
their temperate zeal for legal government, England
was indebted during that critical period, for the
greatest blessing that patriotic statesmen could con-
fer: the establishment of civil liberty upon an im-
movable basis, and the preservation of national in-
dependence under the ancient line of sovereigns
which rasher men were about to exchange for the
dominion of France."
Three World Discoverers. When the year 1400
began to unroll the secrets of a new century, little
possible it seemed that its scroll was to reveal three
men, whose names would be written immortally in
the book of deeds, as w^orld discoverers. These men
were Copernicus, who revealed the astronomical
world in the system which bears his name: Guten-
berg, who opened up the larger world of letters,
made possible by the printing press : Columbus, who
gave us the mighty world of the western hemis-
phere. No word need be said about the grandeur of
these discoveries.
Copernicus. All of these world-compelling giants
were devout sons of the Church and were encouraged
in their enterprises by the generous patronage of
noble Catholic rulers. The Polish Copernicus, born
in 1473, was a priest as well as an astronomer. After
teaching in the University of Rome, the cosmopolitan
and catholic city which knows genius but not na-
tionality, he retired on a benefice provided for him
by Pope Paul III. •
Gutenberg. The German Gutenberg, who in-
vented his printing press about 1438, and in 1450
was able to run off quarto copies of the whole Bible,
enjoyed the friendship of Adolph, Archbishop of
Mayence, who gave the struggling genius the very
practical encouragement of a pension.
BOOK OF THE DEEDS - 'Mu
The love of learning which in the past had led
the Church to count the copying of manuscripts
part of the monastery 's work, now multiplied, hooks
of literature, science, history and religion by means
of the printing press. The Vatican Library, in rare
books and manuscripts, the richest in the world, was
refounded by Pope Nicholas V. A little later Leo
X was scouring all Europe for manuscripts of history
and the classics, to add to its treasuries and publish
to the world. A single corridor of this library,
which with the Vatican galleries of art makes up
most of the papal palace, is almost a quarter of a
mile in length. It is the enlightened policy of the
Church to leave all the treasures of the Vatican
Ijibrary freely open to the world, and to secure
the most learned scholars as curators of this greatest
mine of history. Leo XIII, who in throwing open
even its secret archives containing centuries of diplo-
matic correspondence with governments, gave stimu-
lus to the scientific writing of history and example
to all rulers, wrote that the first law of historical
writing should be, to fear to state error and not^ to
fear to state the truth.
Columbus. The Italian Columbus, born at Genoa
in 1436, probably learned at the University, of Pavia
the new theories of the roundness of the earth, as
well as astronomy, mathematics and geography.
Through the years of disappointment, when his plans
were neglected at the courts to which he applied
for help, Columbus was buoyed up with the pious
belief that Heaven had destined him to plant the
banner of the cross on the unknown shores of which
he dreamed.
Leaving his own country and making his way to
Spain, Columbus stopped to beg bread and w^ater
for his son at the Franciscan convent of La Rabida.
This day was the turning point of his life. The su-
368 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
perior, Father Juan Perez de Marchena, who had been
the confessor of Queen Isabella, appreciated the
grandeur of the wayfarer's ideas and henceforth ex-
erted every influence to obtain the required aid from
the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. The war of
Spain with the Moors made the risk of money diffi-
cult at the time. In the years that Columbus had still
to wait, he found warm friends who actively favored
his enterprise, not only in the faithful Franciscans,
but in the great Dominican Deza, the Archbishop of
Toledo, the confessor Talavera and other ecclesiastics
who had sat in judgment of his plans in the Council
of Granada.
Isabella the Catholic. When Columbus, weary with
waiting, had actually left Granada in despair. Father
Santangel pleaded successfully with Isabella to ac-
cede to the plans of the inspired navigator and found
the enterprise with her own means. Isabella the
Catholic pledged herself to sell her own crown jew-
els, if need be, to secure sufficient money for the
voyage. Thus the Queen, whom Irving describes as
one of the purest and most beautiful characters in
the pages of history, by her generosity, won for
herself an immortal crown of fame, and added a
new glory to heroic womankind. The vision of
Columbus began to be realized.
79. THE BOOK OF THE ARTS.
Thousands of tourists from every civilized land
journey continually from city to city of Italy and
France and Spain and England and the Rhineland,
as pilgrims might wander from shrine to shrine, to
pay the tribute of unceasing admiration to the ca-
thedrals, domes, spires, the marvelous creations of
painting and sculpture and architecture, which make
the golden age of Christian philosophy and theology
BOOK OF THE ARTS 369
— the centuries of the schoolmen and universities,
likewise the golden age of Christian art. The art
of a country is the revelation of its ideals and a
measure of its civilization. Not her heroes, but art
made Greece immortal. The art of the 13th, 14th
and 15th centuries, as well as the scholastic and
social achievements of those times, is evidence that
the close of the middle ages w^as a period of very
high culture and civilization.
Architecture. The Neo-Germanic style of archi-
tecture created by the Christian religion, and called
Gothic, with all its lines thrown upward, so as to
lead the eye toward heaven, its tall clustered pil-
lars and broken arches guiding the senses from the
earth, is found in its perfection in the 13th century.
Within a few generations were created most of those
unparalleled temples whose immensity of mass,
whose beauty and individuality of chiseled detail, no
pen can describe ; which in our day the most power-
ful states would hardly think of attempting, but
which, stimulated by the inspiration of religion, and
impelled by a generous devotion, single cities united
in Christian faith and civic pride, then courageously
undertook and triumphantly completed.
Gothic Cathedrals. Then France builded the Ca-
thedrals of Amiens (1228); Rheims (1232);
Rouen (1220) ; Beauvais (1250) ; and a host besides;
dedicated the glory of Chartres (1260), after 150
years of work; at Paris reared St. Denis, the royal
mausoleum, and La Sainte Chapelle, and the towers
of Notre Dame (1163-1223), still the most noble pile
in the city of splendid monuments. Then England
builded her greatest Cathedrals, including Salisbury
(1220) ; York (1227) ; Ely (1235) ; Durham (1212) ;
Canterbury (1175) ; and the present Westminster
Abbey (1247). Spain began the Cathedrals of To-
ledo and Burgos in 1228. Belgium then builded St.
370 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Gudule's Church at Brussels (1226) and the glorious
Dunes (1214-1262). In distant Norway, Thrond-
hjem raised its Cathedral which remains to this day
the most solid and imposing monument on the Scan-
dinavian peninsula. At the same period, Germany
reared the Church of Our Lady at Treves (1227) ;
of St. Elizabeth at Marburg (1255) ; and the Gothic
trilogy of the Rhine, the Cathedrals of Strasburg,
Freiburg, and indescribable Cologne (1248).
Italian Domes. The Italians based their architec-
ture on the old Roman forms with which they were
familiar, and whose horizontal lines and round
arches accorded with the environment of their bright
and beautiful country. But they also looked upw^ard.
They created the dome. The pagans had built such
circular temples on the ground. The dome elevated
far above the earth, is one of the sublimest concep-
tions of architecture. • The first great dome was built
by Brunelleschi over the Cathedral of Florence.
Later Michael Angelo said: *'I will raise the Pan-
theon in the air, to be the canopy of the altar of Je-
sus Christ": and a fane vaster than the structure of
Agrippa towers over Rome in the dome of St. Peter's.
Tuscany. Tuscany, the cradle of so much that has
been greatest and most beautiful in Ifaly, conse-
crated in 1118 the Cathedral of Pisa, '*a cross of chis-
eled flowers"; and in 1153 its Baptistery, whose lines
are as harmonious as the music of its echo. Gio-
vanni Pisano began the Cathedral of Orvieto in 1285.
Andrea Pisano, in 1336, made for the Baptistery of
Florence, the first of the bronze doors whose com-
panions by Ghiberti, Michael Angelo said were wor-
thy to be the gates of Paradise. Florence in 1294
began her Church of Santa Croce, the mausoleum in
which she has placed the tombs and monuments of
some of her greater sons, including Dante, the prince
of poets ; Michael Angelo, the prince of artists ; Gali-
BOOK OF THE ARTS 371
leo, the prince of scientists. In 1296 was begun the
lovely Cathedral of Florence, with its dome and the
matchless campanile of which Longfellow sings:
** In the old IXiscan town stands Giotto's tower,
The lily of Florence, blossoming in stone,
A vision, a delight, and a desire,
llie builder's perfect and centennial flower,
That in the night of ages bloomed (and not) alone."
Milan. The Cathedral of Milan, that miracle of
glistening white marble, was begun in 1386. It is
500 feet long, by 288 feet wide; and the principal
one of its hundred pinnacles rises to a height of 400
feet. It is adorned with several thousand marble
statues, every sculptor deeming it an honor to fill
one of the innumerable niches that cover the exterior
walls, and crown and fret the spires. Campione,
the architect who designed this marvelous fane more
than 500 years ago, spent half a century on its plans,
and the succeeding Archbishops of Milan have spent
more than half a millennium on its completion*.
Awed by the majesty of Milan, the humor of Mark
Twain gives place to the deeper feelings of admira-
tion and reverence. **At last,'' he writes, *'a forest
of graceful needles shimmering in the amber sun-
light, rose slowly above the pigmy house-tops, as one
sometimes sees, in the far horizon, a gilded and pin-
nacled mass of clouds lift itself above the waste of
waves at sea. The Cathedral ! We knew it in a
moment.
"Half of that night and all of the next day, this
architectural autocrat was our sole object of inter-
est. "What a wonder it is ! So grand, so solemn, so
vast ! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful ! A
very world of solid weight ; and yet it seems in the
soft moonlight only a fair delusion of frost-work
that might vanish with a breath ! How sharply its
372 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
pinnacled angles and its wilderness of spires were
cut against the sky, and how richly their shadows
fell upon the snowy roof ! It was a vision ! A mir-'
acle ! An anthem sung in stone, a poem wrought
in marble !
"Howsoever you look at the great Cathedral, it is
noble, it is beautiful ! Wherever you stand in Milan,
or within seven miles of Milan, it is visible; and
when it is visible, no other object can chain your
whole attention. Leave your eyes unfettered by
your will but a single instant and they will surely
turn to seek it. It is the first thing you look for
when you rise in the morning, and the last your lin-
gering gaze rests upon at night. Surely, it must be
the princeliest creation that ever brain of man con-
ceived.
"They say the Cathedral of Milan is second only
to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it
can be second to anything made by human hands.
How surely in some future day, when the memory of
it shall have lost its vividness, shall we half believe
we have seen it in a wonderful dream, but never
with waking eyes."
Rome. More than a century after Milan, more
than two centuries after Florence had reared their
cathedrals, Rome felt it necessary to replace the old
St. Peter's Church which had crowned the Vatican
hill since the days of Constantine. It must be a
world Cathedral, the oWering of the nations, the sym-
bol of the faith of Christendom. Michael Angelo,
to whom was entrusted the task of surpassing the
unequaled creations of the two centuries before him,
had at last an idea — shall we say with Victor Hugo,
of despair. That Titan of art piled the Pantheon on
the Parthenon and made the new St. Peter's. Each
century since has its copy of St. Peter's. London
has it in St. Paul 's, whose grandeur only emphasizes
BOOK OF THE ARTS 373
the unequaled greatness of the Roman basilica. The
United States has in the cupola of our Capitol, the
worthiest counterpart of the master dome. But
there is only 'one St. Peter's, the "signature of the
giant artist at the bottom of the colossal register of
stone.''
St. Peter's. Dates and dimensions cannot convey-
any proper conception of the grandeur of design and
the beauty of detail of the old cathedrals, which
make of every thoughtful visitor a reverent lover of
the mingled culture, piety and virility of the ages
which produced them. Their size startles us. The
Duomo of Florence can accommodate 25,000; the
Cathedral of Milan, 40,000; St. Peter's at Rome, 60,-
000.
But what impression of this domed Cathedral on
the Tiber, with its marble walls encrusted with the
priceless sculptures of Michael Angelo, Bernini and
Canova ; and preserving in perfect mosaics the mas-
terpieces of Raphael, Guido Reni and Domenichino;
with its divine harmony of proportion stealing away
the appearance of unwonted size — to say that it is
700 feet, or over an eighth of a mile long, its triple
transepts 450 feet wide, its nave 150 feet high ; that
its cupola rises still 300 feet above the roof, is 630
feet in circumference and supported by piers 234
feet around; that the graceful baldacchino which
canopies the altar table is 95 feet high, the pen of
the mosaic evangelist is 6 feet long, the pretty cher-
ubs round the holy-water font are mighty giants;
that some 700 pillars support the arches of this tem-
ple and its immense exterior colonnades whose arms
open out mightily, yet gracefully as a mother's, to
welcome the world ! No figures nor words can com-
pass this grandest temple that man has raised to the
glory of God.
Worthy leaders of their age and deserving of the
374 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
world's grateful admiration were those Popes, Nick-
olas V, Julius II, Leo X, whose enlightened culture
and energetic will could recognize and foster the
genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michael Angelo, and
preserve it incarnate in St. Peter's and the Vatican.
Painting. The Christian religion has influenced
painting from the beginning. The paintings found
on the walls of the Catacombs have a beauty, in spite
of technical defects. The higher life gave a higher
art. Christ and His immaculate Mother are the
ideals of tragic heroism and divine love. The con-
templation of these models taught the subordination
of sensual to moral beauty. It could no longer be
the artist's aim to paint merely a finely formed body,
but a body ennobled and spiritualized by a generous
and sympathetic soul. The wedding of technical
perfection and Christian faith made the close of the
Middle Ages the golden age of the painter's art.
Genius Inspired by Faith. ''By the grace of
God," decreed the Siennese painters in 1355, *'we
are to rule men, being manifestors of the things
worked by virtue and by holy faith." ^'We aim,"
said Buffalmacco, *'to make saints by our frescoes
and pictures and to make men more devout and
holy." Cennini in his "Treatise on Painting," in-
sists on the moral discipline required to form the
artist, who must abstain from sinful indulgence,
learn self-restraint, love abstinence and solitude, and
frequent confession and the Sacrament of Holy Com-
munion, that being holy, he may be a teacher of holi-
ness. He teaches the use of good colors as a reli-
gious duty, saying that if the painter be underpaid,
**God and Our Lady will reward him in body and
soul."
Era Lippo Dalmasio, the Carmelite monk, never
painted a religious subject save with prayer and fast-
ing; and so great was his success that Guido Reni
BOOK OF THE ARTS 375
could not contemplate his pictures of the Blessed
Virgin without falling into a kind of ecstasy. He
refused to take money, but painted solely for the
love of God and the Blessed Mother.
Fra Angelico painted Christ and Mary only on his
knees; and the Crucifixion, blinded with tears. All
men have agreed to call him Angel and Blessed. In
his Virgin we behold the very chastity of heaven;
and of his angels Michael Angelo said that no man
could paint them who had not seen them in some
higher world. Faith and love inspired Fra Angelico,
and one who drank from fountains less pure and
deep could not have unveiled to mortal eyes such
celestial loveliness.
So, in faith, with religious sincerity, without
thought of gold or sordid motive, worked those Old
Masters, caring not to please the vicious taste of an
ignorant public, but only to approve themselves to
Him who is the great and eternal artist.
The Old Masters. To enumerate the immortal
names of the old masters and the date of their birth
will reveal to the cultured reader how the flower of
civilization, planted by the Church in the dark ages
of the fall of the ancient empire and the migration
of the new nations, and fostered with infinite toil
through the Middle Ages, blossomed with matchless
beauty in the Catholic days long before the sixteenth
century.
Cimabue, born A. D. 1240 ; Giotto, 1276 ; Simone-
Martini, 1283 ; Taddeo-Gaddi, 1300 ; Gentile da Fab-
rino, 1370 ; Donatello, 1386 ; Fra Angelico, 1387 ; Luca
della Robbia, 1400 ; Fra Filippo Lippi, 1412 ; Gozzoli,
1424; Bellini, 1428; Mantegna, 1430; Melozzo da
Forli, 1438; Andrea della Robbia, 1444; Perugino,
1446; Botticelli, 1447; Ghirlandajo, 1449; Leonardo
da Vinci, 1452 ; Francia, 1450 ; Carpaccio, 1450 ; Pen-
turicchio, 1454; Credi, 1459; Filippino Lippi, 1460;
376 CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Fra Bartolommeo, 1469 ; Albertinalli, 1474 ; PaccMar-
otto, 1474 ; Michael Angelo Buonarroti, 1475 ; Palma
Veechio, 1475; Luini, 1475; Puligo, 1475; Granacci,
1477; Sodoma, 1477; Titian, 1477; Giorgione, 1477;
Lorenzo Lotto, 1480 ; Raphael Santi, 1483 ; Piombo,
1485 ; Andrea del Sarto, 1486 ; Giulio Romano, 1492 ;
Correggio, 1494.
These were the older Italian Masters. "With them
worked, less skillfully perhaps, but not less lovingly,
the old German, French and English guilds of art-
ists, who, under their masters, sculptured endlessly
the portals and towers of their Gothic fanes, and
carved patiently their choir stalls, and painted into
very life their altar-pieces and windows.
In the coming years their artistic and Catholic
traditions were shared and preserved by Ribera, Vel-
azquez and Murillo in Spain ; by Durer and the Hol-
beins in Germany ; by Poussin and Mignard in
France; by Van Eyk and Rubens in Flanders; and
by Guido Reni, Tintoretto, Allori, Paulo Veronese,
Domenichino, Strozzi, Sassoferrato, Salvator Rosa,
Carlo Dolci, who, with many other names of highest
power, have made Catholic Italy ''the consecrated
land of poetry and of song, the home of beauty and
of all loveliness, the native country of the soul.^^
CHAPTER XXV
THE CHURCH AND MODERN TIMES
80. FRUIT OF A THOUSAND YEARS.
The year 1500 is taken to mark the division be-
tween the Middle Ages and Modern Times. What
the Middle Ages accomplished in the thousand years
from the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, to the dis-
covery of America in 1492, is best realized when we
recall the barbarous hordes of the fifth century,
Goths, Alans, Huns, P^ranks, Teutons and Celts,
struggling amid blood and ruin for the provinces of
the fallen empire, and compare them with their de-
scendants of the elegant Renaissance. Before the
dawn of the sixteenth century Europe enjoyed a
degree of civilization which received little addition
till the scientific discoveries of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Macaulay wrote in 1827 : *' We doubt whether
any country of Europe, our own perhaps excepted,
has at the present time reached so high a point of
wealth and civilization, as some parts of Italy at-
tained four hundred years ago.'*
Before A. D. 1500. The nations from Iceland to
Italy had been converted to Christianity. How
much this means is almost beyond thought. It was
not merely that some individuals were Christians:
The public life and institutions, the atmosphere,
were Christian. All Europe observed the Christian
Sunday. Christian marriage consecrated every
377
378 CHURCH AND MODERN TIMES
home. Christian morals were accepted as the ideals
and standards of life. The civilized world dated
time from the birth of Christ. The nations found
common ground and union in their Christian faith.
In years to come men might effect changes in the
form of local church government, or of some theo-
logical doctrine. Such changes would presuppose
the great work accomplished once and forever. That
work of making Europe Christian was the
work, through these long years, of the Catholic
Church.
The monastic schools had grown into powerful
universities. A new architecture had been created.
The great cathedrals were already venerable with
years. Gunpowder had revolutionized warfare.
The mariner's compass encouraged exploration.
Magna Charta secured English liberty. Dissection
increased medical knowledge. Sculpture rivaled the
days of ancient Greece, while painting had reached
a height attained neither before nor since. The tel-
escope endorsed the Copernican astronomy. The
magnifying glass aided scientific observation. The
printing press spread broadcast the ancient classics,
the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, vernacular transla-
tions of the Bible, as well as engravings of the mas-
ter artists. Vasco da Gama had rounded the Cape
of Good Hope and found the sea-route to India.
America had been discovered. Missionaries and ex-
plorers had followed Columbus to the new world.
All this was before the year 1500.
Sixteenth Century. The sixteenth century was
destined to be one of revolution in the old world and
of splendid achievement in the new. In Europe it
was the transition period from feudalism to mon-
archy. The flood-tide of political change carried
with it the religious revolutioru In the so-called
Reformation, the century was to witness the disnip-
FRUIT OF THOUSAND YEARS 379
tion of the peace and unity in the hitherto united
body of Christians and a great secession from the
Church. In America and Asia it was a period of
missionary activity unequaled since the days of St.
Paul or St. Patrick ; an activity which displayed the
vitality of the Church and added to her numbers
more than were lost in the religious revolutions of
Europe.
Catholic Missions. The discovery of America iu
1492, the finding of a sea-route to India in 1498, the
circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan and del
Cano a few years later, opened new and promising
fields for apostolic zeal. The men sent by Catholic
Portugal and Spain in search of unknown lands,
were often as desirous of extending the dominion of
Christ's kingdom on earth, as of enlarging the do-
mains of their nations. On their numerous voyages
they were accompanied by zealous missionaries
whose supreme ambition was the conversion of the
pagan peoples, they should visit, to the light of the
Gospel.
Under Portuguese auspices, Dominican friars
opened a mission on the Congo in western Africa,
about 1491. In the far east, St. Francis Xavier
(1506-1552) merited the title ''Apostle of India and
Japan.'' In the Philippine Islands, Christianity
achieved an almost complete triumph over pagan-
ism. In the exploration of the continent found by
Columbus, children of the Church played a glorious
part, both as explorers and as missionaries. Witk,
the flag of the Catholic King went the Cross of Jesus
Christ. Columbus named the first land of the new
world upon which he set foot, San Salvador, Holy
Savior, in honor of His Divine Majesty Jesus Christ.
He planted a cross on the shore and knelt in thanks-
giving to God. This was October 12, 1492, Twelve
priests and a bishop accompanied Columbus on his
380 CHURCH AND MODERN TIMES
second voyage, and consecrated the first Christian
chapel on Hispaniola, January 6, 1494.
Catholic Discoverers. Five years after the discov-
ery of Columbus his countryman, John Cabot, in the
service of the English King Henry VII, discovered
North America and raised the cross and the flag of
England, which was still Catholic, on the coast of
Labrador. A year later, with his son, Sebastian
Cabot explored our Atlantic sea coast.
The Portuguese Cabral in 1500 reached Brazil.
The King of Portugal followed up this discovery
and a year later sent three vessels in command of the
Florentine Amerigo Vespucci, to whom fell the honor
of giving his name to the new world. Balboa, the
Spanish adventurer, discovered the Pacific Ocean in
1513, and with his men fell upon his knees to thank
God for the favor.
Catholic Explorers. Ponce de Leon in 1513 named
Florida in honor of Easter, called in Spanish Pa^cua
Florida. In 1519 Hernando Cortes burned his ships
behind him and with four hundred and fifty men
marched to the conquest of Mexico. One of his first
acts was to reclaim the savages from their atrocious
idolatry, which was accompanied by human sacrifices
and cannibalism. In 1524, twelve missionaries were
laboring for their conversion. Says Prescott:
*'They began their preaching through interpreters,
till they had acquired a competent knowledge of the
language. They opened schools and founded col-
leges in which the native youth were instructed in
profane as well as in Christian learning. The ardor
of the Indian neophyte emulated that of his teacher.
In a few years every vestige of the primitive teocallis
was effaced from the land." In 1547 Mexico had
an archbishop with six suffragan bishops. A hun-
dred churches were built by the one Franciscan lay-
brother. Peter of Ghent. While the Franciscans bap-
FRUIT OP THOUSAND YEARS 381
tized thousands, the Dominicans preached, and the
Jesuits founded colleges, including the tJniversity
of Mexico.
In 1540 De Soto discovered the Mississippi and
traversed our southern states. In the same year Cor-
onado followed the Franciscan Mark to the canyons
of New Mexico, where forty years later the Francis-
cans founded Santa Fe. The second oldest city in
the United States was thus named for our Holy
Faith, as the oldest city was named (1565) for its
champion St. Augustine. As early as 1514, Leo X
founded the first American Bishopric in Colombia.
Las Casas. Among the early mission^tries was the
Dominican, Bartholomew Las Casas, the warmest
friend of the Indians and the champion of their lib-
erty. Las Casas, the first priest ordained in the new
world, came to America with Columbus in 1498.
*'The whole of his future life,'' says Irving, **a space
exceeding sixty years, was devoted to vindicating
the cause and endeavoring to ameliorate the suffer-
ings of the natives. As a missionary ^he traversed
the wilderness of the new w^orld in various direc-
tions, seeking to convert and civilize them ; as a pro-
tector and champion he made several voyages to
Spain, vindicated their wrongs before courts and
monarchs, wrote volumes in their behalf, and exhib-
ited a zeal and constancy and integrity worthy of an
Apostle."
"When Spanish gold-hunters would enslave the
Indians, Pope Paul III defended their liberty; and
Cardinal Ximenes in 1516, while Regent of Spain,
sent a commission of three priests with full power
to reform the abuses, and appointed Las Casas "Pro-
tector General of the Indians.'' At the same time
the Cardinal Regent peremptorily forbade all and
every importation of negro slaves into the new world.
The Reductions. King Philip III of Spain author-
382 CHURCH AND MODERN flMES
ized the Jesuit missionaries not only to preserve the
natives from slavery, but to gather their converts
into settlements by themselves and so separate them
from the colonists. Thus arose those famous Re-
ductions or settlements of Christian Indians, which
no Spaniard could enter without permission. There
have not been wanting unscrupulous writers who
blamed the Church for the ill-treatment of the In-
dians and aT3Cused the missionaries of cooperating
with adventurers to enslave and exploit them. The
facts of history give the lie to these ungrateful cal-
umnies.
Summary of Ranke. The work performed by the
Catholic missionaries in Mexico, Central and South
America in the early 16th century, was indeed a vast
as well as holy one. Their work has remained.
While in every country there are always individuals
who practice no religion and are even antagonistic
to the means by which religious faith and feeling
are fostered, the people of these countries, as a peo-
ple, both of Indian and Spanish blood, are to this
day devout Catholics.^
Ranke speaks of the harvest of the missionaries'
toil, one 'hundred years after the landing of Colum-
bus. **In the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury,'' he writes, *'we find the stately edifice of
the Catholic Church fully reared in South America.
^ In 1897 an outrageous attack on the morals of the clergy of Chile
began to go the rounds of the Protestant press and pulpit, in a docu-
ment which pretended to be an Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, addressed
to the Archbishop of Chile. This alleged encyclical was printed by the
South American Missionary Society of London ; was incorporated into
his Geography of Protestant Missions, by Harlan Beach of Yale College;
and was quoted by Dr. Rob't Speer, Secretary of the Board of Foreign
Missions of the Presbyterian Church, in an address before the Rochester
Convention of the Students' Volunteer Movement, as evidence of the
need of mission work among our South American neighbors. The pres-
ent writer took up the matter with Dr. Speer, and only after a cor-
respondence covering more than two years, succeeded in forcing Dr.
Speer to acknowledge that the document quoted as a papal encyclical
was the forgery of a renegade Chilean. This is a sample of the methods
used by some "respectable" people and of the value of their stories
about Catholic affairs.
FRUIT OF THOUSAND YEARS 383
There were five archbishoprics, twenty-seven bishop-
rics, four hundred monasteries and innumerable
priests. Magnificent cathedrals had arisen. The
Jesuits taught grammar and the liberal arts, and a
theological seminary was connected with their col-
lege of San Udefonso. All branches of theological
study were taught in the Universities of Mexico and
Lima.^ Meanwhile the mendicant orders had begun
steadily to propagate Christianity over the whole
continent of South America. Conquests gave place
to missions, and missions gave birth to civilization.
The monks taught the natives the arts of reading
and singing, sowing and reaping, planting trees and
building houses; and they in return were regarded
with profound veneration and affection by the na-
tives. '^ The contemplation of these astonishing re-
sults caused Macaulay to observe: **The acquisi-
tions of the Catholic Church in the new world have
more than. compensated her for what she lost in the
old.'^
The children of the Church were busy likewise in
North America. The attention of France was early
turned to the New World. Within seven years of
the discovery of America the fisheries of Newfound-
land were known to the hardy seamen of Brittany
and Normandy. In 1524 the Florentine Verrazano,
in the employ of France, reached the coast of Caro-
lina and examined the shore as far as Nova Scotia,
including the harbors of New York and Newport.
His narrative contains the earliest original account
now extant of the coast of the United States.
Caxtier. Ten years later came Jacques Cartier,
pious and kind as he was brave, a noble type of the
Catholic Explorer. His is the glory of discovering
the St. Lawrence and naming it, as well as Montreal.
His last act on leaving France was to assemble his
'Founded in 1557.
384 CHURCH AND MODERN TIMES
crew in the Cathedral of St. Malo, to pray God's
blessing on his enterprise. His first act in the new-
world was to raise a cross thirty feet high at Gaspe
Bay, in thanksgiving to Divine Providence.
Champlain. Another glorious path-finder was
Samuel de Champlain, a brave soldier, a tireless and
scientific explorer, whose love of France was equaled
only by his desire to Christianize and civilize the In-
dians. The founder of Quebec, the discoverer of
Lakes Huron, Ontario and Champlain, for almost
thirty years he traveled over the vast jiorthern wilds
from the Kennebec to the Strait of Mackinac, and
with the aid of Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries
established missions and trading posts along the riv-
ers and lakes. He is well called the Father of New
France.
Heroes of God. The missionary priests sent by
France to the wilds of America played a part in the
early history of our country which invests them with
immortal fame. Finished scholars, zealous apostles,
enthusiastic explorers, humble Christians, all at once,
their lives spent for science and for souls, leave them
heroes worthy of the highest admiration. Thorpe,
in his History of the American People, sums up their
work: ''They penetrated the Indian towns, lived
with the savages, bore unparalleled hardships, minis-
tered to the wretched, instilled the teachings of
Christianity into the minds of any who would give
them a hearing, and thought no danger or sacrifice
great enough to deter them from carrying on their
work. The Indian world was their parish. Wher-
ever they went they made keen observations of all
they saw, and reported to their superiors in France
in a remarkable series of letters called the Jesuit Re-
lations. They carefully mapped the scenes of their
labors ; they journeyed all over the valleys of the St.
Lawrence and Mississippi ; they discovered all the im-
FRUIT OF THOUSAND YEARS 385
portant lakes and tributary streams of the great val-
ley. Although the fathers served so faithfully, most
of them met violent deaths at the hands of the sav-
ages whom they had come to help."
Jesuit Relations. Only the volumes of their Re-
lations can adequately describe their labors. The
Jesuit Relations recently collected, translated and
republished in some seventy large volumes is a
monument of supreme historical and scientific inter-
est. To these Catholic Missionaries of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, we must turn for the early
history of our country. Parkman and other histor-
ical writers depended upon such of these original
sources, then scattered through the libraries of the
world, as they could consult. In their present col-
lected form they constitute the largest body of early
American history, the only data of their sort, without
whose aid no future historian can proceed to his
work.
Of these early French missionaries to America,
Parkman writes: *' Peaceful, benign, beneficent
were the weapons of this conquest. France aimed
to subdue not by sword but by the cross ; not to
overwhelm and crush the nations, she invaded,
but to convert, to civilize and embrace them among
her children."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE REFORMATION
81. RISE OP THE REFORMATION.
While Spain and France were exploring America,
planting their banners of religion and civilization
among its inhabitants and enriching their com-
merce with its treasures, England and Germany,
and in a measure all Europe, were torn with polit-
ical and religious revolution. The sixteenth cen-
tury saw the breaking up of the unity which had
been the strength of the Christian Church since the
time of Christ. It was the century of the so-called
Eeformation.
The Christian family, under the leadership of
the Popes, had worked together for the spread of
Christ's religion among the Pagans, and for its pres-
ervation in the face of Saracens and Turks. A pub-
lic opinion which was the mind of a united
Christendom, had been a moral force able to influ-
ence legislation and cause unworthy monarchs, how-
ever powerful, to tremble before its frown. Untorn
by religious dissension. Christians had reared their
cathedrals and flocked to their universities; had
conceived the highest ideals of art and united to
secure for the glory of God and His Church the
services of the greatest genius. Till the second dec-
ade of the sixteenth century. Christian Europe was
still united under the successors of St. Peter.
386
lUSE OF REFORMATION 387
Christendom was One and Catholic. Then came its
disruption, through the political and religious revo-
lutions that fill the century, known as the Reforma-
tion period. ' ^
Reformation. In introducing his lecture on this
period Guizot says: '*I shall use the word Refor-
mation as a simple, ordinary term synonymous wuth
religious revolution and without attaching to it
any opinion.'* In this, historians generally agree
with the French author; and with him too, realize
the difficulty of getting any one theory that will ac-
count for all the facts of this troubled era. The time
from the beginning of the Reformation period in
1520, when Luther publicly burned the Bull of Leo
X, to its end in the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, is
marked by a chaos of interests, religious, political,
personal, national, noble and ignoble, all acting and
"reacting on one another and becoming modified and
changed by their contact and friction.
General' Effects. *'The first and greatest effect
of the religious revolution,'* says Guizot,^ "was to
create in lEurope two classes of states, the Catholic
and the Protestant, and to set them against each
other and to force them into hostilities." It is sig-
nificant that the aspect which strikes the historian
as the first and greatest effect, is a political one.
And indeed, more than is popularly imagined, the
Reformation was a political movement.
The greatest immediate religious effect was the
disruption of the Christian unity of Europe. While
the great body of Christians remained loyal to the
Pope as the successor of St. Peter and the visible
head of the Church, and so preserved their* Catholic
character, national churches and independent sects
were formed in several countries. The one and only
^ History of Civilization, Lect. 12.
388 THE EEFORMATION
common mark of the Protestant sects, as they came
to be called, was their revolt against the authority
of the Church as centered in the Pope, and their con-
sequent withdrawal from Catholic unity. A second
religious effect, not so immediately apparent, but
none the greater for that, w^as the opening the way
for rationalism and individualism in religion, by
the breaking down of religious authority.
The events incidental to this disruption of the
Christian unity, form one of the saddest chapters
in history. All the monstrous evils of religious fa-
naticism and hate were aroused and called into play.
Brother was set against brother. Nations were torn
asunder. Progress was thrown back for genera-
tions.
Indulgences. The rise of the Reformation is pop-
ularly associated with Luther's attack on Indulgen-
ces. Leo X announced an indulgence, to be gained
under the usual conditions, by those who contributed
toward the new St. Peter's, the great world Cathe-
dral then building at Rome. The Archbishop of
Mainz was delegated to receive the offerings of the
German people. As his deputy the Archbishop ap-
pointed John Tetzel, a Dominican monk. The
charge is made that Tetzel or his assistants carried
out the commission in a way to give rise to great
scandal. Writers hostile to the Church have mis-
represented the nature of indulgences - and claimed
that the Church sold indulgences. Indulgences
were never sold. History exonerates Tetzel, a
learned and good man, from the calumnies of his en-
emies. If any of his helpers allowed their enthu-
siasm to* run away with their prudence, it was a
fault that could easily happen; but it was not the
fault of the Church. If some of the ignorant forgot
the spiritual conditions of the indulgence, they were
'For Doctrine of Indulgences, see No. 56.
RISE OF REFORMATION * 389
not unlike many in our own day who console them-
selves with their own interpretation of the text,
** Charity covers a multitude of sins/* At any rate
the alleged abuses and lator the very doctrine of
indulgences were attacked by Martin Luther, a
priest and professor at the University of Witten-
berg.
Occasion. It is the opinion of many that the
Augustinian monk, Luther, was moved to find fault
with the doings of the Dominican Tetzel, through
jealousy of a rival society. The Augustinians had
enjoyed the honors and rewards arising from the
charge of similar and earlier work in Germany ; and
probably looked with no friendly eye on the fact
that the present important commission was en-
trusted to the Dominicans. Leo X seems to have
had some such idea, when he described the first
phases of the trouble as a **mere squabble of
monks. '* This view gains further countenance from
the falling away with Luther of many of the Ger-
man Augustinians while there was no such defec-
tion among the Dominicans.
The jealousy of two monastic societies or the dis-
cussion of an abstruse point of theology might be
the occasion of the outburst. They are inadequate
as the real cause of an international revolution.
There were soon larger influences moving Luther
than the interests of his Order. The Emperor Max-
imilian, an avowed enemy of the Papacy, watching
the '^ squabble of monks,*' saw in the fiery and dar-
ing Augustinian, a man who could be held as a
threat over the Pope; and advised Frederick, the
Elector of Saxony, to take care of Luther's inter-
ests, as there might come a time when he could be
used. Frederick, the most powerful prince in Ger-
many after the Emperor, was already the friend of
Luther, who was his political subject and taught in
390 THE EEFORMATION
his University. Indeed, according to Ranke,^ it was
Frederick who had encouraged Luther to attack
the , indulgence gifts for the building of St. Peter's,
and guaranteed him ample protection from harm.
82. PREPARING THE WAY.
The religious agitation begun almost incidentally
by Luther, coincided with a vast political revolu-
tion which would carry the religious strife along by
its own force, magnify it, modify it, use it and abuse
it, as circumstances arose. The political revolution
involved the transition from feudalism to monarchy.
The feudal system which grew up in Europe in^the
ninth and tenth centuries, had seen its day.
Throughout those mediaeval times, the states of
western Europe had formed a sort of Christian com-
monwealth, with the Emperor as its political, the
Pope as its spiritual head. National consciousness,
with consequent national independence, were now
developing. With the rise of nationalism, many
relations of State and Church as well as of all soci-
ety, which had developed on the old feudal forms,
had to be readjusted to the new monarchical con-
ditions. When Maximilian died in 1519, the polit-
ical destinies of Europe were largely in the hands
of three youthful princes, Henry VIH of England,
in his twenty-ninth year ; Francis I of France, in his
twenty-sixth, and Charles V, who succeeded as
Emperor, in his nineteenth year.
(Jermany and Italy. The political struggles of
Germany and Italy favored the Teutonic secession
from the Papacy. The Emperor Maximilian, true to
the traditions of Germany since the days of Barbar-
ossa, cherished the scheme, of conquering and domi-
nating Italy. Pope Julius II had thrown the
' Mediaeval and Modern History.
PREPARING THE WAY 391
influence of his position to the support of Italian
independence, and aided the Italian forces to drive
the German and French invaders from the coveted
peninsula. Maximilian, swearing enmity to the
Papacy, united with Louis XII of France, in conven-
ing a schismatical council, a mimic assembly of four
cardinals, who went through the absurd formality
of suspending Julius II. This was in 1512. The
Pope answered with a more effective excommunica-
tion of the king. The memory of ancient disputes
between the Papacy and the Empire were revived
and exaggerated. The struggle of the Guelphs and
the Ghibel lines, the conflict about investitures which
had brought Henry IV of Germany to the feet of
Gregory VII at Canossa, were brought up again
and distorted by passion before the public mind.
The German people, who in truth owed almost ev-
ierything, their liberties included, to the interposition
of the Popes checking the usurpations and despo-
tism of their emperors, were told that the primacy
of the Pope was subversive of German freedom.
Italian politics was skillfully confounded with Cath-
olic Christianity, whose capital chanced to be at
Rome. Chagrin at their failure in securing domin-
ion over Italy, made hatred of the Pope, who had
assisted the Italian princes to defend their country,
seem to many Germans, a national virtue. More-
over German princes coveted for their own adven-
tures the money they saw going to Rome to build
St. Peter's and support the Papacy.
Avignon. The opening sixteenth century also
found the influence of the Papacy weakened by the
Babylonish Captivity at Avignon and consequent
Western Schism, In the early fourteenth century,
Philip the Fair of France, whom Macaulay describes
as **a despot by position, a despot by temperament,
stem, jmplacable and unscrupulous, equally pre-
392 THE EEFORMATION
pared for violence or for chicanery," had seized by
treachery Pope Boniface VIII, whom the same writer
describes as "one of the most high-minded of the
Roman Pontiffs," and so foully outraged him, that
the venerable priest, then eighty-six years old, died
of grief and horror. France then succeeded in hold-
ing the Popes at Avignon for seventy years, till
Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377. During this
period, the Papacy, which had always been counted
cosmopolitan and supernational, was looked upon
as unduly dominated by the French court. The
mingling of the Popes in the affairs of other nations
was resented as the interference of a foreign and
inimical power. The spirit of nationalism was thus
introduced into religious relations, and the Christian
ideal of Catholic unity was obscured.
Western Schism. Immediately after the captiv-
ity of Avignon and indeed through it, came the
baneful Western Schism. When, on the death of
Gregory XI, the Cardinals at Rome elected, as his
successor, the ascetic Urban VI, the French Cardi-
nals declaring his election invalid, chose Robert de
Geneva, who called himself Clement VII and re-
sided at Avignon.
This scandal did great harm, as many good people
could not be certain at the time, which of the two
claimants was the lawful Pope. Each had a fol-
lowing of several princes and their nations. A gen-
eral discontent prevailed throughout Christendom
and engendered a loud demand for a speedy termi-
nation of the calamitous schism. Religious men of
both parties labored earnestly for union and peace.
In the hope of ending the trouble, prelates of both
*' obediences" met at Pisa in 1409 and with the un-
derstanding that the rival claimants would both re-
sign, they elected Cardinal Philargi as Alexander
V. As no one resigned, the Church, to her dismay,
PREPAIUNG THE WAY 393
now had three instead of two claimants to the Pa-
pacy. Happily this schism was ended at the Coun-
cil of Constance in 1415, when, for the sake of peace,
the real Pope and the more serious pretender both
voluntarily resigned; the colorless claim of Peter
de Luna was set aside; and Martin V was elected
and acknowledged by all as the one undisputed,
visible head of the Church.
It is true that during this generation of rival
claimants, there was one and only one Pope. It is
true that the whole unfortunate schism in no way
affected the Constitution of the Church or the un-
broken line of the successors of St. Peter. Some
years ago Colorado had two men each clariming to
have been lawfully elected its Governor. The
Hayes and Tilden contest of 1876, shows how easily
a similar misunderstanding could occur in the Pres-
idency of the United States. But it is also true that
the schism of the fifteenth century did much to
strengthen antagonism toward Rome, to familiarize
contempt for its authority, to obscure in men's
minds the fact that the Constitution of the Church
is the work of her Divine Founder Jesus Christ and
the Papacy is part of that constitution. And so the
schism, though it ended a hundred years before
the rise of Luther, helped to prepare the way for the
secession from the Papacy which is called the Ref-
ormation.
Investiture of Bishops. The cause of perhaps the
most frequent and bitter quarrels between the
Popes and the Kings, had been the matter of ap-
pointing Bishops in the various countries. In the
ages of faith, a Bishop's station was lofty indeed.
His moral power was immense. To the king, there-
fore, and his civilian counselors, the seating of a
creature of their own in the Bishop 's chair was some-
thing to be aimed at and whenever possible achieved.
394 THE REFORMATION
In the unscrupulous circle of a royal court the meas-
ure of a good episcopal candidate was political
rather than spiritual fitness. A safe man who could
be counted on to do blindly the king's bidding, or
at least not to interfere with his schemes, however
villainous, was the man desired. The Pope's meas-
ure was different.
In the alliance of the Church with the State, which
was long helpful alike to religion and civili-
zation, many concessions had been made to
princes in the way of proposing and vetoing
candidates for ecclesiastical office. But when feu-
dal lords, claiming the right of investiture, were
willing to fill episcopal sees with political favorites,
or sell them to simoniacal ambition, or keep them
vacant for years in order themselves to pocket the
revenues which should support charity and religion,
the Popes were forced to fight them for the very
life of the Church.
In Germany especially, many bishops were feudal
lords with great estates and high rank. Others
were to a great extent dependent on feudal suzer-
ains. At times they could be and had been of great
service to the •Church. But worldly power and
ambition often deprived them of both the will and
the ability to take a proper stand against princely
wrong-doing or to aid the Popes in executing the
reformatory decrees of Councils.
In this dependent state of the episcopate, the
Popes had been forced more and more to come for-
ward, as Bishop Spalding says, as the ''spiritual
dictators of Europe." As the activity of the Holy
See became more direct and appeals to Rome more
frequent, bishops whose ordinary authority seemed
in a measure superseded, grew lukewarm in their
devotion to the successor of St. Peter, and not indis-
posed to join with temporal rulers, to whom they
PREPARING THE WAY 395
often owed their position, in protesting again what
they deemed an undue assumption of power. A
man cannot serve two masters. All this had its ef-
fect in loss of the proper conception of and conse-
quent devotion to the central authority of Rome.
Doubtless, too, the devotion to the Holy See was
weakened by the faults of some of those to whom
was entrusted the very Roman citadel. The many
splendid kingly qualities of an Alexander VI could
not mak'C up for his lack of more apostolic fitness.
His election at the opening of the 16th century, sug-
gests spiritually drowsy sentinels on the watch-tow-
ers of the Church.
National Churches. With the development of na-
tional monarchy came the dream of national
churches. It was a petty idea — far less noble than
the old Catholic idea of a world-wide brotherhood
of men under the fatherhood of God. It did not
tend to religious freedom. On the contrary, one of
the catchwords of the period was: ''Cujus regio,
ejus religio," which may be translated, the religion
of the prince is the religion of his people. The age
was not yet able to conceive of a state without an
official church. Our own condition of separation of
Church and State would come only wuth time. Prin-
ces, restive under the moral checks and re-
straints exercised by the spiritual father of Chris-
tendom and the public opinion which his influence
could create, were more than ready to listen to any
means that might curb the power of the Pope.
A sort of national Catholicism, without a central
head, had been suggested. The irregular councils
of Pisa and Constance were ready to proceed with-
out Rome. This would leave each king practically
the head of the church as well as of the state, in
his realm. Thus Henry VIII had the English par-
liament accept his spiritual supremacy over the
396 THE REFORMATION
Church of England in 1534. The Czar of Russia
enjoys this uncurbed dual power to this day, much
to the misfortune of his people. No longer would
the unwelcome warnings of far-off Roman Pontiff
intrude upon a prince's plans of lust or despotism,
like the voice of conscience with its troublesome,
''Thou shalt not.'' It seemed a pleasant dream.
83. PRINCES SPREAD THE REFORMATION.
In 1517 Luther had nailed his ninety-five theses
on the church door at Wittenberg, as was the cus-
tom of scholars ready to defend their ideas in de-
bate. It was only three years later, in 1520, that
Leo X issued the bull cutting off the German monk
from membership in the Church. Luther was not
condemned for his complaints against abuses, which
formed the matter of his first utterances. When
the Church had shown herself ready and anxious
to correct abuses, Luther, urged on doubtless by
politicians who were determined to fight the Church
somehow, attacked the whole doctrine of indulgen-
ces as well as other truths. Throwing in his lot
with the worldly rulers entirely, he published his
''Address to the Christian Nobility of the German
Nation," in which, as the Britannica says, he
frankly confesses that his reliance is upon them.
Appeal to Princes. Knowing the weak spot of
the princes, Luther declaimed against the paying of
annates to Rome. "Why does not the Pope, who
is richer than Croesus, build St. Peter's with his
own money?" This cry was wrong in fact, for the
papal treasury was empty ; and in principle, for the
glory of St. Peter's Church was to be precisely that
it was the offering of all Christians throughout the
world. But it appealed to the passions of the peo-
ple, and it echoed the wishes of the princes, and
SPREAD BY PRINCES 397
flattered a greed which Luther himself would live
to feel and anathematize.
When Luther was given the letters excommuni-
cating him unless he retracted the heretical and
scandalous propositions pointed out in his numerous
writings, he thought it wise publicly to burn the
document amid a great crowd of students and peo-
ple at the gate of Wittenberg. The Reformation as
a party had begun.
"The new theology,'^ says Macaulay, "spread
with a rapidity never known before. All ranks,
all varieties of characters joined the innovators.
Sovereigns impatient to appropriate to themselves
the prerogatives of the Pope, nobles desirous to
share the plunder of Abbeys, good men scandalized
by the corruptions in the Church, bad men desirous
of the license inseparable from great moral revolu-
tions, wise men eager in pursuit of truth, weak men
lured by the glitter of novelty, all were found on
one side. Within fifty years from the day on which
Luther publicly burned the Bull of Leo X, Protes-
tantism attained its highest ascendency, an ascend-
ency which it soon lost and which it has never re-
gained.'^
Work of the Princes. Jurien, a bitter opponent
of the Catholic Church, writes: "That the Refor-
mation was brought about by civil power is in-
contestable. It was introduced into Geneva by
the Senate; into other parts of Switzerland ^by
the Grand Council of each canton; into Holland 'by
the States General ; into Denmark, Sweden, England,
Scotland, by kings and parliaments. Nor did the
civil power merely guarantee full liberty to the
partisans of the Reformation; it took from the pa-
pists their churches and forbade their worship."
"In Sweden," says the Britannica, "the Reforma-
tion was established concurrently with the political
398 THE REFORMATION
revolution which placed Gustavus Yasa upon the
throne. It was, however, only too apparent that
the patriot king was largely influenced by the expec-
tation of replenishing his exhausted exchequer from
the revenues of the Church ; and as in Germany and
England, the assent of the nobility w^as gained by
their admission to a considerable share in the con-
fiscated property.''
The motives of the princes who made possible the
Reformation are summed up by Frederick the Great
in' the cynical apothegm: *'In Germany it was
self-interest, in England lust, in France the love of
novelty."
Luther a Tool. The fact is that Luther, in throw-
ing off the spiritual authority of the Church, had
placed his neck under the more galling yoke of un-
just and unscrupulous princes. He had thrown in
his cause with theirs, and he and his cause were be-
ing dragged to lengths of which he had little
dreamed. To secure their cooperation and protec-
tion, Luther had recklessly appealed to the worst
passions that sway the human breast. He not only
flattered their vanity, but held out to them as baits,
the rich booty of the Catholic Church and monas-
tery properties and endowments. In his pamphlet
entitled ArgyropMlaXj he had written: **You will
find out how many hundred thousand gold pieces
the monks and that class of men possess within a
small portion of your territory. ' ' Francis Von Sick-
ingen, at tha head of 12,000 men, invaded the Arch-
bishopric of Treves, tracking his path by the blood
he shed, the churches he pillaged, and the Jicentious
excesses of his soldiery. John, Elector of Saxony,
enriched his sideboard with the sacred vessels of
the churches, till it was the best furnished in all
Germany. So the whole Church in Germany was
robbed. The attempts of calmer and disinterested
SPREAD BY PRINCES 399
men of both parties to effect a reconciliation and
prevent a permanent disruption of Christendom, —
as at Augsburg in 1530, was defeated largely, as
Erasmus says, "because the Lutheran princes would
not hear anything of restitution."
Melanchthon, seeing how his party was dragged
at the heels of the princes, avowed that "in the tri-
umph of the Reformation, the princes looked not to
the purity of doctrine or the propagation of light,
to the triumph of a creed or the improvement of
morals, but only regarded the profane and sordid
interests of the world. '^
Luther himself was at times terrified by the move-
ment of which he found himself the popular hero.
He stood aghast at the bloody war into which the
inflammatory agitation of his followers drew the
nobles and peasants. He declared that men were
worse than in the old days under the Popes. When
he found that the greedy nobles cared at heart no
more for him and his married colleagues than for
the celibate monks whose monasteries his revolt
enabled them to plunder, he cried: "To the de:^il
with senators, manor lords, princes and mighty no-
bles, who do not leave for the preachers, the serv-
ants of the Gospel, wherewith to support their wives
and Children." ^
Bigamy of Philip of Hesse. The depths of sub-
serviency to which the reformers went in order to
retain the support of powerful men, is illustrated by
the permission which Luther and his chief partisans
gave to the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, to have two
wives at the same time. Philip had been married
sixteen years, and had several children, when he be-
came enamored of Margaret von der Sale, a young
maid of honor to his sister. ^ Reading in his Bible
that Lamech had two wives, Philip resolved to fol-
1 Spalding, Hist, of Ref., Vol. I., p. 257.
400 THE REFORMATION
low his example. The unheard-of case of conscience
was proposed to the new apostles at Wittenberg.
The answer granting permission came in a lengthy
document of twenty-four articles, full of pious
phrases, and signed by the eight principal reform-
ers of Wittenberg, Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, Cor-
vin, Leningen, Vinfert and Melanther.^
84. REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.
The Reformation in England was begun by Henry
VHI and continued under the regency of Somerset
in the boyhood of Edward VI. It was checked
by the Catholic reaction under Queen Mary, and
taken up and completed in the long reign of Eliza-
beth.
The Protestant Myers thus introduces his account
of Henry's repudiation of his first wife Catharine
of Aragon: "We have now to relate some circum-
stances which very soon changed Henry from a zeal-
ous supporter of the Papacy into its bitterest en-
emy.^* ^ When the Pope and Cardinal Wolsey failed
to find Henry's first marriage invalid, and so re-
fused to countenance a second contract, Wolsey was
deposed and Thomas Cromwell succeeded as Prime
Minister. ** Cromwell's advice to the king,'^ says
Myers, "was to waste no more time negotiating with
the Pope, but at once to renounce the jurisdiction
of the Roman Pontiff, proclaim himself supreme
head of the Church in England and then get a de-
cree of diyorce from his own courts." Had Hen-
ry's marriage been really invalid, Rome would have
2 Documents reproduced in Bossuet's Variations. Bk. 6 : Bayle's
Dictionary, art Luther: Spalding's Hist, of Reformation, Vol. I.
1 The Modern A?e. Henry cast off the virtuous Catherine of Aragon
to marry Anne Boleyn. Soon beheading Anne, he next day married
Jane Seymour. In a year he married Anne of Cleves. Catherine
Howard soon usurped her place, only to be beheaded in turn. His
sixth wife was Catherine Parr.
REFORMATIOX JX ENGLAND 401
so reported and England might have been saved to
the Church. The only fact impelling for the di-
vorce was Henry's lust for the unfortunate Boleyn,
whom he Avould soon behead as an adulteress. The
Church could not lend its sanction to such profli-
gacy.
Act of Supremacy. So CroraweH's advice was
acted upon, and England was swiftly carried away
from the authority of the Roman See. Thomas
Cranmer, then a young priest at Cambridge, sug-
gested that the universities give their opinion about
the King's first marriage. The Britannica says that
immense sums were given to bribe the learned doc-
tors to favor Henry's scheme. But the marriage
was found valid. Cranmer, who had likewise w^rit-
ten a book in favor of the divorce, was now in ac-
cordance with the new programme, made Archbishop
of Canterbury. Cranmer, now Primate, at once re-
tried the case of Henry's marriage with Catharine
of Aragon; and of course at once declared it null
and void. This base act of Henry's political Arch-
bishop, like Luther's servility to Philip of Hesse, is
typical of the whole Reformation. It explains, too,
the struggle between the Kings and the Popes for
the right of appointing Bishops. Later this act
cost Cranmer his life, when Catharine's daughter,
thus declared a bastard, mounted the throne as
Queen Mary.
In 1533 a law was passed forbidding appeals to
be made to Rome. Next the annates that went to
support the central government of the Church, were
ordered paid to the English crown instead. In 1534
Henry got from parliament the Act of Supremacy
making him "the only Supreme Head on earth of
the Church of England," vesting in him absolute
control of its offices and revenues and sanctioning
the act by making its denial high treason. Thus
402 THE REFORMATION
we have the Anglican Church by law established.
''Even if the English people," continues Myers,
**are indebted to Henry for their national independ-
ent church, still they owe him for this, no gratitude ;
for what he did here proceeded primarily from the
basest impulses and motives, and not from regard
for the spiritual welfare of his subjects or from sym-
pathy with religious reform. ' ' ^
This Reformation of Henry was introduced with
persecution and bloodshed. Among its martyrs was
the greatest Englishman of the day, Sir Thomas
More. Under the succeeding reign of Edward and
Somerset, use of the new liturgy and attendance
at the new service were enforced by law and im-
prisonment; while the protests of the people for
freedom of conscience and the right to practice the
faith of their fathers, was stamped out by the aid
of German mercenary troops. ''This is," says Hal-
lam,^ "somewhat a humiliating admission, that the
Protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors
by a foreign army." It is often and truly said,
that the English people did not give up their faith,
but were robbed of it.
Conversion of the Nobles. As in Germany, so in
England, the nobles were brought over to the Refor-
mation by the plunder of churches and other eccle-
siastical endowments. These confiscations the king
shared with the old nobility and used to create a
new one. Thus was parliament packed with the
king's dependents, and the liberties of the people
enslaved. In the course of a thousand years the
Church had naturally acquired vast properties,
much of which was held in trust b^^ the monastic
bodies and administered by them in the interests of
2 Modern Age, p. 106.
'Const. Hist, of England, Vol. 1, Ch. 2. Green's Hist, of Eng.
People. (International Book & Publ. Co., N. Y., 1889.) Vol.
III., Bk. VI., pp. 51, 56, 61.
REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 403
religion, charity and education. It is admitted that
the monks were generous to their renters and the
charity of their houses made unnecessary the mu-
nicipal *Svork houses" for the poor, of later days.
Most of these monasteries and foundations of re-
ligion and charity were confiscated and secularized
under Henry VIII and Somerset, and the spoil dis-
tributed among couriers and politicians. Six hun-
dred and forty-five monasteries were thus broken
up. Myers says that first the smaller houses were
suppressed under pretense of their irregularities,
and the monks sent to the large monasteries to live
a more godly life; and that when the time came to
plunder the larger houses, even this hypocritical ex-
cuse was not used.
Spoils of the Church. The historian Green, Eng-
lish and Protestant as he is, refers again and again
to the base and sacrilegious influence by which the
Reformation was promoted in England.* He says
of Henry's reign: **The marriages, the reforms,
the profusion of Henry had aided him in his policy
of weakening the nobles by building up a new no-
bility which sprang from the court and was wholly
dependent on the crown. Such were the Russells,
Cavendfshes, Wriothesleys, Fitzwilliams. Such was
John Dudley raised to the peerage as Lord Lisle.
Such were the brothers of Jane Seymour. Without
any historical hold on the country, raised by the
royal caprice, and enriched by the spoils of the mon-
asteries, these nobles were pledged to the change
from which they had sprung and to the party of
change."
Green says of the progress under Edward: ''The
suppression of chauntries and religious guilds which
was now being carried out, enabled Somerset to buy
the assent of nobles and land owners to his measures
*Vol. III., pp. 39, 51, 54, 57, 61, 102, 148, 94 (edition of last note).
404 THE REFORMATION
by glutting their greed with the last spoils of the
Church."
Of the plunder of the Church in Scotland, Green
says: "No nobility was so poor as that of Scotland
and nowhere in Europe was the contrast between
their poverty and the riches of the Church so great.
Each step of the vast spoliation that went on south
of the border, the confiscation of the lesser abbeys,
the suppression of the greater, the secularization of
chauntries and hospitals, woke a fresh greed in the
baronage of the north. The new opinions soon
found disciples among them. It was a group of
Protestant nobles who surprised the Castle of St.
Andrews and murdered Cardinal Beaton. . . . Knox
had been one of the followers of Wishart; he had
acted as pastor to the Protestants who, after
Beaton ^s murder, held the Castle of St. Andrews."
Under Mary, when restitution was spoken of,
''great lords were heard to threaten that they would
keep their lands so long as they had a sword at their
side: And England was thus left at hopeless vari-
ance with the Papacy."
85. CHARACTER OF THE REFORMERS.
That the Reformation was much more than a re-
ligious movement, is apparent from the character of
its leaders. In some of them, like Henry VIII re-
ligion was the last and least motive: while in those
who made the most profession of religion, like
Luther, there were absent the consistent virtue and
exalted spirituality of the saints; and there were
present human passion^ and sordid habits and
worldly motivesx that left the religious prophet
eclipsed by the political revolutionist.
Luther. To many for whom he is the symbol of
the Reformation and all that they associate with
CHARACTER OF REFORMERS 405
that word, Luther is the great prophet of God,
sacred as is Mahomet to his Moslem. To many-
others Luther is a man vulgar in thought and word,
drinking, brawling, superstitious, unstable of pur-
pose, a demagogue whose peculiar genius and cir-
cumstances have made the popular hero of the six-
teenth century revolution.
The latest and most scientific histories of Luther
and his times, — *'The History of the German People
at the Close of the Middle Ages," of Jannsen, and
the ** Luther und Luthertum" of Denifle, repeat
'with unassailable evidence the stories of strange
conduct which it would be charity to call madness.
Years ago Hallam suggested that there was a vein
of insanity in Luther's character.^ The suspicion
of the nineteenth century historian has become the
judgment of the twentieth century scientist, whose
knowledge of degeneracy perhaps explains Luther's
hitherto inexplicable character. **The visions,"
says Lydston, *'*of the epileptic Mahomet and of
Martin Luther, were the flickering of insanity, albeit
called the sacred fire of holy inspiration. "^
Fallen Idols. 'The character of the other Reform-
er, of Knox, Calvin, Cranmer, Zwingle, as well as
Luther, suffers with the growth of the scientific and
unemotional knowledge of history. A generation
ago, Froude ^ wrote, **Lord Macaulay can hardly
find epithets strong enough to express his contempt
for Archbishop Cranmer. Mr. Buckle places Cran-
mer by the side of Bonner, and hesitates which of
the two characters is the more detestable. ... An
unfavorable estimate of the Reformers, whether just
or unjust, is unquestionably gaining ground among
our advanced thinkers." Knox is a sorry spiritual
1 Const. Hist, of England. Harper, 1857, p. 45.
' Diseases of Society and Degeneracy. Fr. Lydston, 'M.D., p. 471.
Also "Max Nardau, Degeneration.
* Short studies, V. I., p. 48.
406 THE EEFORMATION
hero, in the study of Robert Louis Stevenson, Scotch-
man and Protestant though the writer be.
Hallam thus warns the student in his Introduction
to the History of Literature: ''Whatever may be
the bias of our minds as to the truth of Luther's
doctrines, we should be careful, in considering the
Reformation as a part of the history of mankind,
not to be misled by the superficial and ungrounded
representations which we sometimes find in modern
writers. Such as this, that Luther, struck by the
absurdity of the prevailing superstitions, was de-
sirous of introducing a more rational system of re^
ligion ; or that he contended for freedom of inquiry
and the boundless privileges of individual judg-
ment ; or, what others have been pleased to suggest,
that his zeal for learning and ancient philoso-
phy led him to attack the ignorance of the monks
and the crafty policy of the Church which withstood
all liberal studies. These notions are merely falla-
cious refinements, as every man of plain understand-
ing who is acquainted with the writings of the early
reformers, or has considered their history, must ac-
knowledge.'' •
86. REACTION.
Within fifty years after Luther's dramatic episode
at the gates of Wittenberg, Protestantism had at-
tained its highest ascendency; "An ascendency,"
says Macaulay,^ "which it soon lost and which it
has never regained. Hundreds who could well re-
member Brother Martin (Luther) as a devout Cath-
olic, lived to see the revolution of which he was the
chief author, victorious in half the states of Europe."
In England, Scotland, Scandanavia, northern Ger-
many and parts of Switzerland, the Reformation
* Essays : Ranke.
REACTION 407
had triumplied. In Italy and Spain it had gained
no foothold. In France, Belgium, southern Ger-
many, Hungary and Poland, the contest was .still
undecided, but with every seeming promise of the
Reformation's victory. This was fifty years after
the Lutheran secession. Then came the reaction.
**If we overleap another fifty years," continues
Macaulay, **we find Catholicism victorious and dom-
inant in France, Belgium, Bavaria (southern Ger-
many), Bohemia, Austria, Poland and Hungary.
Nor has Protestantism been able, in the course of
two centuries, to reconquer any portion of what was
then lost. This triumph is not to be chiefly attrib-
uted to force of arms, but to a great reflux in public
opinion. During the first half century after the
commencement of the Reformation, the current of
feeling in the countries north of the Alps ran im-
petuously toward the new doctrines. Then the tide
turned, and rushed as fiercely in the opposite direc-
tion."
Did the Church Need Reformation? The cause
of this reaction was partly perhaps that the political
revolution which had carried the religious agitation
along on its crest, had spent its first force and the
real significance of the reformation was becoming
more clear. Much more the cause of the reaction
was the counter reformation carried on by the loyal
Catholics.
These Catholics saw in the Church of Christ, two
elements, the human and the divine. The human
element are all the men and women, high and low,
who make up the visible community of the Church.
The divine element are the truths which Christ has
revealed and committed to His Church, and the con-
stitution which He has given to His Church to insure
her carrying on His work in the world. This divine
element cannot be reformed by men. For men to
408 THE KEFORMATION
change the constitution or doctrines given by Christ
to His Church, is not to improve, but to destroy for
themselves and others, the work of the Master.
The human element, on the other hand, not only
can but must continually be reformed. Indeed it is
the very purpose of the Church to reform men ; and
the Church is not satisfied till each individual is re-
formed in the image of Jesus Christ. She calls no
one saint till he be safe in Heaven. This work of
reform is always needed. In some ages, owing to
various circumstances, it is more urgent than in
others. The sixteenth century, while it had its
saints, had even more, no doubt, its sinners and
worldlings in the Church, even in its citadels. In
this human sense all realized that the Church needed
reformation. But that reformation must come from
within the Church. To go outside of the Church to
reform her members, is not to reform the Church
but to inaugurate sects, and so to augment the evils
of Christendom. So taught St. Augustine in the
fifth century. So taught Martin Luther two years
before his secession.
Old Teachings Overboard. As the Protestant Ref-
ormation went on, not only the staunch Catholics of
the south, but the more conservative men in the
doubtful countries began to stand aghast at its
work. Prom attack on incidental abuses and hu-
man faults which all were ready to admit and con-
demn, the Protpstant leaders had rushed on to at-
tack the very life of the Church, Doctrines the
most venerable were thrown aside. Spiritual author-
ity was cut off at its source. The Mass with the real
presence of Christ, the central act of Catholic wor-
ship, was abolished. In its place men advanced
scores of contradictory and lifeless interpretations
of the Lord's Supper.
The power of the priestly and episcopal office
REACTION 409
had beeu sacrameutally transmitted from genera-
tion to generation, as the very succession of the
Apostles. This ordination could come only by the
hands of Bishops, who like Matthias and Barna-
bas had received the fullness of the priesthood from
Bishops before them. The people saw these Holy
Orders despised. Any one who could harangue the
crowd had apostolic commission enough.
The Papacy which had been the rock of central
authority in the Church from the beginning, was not
only despised but denounced as Anti-Christ and the
work of the Devil. The General Council which had
been demanded, was not accepted when it came.
Invitations to the Protestants to come to Trent and
try to adjust the differences were repeatedly re-
jected. The new doctrines that made the Bible
alone the rule of faith and its private interpretation
by each individual, the last court of appeal, ren- *
dered the assembling of the supreme court of the
Church, to settle the difficulties, unnecessary and
meaningless.
The New Teachings. Besides the destruction of
the Christian institutions of the past, conservative
men saw the subserviency of the reformers to every
petty politician and every princely policy. They
saw their tendency to pamper human passions, as in
the bigamy of Philip of Hess; the divorce of Henry
VIII. They noted the declamations of Luther and
the other ** reformed" monks against fasting, celib-
acy, and penitential works; and their eagerness to
find a wife. Luther's marriage to Catherine Bora,
whom he lured from her consecration as a nun, made
the pious grieve and the worldlings laugh. Men
saw the immorality and hypocrisy which followed
the new teachings, of the total depravity of nature,
the denial of free will in man, salvation by predes-
tination and election, and justification by faith
410 THE EEFOEMATION
alone; the many sects sprung up like mushrooms
with the glorification of ''private interpretation,"
fighting among each other as well as against the
ancient Church; the horror of the peasants* war,
with its loss of one hundred thousand lives, brought
on by the new fanatical preachers.
Above all this, in the face of the reformers* al-
most idolization of the Bible and their exaltation
of the sacred writings to take the place altogether
of the living voice and government of the Church,
men saw their readiness to change and corrupt the
text of the Bible itself, when its revealed word did
not sufficiently endorse their new dogmas. In Ger-
many, Luther introduced the word ' ' alone ' ' into the
Epistle of the Romans (iii.-28) to make St. Paul say
that we are justified by faith alone ; and rejected the
writings of St. James, as a ** straw epistle," because
they insist that faith is dead without good works.
Later in England the translators of the ''Author-
ized Version" altered the words of St. Paul's first
epistle to the Corinthians (xi.-27), to bring the in-
spired author into needed conformity with their
current conceptions about the necessary mode of
receiving the Holy Communion. Never had her en-
emies been able to make such charges against the
Catholic Church in all the centuries that she has
been the custodian of the Bible and copied by hand
and preserved its sacred text.
Church or No Church. This whole spectacle
made thoughtful men pause. Those who were most
desirous of seeing the Church freed from abuse of
any kind, and who had at first lent themselves to
the new movement, drew back. They felt that the
revolution was not reforming the Church of Christ
but destroying her. And if it put up something in
her place, it was a very human thing, a creature of
the state, and already more powerless against abuse
COUNTER REFORM 411
than the historic Church had shown herself in her
sixteen centuries. The very existence of the Chris-
tian religion seemed at stake. It was a question of
the spiritual authority of Rome or of anarchy; of
the old Church or no church. Hence the reaction
of public opinion which made Catholicism again
predominant in every country, except those — Eng-
land, Scotland, Scandinavia and northern Germany
— where the civil government was interested to
support Protestantism as part of itself, and to perse-
cute the historic faith.
Of this critical hour, Green writes:- **At the
moment when ruin seemed certain, the older faith
rallied to a new resistance. "While Protestantism
was degraded and weakened by the prostitution of
the reformation to political ends, by the greed and
worthlessness of the German princes who espoused
its cause, by the factious lawlessness of the nobles
in Poland and the Huguenots in France, while it
wasted its strength in theological controversies and
persecutions, in bitter and venomous discussions
between the churches which followed Luther and
the churches which followed Zwingle or Calvin, the
great communion which it assailed felt at last the
uses of adversity. The Catholic world rallied
around the Council of Trent. In the very face of
heresy, the Catholic faith was anew settled and de-
fined. The Papacy was owned afresh as the center
of Catholic Union.''
87. TRENT AND THE COUNTER REFORM.
In every supreme crisis to which the Church has
been brought by the faults and weaknesses of men,
Providence has raised up great souls, able to cope
with the situation and destined to vindicate the
'Hist. Book VI., Oh. II.
412 THE KEFORMATION
honor of Christ and His Church in their own sanc-
tity and in the fruit of their labors. In the crisis
of the sixteenth century, awakened Catholicism
showed its inherent life and power, in the brilliant
constellation of saints, scholars, founders and mis-
sionaries of the period, and in the new religious or-
ders, which, through every avenue of Christian
activity, brought the zeal of their founders to
quicken the spiritual life of the clergy and
people.
Saints. It was the age of St. Charles Borromeo,
Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, the father of his
plague-stricken people, the catechist of the Council
of Trent, the holy ascetic in the chair of a prince ; of
St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, the gentle
scholar who won back half his city from Calvinism ;
of St. Philip Neri, the friend of the sick ; of St. Vin-
cent de Paul, the father of the poor; of the zealous
Jerome Emilian and John of God; of St. Ignatius
Loyola, the soldier of the soul ; of St. Francis Xav-
ier, the Apostle of India; of Peter Canisius, the
catechist of Germany.
It was the age, too, of Saints Frances de Chantel,
Angela of Brescia and Theresa of Avila, examples
of womanly self-sacrifice in educating the young
and nursing the afflicted.
Religious Orders. The Oblates of St. Charles, the
Oratorians of Philip Neri, the Theatines of Caraffa,
the Brothers of Charity of John of God, the Somas-
chans of Jerome Emilian, the Congregation of the
Missions or Lazarists of Vincent de Paul, the Fathers
of Christian Doctrine of Caesar de Bus, the
Brothers of the Pious Schools, the Barnabites,
the Brothers of the Common Life, the Capuchins or
stricter ' observance of Franciscans, the new Bene-
dictine congregation of St. Maur, and preeminently
the Society of Jesus or Jesuits of Ignatius Loyola,
COUNTER REFORM 413
directed and encouraged the zealous activity of
Catholic men in the sixteenth century.
Meantime the Ursulines of St. Angela, the Visita-
tion Nuns of St. Frances de Chantel, the Carmelites
of St. Theresa, the Gray Sisters of Charity of Vincent
de Paul, offered a lever by which women might move
the world.
These new orders and the older ones which their
influence revivified, accomplished work, through
schools and colleges, pulpit and confessional, hos-
pital and asylum, missions foreign and domestic,
publications popular and profound, worthy o4 the
Franciscans of the thirteenth century or the Bene-
dictines of an earlier age. The schools of the Jesu-
its soon were educating the best youth of Europe.
Caesar Baronius compiled his history ; the Dominican
Melchior Canus and the Jesuit Petavius taught the-
ology; Cardinal Bellarmine wrote his Controversies,
— all names of highest scholarship. At the same
time the Jesuits sent Francis Xavier and his com-
panions as Missionaries to India and Japan ; and
the Jesuits, Franciscans and Dominicans founded
civilization and Christianity in the South American
^and Mexican colonies of the New "World, where, as
says Macaulay, the Church's acquisitions more than
. compensated for what she lost in the Old World.
These were elements of the "reform from within."
However much dead timber there may have been in
the tree of the Church in the sixteenth century, these
orders and saints and great enterprises show a life
and power such as few of the centuries can equal.
Popes of the Period. But these were not the only
elements of the Catholic counter-reformation. The
sixteenth century saw a succession of Roman Pon-
tiffs fit to cope with the time of greatest crisis. Leo
X, in whose pontificate the revolution broke out, was
succeeded, says the Britannica in its article on the
414 THE REFORMATION
Reformation, by 'Hlie Emperor's former preceptor,
the irreproachable, austere and rightly devout
Adrian VI of Utrecht." After him, say^ the same
authority, came Clement VII, "admirably qualified
to cope with the difficulties, ... his attainments and
experience were such as in every way corresponded
to his office." Paul IV, as Bishop, was the zealous
founder of the Theatines. Pius IV was the worthy
uncle of St. Charles Borromeo. Pius V, to whose
foresight and energy we owe the victory of Lepanto,
is a canonized saint. Gregory XIII has given his
name^to our corrected calendar. Sixtus V rose from
a herdsman to be the very worthy shepherd of
Christendom. Clement VIII, whose pontificate fin-
ished the century, recognized with the Cardinalate,
the genius of Baronius, Toleto and Bellarmine.
Guizot well says: ''It is not true, that in the six-
teenth century, the court of Rome was very tyran-
nical; it is not true that the abuses were
more numerous and trying than they had been at
former periods. Never before, on the contrary, had
the government of the Church been more indulgent
and tolerant. Most of the aomplaints made against
it were now almost groundless."
Council of Trent. The work of the Catholic
counter-reformation was ensured by the general
Council of Trent. The labors of this greatest Ecu-
menical Council lasted from 1545 to 1563. In its
sessions the whole body of Christian teachings was
again and clearly stated and defined, and many
practical measures adopted to perfect ecclesiastical
discipline and improve good morals.
Of this Council Hallam writes : ^ "No Council
ever contained so many persons of eminent learning
and ability as that of Trent. Nor is there ground
for believing that any other ever investigated the
^Introd. to Hist, of Lit., Vol. I., p. 277.
AND CIVILIZATION 415
questions before it with so much patience, acutenesg,
and desire of truth. The early councils, unless
they are greatly belied, would not bear comparison
in these characteristics. Impartiality and freedom
from prejudice, no Protestant will attribute to the
fathers of Trent; but where will he produce these
qualities in an ecclesiastical synod? But it may be
said, that they had but one leading prejudice, that of
determining theological faith according to the
tradition of the Catholic Church, as handed down to
their own age. This one ^ point of authority con-
ceded, I am not aware that they can be proved to
have decided wrong, or at least against all reasona-
ble evidence. Let those who have imbibed a
different opinion ask themselves whether they have
read Sarpi through wath any attention.**
88. THE REFORMATION AND CIVILIZATION.
We may now judge something of the general
character of the Reformation in its effects on civili-
zation, by observing its relations to human liberty
and progress, as well as to their expression in litera-
ture and art. On these points we shall listen to
the written judgments of standard non-Catholic
historians. For one hesitates to announce except on
such authority, the conditions revealed to the care-
ful student of history, lest he appear prejudiced
and unfair to readers who themselves, could they but
realize it, are prepossessed with very inaccurate
ideas of the sixteenth century revolution, furnished
them by D'Aubigne and other worthless writers of
his school. Indeed, this same consideration keeps
one from quoting the severest remarks even of non-
Catholic authorities.
Civil Liberty. ''In Germany,** says Guizot,^ ''far
^ Hist, of Civilization, Lect. 12.
416 THE REFORMATION
from demanding political liberty, the Reformation
accepted, I shall not say servitude, but the absence
of liberty. ... It rather strengthened than enfee-
bled the power of princes. It was rather opposed
to the free institutions of the Middle Ages than
favorable to their progress."
Of England, Green writes : ^ * ' The old liberties
of England lay prostrate at the feet of the king.
Royal proclamations were taking the place of par-
liamentary legislation; royal benevolences were
encroaching more and more on the rights of parlia-
mentary taxation. Justice was prostituted in the
ordinary courts to the royal will. The religious
changes had thrown an almost sacred character over
the 'majesty' of the king. Henry was the head
of the Church. From the primate to the meanest
deacon every minister of it derived from him sole
right to exercise spiritual powers. The voice of its
preachers was the echo of his will."
Religious Liberty. '* Persecution, " says Hallam,^
**is the deadly original sin of the reformed churches;
that which cools every honest man's zeal for the
cause, in proportion as his reading becomes more
extensive. ' '
''What shall we say,"* says Lecky, "of a Church
that was but a thing of yesterday; a Church that
has as yet no services to show, no claims upon the
gratitude of mankind; a Church that was by pro-
fession the creature of private judgment, and was
in reality generated by the intrigues of a corrupt
court, which nevertheless suppressed by force, a
worship that multitudes deemed necessary to salva-
tion ; which by all her organs and with all her ener-
gies persecuted those who clung to the religion of
their fathers?"
2 Hist, Bk. VI., Ch. I.
'Const. Hist., V. I., Ch. II., p. 51.
♦Rationalism in Europe, 1870, V. I., p. 51.
AND CIVILIZATION 417
''When the Reformation triumphed in Scotland,"
continues Lecky,^ ''one of its first fruits was a law
prohibiting any priest from celebrating or any wor-
shiper from hearing Mass under pain of confiscation
of his goods for the first offense, of exile for the
second, and of death for the third." In France
when the government of certain towns was conceded
to the Protestants, they immediately employed their
power to suppress absolutely the Catholic worship.
In Sweden all who dissented from any article of
the Confession of Augsburg were at once banished.
"The spirit of Ctivinistic Presby terianism, "
writes Green,® "excluded all toleration of practice
or belief. The absolute rule of Bishops, indeed,
Cartright denounced as begotten of the devil: but
the absolute rule of Presbyters he held to be estab-
lished by the word of God. For the Church founded
after the fashion of Geneva, he claimed an authority
which surpassed the wildest dreams of the masters
of the Vatican. Not only was the rule of ministers
to be established as the one legal form of Church
government, but all other forms were to be put
down. For heresy there was the punishment of
death. Never had the doctrine of persecution been
urged with such blind and reckless ferocity."
The party of the Reformation sought to oust the
old faith not for the purpose of giving the country
freedom of conscience but of imposing their own
creeds as the 'state religion. Out of the intolerance
that marked the revolution of the sixteenth century
grew the great mass of penal laws against Catholics
in the United Kingdom, which for generations out-
raged the adherents of the old faith in conscience,
education and property. Many of these were re-
pealed only in 1820 through the herculean labors of
Daniel O'Connell, sonio lat«^r under Gladstone, while
• Ibid., V. II., p. 49. * Hist., Bk. VI., Ch. 5.
418 THE KEFORMATION
others disgrace the statute books of England to this
day.
"It must be admitted/' writes Buckle,^ ''that in
Scotland there is more bigotry, more superstition,
and a more thorough contempt for the religion 'of
others than in France. And in Sweden, which is
one of the oldest Protestant countries in Europe,
there Is, not occasionally, but habitually, an intoler-
ance and a spirit of persecution which would be dis-
creditable to a Catholic country, but which is doubly
disgraceful when proceeding from a people who pro-
fess to base their religion^on the right of private
judgment. ' '
''The adherents of the Church of Rome,'' says
Hallam, "have never failed to cast two reproaches
on those who left them: one, that the reform was
brought about by intemperate and calumnious
abuse, by outrage of an excited populace or by the
tyranny of princes ; the other, that after stimulating
the most ignorant to reject the authority of the
Church, it instantly withdrew this liberty of judg-
ment and devoted all who presumed to swerve from
the lines drawn by law, to virulent obloquy and
sometimes to bonds and death. These reproaches
it may be a shame to us to own, can be uttered and
cannot be refuted."
Culture. The turmoil and disorder of revolution
and particularly of civil war are not favorable to
intellectual or even material progress. The culture
of art and literature and science requires peace of
mind, stability of property and the protection guar-
anteed by secure and just government. For the
whole Reformation century, Europe was plunged
into unhappy religious strife. Literature was de-
graded into the medium of fierce religious contro-
versy. Art was abhorred as the handmaid of the
'Hist, of Civ. in Eng., V. I., p. 264.
AND CIVILIZATION 419
old religion. The breaking up of the monasteries
which had been the common schools of the middle
ages, struck education at its source. There was
such a falling off at the Universities, that Froude
said: ''To the Universities the Reformation
brought desolation." Through the exhaustion of
energy in sterile strife and the suspicion engendered
by fanaticism, even material progress was im-
peded.
Literature. Ilallam ® quotes Erasmus as saying :
''Wherever Lutheranism reigns there literature ut-
terly perishes.'* The great humanist writes again: "
*'I dislike these Gospellers on many accounts, but
chiefly because through their agency, literature lan-
guishes, disappears, lies drooping and perishes; and
without learning, what is man's life? They love
good cheer and a wife; for other things they care
not a straw."
"In England during the reign of Edward VI,"
says Green,^'^ "divinity ceased to be taught in the
Universities: students had fallen off in numbers;
libraries were scattered and burned; and the intel-
lectual impulse died away."
The delightful old booklover, Merr3rweather,^^
Protestant as he is, deplores the destruction by Ref-
ormation fanaticism of the mediaeval libraries.
"These men over w^hose sad deeds the bibliophile
sighs with mournful regret, were those who carried
out the Reformation. . . . The careless grants of a
licentious monarch conferred a monastery on a court
favorite or political partisan, without one thought
for the preservation of its contents. Less learned
hands rifled those parchment collections, mutilated
their first volumes by cutting out witli childish pleas-
8 Lit. of Europe, V. I., p. 165.
8 Epistle 714.
lOHist., Bk. VI., Ch. I. and VII.
" Bibliomania in Middle Ages, Ch. I.
420 THE REFORMATION
ure the illuminations with which they were adorned ;
tearing off the bindings for the golden clasps which
protected the treasures within; and chopping up
huge folios as fuel for their hearths. Immense col-
lections were sold as waste paper/'
Humanists. The new theology of the Reforma-
tion is often confounded with the new learning of
the Renaissance. Italy, the home of the Renaissance
never embraced the Reformation. At Oxford the
early humanists were doubtless reformers, but, to
quote Myers,^^ **were not Protestant reformers.
They believed in the divine character of the Papal
supremacy. They wished indeed to reform the Pa-
pacy but not to destroy it. They did not wish to
see the mediaeval unity of Christendom broken up.
They had no quarrel with the dogmas of the Catholic
Church. Erasmus denounced the doctrines of Lu-
ther; and More died a martyr ^s death rather than
deny the papal supremacy."
With Henry's barbarous murder of the Author of
Utopia, — the scholar whom Colet declared the sole
genius in all England, the saint whom the Church
has beatified, the statesman of whom Charles V said :
"I had rather lost my fairest city than such a coun-
selor,'* — the development of literature in England
was arrested. The golden age, which had seemed
ripe to break, was thrown back fifty years, till the
more peaceful days that marked the close of Eliza-
beth's reign. Then it reappeared in Shakespeare,
Bacon and Spenser. But the Elizabethan literature,
says Matthew Arnold,^^ was the work *'of the men
of the Renaissance not of the men of the Reforma-
tion"; an opinion which is shared by Taine, and by
Carlyle, who says:^* **This glorious Elizabethan
era, with its Shakespeare as the outcome of all that
"Modern Age, p. 31.
" Schools and Universities of the Continent, p. 154.
" Essay : Hero and Poet.
AND CIVILIZATION 421
had preceded it, is itself attributable to the Catholics
of the Middle Ages. The Christian faith which was
the theme of Dante's song, had produced the prac-
tical life which Shakespeare was to sing."
Luther's Writings. In Germany, the blight in let-
ters lasted for two hundred years, till the time of
Leibnitz, when Germany began again to repossess a
literature. Not but what the Reformation brought
forth plenty of printed matter! The printing
presses were kept busy enough. But their output
was mostly bitter and worthless controversy. As
has been said, **to call one's neighbor seventeen dif-
ferent kinds of devils is not polite literature; while
to prove from the Apocalypse and Prophets that the
Pope is Anti-Christ and the Church of Rome the
scarlet woman is hardly a permanent contribution
even to Biblical science."
Of the writings of Luther, which served as a model
for many smaller men, Hallam says: ''Their in-
temperance, their coarseness, their inelegance, their
scurrility, their wild paradoxes that menace the
foundations of religious morality, are not compen-
sated by much strength or acuteness, and still less
by any impressive eloquence. The clear and com-
prehensive line of argument that enlightens the
reader's understanding and solves his difficulties, is
always wanting. An unbounded dogmatism resting
on an absolute confidence in the infallibility, prac-
tically speaking, of his own judgment, pervades his
writings: no indulgence is shown, no pause allowed
to the hesitating. Whatever stands in the way of
his decisions — the Fathers, the Church, the school-
men and philosophers, the canons and councils —
are swept away in a current of impetuous declama-
tion: and as everything contained in Scriptures, ac-
cording to Luther, is easy to be understood and
can only be understood in his sense, every deviation
422 THE REFOR]\IATION
from his doctrine incurs the anathema of perdi-
tion."
Art. All the traditions of the Christian centuries
which had employed the fine arts, painting, sculp-
ture, carving, embroidery, gold and silver smithing,
as well as architecture, in the external expression
of religious truth and feeling, w^ere antagonized by
the Reformation. The beauty of the Lord's temple
whioh the earlier Christians had loved and lavished
their treasures upon, was despised and destroyed.
Where the Protestants took from the Catholics their
beautiful Gothic churches, as the government ena-
bled them to do very generally in England and in
parts of Germany, pictures, statues, and altars, price-
less works of art, were rudely wrecked. Where the
new sects built homes for themselves, they were sat-
isfied with the bare walls of a meeting house. The
false interpretation of the commandment forbidding
the Jews to make graven images for the purpose of
adoring and serving them as idols, was accepted as
the divine anathema against all art.
'/The Netherlands,'' says Motley,^^ ^'possessed an
extraordinary number of churches and monasteries.
Their exquisite architecture and elaborate decora-
tion had been the earliest indication of intellectual
culture displayed in the country. All that science
could invent, all that art could embody, all that
mechanical ingenuity could dare, all that wealth
could lavish, — all gathered round these magnificent
temples. . . . Threre raged a storm by which all
these treasures were destroyed. Nearly every one
of these temples were rifled of its contents. Art
must forever weep over this bereavement."
England and France saw their Gothic churches
defaced and disfigured when not destroyed.^ The
Huguenots out-vandaled the Vandals in their de-
" Dutch RepubUc, V. I., Ch. 7.
AND CIVILIZATION 423
struction of the exquisite architecture of the thir-
teenth century. Rome itself, the storehouse of his-
tory and art, suffered in 1527 from the Lutheran
troops, such a barbarous sacking as she did not re-
ceive from the savage Goths and Vandals of the
fifth century. The Britannica deplores the wholesale
destruction of priceless manuscripts and earliest
printed books which were preserved at the Vatican
library.
"The loss occasioned by the plunder of gold and
silver," says Prescott,^^ ** might be computed. The
structures so cruelly defaced might be repaired by
the skill of the architect. But who can estimate the
irreparable loss occasioned by the destruction of
manuscripts, statuary and painting? It is a melan-
choly fact that the earliest efforts of the reformers
were everywhere directed against those monuments
of genius which had been created and cherished by
the generous patronage of Catholicism."
Progress. History furnishes examples of the re-
tarding eft'ects of the Reformation even on the most
practical progress. The old Julian Calendar was
corrected in 1582, by the learned Pope Gregory XIII.
This splendid and useful achievement of science, was
at once accepted by the Catholic countries. *^But,"
says the Library of Universal Knowledge, * * the Prot-
estants were then too much inflamed against Cathol-
icism, to receive even a purely scientific improvement
from such hands. The Lutherans of Germany,
Switzerland and the Low Countries gave way in
1700. It was not till 1751, and after great incon-
venience had been experienced for nearly two cen-
turies, from the difference of reckoning, that an act
was passed for equalizing the style in Great Britain
and that used in other countries. A similar change
was made about the same time in Sweden." Again,
"Philip II.
424 THE REFORMATION
through the energy wasted in religious strife and
civil war, the new world discoveries of Cabot, in
1497, were not followed up by England for a hun-
dred years.
The opinion of Goethe is thus given by Froude : ^'
"The German poet Goethe says of Luther, that he
threw back the intellectual progress of mankind for
centuries by calling in the passions of the multitude
to decide subjects which ought to have been left to
the learned. Goethe thought that Erasmus and
men like Erasmus, had struck on the right track
and that if they could have retained the direction
of the mind of Europe, there would have been more
truth and less falsehood among us at the present
time. The party hatreds, the theological rivalries,
the persecutions, the civil wars, the religious ani-
mosities which iave so long distracted us, would
have been all avoided and the mind of mankind
would have expanded gradually and equally with
the growth of knowledge.''
89. DID THE REFORMATION REFORM THE
CHURCH?
It was noticed that Guizot, introducing his lecture
on this period, used the term, "the Reformation,'*
only with some hesitation. It is the custom of other
writers to qualify it as the so-called Reformation.
It is asked, did the Reformation reform the Church?
After more than three hundred years, the Catho-
lic Church, as such, is just what she was before
the revolution of the sixteenth century. She has
the same doctrines of faith, the same sacraments, the
same constitution of government. As to her human
side, it is to be hoped that her children are three
hundred years better, with three hundred years
"Short Studies, V. I., p. 48.
DID IT REFORM? 425
more of opportunity; though this point is one not
easy to determine. At any rate the characteristic
work of the Reformation has left the ancient Church
precisely where and what she was. The results of
the Reformation must be looked for outside of the
historic Christian Church.
If the Reformation did not reform the Church
which was the one Christian fold of its day, what
did it effect? It created Protestantism. Its effects
are seen to-day in the scores of sects that divide the
Christian world. These ever-multiplying bodies,
are divisions and subdivisions of the Christians who
were drawn out of the Catholic unity of the Church
by the upheaval of the sixteenth century. No great
secession from the Catholic Church has occurred
since that time.
Sects. These modern denominations will take
their place in history with the sects that afflicted the
Church in its earlier days, — with the Cerinthians
and Ebonites of the first century; the Gnostics and
Montanists of the second; the Sabellians, Novatians
and Manicheans of the third; the Donatists and
Arians of the fourth ; the Nestorians, Pelagians,
and Monophysites of the fifth; who following the
novel doctrines of Cerinthus, Montanus, Sabellius,
Novatus, Arius, Nestorius, Donatus, Pelagius and
other heresiarchs, went out from the unity of the
Universal Church and set up their own organiza-
tions, in defiance of her authority and in opposition
to her faith. '
The very names of these heretical sects are hardly
known to-day, save to the student of history. Yet
in their respective centuries they were, humanly
speaking, powerful churches. Great ones of the
world were counted in their membership. Leaders
of men wedded to their own subtle theories more
than to the revelations of Christ, through these
426 THE KEFORMATION
churches that have given their names an unhappy
fame, led the sheep of Christ from the fold of salva-
tion. Arianism was espoused by Roman Emperors
just turned from Paganism and eager to apply to
the growing Christian religion, the politicians'
maxim, divide et impera, divide and rule. It was
able to drive Catholic bishops from their sees. St.
Athanasius, who opposed its errors, was five times
sent into exile. Its influence could even banish
Pope Liberius from Rome. Yet its name is heard
no more. One by one, the heretical sects, after their
longer or shorter span of life, went the way of all
flesh. The Catholic Church alone remains.
From these early aberrations from the Christian
organism, the modern denominations do not differ
essentially. They are sects: they teach heresy and
are in schism from the one Church of Christ.
Every Wind of Doctrine. Since the sixteenth cen-
tury Protestantism has undergone many a change.
Like a fevered man, it has tossed about seeking rest,
yearning and unsatisfied. Backward and forward
has swung the pendulum of change. The scores of
sects betray the spirit without peace; the people
blown about by every wind of doctrine. In Ger-
many the seventeenth century brought the Pietists
and Mystics weary of the wrangling and politics of
their fathers. The eighteenth saw the rationalism
led by Grotius and Lessing. In the nineteenth,
Renan the French rationalist envied the German
professors and higher critics who could be Chris-
tians and infidels at the same time.
17th Century. In England after a sorry trial of
the spiritual supremacy of the King, there came the
reaction of Puritanism. **The old doctrine of a
Catholic Christianity," says Green,^ *' flung over
them its spell. Rome indeed, they looked upon as
»Hist.. Bk. VI., Ch. 2.
DID IT REFORM? 427
Anti-Christ; but the doctrine which Rome had held
so long and so firmly, the doctrine' that truth should
be co-extensive with the world, and not limited by
national boundaries ; that the Church was one in all
countries and among all peoples ; that there was a
Christendom which embraced all kingdoms and a
Christian law that ruled peoples and kings, became
more and more the doctrine of Rome's bitterest en-
emy. . . . The great conception of the mediaeval
church, that of the responsibility of kings to a spir-
itual power, was revived at an hour when kingship
was trampling all responsibility to God and man be-
neath its feet."
In the seventeenth century reaction, the Puritans,
then in the ascendency, overthrew the Stuart
dynasty, and seizing the government persecuted the
sixteenth century Episcopalians and even Presby-
terians, as well as the Catholics. While fanat-
icism persecuted and hypocrisy mingled with
fanaticism, both described their miserable deeds
in the high and burning language of the Bible
prophets. When Oliver Cromwell slaughtered every
man, woman and child in the Irish garrison of
Drogheda, he wrote of ''this great thing" which he
had done "by the spirit of God": **It hath pleased
God to bless our endeavors at Drogheda. ... I be-
lieve we put to the sword the whole number of its
defendants. . . . This hath been a marvelous great
mercy." ''Religion," says Green, *'had been
turned into a system of political and social oppres-
sion."
18th Century. Then again reaction! With the
gay court of Charles II came the "corrupt drama-
tists," who only painted society as they saw it. By
the eighteenth century open infidelity took the place
of unreasoning fanaticism and hypocritical cant.
The Empiricism of Locke issued in rank materialism.
428 THE REFORMATION
Gibbon and Hume rewrote history from the view-
point of rationalism. Shaftesbury, Bolinbroke, Her-
bert, Toland, Woolston, Collins, Lyons and others
attacked the Bible, Christianity and sometimes all
religion with the weapons of sophistry and ridicule.
Voltaire and the French infidels, says Lecky, learned
their principles from the English free-thinkers. The
artificial poets replaced Milton. Fielding and Smol-
let were preferred to Bunyan. Hudibras was the
most popular of books. Swift and Sterne were the
glory and shame of the clergy. The gloomy and
often absurd severity of manners of the Protectorate
reacted in the frivolities of the Restoration and suc-
ceeding reigns.
Then Methodism arose in an effort to galvanize
moribund English Protestantism into some spiritual
life.
19th Century. In the nineteenth century, the Ox-
ford movement betrayed again the religious unrest
of many of the finest minds in the English estab-
lished church, in its reapproachment to the old Cath-
olic faith and practices, which issued in the conver-
sion of John Henry Newman, Henry Edward
Manning and so many others to Rome, and in
the development of a large Romanizing party in the
bosom of the Anglican body itself. Outside the
Anglican establishment, the same religious unrest
among Protestant Christians is shown by the mul-
tiplication of petty sects which the English and
American people support, and in one after the other
of which they seek the peace and light which their
souls crave and expect from religion and have not
found.
The teachings of these sects run the whole gamut
of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. They approach close
to Catholicism and they extend beyond the danger
line of infidelity. Every conceivable theory is dog-
DID IT REFORM? 429
matically asserted by some and as stoutly denied by
others. The triune God, the divinity of Christ, the
inspiration of the Bible, the fall and original sin,
free-will and moral responsibility, atonement and
grace, the Church, the priesthood, the sacraments,
the need of Baptism, the divine presence in the Eu-
charist, the observance of Sunday, divorce and re-
marriage, race-suicide, polygamy, spiritism, faith-
cure, the right of private property, one and all of
these doctrines, and more besides, are defended as
true and assailed as false, by so-called Christian
sects.
The myriad forms of Protestantism find a common
bond only in the negative characteristic that they
are not Catholic. Anything else it may or may not
be: that depends upon the individuaFs judgment;
but Protestantism is always this, it is outside of the
unity of the historic Church and in protest against
it. In whatever else the sects may disagree, in this
they are at one. The one essential characteristic of
all Protestantism is not what it is, but what it is not :
not the particular doctrines which its many divi-
sions may uphold, but the fact that they are all in
schism from the Church. This negative nature of
the work of the Reformation is fatefully expressed
in the common name Protestantism.
Meantime many of the rising generation, often ed-
ucated college-men and other promising youths, to
whom the claims of the Christian religion have never
been adequately presented, but who have been
trained by science to know the necessary unity of
truth, drop into agnosticism and point to the babel
of sects around them in defense of their silent disre-
gard of all organized religion. Misdirected work-
ingmen, lured into socialism, accept the dreams of
its leaders as the gospel of Jesus Christ. Infidels
are ever ready to glorify the Reformation : pointing
430 THE REFOKMATION
out that from private interpretation to rationalism,
is a step logical and short; and praising Luther as
the hero who blazed the path to free-thought by-
destroying for multitudes the spiritual authority of
the Church.
Twentieth Century. With the twentieth century,
Protestantism as an active principle has about spent
its force. Its followers no longer glory in the name.
*'We do not any longer take special pride in the des-
ignation of Protestant," says the Independent.^ **It
was good enough once. . . . There is not a denomi-
nation in this country that has the word Protestant
in its name, which is not trying to get rid of it."
Men who know the Catholic Church have no protest
against it: and no honest man will protest against
it, without knowing it.
As men are more intelligent, they appreciate the
more, the glory of the Catholic name. As early as
the year 110, St. Ignatius employed the term Cath-
olic, as the proper name of the Church of Christ.
Signifying universal, it corresponds to the univer-
sality of the Christian religion. It distinguishes the
historic Christian body which from the days of Christ
has continued in the unity of faith and the bond of
charity, from those Avho though professing the name
of Christ, followed other leaders out of His divinely
constituted Church, and were thus no longer part
of that Church but sects, being cut off from it. The
sect bears the name of a man, a country, an epoch,
or of a particular point of doctrine or polity. It is
Lutheran or Anglican or Southern Presbyterian or
Baptist or Methodist Episcopal. The true Church is
neither man-made, nor national, nor sectional. It
stands for all of Christ 's teaching. It exists in every
century. Its mission is to all nations and all men.
It is universal. It is Catholic.
' N. Y., Sept. 17, 1908, p. 620.
DID IT REFORM? 431
At the opening of the twentieth century thought-
ful men see in the world two general tendencies:
one toward the camps of agnosticism and socialism,
the other toward the conservatism of the Catholic
Church. The growth of higher education, larger
opportunity of travel," the good citizenship of the
Catholic millions, the writings of Leo XIII on Di-
vorce, Education, Capital and Labor, have been an
aurora to drive away the darkness of ignorance and
misunderstanding tliat blind men to the historic
Church. At the same time the destructive work of
the higher critics, the spread of religious indiffer-
ence, the disintegration of the sects, the menace of
socialism and anarchy, lead conservative Christians
to look toward that historic Church as still the
citadel of Christian faith and morals.
Thousands of Non-Catholics come back to the old
Church each year seeking light and peace. What-
ever was good or true or beautiful among the teach-
ings of their sects, they find had been taught by the
Catholic Church from the beginning. If they leave
anything behind them, it is error. If they learn
anything new, it is Christian truth that had till now
escaped their notice. They lose nothing, but gain
all. For the sects that rend the body of Christ,
Catholics can have no approving word. With the
Scriptures * we must condemn the divisions brought
in by the pride of men to disrupt the unity which is
the will of God and a mark of His Church.^ But we
have only the kindest good-will and the sincerest
love for the many Non-Catholics who, often without
fault of their own or appreciation of their position,
are outside the pale of the Church and affiliated with
'Toward the end of Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain says: "Travel is
fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness: and many of our
people need it sorelv on that account."
♦11. Peter 2, 1-3; Gal. 5, 20-21; II. Cor. 11, 13; II. Tim. 4, 3-4;
Mt. 7, 15.*
"John 17, 20-21; 1. 16; Eph. 4, 3-6; Rom. 12, 4-5; Col. 8. 5.
432 THE REFORMATION
sects that oppose it,'' Converts are welcomed home
to the Church of their forefathers where they find
a peace never known before. They experience the
sense of security described by both Newman and
Manning after many years in the Catholic Church.
"From the hour," says the latter, ''that I submitted
to the divine voice which speaks through the one
Catholic and Roman Church, I have never known so
much as a momentary shadow of doubt to pass over
my reason or my conscience." ''From the day that
I became a Catholic to this day, now close upon thirty
years," writes Cardinal Newman, "I have never had
a moment's misgiving."
Lead Kindly Light. The favorite hymn of those
who still hesitate without, is the "Lead, Kindly
Light," penned by Newman in those dark days when
he was groping his way, from what he called the
"city of confusion," to the Church of Christ.
Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
/ Lead Thou me on; ^
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on;
I loved the garish day; and spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile.
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
•Well meaning people may unconsciously persecute Christ. Act. 9. 4.
STATISTICS OF RELIGION
433
90. STATISTICS OF RELIGION.
Religious Divisions of World.
Christians 615,349,416
Jews 12,989,751
Mohammedans 207,067,840
Brahmins 210,000,000
Buddhists 125,270,000
Confucian and Ancestor Worshipc 240,000,000
Taoists and Shintoists 49,000,000
Fetish, etc A 91,604,000
Divisions of Christians.
Asia
Africa
Europe
America
Australia and
Oceanica . . .
Total . . .
Catholics.
12,661,498
2,689.839
1^8,517,058
87,614,635
1,244,055
292,787,085
Orthodox,
13,806,000
113, '73 5,7 18
127,541,718
Oriental
Schismatics
2,919,000
5,823,989
232,000
8,974.989
Protestants.
2,354,817
2,634,660
106,200,177
70,868,923
3,997,047
186,055,624
Christian Division of Europe.
Catholic
Austria Hungary 35,000,000
Belgium 7,000,000
Bulgaria 29,000
Denmark 3,000
France 35,000,000
Germany 20,000,000
Great Britain and Ireland . 7,000,000
Greece 10,000
Italy 30,000,000
Luxemburg 200,000
Malta 160,000
Montenegro ^ 5,000
Netherlands 1,700,000
Norway 2,000
Orthodox Protestant
3,500,000 4,000,000
15,000
1,400,000
2,000,000
600,000
30,000,000
30,000,000
2,000,000 10,000
65.000
290,000
2,800,000
1,900,000
^34
THE REFORMATION
Catholic
Ottoman Empire 320,000
Portugal 4,300,000
Roumelia 30,000
Roumania 100,000
Russia 10,000,000
Servia ^ ... . 6,000
Spain 18,000.000
Sweden 2,000
Switzerland 1,200,000
Orthodox
Protest.
1,700,000
11,000
700,000
4,800,000
15,000
75,000,000
3,500,000
2,000,000
1,000
30,000
4,600,000
1.800,000
Denominations in United States
Name Bodies
Catholic Church 1
Baptist 17
Brethren (Dunkers) . . 5
Christian Church .... 1
Churches of Christ... 1
Congregationalists . . 1
Disciples of Christ... 1
Sastern Orthodox 7
Evangelical Assn. ... 1
Friends 4
Gr e r m an Evangelical
Synod 1
Jewish Congregations 1
Latter Day Saints 2
Lutherans 21
Mennonites 16
Methodist 17
Presbyterians 10
Protestant Episcopal. 1
Reformed 4
United Brethren 2
Unitarians 1
All other Sects 81
Members
17,549,324
7,236,650
134,373
117,853.
319,211.
790,163
1,231.404
250,340.
120,756
114,714
342,788.
359,998.
462,332
2,463,465
79,591
7,165,986
2,257,439
1,098173
533,356
367,620
72,000
647,868.
Founder Origin
Jesus Christ 33
Roger Williams.. 1639
Alex. Mack 1708
Robt. Browne 1583
Alex. Campbell... 1810
jacoij Alisright . . . 1800
George Fox 1624
1817
Jos. Smith
Martin Luther . . .
Mennon Simonis,
John Wesley
Calvin & Knox . .
Henry VIII
Zwingle
Otterbein
Channing
f
1830
1524
1739
1560
1534
1531
1760
1815
Catholic statistics from Catholic Directory, 1919; others
from World Almanac 1919. New world and European
statistics are not available since the war.
STATISTICS OF RELIGION 435
Note: The war services of the Catholic people of the United
States furnished again evidence already abundantly available
from other sources, that our statistics of Catholic population
and institutions were no idle figures, as in patriotism and com-
parative numbers our Catholic people were unsurpassed.
Meeting in Washington in April, 1917, the Cardinals and
Archbishops representing the Church in the United States
pledged to the Government the moral and material support of
our people and the use of our institutions. The Catholic Na-
tional War Council, headed by representatives of the hierarchy
and laity, directed and unified our many activities, spiritual,
social and material; and after the war devoted their splendid
organization to a reconstruction program.
While Catholics formed only a sixth of the population of
the country, it was found that 36 per cent of the Army and
more of the Navy were Catholic men. We were accordingly
given 36.7 per cent of the army chaplains, whose work was
supplemented by the Knights of Columbus chaplains.
At the invitation of the Government, the Knights of Colum-
bus conducted among Soldiers and Sailors at home and abroad,
welfare work such as they had carried on among our soldiers
on the Mexican border even before the war. Millions of dol-
lars were used for this work, and with such wise economy
that the organization was able to give free of charge, to our
men in uniform, endless creature comforts, as well as moral,
social and educational care. The only criticism of the K, of
C. work was the enthusiastic endorsement by the men in the
ranks and the grateful approbation of Generals Foch and
Pershing, of the United States and the French Governments
and all others concerned. Our colleges, hospitals, nurses' train-
ing schools, churches and publications each in their own way
gave loyal service to our country; as did our Catholic women.
Among the heroic Catholic figures in the war stand out:
Ferdinand Foch, Generalissimo of the Allies; Cardinal Mercier,
Primate of Belgium; Admiral Benson, ranking officer of our
Navy and its representative at the Peace Conference, and.
above all. Pope Benedict XV, who used his great influence to
promote peace, and, failing that, devoted his resources to allevi-
ating the horrors of war. During the war England maintained
a representative at the Vatican, through whom the Pope was
able to deal diplomatically with the Allies. Recognizing the
Christian charity of the Holy Father, which rises above all the
misunderstandings of men and nations, Catholics of every
country remained loyal to their Christian faith and its inter-
national brotherhood, and at the close of the war the Churcb
finds herself stronger than ever,
CHAPTER XXVII
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE
UNITED STATES
91. THE EARLIEST AMERICANS.
The history of the Catholic Church in the United
States is not co-extensive with the history of the
Catholic Church in America. The latter is a much
larger theme. The earliest history of the Catholic
Church in America is written in the Sagas of the
Norsemen, sung still by the Icelanders of to-day, tell-
ing of the voyages of their fathers almost a thousand
years ago.
Before entering upon the long chapter of the his-
tory of the religious revolutions which filled the six-
teenth century, we chronicled the feats that immor-
tally linked with America the names of her Catholic
discoverers in the century before Calvin and Knox
were born or Luther and Henry VIII raised the flag
of rebellion against the authority of the Christian
Church ; as also the deeds of the explorers and mis-
sionaries of Catholic France and Spain, who planted
the seeds of civilization and religion throughout
South America, and in the north made their way to
the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, to the Great
Lakes and the Pacific Ocean, while half of Europe
exhausted its strength in internecine religious strife.
The names of the first Americans who cast in their
lot with the country of their adoption, make a roll
436
EARLIEST AMERICANS 437
of honor of Catholic heroes. There are the great
discoverers, Columbus, the Cabots, Americus Ves-
puccius. There are the master explorers like De
Soto, Balboa, Cortez, Champlain^ Joliet, Cartier, La
Salle. There are the bold colonizers like Iberville,
Bienville, Cadillac, Duluth, Vincennes, not to men-
tion the English Lord Baltimore. There are the mis-
sionaries from Las Casas and the priests who sailed
with Columbus and Cabot, to Father Juniper Serra
and his brother apostles of California. These mis-
sionaries were often scientists as well as saints.
With the name of Le Moyne stand those of Roche
d'Allon, Mare and other priests, Franciscans and
Jesuits, as the geologists and botanists who identified
our herbs, and found the salt springs of Onondaga,
the oil-springs of Pennsylvania, the copper of Lake
Superior, the lead of Illinois, our beds of coal and
our mines of turquoise. Among the philologists of-,
the Indian languages, stand out Fathers Rales,
White, Sagard, Pareya, Bruya, Garnier, Garcia, Le
Boulanger, Cuesta, Sitjar, who for almost two cen-
turies before the Revolution were publishing diction-
aries, grammars, catechisms and prayer books, in the
tongues of the Abnaki, Mohawks, Seneca, Cayuga,
Onondaga, Illinois, Wyandot, and the tribes of Flor-
ida, Maryland, Texas and California. Among the
apostles and martyrs who have left us the earliest
histtfry of our land in the Jesuit Relations, are num-
bered Fathers Marquette, Hennepin, Isaac Jogues,
Raymbault, Menard, Allouez, Breboeuf, Lallemand,
Daniel, Biard, Rale, Masse, and many more, of
whom Bancroft could say: "Thus did the religious
zeal of the French bear the cross to the banks of
the St. Mary (Sault Ste. Marie), and the confines
of Lake Superior and look wistfully toward the
homes of the Sioux in the valley of the Mississippi
before the New England Eliot had addressed a tribe
438 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
of Indians that dwelt within six miles of Boston
Harbor.'^
When the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 ceded to
the United States the vast domain explored by the
French and Spaniards, Napoleon well remarked:
''This accession of territory establishes forever the
power of the United States.''
92. CATHOLIC COLONISTS AND RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY.
With the coming of the English colonies in the
seventeenth century, came also English Catholics ;
and their principles and conduct were worthy of
their illustrious fellow-religionists who had been the
pathfinders of America. The Colony of Maryland
was founded by Lord Baltimore, as an asylum for
the Catholics of England who were then suffering
the most inhuman persecution for their faith. On
March 25, 1634, the Ark and the Dove entered
Chesapeake Bay and sailed up the Potomac. Mass
of Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Jesuit Fa-
thers White and Altham. The colonists purchased
land from the Indians and called their settlement
St. Mary's.
Home of Religious Liberty. Lord Baltimore had
been given the most extensive privileges ever con-
ferred on a colonizer by an English sovereign. It
is to the glory of the Catholic Calverts that they
used their power to establish in America a home
for religious liberty — the only home, as Bancroft
says, it then possessed in the world. The Catholic
Colonists who had been exiled from England by
religious persecution and refused refuge on the
shores of Virginia on account of their faith, were
not content to practice religious toleration, but en-
acted its principle into a law of Maryland, which
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 439
gave equal rights in religion to all Christians. In
answer to Lord Baltimore's invitation, says Ban-
croft/ ''from France came Huguenots,^ from Ger-
many, from Holland, from Sweden, from Finland
the children of misfortune sought protection under
the tolerant scepter of the Roman Catholic." And
he adds: ''Calvert deserves to be ranked among
the most wise and benevolent lawgivers of all
ages. ' '
The significance of Maryland's action in thus be-
ing the first to make religious freedom the law of
the land, cannot be overestimated. It is one of
the grandest deeds in the history of our country.
The little seed thus planted was, as shall be seen,
the germ from which sprang our constitutional lib-
erty of conscience of which we proudly boast.
Environment of Intolerance. To appreciate fully
the magnanimity of the Maryland law, we must
view it in its environment of the early 17th century.
The peace of Westphalia had not yet brought about
some understanding between the hostile factions
stirred up by the religious revolution of the pre-
ceding century. England was still in the throes
of the Reformation. English Catholics lay pros-
trated and crushed by the persecution which in
the long reign of Elizabeth had sufficiently ac-
complished its work, but which the advisers of
^Hist. of U. S., Vol. I., p. 244.
'In the St. Bartholomew day massacre of 1572 Huguenots (about
786) fell not as martyrs to the Protestant faith, but as followers of
the revolutionary party whose leaders aimed at nothing short of the
French throne.
The massacre was entirely a political move. How little religion had
to do with it may be judged from the religious indifference of the
leaders of both parties. The Catholic Church had nothing to do with
this atrocity except to condemn its horror. It is true that Pope Greg-
ory, who was deceived by the first reports of the trouble which reached
Rome through the couriers of the French King, had the Te Deum sung
in thanksgiving that the life of the king had been saved from con-
spirators. When the Pope learned the rest of the story he wept with
sorrow and condemned the horror. Lord Acton ascribes this massacre,
like much more so-called religious persecution, to the principal of state
solidarity.
440 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
Kings James and Charles had forced them to keep
up. Those English Protestants who were as de-
termined as their Catholic neighbors to resist the
galling tyranny of the politico-religious establish-
ment called the national Church of England, were
gathering their forces for a mighty struggle. These
Puritans, as they were called, had sent a colony to
Massachusetts, to find in the new world ''freedom
to worship God,'' a few years before the coming of
Lord Baltimore's Catholic colony. A few years
after it, their brethren in England, around the
standard of Cromwell, were to seize the government
and under forms of law to strike off the heads of
King Charles I and of Archbishop Laud, the pri-
mate of the national church. The fever of fanati-
cism was in the air. Persecution begot religious
hatred. Party spirit begot bigotry. Lust of power
begot intolerance.
Colonial Intolerance. Most of the men that
formed our original colonies were unable to rise
above these limitations of their day. To America
they came seeking ''freedom to worship God."
But they sought this freedom for themselves only.
On the wild shores of the new world, along with
the palings which they raised to keep out the sav-
age Indians, they made laws of persecution to
keep out of their midst and to ;imite with outrage
and death, the neighbor whose conscience might
lead him to worship God in a manner different from
their own.
Virginia was a royal province and no one could
settle there unless he took the "oath of Suprem-
acy," acknowledging the King of England as the
head of the Church of God. All but Episcopalians
were thus banned. No priest could enter the col-
ony. No Catholic could be a witness in a court of
justice.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 441
New England Puritans provided that no man
should be admitted to the freedom of their body
politic, but such as were members of one of their
Congregational Churches. The poor Quakers flee-
ing from persecution in England, arrived at Mas-
sachusetts Bay only to have their ears cut off and
be flogged and turned adrift; and be hanged till
dead if they returned to the colony. The heartless
exile of Roger Williams into the trackless winter
forests, the refinement of cruelty which tortured
Anne Hutchinson, the Witchcraft panic stirred up
by Cotton Mather and other Puritan ministers, re-
veal the bigotry of colonial New England.
Bigotry Lost Canada. The bitter protests sent
to England by the American colonists and even
voiced by the Continental Congress, when the Brit-
ish Parliament passed the Quebec Act (1774) recog-
nizing the right of the French Colonies of Canada
to practice their Catholic religion (and thus
shrewdly securing their allegiance in the stress of
the approaching Revolution), may be said to have
been the chief cause why the Canadians refused to
join us in our struggle with the mother country.
Indeed so little was appreciation of religious liberty
a virtue of our early English colonists, that despite
the wise provisions which the exigencies of the
times made a part of our federal constitution, even
well into the nineteenth century laws of religious
intolerance continued to disgrace the statute books
of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
North Carolina, New York and Connecticut.
Liberty Betrayed. The bright beacon-light of re-
ligious liberty set up by the Catholic Colony of
Maryland and which contrasted so gloriously with
the surrounding darkness of intolerance, was not
destined to remain. It was to be put out, by the
very men who had turned to it in their shipwreck
442 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
and had found welcome and a safe harbor. Puri-
tans fleeing from persecution in Anglican Virginia,
prelatists driven out of Puritan New England, had
found citizenship in Maryland. "But," says Ban-
croft, **the Puritans had neither the gratitude to
respect the rights of the government by which they
had been received and fostered, nor magnanimity
to' continue the toleration to which alone they
were indebted for their residence in the colony."
Three times they rose up in rebellion against the
Baltimores, and struck at the religious liberty of
the colony.
In the Clayborne rebellion of 1645, the Jesuit
missionaries were sent in chains to England and
many Catholics robbed and banished. When the
rebellion was suppressed, at the instance of Lord
Baltimore the Act Concerning Religion (1649), was
passed, securing again the colony's practice of free-
dom of conscience.
"With the execution of Charles I the Puritans
hastening to espouse the cause of Cromwell, seized
the Maryland government, revoked the Toleration
Act, and passed a law that "none who professed
and exercised the Popish religion could be protected
in the Province." With the Restoration in 1660,
Lord Baltimore regained his rights and the Tolera-
tion Act was again revived to the fullest extent.
Peace reigned till the accession of William and
Mary (1688), when the Puritans rebelled, and
formed an "Association for the defense of the Prot-
estant Religion." Maryland became a royal prov-
ince. The Church of England finally was made
the established religion of Maryland. Catholics
were disfranchised, and compelled to pay tithes
for the support of the Anglican establishment.
Bishops and priests could not exercise their minis-
try in public. Catholics were taxed double, and
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 443
declared incompetent to purchase or inherit lands.
The law put "Irish Papists" on a footing with negro
slaves. For seventy years before the Revolution,
Catholics could attend Mass only in their private
homes. Thus were Catholics outraged in the Amer-
ican Colony which they had made the land of the
sanctuary and an asylum of liberty for all Chris-
tians.
Gov. Dongan of New York. As intolerance
quenched the light of religious liberty in Maryland,
its first American home, so did it elsewhere. The
Rhode Island law of 1663, passed through the in-
fluence and to the immortal honor of Roger Wil-
liams, was changed in 1719, to deny the rights of
citizenship to Catholics and Jews. The liberal
charter given to William Penn by Charles II in
1681, was so altered in 1693, that till the Revolution
no one could hold even the most petty office without
taking an oath denying the Real Presence and
declaring the Mass idolatrous. When New York
held its first legislative assembly after passing from
the Dutch to the English, its Governor, Thomas
Dongan, an Irishman and a Catholic, drew up a
Charter of Liberties (1683) guaranteeing freedom
of conscience and religious liberty to all Christians.
A later assembly (1691) reenacted Dongan 's char-
ter with one change: religious liberty was denied
to Catholics, whose priests were expelled from the
colony and laymen disfranchised. This pioneer of
religious freedom in America, Frost in his history
significantly describ(^s as "a man of high integrity,
unblemished character and great moderation, who
although a Catholic, ( !) may be ranked among the
best of our governors. ''
444 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
93. CATHOLICS AND THE REVOLUTION.
As in the colonial period of our country's history,
Catholics stood out persistently and in the face of
death-dealing opposition for that liberty of con-
science which would later be hailed as the glory
of our constitution, so in the Revolution, according
to their numbers and means, they worked without
stain or reproach for the liberty of man.
Every Catholic was a Whig. While Methodists,
with John Wesley, sided with England, and a very
large portion of the Episcopalians took the same
course, and Quakers conscientiously averse to war,
remained neutral, the Catholics spontaneously and
universally adhered to the cause of independence.
With the Catholic colonists fought Catholic sol-
diers of other nationalities, who came from Catholic
Prance and Catholic Poland with Lafayette, Roch-
ambeau, Fleury, Dupartial, Lowzon, Count De
Gras, Pulaski, DeKalb, Kosciusko and the other lov-
ers of liberty who were a providence in our hour
of need and to whose memory America will never
be ungrateful.
Saucy Jack Barry. On the seas the great Com-
modore of our Navy was John Barry. To detach
him from the American cause. Lord Howe offered
him 15,000 guineas and the command of the best
frigate in the English Navy. ''I have devoted my-
self,^' was his answer, ''to the cause of America, and
not the value and command of the whole British
fleet can seduce me from it.'* This ''Saucy Jack
Barry, father of the American Navy," like many
of his mariners, was a Catholic and an Irishman.
A large part of the valiant army of Mad Anthony
Wayne were German and Irish Catholics.
General Stephen Moylan, whom Washington ap-
pointed first quarter-master of the revolutionary
THE REVOLUTION 445
army, was a Catholic. When our currency had de-
preciated in value, gaunt famine' stared Washing-
ton's army in the face, and discontent, desertion
and mutiny threatened to defeat the great object
to be accomplished, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick
most promptly and most generously responded to
the bankrupt government's appeal, with over half
a million dollars; while the individual subscription
of Thomas Fitzsimmons, a Catholic merchant of
Philadelphia, was the then vast sum of twenty-five
thousand dollars. It is estimated that Catholic
France spent sixty million dollars in our revolu-
tion.
Declaratian of Independence. Not only in the
field and on the quarter-deck, but also in the coun-
cil-room did Catholics have worthy representatives.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, his cousin Daniel Car-
roll, a brother of Archbishop Carroll, Thomas Fitz-
simmons and Thomas S. Lee were members of the
Continental Congress or signers of the Declaration
of Independence.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Among the list of
patriot heroes whose names are attached to that
immortal document, none was more distinguished
than Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who in signing
the Declaration of Independence did not hesitate
to stake upon the issue more property than all the
other signers put together.
In his ''Historical Sketches of Statesmen Who
Flourished in the Time of George III,'' Lord
Brougham says of Carroll: —
''His family was settled in Maryland ever since
the reign of James II, and had during that period
been possessed of the same ample property, — the
largest in the union. It stood therefore at the head
of the aristocracy of the country; was naturally in
alliance with the government; could gain nothing.
446 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
while it risked everything by a change of dynasty;
and therefore, according to all the rules and the
prejudices and the frailties which are commonly
found guiding men in a crisis of affairs, Charles
Carroll might have been expected to take a part
against revolt, certainly never to join in promoting
it. Such, however, was not this patriotic person.
He was among the foremost to sign the cele-
brated Declaration of Independence. All who did
so were believed to have devoted themselves and
their families to the Furies. As he set his hand to
the instrument, the whisper ran round the hall of
Congress, *' there goes some millions of property!"
There being many of the same name, someone said:
** Nobody will know what Carroll it is," as no one
wrote more than his name. Then one at his elbow
remarked to Carroll: "You'll get clear, — there
are several of the name, — they will not know which
to take. " * ' Not so ! " he replied ; and instantly
added his residence, ''of Carrollton."
Charles Carroll and Mr. Chase were appointed by-
Franklin Commissioners to Canada in behalf of
the struggling colonies. Carroll died in 1832.
Among his last words were: ''I have lived to my
ninety-sixth year; I have enjoyed continued
health; I have been blessed with great wealth,
property and most of the good things which the
world can bestow; public approbation, applause:
but what I now look back on with greatest satisfac-
tion to myself is that I have practiced the duties of
my religion."
Our First Bishop. From this same fine family
came our first bishop of the Catholic Church in the
United States, John Carroll, Archbishop of Balti-
more. Like his illustrious cousin and his brother,
Archbishop Carroll was a patriot. Franklin em-
ployed him on a confidential mission to Canada.
THE CONSTITUTION 447
He was a worthy forerunner of the patriotic and
prudent body of Christian leaders who have ever
since blessed the Episcopal Sees of America.
Washington's Appreciation. As the revolution
revealed the loyalty and sterling worth of the Cath-
olic Americans and the self-sacrificing friendship
for the budding Republic, of their fellow-religion-
ists abroad, men of greater mind were grieved at
the religious persecution to which Catholics were
subjected in every colony. While commanding
the troops before Boston, Washington checked the
New England custom of burning the Pope in effigy
every 5th of November,^ and censured this insult
as ''ridiculous and childish.''
Replying to an address of congratulation upon
his election to the Presidency, presented by the
leading Catholic clergy and laity, Washington said:
'*As mankind become more liberal, they will be the
more apt to allow, that all those Tvho conduct them-
selves as worthy members of the community, are
equally entitled to the protection of civil govern-
ment. I hope ever to see America the foremost na-
tion in examples of justice and liberality. And I
presume that, your fellow-citizens will not forget
the patriotic part which you took in the accomplish-
ment of their Revolution and the establishment of
their government; or the important assistance they
received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic
faith is professed."
94. CATHOLICS AND THE CONSTITUTION.
On the eve of the Revolution the Continental
^This gruesome holiday recalled the Gun Powder Plot of 1605.
Half a dozen Catholics in England, with Guy Fawkes*' driven to madness
hy the tyrannous persecution which spoiled them of every right of body
and soul, conceived the wild plan of destroying the authors of their
persecution by blowing up the house of Parliament. The Catholics as
a body were in no wise responsible for this wicked scheme. Indeed it
was a" Catholic, Lord Monteagle, who discovered the plot and at once
exposed it to the king.
448 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
Congress had protested to England and declared
that they could not conceal their astonishment at
the Quebec Act, which recognized the right of the
French Colonies of Canada to practice their Catho-
lic faith. At that time nine out of the thirteen
colonies had religious test-oaths, and the other four
had laws discriminating against Catholics. At the
close of the Revolution, the colonial representatives
adopted the Constitution of the United States, de-
claring that ''no religious test shall ever be re-
quired as a qualification to any office or public trust
under the United States'' (Art. VI. Sec. 3) : and soon
added the securing Amendment: "Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of re-
ligion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
(Amendment I).
Whence This Change of Feeling? The Revolu-
tion had taught the lessons of sympathy and re-
spect. It had revealed the worth of men who pro-
fessed the Catholic faith and of men who made
profession of no faith. Bigotry there still was ; and
the articles of the Constitution were hotly debated.
But broadness prevailed. Catholic France had
given the struggling revolutionists the ^practical
friendship of men and money, and was the first
power to sign a treaty recognizing the new Repub-
lic. In France, America had a Catholic God-
mother. Catholic Spain had joined with France,
opened her ports to our privateers; refused to give
them up to England as demanded; and crushed
British power on our southern frontier.^ The
Catholic princes of Germany had protested against
the Hessian soldiers, all raised in Protestant states,
hiring out to the work of English oppression.
Catholics at home were loyal unto death. Cath-
* Galveston is named for Count Bernardo de Galvez, Spanish gover-
nor of Louisiana, who (1770) besieged the English forces at Baton
Rouge and swept the Louisiana waters of English vessels.
THE CONSTITUTION 449
olics abroad were friends indeed as they were
friends in need. Could America in 1788, repeat the
unhappy protest against religious liberty voiced at
the Continental Congress of 1774? Would she fol-
low the example of Massachusetts and Virginia and
incorporate into her federal constitution the reli-
gious tests and discriminations that limited every
colony? Or would she follow the example first set
by the Catholic Lord Baltimore, and followed by
the Catholic Governor Dongan and the immortal
Roger Williams? There was but one course. The
freedom of conscience that was proclaimed in the
solitudes of Maryland in 1634, and in the wilderness
of Rhode Island in 1636, after a century and a half
of opposition, became parf of the Constitution of
the United States.
Catholics may reflect with honorable pride, that
as their fellow-religionists discovered and explored
America, so their Catholic ancestors took a unique
part in making religious liberty the law of the land.
And it is happily true, that while citizens of the
Catholic faith have since been the object of bigotry
and fanaticism, as by the Native American and
Know-Nothing Parties - and by the American Pro-
tective Association, they have never lent themselves
to any movement contrary to the tolerant provision
of the Constitution J and to the religious freedom
they themselves first proclaimed.
Magna Charta. Our Constitution, our rights, our
"Boston citizens destroyed the Ursuliue Convent at Charleston, in
1834. "Native Americans" rioted at Philadelphia in 1844 for three
days, burning several churches, a house of the Sisters of Charity and
the homes of many Catholics, several of whom were killed. They rioted
in New York the same year. In 1854 Know-Nothing mobs destroyed
churches in Maine, New Hampshire and New Jersey, and killed a num-
ber of Catholics at Louisville. The social persecution can be imagined.
These fires of bigotry were fed by such books as the "Awfijjl Disclosures
of Maria Monk," a foul, lying concoction of three mifiisters, Revs.
Brownlee, Bourne and Slocura. While the present writer has seen
many such slanderous books written against the Catholic Church, he
has yet to hear of a Catholic writing such a work about others.
450 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
glory are all summed up in the words, civil and re-
ligious liberty. Catholics had much to do in
achieving our religious liberty. It may be inter-
esting to notice their part in the creation of our
civil liberty. Civil liberty may be defined, ''the
protection, by just law, of the life and property of
the citizen, against the arbitrary actions of king or
magistrate.'' In what does our civil liberty con-
sist? First, That our house is our castle; second.
That no one can be imprisoned except by due proc-
ess of law; third, No taxation without representa-
tion; fourth. Trial by jury; fifth. Fixed courts;
sixth, Habeas Corpus.
These six propositions contain the sum of all we
mean by civil liberty, and constitute the basis of
our national and state constitutions. They are all
substantially contained in the Magna Charta of
England from which we derive our law. That
Magna Charta was created, maintained and fought
for by Catholics, three centuries before the Refor-
mation. It is the immortal document wrested from
King John Lackland by the Catholic Archbishop
Stephen Langdon and the Catholic Barons of Eng-
land in the early 13th century. It may be added,
to the glory of Christ and His Church, that the
common law of England is founded upon the Catho-
lic Canon Law, which is the Church's application
of the principles of the Gospel to the problems of
human society.
95. CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS.
The development of the Catholic Church in the
United States has kept pace with the marvelous
growth of the Republic itself. At the close of the
Revolution, a single Bishop and a handful of priests
ministered to a small and scattered Catholic popu-
CATHOLIC iX;STlTUT10NS 451
lation. Churches and charitable institutions were
few and humble. Georgetown University, founded
by the Jesuits in 1789 ; and the Convents of the Vis-
itation Nuns at Washington: and of the Ursulines
at New Orleans, founded 1727, were about the only
notable institutions of hi-gher education.
The first decade of the twentieth century (1913)
finds in the United States a Catholic population of
15,015,569, with ten million more in our colonial
dependencies. The dioceses that parcel off our ter-
ritory from the Atlantic to the Pacific are presided
over by 14 archbishops, and 97 bishops. Priests to
the number of 17,491 labor in the parish, the school
and the charitable institution, on the platform, the
pulpit and the religious press. They are seconded
in their work by several thousand brothers and
almost 100,000 sisters of charity, whose lives are
consecrated to Christ and who spend their talents,
be they one or ten, to the glory of God and the
good of his human children; as well as by an army
of men and women of the laity.
It would be difficult to enumerate all of our coun-
try's centers of Catholic activity. There are 13,939
churches — many of them of cathedral proportions
and elegance. There are some 6,000 institutions of
learning: — including some 300 universities and col-
leges; over 700 academies for the higher education
of women ; and over 5,000 parochial schools, edu-
cating a million and a half children. There are
more than 1,000 institutions of charity. These min-
ister to every ill to which human nature is heir.
In 289 orphan asylums, 47,111 helpless children find
Christian care. Besides the orphanages, hospitals
and other asylums familiar to every city, there are
such mercies as the Leper Asylum of Louisiana con-
ducted for the state by the Sisters of Charity, and
the New York hospital for incurable cancer patients
452 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
founded and presided over by Sister Alphonsa,
known to the world as Rose Hawthorne Lathrop,
the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Wealth of the Church. The significance of these
figures is more than material. The Church in the
United States is not wealthy in gold, though she has
millions invested in her work. She knows little of
endowments. Practically all her institutions are
struggling with the problem, how to attempt the
works which daily call loudly to our charity and
which grow apace out of all proportion to our
means and equipment. These figures are but the
material expression of millions of human lives lived
to know and love and serve God in this world and
so to be happy with Him in the world to come.
The wealth and worth of the Church consist in
her power to develop men and women in the image
of Jesus Christ. As the channel of God's grace,
she has riches beyond estimation. The glory of
God and the salvation of souls is the one motive
and so the secret of all the Church's endless activi-
ties^. For the glory of God is realized in the salva-
tion of souls; and men are in the way of salvation,
when, by whatever cord of Adam, they are drawn
out of the quagmire of ignorance and sin, into the
environment of truth and love, where may develop
that immortal life breathed into the lowliest of men
by the Creator in whose image we all of us are
made. The better Catholic a man is, the better
citizen he will be, the better man he will be.
Catholic Charities. Some conception of the prac-
tical charities of the Catholic Church in the United
States may be formed from the statistics of the in-
stitutions maintained in our many dioceses, of which
the following are typical :
New York: — Orphan Asylums 9; Day Nurseries 17; In-
dustrial and Reform Schools 36; Schools for Deaf Mutes
CATHOLIC EDUCATION 453
3; Parish Schools 302; Academics for Girls 44; Colleges
and Academies for Boys 18; Children Under Catholic
Care 100,430; Hospitals 24; Immigrant Homes 7; Homes
for Aged 5; Asylums for Blind 2; Homes for Seamen,
Friendless Women, etc.; Churches 347; Chapels 196;
Priests 1002; Catholic Population 1,219,920.
Brooklyn: — Orphan Asylums 11; Infant Asylum 1; Indus-
trial School 1; Parish Schools 80; Academies 15; Col-
leges 4; Children Under Catholic Care 78,000; Hospitals
6; Homes for Aged Poor 2; Home of Good Shepherd 1;
Churches 198; Priests 465; Catholic Population, 700,000.
Boston: — Orphan Asylums 10; Infant Asylum 1; Deaf Mute
Home 1; Industrial Schools 5; Parish Schools 89;
Academies 9; Colleges 5; Children Under Catholic Care
.59,328; Hospitals 5; Homes 8; Churches 263; Priests
676; Catholic Population 1,000,000.
PiiiLADEXPHiA : — Orphan Asylums 12; Industrial Schools for
Whites 2, for Indian and Negro Children 1 ; Protectorates
2; Houses for Homeless Boys 2; for Working Girls 2;
Parish Schools 135; Academies for Young Ladies 11;
Colleges and Seminaries for Young Men 7; Children Un-
der Catholic Care 70,000; Hospitals 5; Homes for Aged
Poor 3; For Widows 1; St. Vincent de Paul Conferences
69; Churches 312; Priests 614; Catholic Population
604,000.
Chicago: — Orphan Asyluma 6; School for Deaf Mutes 1;
Boys' Industrial Schools 2; Girls' Industrial School 1;
Infant Asylums 2; Home for Working Boys 1; For Work-
ing Girls 3; Young People Under Catholic Care 118,000;
Hospitals 18; Homes for Aged 5; Parish Schools 230;
Colleges for Boys 12; Academies for Girls 22; High
Schools 11; Churches 300; Priests 745; Catholic Pop-
ulation 1,150,000.
San Francisco: — Orphan Asylums 5; Deaf Mute Asylum 1;
Infant Asylum 1; Industrial Schools 2; Protectory for
Boys 1; Parish Schools 42; Academies 21; Normal
School 1 ; Colleges 9 ; Children Under Catholic Care
23,000; Hospitals 6; Homes for Aged Poor 4; Churches
184; Priests 352; Catholic Population 251,000.
96. CATHOLIC EDUCATION.
No Catholic institution in the United States is
more significant of the Christian faith and power of
454 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
sacrifice of the Catholic people, than their system of
education.
Besides more than 1,000 colleges and academies
for higher education, the Church in the United
States maintains over 5,000 primary and grammar
schools. In the year 1913 there were 1,593,316 chil-
dren being educated in the Catholic institutions in
our country. Of these, 1,333,786 attend our paro-
chial schools. Estimating from the average cost
per child in the public schools of the country, Cath-
olic schools mean a financial burden of much more
than $35,000,000 each year. The only endowment
possessed by our schools, are the faith and gener-
osity of the parents who build and maintain them,
and of the sisters, brothers and priests who give
themselves to teach in the schools without further
material recompense than their scanty living.
Education must train the mind to knowledge,
the hands to skill and the body to strength*, but it
must not stop there. It must train the will to vir-
tue. Character is more than talent or wealth. The
wise man is he who makes all his actions work to-
gether for his eternal good. Right morals can be
founded only on i*eligious principles. The Chris-
tian faith is an integral part of truth and the
mightiest source of virtue. In training children
for life, it may not be ignored as though it did not
exist, or at any rate was not a vital factor in life.
These are briefly the principles on which our
Catholic schools are founded. The Catholic Church
is not opposed to popular education. The immeas-
urable sacrifices which the Catholic people make for
education attest our realization of its value. In sec-
ular branches our schools are not behind the best.
We pay our share toward the support of the public
schools even while we maintain our Christian
schools. "We trust that the day will come when qui
CATHOLIC EDUCATION 455
country will solve the problem of offering to its
citizens in its public schools, an education that will
not fall short of our needs. Meantime we must
keep up our select schools. The charity of the men
and women who devote themselves to our schools
and make their maintenance possible, is more than
a financial one. It is the truest charity to teach
others the truth and to train them to the virtues,
which shall profit them for eternal life.
National Problem. Leading non-Catholic think-
ers are more and more endorsing our Catholic edu-
cational principles as the only solution of the prob-
lem, how to care for the children of the country;
and admitting that the public school system, which
ignores the religious and therefore the moral train-
ing of the child, is, in so far, a failure. Woodrow
Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Wm. Taft, Wm. J.
Bryan, Vice President Marshall, College Presidents
Eliot of Harvard, Hadley of Yale, Harper of Chi-
cago, Rev. Washington Gladden, Gunsaulus, Rabbi
Hirsch, Editor Bok, Stanley Hall and many others
might be quoted on this subject.
Hon. Amasa Thornton, New York, wrote in the
North Amencan EevicWf January, 1898: ''I am a
Protestant of the firmest kind. . . . The Catholic
Church has insisted that it is its duty to educate its
children in such a way as to fix religious truths in
the youthful mind. For this it has been assailed by
the non-Catholic population; and Catholics have
even been charged with being enemies of the people
and of the flag. Any careful observer in the city of
Is^ew York can see that the only people, as a class,
who are teaching the children in the way that will
secure the future of the best civilization are the
Catholics ; and, although a Protestant of the firmest
kind, I believe the time has come to recognize this
fact, and for us to lay aside prejudices and patrioti-
456 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
cally meet this question. The children and youth of
to-day must be given such instruction in the truths
of the Bible and Christian precepts as will prevent
them in maturer years from swinging from their
moorings and being swept into the maelstrom of
social and religious depravity, which threatens to
engulf the religion of the future. Such instruction
can only be given successfully by an almost entire
change of policy and practice on th^ question of
religious teaching in the public schools, and the en-
couragement of private schools in which sound re-
ligious teaching is given."
The late President Harper, of Chicago University,
says: — "It is difficult to foretell the outcome of
another fifty years of- our educational system — a
system which trains the mind, but, for the most part
leaves the moral side untouched; no religion, no
ethics, merely a sharpening of the intellect. The
Roman Catholics meet this difficulty ; our Protestant
churches utterly ignore it. . . ."
97. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND
SOCIALISM.
Through her every activity by which men are
taught the truth and lives are trained to virtue, the
Church strengthens and defends the proper insti-
tutions of the country. As occasion demands she
finds a practical way of opposing her eternal prin-
ciples to the evils that threaten the welfare of the
individual or the nation. She opposes the teachings
of Christ to the evil of divorce. At enormous cost
she gives the country the example of Christian edu-
cation. Because she is truly interested in the well-
being of society and the condition of the laboring
man, she opposes the erroneous principles of So-
cialism.
SOCIALISM 457
Socialism. Socialism is more than a general ef-
fort for social improvements. It is more than a
politico-economical theory advocating the placing
of all productive goods in the hands of the state.
It is a philosophy of life ; the expression of a world
view, as atheism and materialism, forcing its way
to popular acceptance under the guise of a method
of social reform. Its philosophy is materialistic
monism. It reads the past and the future solely
through materialistic determinism. Its principles
work out logically from their materialistic premises
to the destruction of our present institutions of
family, education, property, government, liberty,
and religion. It is not a reform but a revolution.
This is apparent from the platforms of its political
propaganda and the authoritative statements of
its leading representatives.
Revolutionary. Socialists differ from all other
reformers in that they despair of our present indus-
trial and political systems. Nothing short of a rev-
olutionary change in our social forms, they hold,
can bring about the desired result. Says the
Chicago (1904) platform: ''Into the midst of the
strain and crisis of civilization, the Socialist move-
ment comes as the only saving or conservative force.
If the world is to be saved from chaos, from uni-
versal disorder and misery, it must be by the union
of the workers of all nations in the Socialist move-
ment. The Socialist party comes with the only
proposition or programme for intelligently and de-
liberately organizing the nation for the common
good of all its citizens. It is the first time that the
mind of man has been directed to the conscious
organization of society."
There are inequalities, no doubt, that cry out for
adjustment ; but they can be adjusted without over-
turning the civilization that has been so many tens
458 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
of centuries in the making. But according to a
statement of E. V. Debs, in the Social-Democratic
Herald of Milwaukee, January 14, 1905, the Socialist
Party "is a party of revolution, not of reform; it
stands for the revolutionary idea of collective own-
ership of the means of wealth production and the
overthrow of the wage system; no reform of the
present order of society, however radical or sweep-
ing it may be claimed to be, will satisfy its class-con-
scious supporters.'^
This despair that would tear up the very founda-
tions of social life was met by Charles J. Bonaparte
in an address at the Alleghany Chautauqua, Cumber-
land, Md., on August 12, 1906. "American public
opinion should recognize the utter emptiness, the in-
herent folly of all ready-made, furnished-while-you-
wait schemes for the social regeneration of man-
kind. Civilized society, as it exists to-day, if it be
nothing more, is the outcome of all the strivings for
justice and happiness of the human race during
thousands of years.''
Materialistic. The materialistic conception of
history, according to Charles H. Kerr ("What to
Read on Socialism," p. 1), is "the central thing in
Socialism. It is to history and social science what
the law of gravitation is to physics." Cathrein
(Socialism, pp. 120 and 121) presents this meaty
analysis: "By their materialistic conception Marx
and Engels intended to establish an entirely new
method of historical research and interpretation.
Their whole theory may be reduced to the following
four simple statements :
"i. There is no dualism of spirit and matter.
"2. In the social relations and institutions of man
there is nothing immutable ; everything is subject to
a constant process of change.
"3. In this constant change production and the
SOCIALISM 459
exchange of products are the determining and de-
cisive factors.
^'4. Social development is effected by the forma-
tion of economic contrasts and class struggles."
Thus the first postulate of the materialistic con-
ception of history, makes man a mere animal by
declaring that nothing exists save matter. From it
Engel proceeds to say: ** Nowadays in our evolu-
tionary conception of the universe, there is abso-
lutely no room for either a Creator of a Ruler."
Anti-ReHgious. Logically socialism must be op-
posed to religion which consumes energy dealing
with God and the soul, — things which its material
philosophy says do not exist. Its leaders do not
hesitate to express this opposition in their writings.
Its followers, as may be easily observed, are com-
monly weaned from their old-time faith to fanatical
infidelity.
Says the New York Volkszeitung, the leading Ger-
man organ of the Socialist party: "Socialism is
not logical unless it denies the existence of God."
Liebknecht said: "It is our duty as Socialists to
root out the faith in God with all our zeal, nor is any
one worthy the name who does not consecrate him-
self to the spread of atheism." Shall was applauded
in Stuttgart when he said: "We open war upon
God, because he is the greatest evil in the world."
Marx's Kapital (vol. i., p. 19,) teaches: "The abo-
lition of religion, as the deceptive happiness of the
people, is a necessary condition of their true happi-
ness."
Bondage. The Chicago platform promises that
from Socialism will come greater liberty. To this
Bishop J. L. Spalding replies: "Socialism, if prac-
tical at all, can succeed only by controlling and reg-
ulating all the affairs of life, by turning the whole
nation into an industrial army, where each one is
460 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
under orders to keep the peace and do the duties
arssigned him." The learned bishop has wisely in-
serted the proviso: *'if practical at all"; for ev-
eryone must know that an army on the democratic
principle is a sheer impossibility. Americans love
freedom too keenly to fall back upon social arrange-
ments which run counter to its exercise, and from
which our forefathers emerged through ages of effort
to establish personal freedom. Socialism may dis-
guise its character as the enemy of liberty while at
a distance, and viewed in its abstract principles.
But seen close at hand, it reveals its ugliness, and its
antipathy to what Americans have always most
valued.
Labor Leaders. While Socialist leaders use every
trick to get the labor unions to commit themselves
to the Socialist movement, the most able representa-
tives of those unions repudiate Socialism as the en-
emy of the workman's true interests.
Samuel Gompers, president of the American Fed-
eration of Labor, made a notable speech at the
Boston convention of the Federation in 1903, w^hen
the question of endorsing Socialism was under dis-
cussion. He declared that the Socialists within the
ranks were the greatest foes of the trade-union
movement. *' Though they believe themselves to be
trade-unionists," he said, ^'they are at heart and
logically the antagonists of our movement. . . .
We recognize the poverty, we know the sweatshop,
we can play on ayery string of the harp and touch
the tenderest chords of sympathy ; but while we rec-
ognize the evil and would apply the remedy, our So-
cialist friends would look forward to the promised
land and wait for the sweet by-and-by." Turning
to the Socialist contingent, he said: **I have stud-
ied your philosophy, read your economics, and not
the meanest of them, studied your standard works,
SOCIALISM 461
both in English and German; have not only read
but studied them. I have heard your orators
and watched the vrork of your movement the world
over. I have kept close watch on your doctrines for
thirty years ; have been closely associated with many
of you and know how you think and what you pro-
pose. I know, too, what you have up your sleeve.
And I want to say to you that I am entirely at vari-
ance with your philosophy. . . . Economically you
are unsound, socially you are wrong, industrially
you are an impossibility. ' '
The conversion to the Catholic Church of Mr. John
Mitchell, the sincere and intelligent labor-leader, re-
veals his conviction that the Catholic principles of
justice and charity, of faith and prudence, point the
road to social amelioration, rather than the despair,
confiscation and destruction of Socialism.
Oracles. Official Bulletin of the Socialist Party,
January, 1909, directs that for study classes a little
library of fifteen authors be used. These works re-
veal the destructive character of Socialism. At
least half of these touch upon religion and the fam-
ily, and all that do, antagonize the Christian faith
and the Christian concept of morality, or the Chris-
tian family. They are :
Socialism in Theory and Practice. — Hill quit.
Social Revolution. — Kautsky.
Economic Foundations of Society. — Loria.
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. — Engels.
Capital. — Marx.
The People's Marx. — ^I>eville.
Socialism. — Spargo.
Woman. — Bebel.
Church's Opposition. In his popular work,
*' Questions of Socialists and their Answers,'' Rev. W.
S. Kress sums up the reason of the opposition of the
Church to Socialism:
462 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
''If Socialism were a purely economic movement,
giving definite promise that no natural or divine
right should be invaded, including the right of par-
ents to educate their own children, the right of every
individual to worship God according to conscience's
dictate, together with all that such right implies:
clergy, churches, freedom of ecclesiastical education
and government, and freedom of religious associa-
tion, the sacredness and permanence of the marriage
relation ; and full compensation for all property that
is to be confiscated; then no objection could or would
be raised by the Catholic clergy on religious grounds.
They might still oppose Socialism as an impractical
economic measure ; but they would have no right to
use. the pulpit for this purpose nor to forbid their
people under penalty of spiritual censures from ar-
raying themselves with the Socialist party.''
The learned Professor of Sociology at the Catholic
University of America, Dr. Wm. J. Kerby, thus states
the position of the Church as one based not on expe-
diency but eternal principles:
''There is very much in the facts, tendencies and
principles of the social order of to-day which the
Catholic Church must repudiate and even condemn.
In spite of all in modern life that is against her, in
spite of governments and principles and tendencies,
the Church appears as the defender of this social or-
der, stands against Socialism, the enemy of this or-
der, and demands sanction for law, respect for au-
thority and protection for institutions, without
thought of resentment or motive of gain, without
commission from those she would save or reward
from those she would serve. Uninfluenced by what
is undeniably attractive in Socialism and undeterred
by what is unmistakably against her in the present
order, she is animated by a conviction that transcends
both and looks to the ethical and spiritual beyond. ' '
CATHOLIC PATRIOTISM 463
98. PATRIOTS OF PEACE AND WAR.
The Catholic soldiers of Revolution days had wor-
thy successors in our later wars. General Shields,
the hero of two wars, and the United States senator
from three states, Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri,
carried through life the scars of severe wounds re-
ceived in both the Mexican war and the Rebel-
lion.
General Thos. Meagher, the dashing commander
of the fearless Irish Brigade, and General Mulligan,
the hero of Lexington, whose dying words on the
field of battle were: **Lay me down and save the
flag," — are famed in both song and story.
General Ewing, brother-in-law of Sherman; Gen-
eral Newton, Chief of Engineers, who later destroyed
the "Hell Gate" obstructions in New York harbor;
General Henry Hunt, Chief of Artillery of the Army
of the Potomac ; Generals Stone, McMahon, Rucker,
Vincent, Admirals Sands and Ammen, are among
the Catholic leaders of the Civil War. There were
Catholic men in every grade of Army and Navy;
more than our share, if anything, in the rank and file
of the field and deck; and no one will say but that
they did their duty well.
General Sheridan ^s ride through the Shenandoah
Valley, to lead his demoralized army to the victory
of Cedar Creek, is sung by the poet- as it was praised
by Lincoln and Grant.
General Rosecrans, the brother of the first Bishop
of Columbus, Ohio, and the last survivor of the fa-
mous quartet. Grant, Sheridan, Sherman, and '*01d
Rosey," was ever mentioned with love and venera-
tion by the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland.
General Sherman, though not a Catholic, testifies
how much he owed to the patriotic encouragement
of his heroic Catholic wife. His son, Rev. Father
464 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
Thomas Sherman, S. J., is well known as an army
chaplain and a brilliant missionary.
The work of the Sisters of Charity during the war
earned them the beautiful title, the Angels of the
Battlefield.
Archbishop Hughes. As in the War of Independ-
ence the Most Rev. John Carroll, our first Bishop,
went on a political mission, appointed by Congress,
to secure the neutrality of Canada, so in the Civil
War, the Most Rev. John Hughes, Archbishop of
New York, with Bishop Domenec of Pittsburg, per-
formed confidential missions to European powers:
and it is certain that these valiant priests and patri-
ots secured the neutrality of France and Spain. At
the death of Archbishop Hughes, President Lincoln,
through his Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, is-
sued a letter of sympathy and appreciation of this
rare prelate. Secretary Seward writes that the
President ' * earnestly desired to find some practicable
mode of manifesting the sorrow with which he re-
ceived intelligence of that distinguished prelate's
demise, and his sympathy with his countrymen and
with the religious communion over which the de-
ceased prelate presided, in their great bereavement.
I have, therefore, on his behalf, to request that you
will make known in such manner as will seem to
you most appropriate, that having formed the Arch-
bishop's acquaintance in the earliest days of our
country's present troubles, his counsel and advice
were gladly sought and continually received by the
government on those points which his position ena-
bled him better than others to consider. At a time
of deep interest to the country, the Archbishop as-
sociated with others, went abroad and did the nation
a service there, with all the loyalty, fidelity, and
practical wisdom which, on so many other occasions,
illustrated his great ability for administration."
CATHOLIC PATRIOTISM 465
Patriots of Peace. From Chief Justice Roger B.
Taney, in the Supreme Court of the United States,
Gen. Shields, in the Senate, and Charles J. Bonaparte
in the Cabinet, Catholics have acquitted themselves
worthily in every peaceful walk of life. But a sign
of the Church of Christ is that 'Hhe poor have the
Gospel preached to them"; and most of her myriad
children are humble heroes whose names are known
to God alone. The mother spending her life to raise
honest children for the country's population, is its
benefactor ; and in this divine work Catholic mothers
have done their duty. The father who gives him-
self in useful toil to support his family, and in so
doing develops the resources of the country — tills
the soil, works the mines, builds railroads, canals,
and sewers — is a double benefactor. It will not be
denied that Catholic men in millions have done these
necessary works.
Temperance. A most noble exponent of the
Church's care for her children and effort to remove
them from the occasion of evil, was Father Theobald
Matthew, the Apostle of Temperance, whom Henry
Clay introduced in the Senate as one of the greatest
benefactors of men. To the evil arising from the
abuse of intoxicating liquor, the Church opposes the
virtue of temperance. She teaches that drunken-
ness is a deadly sin, and that the drunkard is morally
bound to avoid the proximate occasion of his fall.
The Bishops of the country assembled at the third
Council of Baltimore, urged any Catholics who
might be in the saloon business, to find some more
honorable means of livelihood. The Knights of Co-
lumbus ^ and other Catholic societies bar from mem-
^The Knights of Columbus and other Catholic societies are not secret
societies in the sense of their purpose and methods being kept secret
from the proper authorities of Church and State, The Church forbids
her children to join certain secret societies, — the Masons, Knights of
Pythias and Odd Fellows. These societies, by having a religious ritual,
make themselves practically a religious sect. The Catholic Ohurcb, like
466 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
bership anyone engaged in the sale of liquor. It is
a common custom for pastors to give the youths of
their parishes the total abstinence pledge on the
day of the first communion or confirmation : and the
Catholic Total Abstinence Union counts its members
in every state of the country.
Our New Citizens. What is the Church doing for
the immigrants that to-day flock to our shores ? She
trains them in faith and character, in duty, responsi-
bility, knowledge, respect for authority, and every
virtue. And she is thereby a blessing to the Repub-
lic and to its new citizens. Years ago the Irish and
Germans came to America. They were largely Cath-
olic, and whether in city or country, proved a most
valuable and industrious addition to our population.
Their children have taken their place with the best
citizens of the land. To-day Italians, Poles, Bohe-
mians and other Slav peoples form an immense pro-
portion of our immigration. They also are largely
Catholic. While they are often poor and lowly, they
are generally honest and capable. With time and
encouragement they will enrich our country with
their intelligence, strength, industry, agricultural
skill, their love of music, their artistic temperament,
and their other talents. The Church in America
meets these immigrants as her children. In the
Catholic Church they find an influence that is thor-
oughly American and yet no stranger to them. The
Church is able thus to help the Republic to assim-
ilate this ''Migration of Nations."
In the diocese of New York, the Church shows
her Catholicity by including among her members
and conducting services, societies and institutions
for men and women speaking some 22 languages
many other denominations, has found from experience that, whatever
the cause, when men belong to certain secret societies, they are inclined
to drop away from the church. If there must be a choice, duty says
to choose the divine rather than the human institution.
CATHOLIC PATRIOTISM 467
and repiesenting every continent and color. Speak-
ing of this matter at the centenary celebration of
his diocese, His Eminence Cardinal John Farley,
Archbishop of New York, said:
"The problems of a growing city have been our
problems. We have taken up the burdeit of caring
for the immigrants that have flocked by the millions
to this New World port. Many we have taken into
our fold. We have helped to adapt and weld them
into the body politic.
'*We have taken these children of many climes
that have come to our shores, kept near these stran-
gers, helped them in their struggles to get estab-
lished and make homes in a new country, built
churches and schools for them in the midst of the
most crowded quarters, so that the most congested
parts of our great city were all provided for as well
as the most select quarters of the metropolis.
"It mattered not what tongues they spoke — Rus-
sian, Polish, Greek or the other continental languages
of Europe and the Orient. Nor did we disown them
if they had minor differences of discipline. The
Church gathered' them all to her bosom under the
proud name of Catholicism, and looked after them
all.
"This has been our policy in the past — so will it
be in the future, not to live for ourselves alone, but
for the good of the city, state and nation. In so
doing, all questions that affect the whole people
alTect us." The work done by the Church in the
national metropolis, is performed, according to cir-
cumstances, in every city of the country.
Church and State. Between the Church and State
in America there has existed a happy and helpful
relation. And that is right. Though politically sep-
arated, they are morally united. Each does its own
work in its independent sphere, and in the doing
468 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
helps the other. They are wrong who assert that
there should be no relation between Church and
State. Their error is probably a matter of thought--
lessness rather than of reasoned conviction. The
citizen must be a moral man if the Republic is to
abide. P(flitics must be honest and unselfish. Re-
ligion must include the highest patriotism. The
school of faith and morals and virtuous lives need
not be absolutely divorced from the hall of justice
and law and civic administration. Between Church
and State there is, of course, the relation of recogni-
tion and just treatment which exists between the
State and any proper corporation of its citizens.
But there is and must be, besides, a deeper and
broader relation of moral support and mutual re-
spect, which may not be expressed in concordats
or even be very consciously felt, but which is none
the less true and real and touches the very founda-
tions of society.
''Fifteen millions of Catholics," writes Cardinal
Gibbons, ''live their lives in our land with undis-
turbed belief in the perfect harni^ony existing be-
tween their religion and their duties as American
citizens. It never occurs to their minds to question
the truth of a belief which all their experience
confirms. Love of religion and love of country
burn together in their hearts. They love their
Church as the divine spiritual society set up by
Jesus Christ, through which they are brought into
a closer communion with God, learn His revealed
truth and His holy law, receive the help they need
to lead Christian lives and are inspired with the
hope of eternal happiness. They love their country
with the spontaneous and ardent love of all patriots,
because it is their country and the source to them
of untold blessings. They prefer its form of govern
ment before any other. They admire the iristitu-
RESUME OF PART FOUR 469
tioiis and the spirit of its laws. They accept the
Constitution without reserve, with no desire, as Cath-
olics, to see it changed in any feature. They can
with a clear conscience swear to uphold it."
99. RESUmIi of PART FOUR.-^THE CHURCH
IN HISTORY.
As the student acquires a perspective of the his-
tory of the past twenty centuries, he realizes the
truth of the eloquent words in which the illustrious
statesman, William E. Gladstone, wrote of the Cath-
olic Church:
*'She has marched for fifteen hundred years,
(since the days of Constantine), at the head of civ-
ilization, and has harnessed to her chariot as the
horses of a triumphal car, the chief intellectual and
material forces of the world : her art, the art of the
world; her genius, the genius of the. world; her
greatness, glory, grandeur and majesty, have been
almost, though not absolutely all that in these re-
spects the world has had to boast of. Her children
are more numerous than all the children of the sects
combined : she is every day enlarging the boundaries
of her vast empire: her altars are raised in every
clime and her missionaries are to be found wherever
there are men to be taught the evangel of immortal-
ity, and souls to be saved. And this wondrous
Church, which is as old as Christianity, and as uni-
vei^al as mankind, is to-day, after its twenty cen-
turies of age, as fresh and vigorous and as fruitful,
as on the day when the Pentecostal fires were show-
ered upon the earth."
The Past. Macaulay in his essay on Ranke, pays
eloquent tribute to the Church and sums up its his-
tory of 1900 years :
470 CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U. S.
*^ There is not, and there never was on this earth,
a work of human policy so well deserving of exami-
nation as the Roman Catholic Church. The history
of that Church joins together the two great ages of
human civilization. No other institution is left
standing which carries the mind back to the times
when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon,
and when cameleopards and tigers bounded in the
Flavian amphitheater. The proudest royal houses
are but of yesterday when compared with the line
of supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an
unbroken series from the Pope who crowned Na-
poleon in the nineteenth century, to the Pope who
crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the
time of Pepin the august dynasty extends till it is
lost in the twilight of fable. The Republic of Ven-
ice came next in antiquity. But the Republic of
Venice was modern when compared to the Papacy;
and the Republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy
remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a
mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor.
The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the far-
thest ends of the world, missionaries as zealous as
those who landed in Kent with Augustine, and still
confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with
which she confronted Attila. The number of her
children is greater than in any former age.
''Her acquisitions in the new world have more
than compensated for what she has lost in the old.
Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast coun-
tries which lie between the plains of the Missouri
and Cape Horn. Nor do. we see any sign which indi-
cates that the term of her long dominion is approach-
ing. She saw the commencement of all the govern-
ments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments
that now exist in the world; and we feel no assur-
ance that she is not destined to see the end of them
RESUME OP PART FOUR 471
all. She was great and respected before the Saxon
had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed
the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished
at Antioch, when idols were still worshiped in the
temples of Mecca. And she may still exist in undi-
minished vigor when some traveler from New Zea-
land shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his
stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch
the ruins of St. Paul's.'*
The Future. With the opening of the twentieth
century the chair of authority in His Church, given
by Christ to St. Peter, is occupied by Pope Pius X.
The work of the Church in the future, as in the past,
is indicated by the keynote of the encyclical with
which Pius X inaugurated his pontificate:
''Since it has been pleasing to the Divine Will to
raise our lowliness to such sublimity of power, we
take courage in Him who strengthens us, and setting
ourselves to work, relying on the power of God, we
proclaim that we have no other programme in the
Supreme Pontificate, but that * of restoring all things
in Christ,' (Eph. 1, 10), so that 'Christ may be all
and in all' (Col. 3, 2). Some will certainly be found
who, measuring Divine things by human standards,
will seek to discover secret aims of ours, distorting
them to an earthly purpose and to political designs.
To eliminate all vain delusions for such, we say to
them with emphasis that we do not wish to be, and
with the Divine assistance never shall be aught be-
fore human society but the minister of God, of whose
authority we are the depository. The interests of
God shall be our interests, and for these we are re-
solved to spend all our strength and our very life.
Hence should anyone ask us for a symbol as the
expression of our will, we will give this and no
other :
" 'To Renew All Things in Christ.' "
47a CHART OF HISTORICAL DATA .
100. CHART OP HISTORICAL DATA.
b. — born: d. — died: f. — founder, founded: c. — about:
B.— Battle: C— Council: H.— Heresy: P.— Pope.
ANCIENT TIMES.
Before Christ. Adam ?000. Abraham c. 2000. Joseph in
Egypt 1750. Moses c. 1500. David d. 1015. Homer c. 1000.
Solomon d, 975. Rome f. 753. Pericles d. 429. Socrates
d. 399. Plato d. 347. Alexander d. 323. Aristotle d. 322.
Demosthenes d. 322. Septuagint transl. 285. Hannibal d.
183. Jerusalem taken by Romans 63. Julius Caesar d. 41.
Cicero d. 43. Augustus Emp. 31. Vergil d. 30. Cleopatra d.
30. Horace d. 8.
JESUS CHRIST BORN.
After Christ, ist Century. P. Pilate Gov. of Judea 26.
Church founded. Crucifixion. Resurrection. Peter and Paul
d. 67. Nero d. 68. Jerusalem destroyed by Titus 70. Pom-
peii destroyed 79. Popes. St. Peter — Clement I.
2nd Century. Christians Persecuted. Catacombs. Igna-
tius d. 115. Irenaeus b. 130. Missionaries sent to Britain
175. Gnostic H. Popes Clem. — Zephyrinus.
3d Century. Tertullian d. 240. Origen d. 254. Cyprian
d. 258. Manichean H. Popes Zeph. — Marcellinus.
4th Century. Emp. Constantine a Christian 312. Edict
of Milan 313. C. Nice 325. Chrysostom b. 347. Julian
Apostate d. 363. Athanasius d. 373. St. Ambrose d. 397.
Arian and Donatist H. Popes Marc. — Asastasius I.
MIDDLE AGES.
5th Century. Alaric sacks Rome 410. Roman forces aban-
don Britain 418. Jerome d. 420. ^, Augustine of Hippo d. 430.
Angles and Saxons invade Britain 449. B . Catalaunian
Fields 451. Pope Leo I and Attila 452. Vandals 455. Fall
of W. Roman Empire 476. St. Patrick d. 492. Ireland con-
verted. Popes Anas, — Symmachus.
6th Century. Clovis d. 511. Boethius d. 525. St. Bene-
dict f. 527. Augustine Ap. of England, 596. Popes Sym. —
Gregory the Great.
7th Century. Rise of Mohammedanism 622. Arabs take
Jerusalem 638. Caedmon c. 664. Conversion of England, Ba-
varia, Belgium, Switzerland. Popes Greg. — Sergius I.
8th Century. Saracens invade Spain 711. B. of Tours.
732. Ven. Bede d. 735. Pepin and Temporal Power. Chas.
Martel d. 741. Boniface Ap. of Germany d. 755. Iconoclast
H. Popes Serg. — ^Leo III. i
CHART OP HISTORICAL DATA 473
gth Century. Charlemagne Emp. 800. Alcuin d. 804. Al-
fred the Great b. 849. Scotus Erigena d. 883. Cyril and
Methodius. Greek Schism. Popes Leo — Benedict IV.
loth Century. Cliigny f. 910. Norse, Hun and Saracen
invasions. St. Dunstan d. 988. Popes Ben. — Sylvester II.
nth Century. Anselm b. 1033. St. Edward King d. 1066.
Turks take Palestine 1073. Canossa 1077. William Con-
queror d. 1087. Conversion of Norway, Iceland, Denmark and
Russia. First Crusade 1095. Popes. Sylvester — Paschal II.
I2th Century. St. Bernard d. 1153. Th. a Becket d. 1170.
England invaded Ireland 1171. Barbarossa d. 1190. Richard
the Lionl>earted d. 1199. Popes Pasc. — Innocent III.
13th Century. Magna Charta 1215. St. Domenic d. 1221.
St. Francis d. 1226. St. Louis King d. 1270. St. Th. Aquinas
d. 1274. Dante b. 1265. Giotto b. 1276. Universities and
Cathedrals f. Popes Innoc. — Boniface VIII.
14th Century. St. Catherine of Siena d. 1380. Wycliffe
d. 1384. Fra Angelico b. 1387. Avignon 1305-77. Popes
Boniface VIII-IX.
15th Century. Joa o:' Arc d. 14T^1 Columbus b. 1436.
Printing Press 1438. rurks tiike Constantinople 1453. Th.
a Kempis d. 1471. Spanish Inquisition f. 1481. America
disc. 1492. Popes, Bonif. — Alex. VI.
MODERN TIMES.
i6th Century. St. Theresa b. 1515. Card. Ximenes (Poly-
glot Bible) d. 1517. Rise of Protestantism 1520. Zwingli d.
1531. Jesuits f. 1534. Royal Supremacy in England 1534.
Martin Luther d. 1546. Henry VIII. d. 1547. Charles V.
abd. 1555. B. Lepanto 1571. Calvin d. 1564. Knox d. 1572.
Pope Gregory ref. Calendar 1582. Popes Alex. VI, Clement
VIII.
17th Century. Q. Elizabeth d. 1603. King James' Bible
1611. Galileo d. 1642. Cromwell d. 1658. Fr. Marquette on
Mississippi 1673. Popes Clem. — Innocent XII.
i8th Century. Washington b. 1732. Gibbon b. 1737.
Declaration of Independence 1776. Voltaire 1778. French
Revolution 1789. Wesley f. Methodism d. 1791. Popes Innoc.
—Pius VII.
19th Century. Napoleon d. 1821. Catholic Emancipation
in England 1829. Book of Mormon 1830. Victoria Queen
1838. Oxford Movement 1840. Daniel O'Connell d. 1847.
Spiritism 1848. Know-Nothing Party 1854. Alex. Campbell
f. Disciples d. 1866. Christian Science 1866. Vatican C.
1870. Kulturkampf 1871. Cardinal Newman d. 18^ Bis-
marck 1898. Pope Pius VII— Leo XIII.
20th Century. Leo XII d. 1903. Pope Pius X.
GENERAL INDEX.
GENERAL INDEX
Absolution, Form of, 234
Abstinence, Total, 4G6
Acts of Faith, Hope, Love,
Contrition, 218
Act of Supremacy, 401
Adam's Fall, 165
Agnus Dei, 205
Alaric, 328
Alban, St., 333
Alcuin, 356
America, Bigotry in, 439, 443
Catholics and Constitution,
447
Catholics and Revolution,
444
' Catholic Church in, 436
Catholic Institutions, 450
Catholic Missionaries, 379,
437
Catholic Patriots. 463
Church and State, 467
Immigrants Catholic, 466
Religious Liberty, 438, 449
Americans first, 436
Anglican Church, 402, 428
Orders, 252
Anglo-Saxons, 334
Anti-Christian Writings, 323
Anti-Popes, 342
A. P. A., 449
Apocryphal Literature, 128
Apologists, 155
Apostles, Call of, 91
Christ's teachers, 91
List of, 67
Messengers of Faith, 91
Scenes of Labours of, 317
Apostolic Succession, 409
477
Archbishops, or Metropolitan,
79
of Middle Ages, 369
Atheist, 17
Atonement, 171
Attila and Pope Leo I, 329
Attributes of God, 26
Attrition, 233
Augustine, St., Ap. England,
334
Avignon, Popes at, 391
Babylon, Rome called, 70
Babylonish Captivity, 391
Baltimore, Lord, 438
Bans, 267
Baptism, 173, 181
of Blood, 176
Ceremonies of, 179
Children who die without,
178
Conditional, 180
of Desire, 176
How given, 179
of Infants, 177
John's, 175
Three Modes of, 179
Saints' names in, 180
Necessity of, 175
Sponsors, 180
Vows, 180
Baptisteries, 370
Barry, Commodore John, 444
Bartholomew, St., Day, 439
Beatific Vision, 49, 283
Beatitudes, 297
Beaton, Cardinal, 404
Bede, Venerable, 356
478
GENERAL INDEX
Bellermine, Cardinal, 154
Benedict, St., 354
Benedictines, 258
Bereans, the, 119
Bible, Authorized Version of,
131, 410
Abuse of, 123
God the Author, 125
Canon of, 123
Catholics use, 133
Church and, 113
Church loves, 132
Commission, 135
Days of Creation, 137
Deutero-canonical books,
124
Division of Books, 127
Evolution, 139
Human authors of, 126
Illuminated, 128
Indulgence for reading, 134
Inspiration, 125
Key to, 122
a Literature, 109
in Ancient ^Times, 128
in Modern Times, 132
in Middle Ages, 128
New Testament, 112
Old Testament, 111
Polyglot of Ximenes, 130
Church, Preserver of, 127,
128
Preserved by Monks, 356
Early Printed, 130
Relation to Church, 112,
116
"Search the Scriptures,"
118
Synoptics, 114
Versions of, 131
Douay Version, 131
St. James' Version, 134
the Vulgate, 131
Birth, Spiritual, 173
Bishop, First American, 337
Bishops of the Church, 78
Blessed Sacrament, see Eu-
charist
Boleyn, Anne, 401
Boniface, Ap. of Germans, 336
Boniface Vlli, 392
Bora, Catherine, 409
Breviary or Divine Office, 135
Briggs, Chas. Aug., 117, 118.
124, 158, 291
Calendar, Gregorian, 147,
414, 423
Candles, 212
Candlemas, 212
Canon, Bible, 123
Canon Law, 78
Canon of Scripture, 123
Cardinals, College of, 79
Carrol, Archbishop, 445, 446
Charles, 445
Cartier, Jacques, 383
Catacombs, 322
Cathedral at Rome, St. Pe-
ter's, 372
Catholic, name, 430
Explorers, 43G
Catholicism, Converts to, 431
Cathedrals, Gothic, 369
Cause, the First, 23
Celibacy, 253
Cephas, 59
Ceremonies, 209
Chalcedon, Council of, 331
Chalice, 187
Champlain, Samuel de, 384
Character, indelible, 171
Charity of Early Christiana,
318
Institutions of, 451
Charlemagne, 327, 339, 356
Charles Borromeo, St., 412
Chile, Clergy slandered, 382
Chrism, Holy, 182
Church and Bible, 109
loves Bible, 132
Civilizer of Nations, 33
GENERAL INDEX
479
Supreme Court of, 08
guided by Holy Gliost, 93
Head of the, 57
Hierarchy, 77
Infallible Guide, 94
Infallibility of, 95
the Kingdom of GTod, 53
Marks of, 88
Militant, 300
Organization, 78
persecuted, 320
chief precepts of, 222
Relation of Bible to, 110
at Rome, 318
No Salvation outside the,
176
Silence in, 200
a Society, 53
as a Society, 53, 83 *
Spread of, 318, 319
and State in Middle Ages,
340, 341
and State in America, 467,
468
States of, 345
Suffering, 300
Supreme Court of, 98
Christ's Teacher, 84
Teaching, 92
Triumphant, 296
and Modern Times, 377
Work Threefold, 84
Churching of Women, 181
Christ, Brethren of, 302
Disciples' Testimony of, 38
and His Enemies, 40
the God-man, 48
Incarnation of, 48
Invisible Head of Church,
68
and Messianic Prophecies,
48
Threefold Office, 160
and Popes, 75
High Priest, 160
Christ, Redemption of, 167
Resurrection of, 43-46
Triumphant, 48
Circumcision, 178
Clovis, King of Franks, 336
Collect, 202
Colonial Intolerance, 439
Colonists Catholic, 438
Colosseum, 314
Columba, St., 332
Columbus, Christopher, 151,
353, 367
Commandments, Ten, 320
Communion, Easter, 199
Effects of, 199
Received Fasting, 199
First, 199
under one Form, 200
Preparation for, 199
Confession, defined, 231
Effects of, 235
in Early Church, 239
Fruits of, 230
How to Go to, 234
Instituted by Christ, 227
Ministry of Reconciliation,
227
Money for, 238
Necessity of, 229
Objections answered, 236
Sacrament of Pardon, 226
Spiritual Physician, 229
Seal of, 237, 241
Confessional, 234
Confirmation, 182-184
Ceremonies of, 182
Gifts and Fruits of, 184
Confiteor, 202
Conossa, 342
Conscience, Examination of,
' 231
and God, 25
and Immortality, 8
Constantine, Conversion of,
324
Constantinople, 325
480
GENERAL INDEX
Contrition defined. 231
Qualities of, 232
Conversion of Nations, 330
Converts, 431
Copernicus, 147, 36G
Councils of Church, 107
Ecumenical or General, 107
List of General, 107
Court Roman, 104
Cranmer, Thos., 401
Creation, 141
Days of, 137
Credo, 202
Creeds, 88
Cromwell, Oliver, 427
Thos., 400
Cross, True, 325
Crucifix, 214
Crusades, 349, 352
Curia, Roman, 104
Cyril and Methodius, 337
D'Aubigne, 415
Dante, 361
Dark Ages, 330^ 358
Darwin, 22
Darwinism, 139
David, St., of Wales, 333
Decalogue, 220
Decretals, False, 153
Definitions, Dogmatic, 101
Denifle, 405
Deutero-Canonical Books, 124
Development of Doctrine, 99
Dies Irae, 361
Dilemma of Unbelievers, 41
Discoverers, Catholic, 380
Dispensations, 267
Divine Office, 135
Virtues, 84
Divorce, 269
Cause and Cure, 272
Statistics, 271
Doctors of the Church, 152
Doctrine, Development of, 99
Dogma, 88
Dogmas, How Defined, 100,
101
Domes, Italian, 370
Donation of Pepin, 346
Dongan, Gov., 443
Drogheda, 427
Easter Duty, 199
Ecclesiastical Writers, 153
Year, 211
Ecumenical Council, 107
Education, Catholic, 453
Emmaus, 188
Emperors, Roman, 316
Empire, Holy Roman, 339
England, Conversion of, 332
Reformation in, 400
Erasmus, 399, 419
"Escaped Nuns," 239
Eternal City, 72
Eternity, 281
Eucharist, Benediction, 200
Breaking of Bread, 188
Covenant of New Law, 194,
195
Eflfects of, 199
Faith of Apostles, 192
Forty Hours' Devotion, 200
Instituted by Christ, 192
Mass and Cross, 196
Names of, 196
Christ's Presence, 187
Promised by Christ, 189
Rejected by Jews, 191
Sacrament, 198
Paul's Teaching, 189
John's Teaching, 190
Viaticum, 196
Evolution, 139
Ex-Cathedra, 102
Excommunication, 242
Ex opere operato, 169
Explorers, Catholic, 380
"Ex-priests," 239
Extreme Unction, 275
GENERAL INDEX
481
Faculties, Priestly, 228
Faith Determines Actions, 88
Defined, 86
St. James' Definition of, 90
Paul's Description of, 85
Divine and Human, 86, 95
Broadens Man, 89
Messengers of, 91
Rule of, 116
Protestant Rule of, 117
Uses of Word, 87
and Works, 90
Fall of Man, 164
False Decretals, 153
Farley, Cardinal, 467
Farthing, last, 291
Fathers of the Church, Au-
thority of, 153
Editions of, 154
Idea of, 152
List of, 155
Fawkes, Guy, 447
Fichte, 21
Fire of Hell, 289
Flowers, Religious Use of, 212
Forty Hours' Devotion, 200
Fra Angelico, 375
Francis of Assisi, St., 263
Francis de Sales, St., 412
Franks, Conversion of the,
336
Frederick the Great, 398
Friars Mendicant, 258
Friday Abstinence, 212
Galileo, 106, 147
Gates of Hell, 62
Genesis, 110
Genseric, 329
Genuflection, 200
Georgetown University, 451
Germany, Conversion of, 336
Gibbon, the Historian, 347
Gibbons, Cardinal, 468
Gladstone, Wm. E., 469
Gloria in Excelsis Deo. 202
God, Attributes of, 26
the First Cause, 24
Conscience and, 25
our Goal, 15
Man, 48
the Master-Mind, 24
Personality of, 28
Gods, Pagan, 311
God-parents, 180
Goethe, 305, 424
Gothic Art, 369
Grace, Actual, 170
Channels of, 171
HabitiMil, or Sanctifying, 171
Sacramental, 171
State of, 171
Uses of Word, 169-170
Granada, Fall of, 350
Greek in Liturgy, 207
Green, Historian, 402-416
Gregory I, the Great, 330
XIII, 147, 414
Gregorian Calendar, 147
Guizot, 415
Gun Powder Plot, 447
Gustavus Vasa, 398
Gutenburg, 336
Haeckel, 141
Hallam, 406, 414, 418, 421
He Who is, 23
Headship of Church, Christ's
68
St. Peter's, 58
Heaven, 283
Hierarchv of Church, 77
in U. S., 79
of World, 79
St. Helena, 325
Hell, 2184
Mentioned in Creed — note,
217
Honrv IV and Gregory VII,
341
VIII, 400
Hildebrand, 342
482
GENERAL INDEX
Historical Chart, 472
Holy Eucharist, 185-209
Holy Ghost is God, 30
Holy Grail, 360
Holy Roman Empire, 339
Holy Water, 212
Host, 196
Hughes, Archbishop, 464
Huguenots, 411, 422, 439
Humanists, 420
von Hummelauer, 138
Huxley, 22
Idealism, Kant's, 20
Ignatius Loyala, 412
Imitation of Christ, 364
Immaculate Conception, 302
Immigrants, 466
Immortality of the Soul, 7
Impeccability not Infallibil-
ity, 102
Incarnation of Christ, 48
Incense, 213
Index of Prohibited Books,
105
Congregation of, 105
Indulgences, 243, 249, 338
Benefits of, 248
Biblical, 243
Conditions of, 243
Defined, 243
Development of, 245
Misrepresented, 247
Plenary anij Partial, 246
Reformation and, 247
Infallibility, 95
Definition of, 99
Errors about, 102
Not Impeccability, 102
of Pope, 97
Secured by Christ, 96
Sphere of, 102
Vatican Council, 101
Ingersoll, Robert, 18
Inquisition, Spanish, 350
Inspiration, 125
Inspired Books, 123
Institutions, Catholic, 451
Intolerance, Colonial, 439
Introit, 202
Investiture, Privilege ofp 342
Ireland, Conversion of, 331
Isadore of Seville, 154
Islam, 349
Jannsen, 405
Jerome, St., 154
Jesuits, 258
Jesuit Relations, 385
Jesus Christ, Divinity of, 33-
52
John XXI, 364
Jubilee, Year of, note, 249
Judgment, General and Par-
ticular, 282
Private, 117-120
Julian the Apostate, 325
Justification, 171
Kant, Immanuel, 19
Kelvin, Lord, 22
Keys of the Kingdom, 62
Kingdom of God, 53
Kingdom of Heaven, 53, 62
Knabenbauer, 140
Knights of Columbus, 465
Know Nothing Party, 449
Knox, John, 404, 405
Koran, 351
Kyrie, Eleison, 202
Lamp of Sanctuary, 199
Langton, Abp. Stephan, 365
Las Casas, 381
Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne, 452
Latin in Liturgy, 207
Lead Kindly Light, 432
Leo I and Attila, 329
Leo III and Charlemagne, 339
Leo XIII, 367, 431
Lepanto, 352
Leper Asylum in U. S., 451
GENERAL INDEX
483
Liberty, Religious, 41C, 438
List of Catholic Scientists,
146
General Councils, 107
Orders and Founders, 264
Popes, 80
Universities, 302
Literature, Elizabethan, 420
Liturgy, Latin and Greek, 207
of Mass, 201
Meaning of Word, 201
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 22, 143
Logos, 30
Lost, VVliy Men are, 101)
Luther, Character of, 404
Corrupted Bible, 410
Writings of, 420
Reformation, 389, 398
Magna Charta, 365, 449
Magnificat, 304
Manna, 190
Manning, Cardinal, 428, 432
Maria Monk, 449
Marks of Church, 88
Marriage Bans, 267
Dispensations, 267
and Divorce, 269
Impediments, 267
Indissoluble, 269
Mixed, 267
Sacrament, 265
Mary B. V., Assumption, 303
Canticle of, 304
Greatness of, 301
Immaculate Oonception, 302
Mother of God, 301
Our Model, 302
Queen of Heaven, 304
Mary Tudor, 401, 404
Maryland Colony, 438
Mass of Catechumens, 202
Instituted by Chvist, 195
Liturgy of, 201-207
Low, High, 202
Relation to Cross, 196
Requiem, 202
Mass, Pontificial, 202
See Eucharist, Communion
Materialism, 2
Matter and Spirit, 12
Mathew, Father, 465
Medals, 214
Melanchthon, 399, 400
Melchisedech, 198
Methodism, 428
Metropolitan, 79
Middle Ages, 339, 360, 361
Migne, 154
Migration of Nations, 327
Milan, Cathedral of, 371
Edict of, 325
Miracles, 142
Miracle Plays, 133
Missions, Catholic, 379
Mitchell, John, 461
Mahomet, 349, 351
Monasteries, 354, 355
Monks of Middle Ages, 355.
356
Monte Cassino, 354
Moors in Spain, 350
More, Sir Thos., 402, 420
Moslem, 349
Xapoleon on Christ, 37
Nations, Conversion of, 320
Natural, Meaning of, 163
Newman, Cardinal, 121, 155,
206, 432, 428
Nice, Council of, 33
November, Fifth of, 447
Nuns, 258
Offertory of iMass' 202
Orders, Holy, 250, 253
Major and Minor, 252
Religious, 257, 412
Vows of, 261
Original Sin, 165
Orphan Asylums, 258
Orthodox Greeks, 338
Oxford Movement, 428
484
GENERAL INDEX
Paine, Thomas, 18
Pange, Lingua, 36
Pantheism, 29
Paraclete, 93
Papacy, See Popes
Paschal Candle, 212
Lamb, 197
Pasteur, Louis, 22, 149
Paten, 187
Patrick, St., 331
Patrimony of St. Peter, 346
Patrology, 154
Paul, St., at Rome, 68
Penance, see Confession
in Early Church, 242
Perfection, Life of, 260
Pence, Peter's, 335
Pepin, 346
Persecution, 320, 323
Personality of God, 28
Peter, St., Authority of, 62
Brethren, Entrusted to, 63
Church of, at Rome, 373
Great Commission, 60
Martyred in Rome, 67, 68
Most Mentioned, 66
Name, 59
and Paul, 68
Pastor of Church, 64
Patrimony of, 346
Pence, 335
First Pope, 59
Primacy, 60, 65, 66
Visible Head of Church, 58
Years of, 68
Peter tlie Hermit, 352
Philip of Hesse, Bigamy, 399
Neri, St., 412
Photius, 154
Pictures, Use of Religious,
210
Pius X, Pope, 471
Polygamy, 269
Polytheism, 311
Popes, Chief Bishop, 78
and Christ, 75
Popes, Election of, 79
Established by Christ, 59
Father, 64
Infallibility of, 97
Name, 61
Never More than One, 393
List of, 80
Prisoner of Vatican, 347
Temporal Power, 345
Unworthy, 103
Usurpers of Office, 342
Popes, Anti-, 342
Prayers, 215, 217, 218
for Dead, see Purgatory
Precepts of Church, 222
Priests, called Father, 252
Celibates, 253
Christ's Ministers, 250
Office of, 252
Sacrament of, 250
Support, 203
Successors of Apostles, 251
How Transmitted, 251
Printing Invented, 366
Protestantism, see Reforma-
tion
Essential Character, 429,
430
Purgatory, 288
Puritanism, 426
Redemption, 1618
Reductions, Jesuit, 382
Reformation and Art, 422
and Civil Liberty, 415
and Culture, 41«
Counter, 407, 411
Did not Reform, 424
Effects, 425
Goethe, on, 424
and Literature, 406, 419
and Nationalism, 390
Popes of Period, 413
Princes Spread, 396, 402
and Progress, 423
Rationalism and, 439
GENERAL INDEX
485
Reformation, Reaction from,
406
and Religious Liberty, 416
Saints of Period, 412
Shakespeare and, 420
and Trent, 414
Reformers, Character of, 404
Relics, 299
Renaissance, 359
Renan, Ernest, 426 ^
Requiem, 202
Resurrection, 43, 46
Revelation, 31, 126
Roman Court, 104
Roman Empire, 310, 317, 329
Rome Called Babylon, 321
Church at, 318
Capital of Church, 75
Court of Appeals, 97
Fall of Empire, 317, 321,
329
Languages of, 310
Pagan, 310, 317
Saracens in, 351
Rosary, 218
Rule of Faith, 116
Protestant, 117
Sabbath, 185, 186
Sacraments, 160
Channels of Grace, 161, 171
of Dead, 171
Defined, 162
ex opere opera to, 169
of living, 171
Material Sign, 161
Seven, 160
Sacramentals, 214
Sacrifice of New Law, 194-
198
Sagas Norse, 436
Saints Canonized, 206
Communion of, 296
Honor due to, 298
Feast Days of, 297
Prayers of, 300
Relation to God, 299
Saints, Relics of, 299
Salvation Outside Church, 176
Man's Part in, 169
Will of God, 168
Sanctification, Grace of, 164
Scandanavia Converted, 337
Scapulars, 214
Scarlet Woman, 321
Schism, Western, 392
Schools, Monastic, 356«
Parochial, 454
Science and Religion, 136-151
Scientists, Catholic, 146
Scotland, Conversion of, 332
Reformation in. 404
Scriptorium, 129, 356
Scriptures, see Bible
Scruples, 241
"Search the Scriptures,'* 118
Secret Societies, 465
Sects, 425
Shamrock, 332
Sign of Cross, 214
Sin, Act and State, 166
Capital Sins, 222
Consequences of, 225
Defined, 221
Against Holy Ghost, 228
Mortal and Venial, 223
Occasion of, 232
Original, 165
Pardon of, 227
see Confession
Sisters of Charity, 258, 263
Slavs, Conversion of, 337
Slavery, 314
Socialism, 456
Sam. Gompers on, 460
Sorbonne, 362
Soul, 7-13
Spanish Inquisition, 350
Speer, Rev. Dr. Robt., 382
Spencer, Herbert, 19, 21
Stabat Mater, 361
Statistics of Religion, 433
Statues, Religious Use of, 210
486
GENERAL INDEX
SuflFragan Bishops, 29
Sunday, 122, 185, 325
Superantural, 163
Life, 49, 171
Support of Religion (note),
203
Tabernacle, 195
Temperance, 465
Temporal Power of Popes, 345
Tertullian, STS
Tetzel, John, 388
Testament, Old, New, 111, 112
Thomas a Kempis, St., 364
of Aquin, 364
Tradition, 120, 121
Transubstantiation, 192
Trent, Council of, 409, 411
Trinity, 29
Uniats, Greek and Slav, 338,
438
United States, Church in, 436
Unity of the Church, 55
Universities, 362
Unknowable, Spencer's, 19
Vatican Library, 367, 423
Vestments, 213
Viaticum, 196
Virtues, Cardinal, 222
Divine, 84, 222
Vows, 180, 261
Vulgate, 131
Washington, Geo., to Catho-
lics, 447
Westphalia, Treaty of, 387
Winfred (Boniface), 336
Wolsey, Cardinal, 400
Women, Religious Orders of,
258
Works of Mercy, 259
Ximines, Cardinal, 130, 381
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