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Witt this number the AmeRicAN CaTHoLic QuaRTERLY RE- VIEW enters upon the eighth year of its existence. When first commenced, its aim was declared to be, “to explain and defend the Catholic theory of revealed Truth, moral and dogmatic, as it really is, as it has been left us by the Apostles and defined by the Church, and to let men see how different is the base counterfeit of the same, wickedly forged to our discredit by some, and received in good faith by many others outside of our communion, and to also show the practical development and working of Catholic prin- ciple in the history of the world, in the lives of great and good men, and in the destinies of nations.” Room, too, was to be made in its pages for philosophy and science and general literature. It was also proposed to gather up whatever could be rescued from oblivion, of the origin and progress of the Church in this country in early times.

This plan has been faithfully carried out, and if the importance of our publication is not now universally admitted, the fault is not ours. There is no Catholic taking the interest he ought in the welfare of his Church who has not longed for correct expositions in a popular and yet learned form, of the questions so erroneously set forth in so many similar non-Catholic publications. The name of these is legion and their effect most baneful.

This fact of itself constitutes a reason of the strongest kind for sustaining the AMERICAN CATHOLIC QUARTERLY REVIEW, and not only for sustaining it, but for extending its influence and useful- ness by extending also its circulation. Believing that the present readers and subscribers of the Review fully understand and appre- ciate this, its Proprietors and Conductors respectfully, but at the same time earnestly, request their co-operation in obtaining ad- ditional subscribers, On their own part the Proprietors and Con- ductors of the Review pledge themselves that they will continue their efforts to make it, if possible, still more worthy in the future of the generous support it has received in the past, and is now receiving.

We earnestly request our subscribers to remit promptly the amounts severally due by them, whether for past years or for the year which has just commenced.

CONTENTS, JANUARY, 1883.

VOLUME VIII. NUMBER 29.

. SOCIAL AND MORAL ASPECT OF ITALY AND OTHER CATHOLIC COUNTRIES.

. THE INFLUENCE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI ON MEDIAVAL ART,

Arthur Waldon,

. FREQUENT COMMUNION, Rt. Rev. Thomas A. Becker, D.D.,

’. THE IRISH SITUATION, ‘T. P. O'Connor, M.P.,

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES, Joseph A. Nolan, Ph.D.,

. RELIGION AND LIFE, A. de G.,

. THE PUBLIC PRESS AND PUBLIC MORALS, John MacCarthy,

. THE OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY AND CIVIL LAWS FOR ITS ENFORCEMENT,

John Gilmary Shea, LL.D.,

_IS SPIRITISM A DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY ? Rev. J. F. X. Hoeffer, S. J.,

.. BOOK NOTICES, 177 The Works of Orestes A. Bronson, Vol, I.—The Beginnings of History—The Ty- phoons of the Chinese Seas in the year 1881—The Holy Man of Tours; The Life of Leon Papin-Dupont—Life of St. Lewis Bertrand—The First Lines of English Grammar; The Institutes of English Grammar; The Grammar of English Gram- mars—The Works and Words of Our Saviour—The Mystery Solved; or, The Pro

phetic History of the Church— Conferences on the Blessed Trinity.

=

THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

VOL. VIII.—JANUARY, 1883.—No. 29.

SOCIAL AND MORAL ASPECT OF ITALY AND OTHER CATHOLIC COUNTRIES.

Laing’ s Notes of a Traveller.—Alison's History of Europe.

HE inter-social conditions of the nations of Southern Europe

has been often referred to as one of the scandals of our age. Of late years Spain seems to have partly recovered from her former anarchy, and, in spite of the extravagance of political parties, to be seeking to find a basis for a conservative policy. France, owing to the excesses of a radical faction, is still deeply agitated, while Italy, under the leadership of base, anti-Christian statesmen, ap- pears to be mad with a revolutionary frenzy. Explain this state of things to the world as best you may, there will still remain in the minds of many the latent thought that the Catholic Church is somehow to be held responsible for the political confusion and criminal record of those countries. This reflection, formed merely at first view, is rounded off by the study of the condition of England and Germany, two Protestant nations, at present among the most powerful of the nations of the world.

The fact itself, it must be admitted, is very striking, and, when not studied in relation to the great question which it covers, is apt to confuse minds, and beget prejudice. National wealth, in- deed, and national grandeur, and high national intellectual cul- ture, recommend themselves, as the world goes, to general esteem ; but no one, surely, would take either of these, or all of them, to be a test of Christian truth or morality. Riches or national glory is not the measure of Christianity, nor is high mental training, as even experience shows, a fully reliable proof of moral goodness. VOL. VIII.—I

2 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

Pagan Rome and Greece, given up to lewdness and idolatry, at- tained to greater wealth and glory and higher literary excellence than the foremost among modern nations. It was not the rich whom Christ pronounced “blessed,” nor was it human honor and learning that He marked out as the characteristics of His followers. Let the contrast, then, between the nations alluded to, be all that it is said to be, or let it be admitted that England and Germany are really as happy and prosperous as they are represented, the argument is beside the point, and actually borrows its major pre- mise from the temptation of our Lord by Satan: “ All the king- doms of the world and the glory of them... . all these will I give thee.” But, baseless as this argument against Catholic teach- ing is in itself, there are facts connected with it which require ex- planation, and which, with some persons, may stand for arguments,

That there are most scandalous things done in Catholic coun- tries, there can be no question; that, in them, there have been . most flagrant violations of justice, and of Christian faith and manly honor, no one will deny; but, to what source these crimes are to be attributed, and under what influence and by what agency they have increased, men often overlook. Before them are effects, shock- ing to Christian sense and decorum, and they care not to look into the cause of them, or even to read the candid statements of those who have done so. There are, however, involved in the subject considerations which every honest man ought to take into account; (1), some of them touching the relations between faith and moral conduct ; (2), others, regarding the difficulties of arriving at an ade- quate estimate of the criminality of a people ; and (3), others, again, derived from obstacles put in the way of the mission of the Church.

And, first of all, the truth is often ignored that moral conduct does not follow from the teaching of supernatural faith as a neces- sary consequence, neither can it be estimated according to a fixed uniform law, after the manner of physical phenomena. There is no tig which binds a man’s action to this or that special motive, as, for instance, combustion is allied to fire, or physical bodies to the law of gravitation. In human agency, the motive and action are not precisely in the relation of physical cause to physical ef- fect, and this because of the medium of man’s free will. By this “ perilous gift” man is created the master of his actions, responsi- ble for his conduct in this world to his Maker, and with divine grace the builder of his fortune in the next. He can, as conscious- ness tells him, comply with God’s law, profit by His graces and gifts, or these same gifts and graces he can fling back into God’s face, trample on all law, and, by indulging wild passion, take to himself the malice of a fiend. All this he has the physical, native will-power of doing ; out of his own perverse nature he can, there-

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 3 yg ; ae

fore, forge his own fetters, and, by living until death an enemy of ~ his Creator, can create his own hell. Judas did so. Such, then, om conscience testifying, is the naked force of free-will in man. On the other hand, faith does not constrain that will; it does not hold the mind to itself by the luminousness of evidence, as if by a self- evident axiom, nor does it produce for reason a metaphysical but é a moral certitude. The grounds of Christian belief do not flash * on the mind their evidence with the force of a mathematical dem- ¢ onstration, although with a wider and an incomparably stronger grasp they seize on man's whole being, intellectual and moral. ie Men will readily die for their faith, but hardly, I should think, forthe pel: truth of a mathematical problem. Faith, as presented by the Church, is a stronger motive-power for souls than even evidence, and moral pa certitude a firmer basis of action than metaphysical reasoning. Still, this certitude does not so rivet the will to faith that, should man yield to temptation, he cannot shake it off, nor does it so bind the human will to God's law that it cannot break it. Man's sub- mission to Catholic faith, God wishes, should be a free offering, a homage coming from a free will and a free heart, a “ reasonable service,” grounded on the illumination of faith and on man’s co- og operation with it. ; Catholics, then, no matter of what nation, have the bare physi- }. cal power of resisting God's revelation, and of becoming rebels to E Him and to His Church. This conclusion, drawn from the conscious- ne ness of each one, is easily admitted. But here the further ques- tion arises: Why do Catholics, in the countries spoken of, apos- = tatize, as it were, in such numbers, and with such shareless pro- e fessions of blatant infidelity? Just after leaving the mother of their faith, they rage against her with the frenzy of energumens. Te To many persons this conduct is unaccountable; there are influ- ences about-it which they cannot see nor fathom, but which the true, faithful believer may easily discern. For him there is enough

, in the beginnings of Christianity to teach him that apostasy from

, the faith of Christ often begets the deadliest hatred of it, even trea-

. son, like that of Judas, and cruel intentions, like unto those of the

A Scribes and Pharisees. It was of apostates that the Apostle wrote, |

. they “ were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and are fallenaway, (4 2 . . crucifying again to themselves the Son of God, and making |e em . Him a mockery.” The light of divine faith in their souls they ie : have eclipsed by the darkness of passion ; the work of God’s grace ae J in them they have undone, and the spouse of Christ, who loved 1% s them, they have shamefully abandoned. But, do what they may, ;

e or go where they may, they cannot escape her shadow, and when

“ they would try to cast her out from their sight, she rises before

them like a spectre. To this unnatural rage of apostates from the

4 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

Catholic Church the calm charity of converts from all Christian denominations is in marked contrast. For them there is no break- ing of the laws of divine faith, no tearing asunder by sacrilegious hands of God's work, but the departure from the region of the dark- ness of error into the kingdom of the light of truth, the joyful en- trance, after having wandered in the by-paths of heresy, into the home on earth of their Lord and their God.'

In regard to Christian sects themselves, their bonds of union, severally, are so loose, their faith so undefined and unsettled in its authority, that men pass from one to the other apparently with as much unconcern as they change their lodging. To their conduct no censure is attached by public opinion, no charge of unfaithful- ness to solemn obligations is brought against them, and hardly no estrangement of former acquaintances is felt by them. On the score of mere argument nothing can be said against them, since

_they have only followed out logically the very first lesson of Prot-

estantism, namely, the doctrine of private judgment in determining one’s creed. Tobe sure, this doctrine, in despite of logic, has been modified by the formulas of faith of various sects, but the primal rule of the new faith has never been expressly abrogated ; no mat- ter to what Christian denomination one belongs, he feels that back of the hedge of the special teaching of his co-religionists there is always open to him a way, through which he may separate from them, without a breach of his faith in Protestantism. This marking out for God the creed by which man intends to serve Him, is ludi- crous indeed, and yet painfully sad in its far-reaching consequences, but for all the hollowness and falsity that lie beneath it the world cares very little. Without even the shadow of reproach from it, men may glide as often as they please from one sectarian com- munion to another, or out of them all into a negation of all creeds and into agnosticism.. What the world often resents, and that in no measured terms, is the generous conduct of those who abandon the témples of error for the Church of the living God.

In its very marrow, then, Protestantism has its own solvent, so that, unnoticed by the world at large, hundreds can change one form of it for another, or merely hang on to it, and nominally be- long to a Christian communion; and thus a people silently and imperceptibly can renounce their faith, to a considerable extent, without attracting much public notice by the process. Statistics go to show that the Anglican Establishment, in a numerical sense, is no longer the national church of England. This fact does not

1 « | have always observed,” writes Count Stolberg, a convert to the Catholic Church, “ that the worst Catholics become very easily the best Protestants, and even parsons ; but it is my everyday’s experience that a good Protestant, such as I was, finds it a very hard work to become even a passable Catholic.”

i i ee

i i a = a

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. §

attract or shock the sense of the public, but apostasy from the Catholic Church they seem to look on as a prodigy, and this par- ticularly when it is inflamed by political passion and made to cover, as it were, past wrong-doing. Then, no right, no sense of justice, no decency, will restrain the apostate spirit. The end it has in view it will try to reach, it cares not how; it wili tear down the State, if it think that necessary in order to pull down the Church, and will rake up every past calumny or scandal in order to cast it at her. That this apostate spirit animates the anti-Christian factions of Catholic nations their acts sufficiently bear witness. With might and main they are striving to undermine all Catholic institutions, to belittle the Catholic clergy, and, if possible, to efface the Catholic name, and the see of Peter. Comparatively few in number, these radicals, by their reckless daring, and with State support, have conquered their position. Heeding no law but the watchword of their party, they strike terror by their outrages into the hearts of the timid, and through an irreligious press poison the minds of millions with their vicious doctrines. The rebellious clamor which they raise is echoed day after day through the world, until at last, in many quarters, it is believed that there is something socially and religiously wrong with Catholic nations. The virtues-of their people keep them aloof from that wretched mob, and a sense of self-respect, perhaps, or, it may be, the strength and military resources of their enemy, hinder them from opposing force by force.

But here the critical temper will probably not be satisfied with the statement that the present Italian disorder is the work of a handful of Italian revolutionists. It will insist that the source of this religious and political discontent is deeper and more wide- spread, or that it is the result of bad morals and of bad education. Now, in regard to the morality of a people, if morality be taken in its adequate sense, I admit that it is impossible to state it in figures; its source is beyond the ken of human observation, and its essential quality cannot be gauged by any human experiment. It is in the human heart that morality is essentially formed. It is there that it is conceived and begotten in its specific nature. There it springs from deliberate thoughts and desires and motives, and, because it depends on the advertence of the mind and the free de- liberateness of the will, it qualifies necessarily every deliberate ra- tional act. The external object and its circumstances, the objective law or its violation, man by his deliberate will assimilates, as it were, to his purpose, and by his motive or aim gives them a moral character. Down deep in the heart reason, or conscience, which is “somehow a dictate of reason,” applies the eternal law, the invariable, primary rule of right and wrong, to actual thoughts and words and

American Catholic Quarterly Review.

actions. “ From the heart,” says Christ, “ come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blas- phemies.” The external act, indeed, if, of its own nature, it be good or bad, will communicate its goodness or badness to man’s disposition ; or, again, by the application of the purpose which it supposes, or by the repetition of acts which may precede it, will intensify those dispositions for good or for evil. The injustice, also, or scandal, or uncharitableness, that may be connected with an external sinful act, will add to its sinfulness; while, on the other hand, the edification that results from virtuous action will enhance its worth; but, in either case, the primal root of morality will be in the human heart, and man’s merit or demerit will mainly spring from the deliberate intents of the soul. He can, therefore, enter+ tain a deliberate purpose of murder, and close his heart on it; no human eye sees it, and no friend or foe knows of it; it is seen and known in the fulness of its malice by God alone. Such a one'can also commit many sinful acts privately without the knowledge of any human being, and society, having no data for censure, has no right to misjudge him. Men see only external facts, but these, unless in themselves evil, or necessarily implying deliberate malice, do not make morals. Courts of justice, even, do not take cogni- zance so much of the violation of a law, as of the deliberateness there was in the violation. By testimony, by manifold investiga- tion, they want to know how far the accused was responsible for his act, whether it was deliberate or the result of momentary im- pulse, and according to the conclusion come to on this count they pass sentence. Under the calm covering, therefore, of a polished so- ciety there may lie much viciousness, dark envy, and hatred, and jealousy, an insatiable pride and vanity, plans of murder and of theft, and sodden impurity in its most loathsome forms, while to the eye all is generally decorum, persons and things being kept in their place by minute police regulations. From these reflections we may infer that statistics can give only an imperfect knowledge of the morality of a people. But, besides, they are a hard, cruel record. Into them do not enter the extenuating circumstances of sin, such as temptations, indeliberateness, ignorance, or poverty. In them there is often no account taken of the degrees of guilt, but criminals are classified under some general heading, as, for in- stance, when the inmates of a penitentiary are written down “ con- victs,” this term covering the crime of the astute, trained swindler of $10,000, as well as that of the thief who, perhaps, pinched by poverty, stole some few articles for his immediate relief. But, such as they are, statistics of crime are useful, ‘both to the statesman in order that he may know whereca to legislate, and to the preacher of God's word in order that he may learn against what vices par-

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and vther Catholic Countries. 7

ticularly he should warn his hearers. Indeed, occasionally, for some years past, statistics of crime have been appealed to as a test of religions. The issue was raised on the comparative morality of Protestant and Catholic countries, and sides were taken by the ad- vocates of both. In the discussions that followed some persons seemed to think that moral and religious truth was to be proved by a sum in arithmetic, and that the orthodoxy of a creed was solely to be estimated from the small number of the sins of those who professed it. Well, great researches were made ; town-reg- isters, parliamentary reports, national almanacs, were examined, and the conclusion was reached that, even on the score of morals in figures, Catholic nations more than held their own. Among them, Italy was acknowledged by all parties to be one of the highest; but it is fair to add that this acknowledgment was made while the Pope was in actual possession of temporal sovereignty. The controversy at the time was principally about facts, but had it taken a wider range and searched into the sources of Christian morality, it could have found apt illustrations of its theme in the religious history of the last three hundred years.

The very surroundings of the new faith, in the sixteenth century, furnished proofs of what that faith could do in the way of produc- ing religious and moral goodness. From the nations which em- braced it it received every facility for developing the resources of its teachings. It had state protection and support; all obstacles to its propagation were removed; it had wealth, and the education of all classes under its control; and yet, what the deplorable results of its principles were, the very authors of the so-called Reformation were forced to admit. To Luther one of the most disheartening reflections was, that wherever his doctrines spread immorality spread with them, and that the people, under this new gospel, so far from having more respect for the word of God, despised it, in- terpreting it to suit their own fancy, and attributing to it the great increase of crime then prevalent.

“It is deplorable,” said he, “that among our own there is found so much scandal, and so little true amendment. This condition of things is the reason why the worldly-wise(?) thus object to our gospel: ‘ If it were really a holy and sanctifying doctrine, it would not make people worse instead of making them better.” .... With the exception of a very small number, who receive our preaching with favor and gratitude, all others are ungrateful, dissipated, im- prudent...... The men who live according to our gospel are more given to hatred, more choleric, more lustful, more avaricious than they were under Popery. The more one preaches and propa- gates the gospel the worse things become. ... The peasants have

? Dr. Deellinger, “ La Reforme,” etc., vol. i., pp. 203, 306.

a

8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

come to such a degree of license that they imagine that there is nothing forbidden to them . . . . ‘ We have the faith,’ they say; ‘ that ought to suffice.’”

On this same subject Erasmus wrote: “ Has not Luther him- self avowed that he would prefer to live still under the rule of the popes and the monks than with that race of men (his own followers) who, under the gospel, lead the lives of Sybarites? Melanchthon, in his letters, has made the same avowal, and C&colampadius, in his conferences, says the same thing.”

These citations from among many of the like kind that might be made from the writings of the first so-called Reformers, force on us the inference that the increase of immorality at that time, in Germany, was the outcome of the working of the doctrines of the new faith. It was then in the flush of its first development, putting forth all the energy it could command, for bettering the world, and still, by its teachings, the world became worse. In the circumstances it was no wonder that men should apply the test, “ by their fruits you shall know them.” But here, in all fairness, it should not be for- gotten that in the web of divine and human elements that form Christian morality the human will is a great factor. It can reject the choicest graces, abuse the best doctrines, and originate the wretched fallacy which makes the abuse of a thing to be the stan- dard of its value, teaches that a law is bad because men often break it, or that a religious system is wrong because those who adhere to it sin against it. To disapprove the fallacy, however, that sys- tem must not be defective in the least in its constituent parts ;' it must clearly show forth its divine origin, and give ample practical proof of its elevating, sanctifying power. No degree of zeal or philanthropy, no sincere devotedness of a single life to God's ser- vice, and no works performed from the purest motives, can stanch the radical defects and errors of a religious creed. Good grain does not spring from cockle; men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles.

Now in its constitution the new religion embodied the principle that when there is question of moral good or evil man’s will has no liberty of choice, and if he sin, it is in virtue of a predetermining divine decree. Liberty, however, it was admitted, he has, but it is not that which lies in the very choice of the will, but that which consists merely in immunity from external restraint; not that which makes man a moral agent, the master of his own acts, and responsible for them, but that which gives him power to roam at large, unfettered. It was in this latter sense that Luther's follow- ing, and, more openly still, that of Calvin, understood human liberty. Their definition, dealing with the accident, and not with the essence

1 Ib,, p. 18.

nmnegeQeee###hKinee=_t = ss A.

- 8 were of

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 9

of the thing defined, sufficed, however, for their purpose. They could not do away with free will altogether; against that the moral consciousness and experience of the human race protested ; but, by retaining the word, and changing its meaning, they pro- moted their own opinions, and did not shock the common sense of the world. Men, prone to sin, were satisfied to be told that their vicious acts were not imputable to them, and, though their souls may have recoiled from making God the author of evil, they were content to leave that enormity to their teachers, to be settled by them as best they could. But the floodgates of evil were opened, and it was not the fault of this new religious teaching that the world was not inundated by immorality.

What the disintegrating nature of the doctrine of “ private judg- ment” was and is, we have already alluded to; fomenting pride, it is as acanker-worm in the dogmatic teaching of Protestantism, and a temptation for the interpreting of the moral teaching of the Gospel to suit caprice or inclination. The Reformation had not an existence of five years when the sect of the Anabaptists arose, between whom and the Lutherans, according to Meehler, there was an undeniable affinity. “An indescribable confusion,” he adds, “ prevailed in the minds of the new sectaries, and a fearful fanaticism drove them to every species of extravagance and violence.”

The Antinomians, using the license granted them in dealing with God's word, upheld, as their principal tenet, that they were not bound by the moral law. The Hernhutters sent an embassy to Luther to protest against the immorality of his disciples, while, says Dr. Milner, they denied “that even the moral law, as con- tained in the Scriptures, is a rule of life for believers.”

These and other sects were the natural logical outcome of the broad, loose principles of the new faith,—the conclusions drawn from the doctrines which the Reformers preached. To be sure they protested against such conclusions, but they had sown the wind, they had laid down the premises, and it was now idle on their part to quarrel with the conclusions. If these were bad, it was because the source from which they had been derived was vicious. Had a glimpse of the future been vouchsafed to Luther and Calvin, they could have seen how, in this century, their views worked themselves out to their extreme length in the schools of Strauss and Bruno Bauer.

The great majority, however, of those who embraced the prin- ciples of the new creed shrank from those sectaries, and condemned their immoral practices as forcibly as did all orthodox Christians. But this they did, not in virtue of any intrinsic elements of their creeds, but by the force of strong common sense, as well as of the Catholic traditions which were around them. These traditiens

10 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

were as so many subtle influences that entered into social life, that gave its character to Christian civilization ; recognized or not, they had a bearing on the conduct and discipline of every Christian community, underlay much of the literature of the age, and were blended largely with the legislation of all Christian nations. The atmosphere in which Christian nations live is impregnated, as it were, by those traditions; and, as we learn from the work of Dr. Morselli, when brought in contact with non-Catholic teaching, will serve to clear up that dark gloom of soul which lures some persons to self-destruction.

In consequence, then, of those imperceptible Catholic influences, and of the restraining powers of the moral law, many non-Cath- olics were and are better than their religious principles. But what the standing of Protestant Christianity is in the world of to-day, and how its inherent defects are reaching their final ends, Mr. Mal- lock describes in his work, /s Life Worth Living ?

“It is at last beginning to exhibit to us,” he writes, “the true result of the denial of infallibility to a religion that professes to be supernatural. We are at last beginning to see in it neither the purifier of a corrupted revelation, nor the corrupter of a pure revelation, but the practical denier of all revelation whatever. It is fast evaporating into a mere natural theism, and is thus showing us what, as a governing power, natural theism is. Let us look at England, Europe, and America, and consider the condition of the entire Protestant world. Religion, it is true, we shall find in it, but it is religion from which not only the supernatural element is disappearing, but in which the natural element is fast becoming nebulous.” —P. 268.

The very contrary of all this he writes of the Catholic Church. Guided by the Holy Spirit, she exalts man while she teaches him. The lowering of one’s reason to a fellow-man to be instructed by him, although often perfectly legitimate and justly prescribed, has in it, howeVer, something humiliating for human nature ; but the submit- ting of the soul to the infinite reason of God teaching through His Vicar on earth or His Church is an exaltation for human rea- son, an ennobling of man’s nature. The Catholic is not left to the caprice of any man for what he is to believe, nor is his creed fash- ioned for the occasion from the opinions of men, but his soul rests on God's word as infallibly declared to him, and his creed is de- rived from divine revelations infallibly interpreted for him. Inthe doctrines which he believes there exist perfect harmony and the highest sanctity ; in every shade of relationship they hold together with the fullest consistency, and when lived up to produce the greatest fruits of holiness, as all Christian history teaches. In regard to the nature and the attributes of God the teaching of the Church

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 11

is in keeping with His supreme, infinite sanctity ; in regard to man it recognizes the noble faculties of his nature and strives to impress on him the sense of his high destinies. In season, out of season, the Church preaches the authentic word of God, strictly enforces the observance of the decalogue, encourages the profession of the evangelical councils, educates all classes, enjoins fasts and absti- nence, and binds her children under grievous penalty to the hear- ing of mass on Sundays and holy-days. By these and many other means she endeavors to promote Christian piety and good morals among her children, or to restrain the evil propensities of fallen nature. Through the sacraments left to her by her divine Founder as so many channels of grace she reforms, comforts, strengthens souls. The tribunal of penance alone is the greatest school of moral teaching in the world. In it the Church by her ministers instructs each soul individually, and applies to it the laws of the Gospel ; she solves doubts, lays down principles of conduct, exacts promises of amendment, exhorts, consoles, corrects; the claims of justice she vindicates, and by her advice repairs or strengthens the bonds of fraternal charity. Through the humble confession of the penitent she looks into the source of all morality, the human heart, and, if need be, applies remedies to its hidden wounds. At this tribunal the learned and unlearned—Pope, king, and beggar— alike kneel to be instructed and judged according to Christ’s great mercy.

Of the sacrament of penance Leibnitz wrote: “ Nor can it be denied that this is an ordinance in every respect worthy of the divine wisdom, and if there be in the Christian religion anything admirable and deserving of praise, assuredly it is this institution which won the, admiration even of the people of China and Japan, for by the necessity of confessing, many, especially those who are not yet hardened, are deterred from sin, and to those who have actually fallen it affords great consolation, insomuch that I regard a pious, grave, and prudent confessor as a great instrument of God for the salvation of souls; for his counsel assists us in governing our pas- sions, in discovering our vices, in avoiding occasions of sin, in making restitution, in repairing injuries, in. dissipating doubts, in overcoming despondency, and in fine in removing or mitigating all the ills of the soul. And if in the ordinary concerns of life there is nothing more precious than a faithful friend, what must it be to have a friend who is bound by even the inviolable obligation of ,a divine sacrament to hold faith with us and assist us in our need?”?

In order, however, that those resources of the Church should be of avail for the bettering of men, she must be free to use them. To deny her this freedom and then come and reproach her with

Translated by Charles William Russell, D.D.

1 A System of Theology.

12 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

the ignorance and viciousness of her people sounds like the bit- terest irony. According to Christ’s design she must be perfectly free in superintending the education of her children, blending largely with it her own teaching on faith and morals; in her discip- linary laws, in her property-rights, in the administration of the sacraments she must be free,—free to preach, to teach, to reprove, —uncontrolled in her relations with her supreme head, the Roman Pontiff, and perfectly unrestrained in the full exercise of her divine jurisdiction. We have seen how Protestantism has been supported by the state, but the Catholic Church has not often met, in modern times, with the same good fortune. Influenced by ambitious views or swayed by heretical or infidel teaching temporal rulers have often curtailed or trampled on her rights, robbed her of her prop- erty, and this while they encouraged rebellion against her authority. Some of her children, even, rejecting “ faith and a good conscience,” like Hymeneus and Alexander, of whom the apostle speaks, “ have

‘made shipwreck concerning the faith.” Under this point of view thousands of facts might be ranged to illustrate the subject. At present we shall confine ourselves to some events of Italian history for the last hundred years.

Opposition to the Church in Catholic countries is often, by rea- son of its complex character, a puzzle to the popular mind. What open, downright persecution is, it can easily understand; but this opposition which comes from diplomacy, or from the secret plot- ting of nominal Catholics, or from the effects of bad literature, or from the extravagant sympathies of nationalism, it cannot so well appreciate. The antagonism of enemies or unbelievers it is pre- pared for, but the official intrigue and uncatholic conduct of “ false brethren,” and these representative men, it hardly expects. To this unseemly state of things phrases that are in common use con- tribute not a little ; the worrying of the Church by the government of a Catholic nation persons will speak of as if it were the conduct of thé nation itself; they will not take into account that that gov- ernment either professes no religion at all, or bases its policy on false or heretical principles, or even that it is a Jew or an infidel or a Calvinist who is its chief organ, or who, perhaps, holds the portefeuille of a minister of worship. And as in everyday life it is from the political order principally that the world at large comes to know a nation, men will be prone to judge of its character from the acts of its government. They will judge, for instance, of the moral or religious tone of France or of Austria from the political measures taken by the French or Austrian governments, although these measures may be in direct conflict with the teaching of the Church. In the estimate that is formed of Catholic nations, it is often also ignored that some of them have not been exclusively

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 13

Catholic. Almost from the dawn of the Reformation Protestant- ism or its offshoot, Jansenism, settled in them, sat sometimes even near the throne, opened its schools and churches, and put forth in writing its views on religion and government. It flattered state power, and this, ambitious and aggressive enough surely in the past, now frequently pushed its resistance to the Church even beyond the lines of orthodoxy. French kings and Austrian emperors sometimes arrogated to themselves rights which belong only to the successors of St. Peter.

To judge fairly of the condition of Catholic countries and of their influence one on the other, it is necessary to take the fore- going facts into consideration. In their light we shall study the disturbing elements of Italian life. Composed of kingdoms, of republics, of duchies, of Austrian provinces, and of the Papal States, Italy, towards the close of the last century, was under laws and customs that varied with the nature and spirit of her govern- ments. The battlefield‘of Europe for centuries, and torn by the quarrels of internal factions, she inherited some of the political principles of the nations that had ruled her. At one time it was the political views of France that were in the ascendant in her counsels, at another those of Spain, but generally it was those of Germany. This latter country, claiming to be the heir of the holy Roman Empire, seemed to think that Italy was under German tutelage, and was not able to stand by herself without the support of the imperial successors of Henry IV. and of Frederick Barba- rossa. Up toa few years since the richest Italian provinces be- longed to the house of Hapsburg, while Italian dukes or kings were often united to the same house by ties of kindred or by trea- ties. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century Lombardy was subject to the eldest son of that noble empress, Maria Theresa. Leopold, her second son, became Duke of Tuscany, and Ferdi- nand, her third son, Duke of Modena; Caroline, one of her daugh- ters, was married to Ferdinand, King of Naples, while another of them, Maria Amelia, was wife of the Duke of Parma. Under Maria Theresa herself the Church was, at least, externally in the enjoyment of her rights; though, at the time, Jansenism and Gal- licanism together were striving to change her constitution by ex- aggerating the powers of the episcopal office, and consequently by lessening the Pope’s authority in matters of faith and his jurisdic- tion in matters of ecclesiastical government and discipline. Even then, through the influence of Joseph II., the University of Vienna was infected with Jansenism. Dutch professors tried to introduce it into court circles, and its advocates sometimes supplanted Cath- olic teachers in the very ecclesiastical seminaries of the empire. So relaxed had clerical discipline grown, or so remiss had the clergy

14 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

become in defending the rights of the Church, that the temper of many of them was not averse to some, at least, of the religious in- novations introduced by the Emperor. Without any vigorous pro- test or opposition, he could decree that no bull, or rescript, or brief of the Pope should be published in his dominions unless it had received the imperial placet. Without the consent of the Emperor bishops should not confer holy orders; religious associations were suppressed, monasteries and convents were turned into military bar- racks, and a politico-moral catechism was taught in the schools, the leading principles of which were nationalism and an aversion to all foreign spiritual authority. “ It was ordained that the text of the bull Unigenitus should be removed from any theological work in which it might be found, and that professors should speak of it only as.a purely historical document without any religious value,” says Dar- ras. To this legislation the Church in Lombardy was subjected ; her bishops, nominated by the Emperor, were merely to be confirmed -by the Pope; meanwhile, her seminaries were suppressed, and the teaching of her colleges leavened with the false theories of the age.

However, Joseph II. was not averse to ecclesiastical knowledge, provided it was according to his own taste. In place of the semi- naries he founded a general university at Pavia, and, in spite of the censures of Rome, appointed therein professors who favored his views. Natali, who had been censured by the Holy See for teach- ing Jansenism, became professor of theology. Zola, whose works were put on the Index, taught ecclesiastical history ; and Tambu- rini, who was imbued with Gallican opinions and became after- warcs secretary to the heretical synod of Pistoia, filled the chair of canon law and natural right.

While this legislation was unsettling the faith of some of the inhabitants of Lombardy, a more open and hostile attack was made on it in Tuscany. Its Grand Duke, Leopold, favored not only the curtailment of ecclesiastical rights, but with all his author- ity supported the teaching of Jansenistic doctrines. Unfaithful churchmen were found to second the views of their duke, because these flattered their ambition. Under the apostate prelate Ricci a synod was held at Pistoia in which heresy was clearly taught, the discipline of the Church changed, devotions and ceremonies abolished, and the authority of the Holy See slighted and set at naught. Education in all its departments was expected to con- form to the new teaching, and for this end Leopold sent to the bishops—if you please—the catechisms which they were to use in their respective dioceses. He also pointed out the books that should be read by the faithful, laid down rubrics for religious so- lemnities and processions, explained how the church-bell was to be

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countrics. 15

rung, and how a corpse was to be buried, and, in short, acted “ the sacristan,” like his imperial brother of Austria.

Jansenism became the court doctrine at Florence, religious orders were forbidden to correspond with any authority outside the boun- daries of the state, and it came to be well understood that unless one were a rebel to Rome he could not be the friend of Casar. The Tuscan people, however, were worried by changes which struck at the roots of their religion and did away with objects of their liveliest and most cherished veneration. Their strong, sim- ple Catholic faith could not brook heresy, and was decidedly averse to accepting it either from duke or from bishop. The irreligion of the court of Florence had its counterpart in the scandals of the court of Parma. Here a spirit of opposition to Catholicity had been created by the wily statesman Du Tillot, until, little duchy as it was, it became as impertinent towards the Church as if it had an army of one hundred thousand men to back its insolence. The Duke of Modena was more moderate in his views than either his brother of Austria or he of Florence, but still he held on to that policy which cramps the Church’s action and hinders her from putting forth all her energy in behalf of souls.

In the south of Italy at this period things were no better than in the north, although in the south the fault lay with the house of Bourbon, and not with that of Hapsburg. Charles, the son of Philip V. of Spain, having become Duke of Parma, afterwards succeeded to the crown of Naples, and, on the death of his brother, to that of Spain. Naturally weak-minded, Charles III. was ruled by his ministers. While in Parma, Tanucci became his confidant and accompanied him to Naples to become his prime minister. On the promotion of Charles to the throne of Spain, his son Fer- dinand, at the age of eight years, succeeded him and had Tanucci as president of the council of the regency for the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. A lawyer by profession and an extreme liberal in his religious views, Tanucci ignored the principles of Christian statesmanship. Through the influence of Gallican and Jansenistic teaching, to thwart the Holy See in the exercise of its rights and to interfere with the ordinary discipline of the Church was gene- rally the policy of that period through European nations. Into it the Neapolitan statesman entered largely. Without his permis- sion the Pope could not correspond with the faithful of the Nea- politan kingdom ; bishops were not permitted to ordain priests or to inflict censures but at the discretion of Tanucci; convents were suppressed, ecclesiastical property sequestrated, and education with- drawn, in great measure, from the superintendence of the Church. To the want of religion Tanucci joined a want of humanity. In order to keep his place he had Ferdinand reared like a boor ; and,

16 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

to satisfy the instincts of hatred, had hundreds of unoffending re- ligious men cast on the Pope's territories. Still this was the man whose word was law in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies for forty- three years.

It was certainly a singular anomaly and a historical scandal to see how Catholic kings behaved towards the Holy See as if they were so many Turks. But the truth is the state-doctrines and state-pride of a few centuries had given them extravagant preten- sions and led them into wrong views about the nature and powers of the kingly office. Established for the temporal well-being or happiness of the people, the state is called upon to take all lawful means to secure that end. By laws, by a just policy, by financial arrangements, by promoting enterprise, by supplying the mears of education, by succoring distress under every form, and by con- tributing to all the arts of civilized life, it may further national greatness or interest. In this sphere of duty the state is independ-

_ent, provided all the while it conforms to natural justice and divine law. While dealing directly with the temporal as its special im- mediate object, it ought, however, for its own stability and under the direction of Christian jurisprudence, to protect morality and re- ligion. The object of the Church, according to her divine Founder, is to fit men in time for the enjoyment of happiness in eternity. And as it is the end which a society has in view that gives it its specific character, the spiritual is the Church’s great formative ele- ment; it underlies her government, it is embodied in the sacra- ments, it enters into her motives, into her labors, and into her man- ner of dealing with the world. This life-element men do not see and frequently do not understand, and therefore misinterpret her actions. They see how doggedly she holds to some grave point of ecclesiastical law, or to some term expressive of Catholic doc- trine, and because she will not compromise principle they accuse her of uncalled-for obstinacy. In the circumstances the state would perhaps cut the Gordian knot by yielding to expediency, but the Church cannot do so; come what may, she must stand by God’s truth, natural and supernatural. The “ kingdom of God” on.earth, she has received from His hands her organization and hierarchy, and her world-wide jurisdiction and her powers to distribute Christ's graces unto the salvation of souls; shaped in her fulness of form by the divine immediate action, she stretches her roots on earth into all natural equity, and sanctions, and elevates, and unfolds it.

Created, however, for men and bodily made up of men, the Church has her human side, and for her high purposes, according to Christ’s appointment, needs human aid and cooperation. With a mission before her that aims at man’s spiritual good here and hereafter, she ought not to be trammelled in the fulfilling of it; she

rtTie=e ae vw YF

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countrier. 17

must be neither dependent on any earthly power for the due exer- cise of her authority, nor, if possible, should she be wanting in those temporal resources which enable her to discharge her func- tions. Her needs are manifold; she has needs arising from the support and training of her clergy, needs that come from the edu- cation of her children, from the distress of her poor, of her orphans, of her various missions, or from the expenses incurred in the proper maintenance of divine worship. To meet all these wants she re- quires funds, of course ; and had the state always recognized what would be to its profit, it would surely not grudge to supply her with them. Then its taxes would not weigh so heavily on it, and men without any sense of humiliation would have been comforted in receiving relief from the generous, open-handed charity of relig- ion. But, apart from that view, the Church, being an independent divinely appointed society, composed not of angels or disembodied spirits and needing temporal things for the furtherance of her mis- sion, has, by divine law, a right to hold and possess property. As citizens her clergy do not forfeit their rights, and even by reason of their calling are bound to be loyal to the state. Allegiance to temporal rulers the Church teaches as a primary rule of civil life; and while she firmly upholds the rights of the people, she con- demns all conspiracies and rebellions against lawful authority. She teaches, of course, with the apostle, that “there is no power but from God,” and “ therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God.”

In spiritual matters, or in things appertaining to faith and morals, all Catholics obey her teaching with unquestioning submission ; in matters relating to the civil or political order they obey the just laws of the state. Their submission to the one does not interfere with their allegiance to the other, no more than the obedience which a son ewes to his parents interferes with his civil duties to- wards his country. “ The divine right,” says St. Thomas, “ which comes by grace, does not destroy the human right which is in the order of nature” (2 v., 2 c., qu. 10, art. 10). Man’s allegiance to the Church is in the spiritual order, his allegiance to the state in the temporal order; his duties to both do not clash because the just requirements of both are different; they are distinct aspects or goals of life to which he tends by distinct lines of duty, and these even in the natural order he may multiply without putting one in conflict with the other. A person does not become a rebel to his state, because he submits to the laws of a literary club, or of a trades-union, or of a royal society.

How compatible civil allegiance is with submission to ecclesias- tical authority, or how the same person is bound in conscience to obey, in their respective spheres, the Pope and the king, Holy VOL. VIII.—2

2

18 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

Scripture often teaches. We have seen with what emphasis St. Paul inculcates obedience to temporal lords, but with greater em- phasis still he enjoins obedience to ecclesiastical authority. “ Re- member your prelates,” he writes, “ who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the end of their con- versation.” And again, “Obey your prelates and be subject to them” (Heb. ch. 13, v. 7-17). These are inspired interpretations of the great saying of our divine Lord, “ Render, therefore, to Cesar the things that are Czsar's, and to God the things that are God's.”

Those principles derived from the elementary teaching of Chris- tian doctrine were frequently slighted or ignored by lay temporal Italian rulers at the end of the last century. They treatec the Church as if she were a dependent power, and seemed to consider the temporal first and the spiritual after. Since the sixteenth cen- tury there was much, indeed, in regal assumption to confuse their

- idea of royalty. In the nations which embraced Protestantism the

temporal sovereign came to be recognized, expressly or virtually, as head of the Church as well as head of the state, and his high tribunal also came to be considered as the source of all jurisdiction, spiritual and civil, within the realm. Hobbes maintained even that the king has absolute power to impose a religion on his subjects, and to render, therefore, a refusal to obey it an act of rebellion. The centralization of power thus became the great national policy; chartered privileges, Catholic immunities, municipal rights, pro- vincial parliaments were abolished, and “ public law was proclaimed the sole rule of morals,” “the citizen’s only conscience,” says Hobbes. These public institutions which in Catholic ages were so many checks on royalty were now merged in the centralized gov- ernments that became the fashion through Europe.

“It is remarkable,” writes Balmes, “ that the greatest increase of royal power dates from the commencement of Protestantism.” The new «religidn was not only the solvent of faith but also of civil liberty; and men found out that in pulling down the Church they also pulled down the guardian of their rights as freemen. They put her away by denying her divine authority, her lawful inherit- ance, and they fell under the state which claimed the exercise of divine powers to which it had no right. They were quite bewil- dered and overpowered for the time. But the lever wherewith they overturned the Church they were aware they might also use to overturn the state; if they applied “ private judgment” to de- stroy faith, they saw no reason why they should not employ the same to destroy governments. Revolution or civil dissension fol- lowed in the wake of the so-called Reformation as a necessary con- sequence. These were doctrines that permeated some European

parte natu:

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Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 19

nations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and though not accepted by Catholic rulers or peoples, were not, however, without their influence on them. In Italy they had their expres- sion in what has been called Josephism and in a certain unsettling of Catholic loyalty, but did not affect, in any material way, the faith of the Italian peopie. They were, however, the prelude of fearful ruin.

Ever since the opening of the French Constituent Assembly Italy was not at ease. The echoes of the revolution were heard along her borders, and her rulers, great and small, occupied them- selves about their prospects in thé coming crisis. Piedmont and Savoy gave asylum to French royalists; King Victor Amedzus even, by invading French territory, was so rash as to provoke a French invasion. In the campaign that ensued some victories were gained by the French troops over the Austrians and Italians, but none of great account, until Napoleon Bonaparte was appointed commander of the Army of Italy. Eminent in the arts of peace, Italians, by training, were better fitted to embellish their country than to defend it,—and this’ especially against men of iron-courage who had crossed swords with Germans and English in many a battle, and had been inured to bloodshed in the streets of Paris and on the plains of La Vendée. State after state went down before the French army ; Parma, Modena, Tuscany, were disorgan- ized ; tne Pope had to give up Ferrara, Bologna, and the Romagna, out of all of which Napoleon formed the Cisalpine republic. Pius VI. died in exile, and when Italy became a kingdom, and France an empire, Pius VII. was led to Paris, and confined a prisoner at Fon- tainebleav. From the Alps to Calabria there was confusion through Italy. French invasion of her territory was not only an invasion of armies, but much more, an invasion of ideas. It scattered broadcast through the-nation the maxims taught by the French Assembly of 1789, introduced the Italian mind to the irreligious sarcasm of Rousseau and Voltaire, and covered the country with the impious writings of heretics and infidels.

“The philosophical doctrines,” says Farini, “which take their name from the encyclopedists, had penetrated among us during the sway of the French, so that the authority of Rome had greatly declined among the educated classes, and men thought and wrote in the French manner.” The Code Napoleon, infidel principles, and the French school system were imported into Italy. Bona- parte, in the spirit of mean spite, which was in keeping with his nature, as we learn from the Mémoires of Madame de Rémusat, in- sisted that Catholic bishops and priests should swear to maintain the doctrines of the four condemned Gallican propositions of 1682. It was a crisis, or a time for sifting souls. Cardinals and bishops who

20 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

stood nobly by their post were either exiled or imprisoned by this imperial tyrant, and humble priests who were true to conscience were sometimes banished from their country, sometimes forced to labor among the slave-gangs of Toulon. “ Napoleon,” writes Car- dinal Pacca, “ had recourse to the species of tyranny imagined by Julian the Apostate, to pervert the faithful, sometimes by perfidious acts of kindness, and at other times by threats and violence — wearying the patience of the clergy by depriving them of their preferment, and subjecting them, by exile, to every species of in- convenience and suffering.” Never, perhaps, since the time of Gregory VII. was there such a struggle of right against might, and never, we may say, did the divine power of the Church, in defence of justice and of the sovereignty with which Christ en- dowed her, come out in such majesty. Some churchmen, to be sure, through cowardice, went down in the fight, but the Church herself, in Italy, amid a flood of iniquity, stripped of all her tem- - poral possessions, and hampered in her ministry, by penal legis- lation and anti-Christian officials, remained immovable on the rock —Peter. His apostolic firmness cost the Pope much, but it saved the sacredness of right.

Between 1796 and 1814 Italy was under French influence and partly under French rule. The current of her political life was quickened by foreign elements and the traditions of Catholic teaching partly broken up by the materialistic philosophy of Condillac.

But the teaching of the schools seems to many persons to be far removed from the practical issues of life. ‘ What matters it,” they would say, “ what young fellows think about ‘sensations and ideas,’ about the special characteristics of the human soul, or about ‘ being’ and ‘ substance,’ and ‘creation?’ When they go into the world, they shall leave these behind them, and learn, in contact with men in daily life, all that befits a man.” Nothing can be more false, nothing more contrary to experience. “The boy,” according to the common saying, “ is father to the man,”—a familiar manner of expressing the inspired proverb, “ A young man according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Inoculate a youth with the seed of a fatal disease, by degrees it will grow into his system, will wind itself around his nerves and muscles, will corrupt his blood, eat into his flesh, and consume his heart; or else give him only husks to eat, reduce him almost to starvation fare, or put him down in the prison-pit of a dark mine to work, or shut him up in a factory the livelong day, where he inhales fetid air, or steel-dust, or gas-vapors, in either case you ruin or under- mine his bodily constitution. Much after the same manner you can ruin his soul, and wreck his Christian manhood. Teach that

the por Sta one not Sav his wha old one of e Oowil fluer have A Italy by I midc¢ over but t the C their with. terrifi amid: comn arose

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 21

youth false principles, impress them on his soul by the force of your authority, they will grow around his mind and his will, they will rae: run into his thoughts, and be the lever of his actions and the Ts a standard by which he will judge things human and divine, and the # rule according to which he will live for time and eternity. By his own will-power indeed, and by God's grace, he may right him- self, but this is a difficult task, and one, as all know, which com- paratively few accomplish. Or, give him only the bare facts of science, or the events of history, tinctured by a little bigotry ; teach Bal | him the exact and natural sciences, and every form of human literature, on the one side you have trained him up to more than the height of a giant, on the other,—and that the essential one,— you have left him less than a pigmy. His moral nature, and his Christian faith, out of which Christian character and manhood are formed, you have omitted. You have freighted him, perhaps, with much knowledge, but you have given him no moral or religious m principles wherewith to direct himself. The sails of his bark on the sea of life are filled, but he has no rudder to steer himself into a port. Or, again, in regard to Catholic doctrine, put the youth on “an starvation fare, or worse, teach him his Catholic catechism only + | one hour a weck or so. The rest of the time at school he must not invoke God, nor bow to the name and image of his Lord and ican | Saviour, nor must he, under penalty, speak of, or profess faith in his mother, the one holy Catholic Church. He is hardly taught what his faith is, or what Christian morals are, nor how young and ee old in this life ought to fit themselves for another world. What can 5 1. one expect from such an education? Within the range, however, - of each of the suppositions just stated youths may be found who, ee, | owing to the special care of parents, or to certain providential in- ey fluences, become good and upright Christians. But for this they have not, surely, to thank the schooling which they received.

At all events, the school system which Napoleon introduced into Italy, and the new ideas propagated there by the French army, and i, by French officials, were not without their evil influence on the | middle classes of Italian society. All Napoleon’s work toppled + & over with his fall, the French armies withdrew from Italian territory, : i but the cockle which they had sown remained and grew. After a the Congress of Vienna, the former rulers of Italy came back to as their thrones to find that they had now a new enemy to contend . with. The secret societies, which had contributed largely to the terrific wrecking of the Church and State in France, and which, 1 amidst torrents of human blood had upturned throne and altar, | ee communicated their methods to Italian society. The Carbonari arose; emissaries, of every kind—republicans, red and black, so-

2 hee

22 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

cialists of every stripe, total-depravity men, and no-religion men, swooped down on the Italian states as on their quarry.

The breezy words, “ Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” were again used to fan the fire of rebellious souls. The nature and good- ness of forms of government, the rights of kings and people, the grievances of the past, religion, liberty, and national unity were discussed in the cafés of every city and town and by the shopkeepers of every village. In the schools Brutus and the Scipios were the great themes for scholars, the grandeurs of ancient Rome, its liberty minus its slavery and immorality, were subjects on which orators glossed in ecstasies of rhetoric. By contrast, to heighten the color- ing of the picture they drew, they did not fail to have a fling at the Church and the Holy See. They misrepresented some facts, ig- nored others, and did not hesitate, in order to gain their end, to tear out of the records of their country the brightest pages in the history of liberty. Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Gregory II., - Alexander III., whose authority was the bond of the Lombard league, the Italian republics ; all these they passed over, forgetting, all the while, that, when there was question of civil liberty, to in- veigh against the Popes was like judging Manlius in sight of the Capitol.

Liberty was in the spirit of those ages. “There are two things,” said a medieval monk, “ for which every upright man ought to be ready even to shed his blood; these are justice and liberty.”'

“In the Middle Ages,” writes Walter, “ self-government, which was preserved by the formation of corporations, was a means of satisfying the Teutonic spirit of freedom, and associations, with their abundant resources, elevated the interests of life and strengthened its energies. Thence came the wonderful wealth of creative power, which was seen to spring forth in that remarkable time, almost with- out help from the state, in every department of human existence, in science, art, political life, industry, commerce, and in devotion to the higher aims of life.”*

In reality, indeed, to the minds of some of those orators alluded to, liberty was something very indefinite, a spell for fancy, or a conceit wherewith to inflate national aspirations. Their idea of it seemed to be that which Macaulay attributes to Horace Walpole: “ His talk about liberty, whether he knew it or not, was, from the beginning, a mere cant, the remains of a phraseology which had meant something in the mouths of those from whom he had learned it, but which, in his mouth, meant about as much as the oath by

! Petrus. Blos. de Inst. Ep., p. iv. 2 Natrrrecht und Politik, p. 300, quoted by Cardinal Hergenréther, Church and State, p. 272, Eng. trans.

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Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 23

which the Knights: of the Bath bind themselves to redress the wrongs of all injured ladies.”

To another wing, however, and this the larger one, of the revo- lutionary faction, civil liberty was something more palpable. It was the expression in the civil order of the physical freedom of their wills in the natural order. In spite of the dictates of reason and the restraints of the moral law, they knew that they had the power of thinking out the most odious crimes and of purposing to commit them; at the beck of every passion in their hearts they could swing their souls, as it were, around the full circle of vice, and, as they could think and purpose as they pleased, they thought that they might also in social life, following the robbers’ code, act as they pleased ; or, as they could brutalize themselves by crime, that they might brutalize society by barbarism. Such was the sort of liberty that a knot of foreign socialists sought, a few years ago, to inaugurate in New York, in Tomkins Squaré. But they learned a lesson then, which will perhaps serve them in the future ; they were taught by republican authority that to be free, as Lord Mansfield had said, “ is to live under a government of law.” Another pivot for their views on liberty they took from the fact that they disowned or rejected the authority of the Church. For them the Ten Commandments, as it would seem, had lost their binding force ; they would listen neither to Bishop, nor to Council, nor to Pope,—their own liking, or that of their secret association, was their law, and, to their thinking, the governments of the Christian past were s6mehow leagued against liberty. They had put aside the authority of the Church, and now they thought that they might also put aside the authority of the State; the one they had rejected as a superstition, the other they would reject as a usurpation. For the State, however, they would substitute one of their own making, and would put into it the new liberty; but, as for the Church, they would try to make her pliant to their behests, and, if she would not consent, they would strive with all their might to dig her out from the very roots, These were some of the ex- travagant views on liberty that circulated among certain coteries of Italian society during the first few decades of this century. In- definite at first, and only food for national vanity, they took shape, and acquired a body by the astute handling of Joseph Mazzini, the founder of the secret society, “ Young Italy.” Strange as it should seem, this revolutionary society received its great support from sources from which, perhaps, it had hardly expected it.

* The great powers of Europe, worried and exhausted by the wars of a quarter of a century, through which they had passed, met in their representatives at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, and formed themselves, as it were, into a high court of arbitration on all national European

24 American Catholic Quarterly Review,

troubles. Again, in a congress, held at Troppau in 1820, the su- preme rulers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria decided that it was lawful for sovereigns to interfere in the internal affairs of other states in order to suppress rebellion against their lawful rulers, and to put this doctrine in practice, in a meeting held at Laybach, they authorized Austria to march her troops into the kingdom of Naples to reinstate its ruler, King Ferdinand. Against the doc- trine of the meddling by foreign powers in the internal government of other nations England, through her prime minister, Castlereagh, strongly protested, although she had no difficulty in admitting the decision come to in regard to Naples. In relation to the unre- stricted theory of intervention that had been formulated, the point of the protest was well taken ; it respected the sovereignty of each state, and the independence and right which each government ex- clusively has of seeing to its own internal organization for the well-being of its people. But it overlooked that international charity which, in the family of nations, binds one state to succor another in its wants, when its legitimate authority asks for foreign aid, or when the self-preservation of a state may necessarily re- quire the ordering of the condition of its neighbor. The policy of intervention adopted by the allied powers, and adopted and strenuously upheld by England afterwards, became most odious, and ran into flagrant injustice. The case of revolution, in which a ruler asked for foreign aid, or that condition of things in one country from which the security of neighboring states might be well endangered, were considered, apparently, not as exceptional, but entering necessarily into the policy or comity which should exist among nations. Kings seemed to think that they ought to be valets to each other, and that, under all circumstances, it was their duty to look to the maintaining of the splendor and etiquette of the royal dignity.

France had just got out of a revolution, and was still torn by violent factions ; England, from one end to the other, heard her people violently clamoring for reform ; the German Confederation was putting down local franchises and national yearning fer con- stitutional government, while Russia was sharpening her sword anew, under the Emperor Nicholas, against her poor persecuted Catholic subjects. Still, it was the sovereigns of those nations, who, in 1831, presented a joint note to Pope Gregory X VI., coun- selling him to adopt reforms in the government of his dominions. By these confederated powers it was supposed that the Pope's tem- poral government was defective from top to bottom ; that, in its financial, judicial, and municipal departments, it was a blot on the age, and that it was only by adopting a legislative system, such as existed in France or England, that it could become respectable in

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the eyes of the world. Other cases of intervention in foreign states there had been, but none there was that outraged so grossly as this one the independence of a sovereign state, and became the cause, for many years, of so much disaffection among a loyal people. And what was the pretext for this insult offered by the potentates of Europe to a fellow-sovereign and the head of Catholic Christendom? A rebellion in the Romagna, got up by emissaries of secret societies, a rebellious spirit that had overturned a dynasty in France, dethroned monarchs in Spain and Italy, that was still felt beyond the Rhine, and was raging even through the cities of England. Pope Gregory felt what an indig- nity had been put upon him, and what a motive of action had been given to the secret societies by the conduct of the European powers. Under this trying ordeal of diplomacy he bore himself nobly, en- tering into no compromise with false liberalism, and upholding firmly his right to legislate for his own people as he judged fit. On this occasion it was pitiful to see the government of Louis Philippe, having more than enough’ to do at home, worrying itself about theories for the governing of the Papal States. It would promise its protection to the Holy See, only on condition that the reforms mentioned in the official “ note” should become the basis of a new code, and that some of the concessions of the charter of Louis XVIII. should be taken as a lesson in legislation by the Sovereign Pontiff’ The ambassadors of other European gov- ernments seconded the views of the French King, and thus right was called on to yield to intrigue, or to declare itself. To the French demand Cardinal Bernetti, papal secretary of state, an- swered : “ That though the French guarantees appeared important to the Holy See, the Pope believed it impossible to secure them by measures which would amount toa real abdication of pontifical independence ;” and to the other states he wrote, “ This Roman See, apparently so weak, will never consent to sanction reforms which shall be dictated to it with a tone of imperiousness and with a day fixed for their fulfilment. It reserves to itself its liberty of action and its complete independence. Besides, by its conduct it has long since shown its zeal in looking for and realizing all the reforms desirable and compatible with public security.”

Still, the French government persisted in urging the papal power to adopt the views of the diplomatic note or “ memorandum ;” evena French man-of-war in 1832, without any provocation what- ever, bombarded Ancona and hung over it the tri-color; the Aus- trian army, to suppress an open rebellion, organized by the “ secret sects,” was forced to occupy the Romagna, while England,—the ambassadors of the other European powers complained,—was fa- tiguing them by her demands in favor of the revolutionary party.

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When the Austrian troops withdrew from the papal territory Eu- rope could see how the conspiracy unmasked itself, and all lovers of justice understood that the Carbonari had made use of Euro- pean diplomacy to reach their end more safely. Prussia forthwith ordered Baron Bunsen, her plenipotentiary in Rome, to disavow the part he had taken in framing the “ memorandum,” or diplo-

matic note; Russia gave almost a like command to her represent-

ative ; Austria would not sanction the document, in face of recent events; France was silent, though not satisfied ; the English gov- ernment alone publicly protested and demanded, through Lord Palmerston, for the Pope’s dominions a representative government, unrestricted liberty of the press, and a national guard, half civil and half military. There certainly was in all this enough to con- fuse an ordinary statesman, and to cramp his policy, but the states- manship of the Holy See, broadened by its sense of right, shook off these miserable tricks of politics, and held on to justice. Pope Gregory granted to his States the reforms which he considered suited to them, but, as the enemy was at his very door, he had to be reserved in his concessions, and to temper kindness with strict- ness. He died in June, 1846, and was succeeded by Pius IX. Pius inaugurated his pontificate by granting an amnesty to those imprisoned for political offences, excepting, however, from its benefit those who, in sinning, had betrayed the official trust re- posed in them. Reforms, most acceptable to the people, were introduced by him into the government of the Papal States amid an enthusiasm which knew no limit; all Italy sent forth a cheer of thankfulness that was echoed back from the Alps and the Apen- nines. About the sincerity of this joy, at least on the part of some, the Pope himself had serious misgivings, and there were persons who, from signs on the surface of society, saw beneath it the dark currents of treacherous thoughts and purposes. Oc- casionally conspiracy, as if taken by surprise, showed its hand ; it applauded the generous efforts of the noble-hearted Pontiff, but always wanted more; from every office in the Papal States it would expel ecclesiastics, and would so pare down and hem in the powers of the Pope, as temporal ruler, that only the shadow of his authority would remain to him. In those dread days in Italy, with more than the savagery of the Iroquois, conspiracy marked out its victims for assassination; through the press it vilified the clergy, and rendered almost helpless the pontifical government in its labors for order and reform. Amid all this commotion in Rome Russia, Prussia, and Austria stood aloof. They felt probably that in their own homes there was trouble brewing ; France, once again in the spirit of her old Catholic chiv- alry, was ready to send her army to the relief of the Holy Father,

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Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 27

but could not do sé, partly through the disfavor of Austria, but principally through the decided opposition of Lord Palmerston. Just at.this eventful crisis in Italian affairs Lord Minto was sent by the English cabinet into Italy to promote there the agitation for political reform. In the history of diplomacy no such mis- sion had ever been heard of. Coming into the country as the accredited agent of the English government, he was heralded by the radical party as the champion of Italian independence. What his special powers were men did not care to inquire; they knew only that he came to promote reform, and this they inter- preted according to their own cherished views and _ national aspi- rations. Wherever he, went—to Turin, Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Sicily,—riot either preceded or followed his arrival ; and it became more and more apparent that the Italian move- mcnt aimed not merely at the reformation, but also at the destruc- tion of the governments of the peninsula. The mission of Lord Minto was, to say the least of it, a shameful breach of international comity, and “ proved in its results,” says Mr. Alison, “ most ca- lamitous, and is to be regarded as one of the main causes of the revolution which soon after broke out in the Italian peninsula.”

On the representation of the other great European powers Lord Palmerston wrote to the diplomatic agents of Great Britain in Tu- rin, Naples, and Florence, to cease agitating, but it was too late ; the evil had been done, and the political passions that had been stirred to their depths, now lashed into fury, swept with the im- petuosity of a torrent over the fields and towns of Italy. At the same time nearly all the governments of Europe were undermined by the “secret societies,” and, in 1848, the year of revolutions, when the train was fired, European thrones either fell or tottered. Louis Philippe lost the French throne. Charles Albert, of Sar- dinia, had to lay down his crown, in 1849, at the feet of Austria, the King of Prussia had to salute the flag of the revolution, the Em- peror of Austria abdicated in favor of Francis Joseph, all the Ital- ian states had to change their constitutions to suit the revolution- ary party, while the Pope had to seek refuge in Gaeta from the rebellion and anarchy of Romé.

The passage in Italian history which I have just barely sketched (and it is only of Italian history that I speak directly), reveals some few points that bear on our subject. We see in it that Eu- ropean statesmanship was drifting to a withdrawing of itself more and more from the influences and principles of Christianity, as well as from the conscientious discharge of the duties of political life according to the plain dictates of justice. There were states- men who maintained that the Christian European State, the crea-

1 History of Europe, vol. viii., p. 209.

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28 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

tion of the Church, should be secularized; or, again, that expe- diency, whether for right or wrong, was the rule of political action. They seemed to think that politics was a department of public life from which morality was sublimated—a sort of no man’s land, in which politicians might riot as they pleased without fear of colliding with the right of the neighbor, or of injuring his property. To them selfishness or utilitarianism seemed to be the legitimate ground of political action. They professed to be conscientious, and this they were after their own fashion. They had one conscience for private or domestic interests, and this, as being the voice of right within them, they seemed to listen to, but, for dealing with foreign nations, or with public business, or with political rivals, they appeared to have quite another—and this one was the voice of national selfish- ness or dislike—a kind of mental intrigue or warp of the mind, trained to gain its end by all the crooked ways of flattery or deceit. It is hard to conceive how they defined a political act after having taken out of it that which gives it an ethical character. They would not admit that politics are the morals of public life, or that they can be made the subject-matter of duty, and would resent, as im- pertinent, any protest on the part of priest or bishop in regard to political measures which were palpably unjust. Now, 1! do not say that European statesmen laid down these views in definite words, but they drew them out in actions by violating rights, and by invading the spiritual domain of the Church. She had to con- tend with two enemies, conspirators from within Italy, and diplo- matists from without it, and both leagued to thwart her teaching, and, if possible, to destroy her power. The agitation which was carried on hindered her undoubtedly from fulfilling her mission with the completeness with which she desired, but, as a rule, that agitation did not materially affect the religion of the people. In cities and towns, particularly, the population was swayed by an un- wonted fervor for independence, but, while they sought after the new liberty, they remained, and wished always to remain, the faith- ful children of the Church. In no other Italian state, perhaps, was the strain on the faith of the people so great, and so continuous, as on that of the people of Tuscany, and yet of them, in 1856, Mr. Mabel S. Crawford writes, in his Life in Tuscany: “ It is only due to truth to say, that from what fell under my observation dur- ing a ten months’ residence, it seemed to me that even the warmest opponents of the Church of Rome could not, in fairness, but ad- mit that, far from being a mouldering fragment of the past, the Church, though old, is still a vigorous, living plant, well-rooted in the hearts of the great bulk of the population of that country.” Through that widespread political agitation there were surely some whose moral rectitude was interfered with, and others, and

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Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 29

these the conspirators against social order, who, having practically renounced the faith, entertained the deadliest hatred of the Church. These were the men who kindled and kept alive the furnace-fires of the revolution. Comparatively few, by their writings and talk, as well as by the excitement which they caused, and the outrages which they committed, they made the world suppose that they were the majority of the nation. And at that time, and since, per- sons looking on from without began to ask, “ How comes it that this Catholic Italian people is alienated from the Church?” In the physical world a violent storm will set all the elements in com- motion, it will darken the air, cloud the heavens, make the sea rage, it will thrill all nature, and far beyond its march through the universe, by its pressure, will extend the influence of its fury ; much after the same way, in the social world, a revolution or a violent political agitation, got up by a political party, will put in commo- tion, as history teaches, all the social elements ; it will draw to itself the attention of all; will excite passion, appeal to the sense of right, weld together the wills of millions, and by that tremendous power strive to gain its end. In attaining a just end by just means this agitation is, perhaps, the strongest of forces; in striving for an unjust end by means no matter of what nature, it is powerful, in- deed, but transitory. In 1848 the revolution shook all Eyrope, as if by a volcano, and from the confusion that ensued it seemed to some observers as if the populations had abandoned the Church and the State alike; but the revolution quickly burned itself out, for the time, within its own crater, and things came back pretty much to their old grooves, and Italian rulers came back to their thrones. ;

In Italy the Church had now to contend with her old enemies, and these strengthened by new auxiliaries. The secret societies had been frustrated in their aims, but were not vanquished. Quickly they set to plot anew; now, however, they could shelter themselves near the throne of Victor Emmanuel, King of Pied- mont, and were at home with Louis Napoleon, who had graduated among them, and whose “ first enemies,” said the London 7imes, “were the séirri of Leo XII. and the Austrian police.” Before his election to the presidency of the French republic, to please the French infidels, he condemned the expedition to Rome for the re- lief of the Pope as “a dangerous religious demonstration,” and the day after, on the very eve of his election, he wrote to the Papal nuncio at Paris, “ that the maintenance of the temporal sovereignty of the venerable head of the Church is intimately connected with the splendor of the Catholic religion, as well as with the freedom and independence of Italy.” When he became President he showed his colors, and wrote thus, officially, to one of his deputies in

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30 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

Rome: “It is thus I epitomize the temporal government of the Pope: General amnesty, the secularization of the administration, the Code Napoléon, and a liberal government.” To his diplomatic agent to the republicans of Rome he gave one kind of instruction, and quite the very contrary to his ambassador to Pius IX. at Gaeta. This was the man of double mind, and with a conscience made to order, who was emperor of France for nearly twenty years, and during that time was at the bottom of intrigue and discord in Italy.

Victor Emmanuel, leagued with the “ sects,” was not so astute as his imperial cousin of France, but was less shameless in his conduct. Fle stated plainly his line of policy, and though this was often disgraceful and unjust, it was, at least, something for the Church to know that she had an open foe. But behind the throne of Piedmont there was one who did for its king his thinking, and by deliberate, scientific intrigue was to him much what Machia-

-velli might have been to Lorenzo de’ Medici. This was Camillus

Benso, Count de Cavour. “ He was,” writes M. A. Lacroix, in his work, Le Dernier des Napoléons,“ the greatest minister and the most detestable character which Europe had produced since Talleyrand. Journalist, exile, conspirator, Cavour had been at Paris studying the meags by which Piedmont might absorb all the states of the Peninsula. ... . He saw at a glance the situation of Europe; he perceived that the time had come when ruse or treachery could give to the house of Savoy, by watching the opportunity, what centuries had not been able to accomplish for her... . . To. se- cure the friendship of France for Piedmont, to drive kings and princes from Italy, under cover of aspirations for independence and nationality, and finally to confiscate the whole to the profit of the house of Savoy, such was the programme of the politician of Piedmont. ... . He understood that, with such an ally as Napo- leon, it was enough to promise, and then to bring on, through him and in spite of him, all the plan of Italian emancipation, but that it was necessary to be careful not to confide to him the secrets and developments of the plot, and only to use him to draw enough of blood and millions of money from France for driving Austria out of Italy. Treachery and corruption would deliver the rest of the Peninsula to Piedmontese covetousness.” This programme was carried out to the letter. Not that it was written in so many par- agraphs, and formulated by a bill in Parliament, but that it entered into the counsels of the successive cabinet ministers of Piedmont, and for thirty years and more underlay their policy. This corrupt- ing of the political order by putting aside the laws of honesty and justice, by an Italian ruler, with the encouragement and aid of the Emperor of France and of English cabinet ministers, did not fail to

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Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 31 igi | se

affect for evil the condition of Italian society. In other times, di-

plomacy sometimes covered much double-dealing, and, if you will, ‘

base hypocrisy, but, in the case we speak of, it was made to be the

mask for the vilest plotting and bribery, and for the sowing of the

seeds of rebellion among the populations of neighboring states.

Ever since the battle of Novarra, Sardinia was smarting under her

defeat by Austria. With the sword, and unaided, she would not

dare face her again; but there were other weapons now at her com-

mand, with which she could retrieve her loss, and probably finally Ma

conquer. By lopping off a part of his original political plan Maz-

zini became the ally of Victor Emmanuel. Both were for the

unity and independece of Italy; the latter, however, wished to be yl

its king; the former aspired to see it a republic, and to be its first a

president; but this he would forego for the present, in order that

their secret agents might, in concert, march into Lombardy and

there strive to undermine the power of their common foe. The ~ oe

press was largely on their side; by every means, fair and foul, it a

tried to make out a strong case against Austria in Lombardy. The

youth of cities and towns were taken with highflown views of

liberty ; riots ensued; the universities of Pavia and Padua were mee

closed, and everybody seemed to feel that there was war in the at- is

mosphere. But the sober-minded, those whose memories went ;

back some years, could interpret the present agitation by what they

had experienced in the past; the spell of liberty had been put

upon them, and in its cause they saw committed crimes that would

have disgraced savages, and sacrileges that only Mussulmans would

have been guilty of. These remembrances disenchanted them, es- a

pecially when they came to know that the new liberty meant strin- >

gent laws and more taxes. ue On the ist of January, 1859, as the diplomatic corps were pre-

senting their respects to Napoleon in the Tuileries, turning, in dra- i matic fashion, after the style of his uncle, to Baron Hiibner, the ss Austrian ambassador, he said to him, “I regret that my relations « with your government are not as good as they were.” These i.

words, immediately telegraphed to every European court, rang out 5 through the world as a tocsin of war. Inthe crisis the English conservative ministry, under Lord Derby, endeavored to mediate between Austria and Piedmont, and pressed Count Cavour to adopt : a peace policy. Just at the time that he hoped to capture his prey, it was irritating to him to have his spring thus broken by foreign interference. And as an English diplomatist one day plied him pretty hard on the subject, telling him that the public opinion of England was against him, he answered, “ Very well ; but my opin- ion is that, first of all, England is accountable for the troubles of Itaf¥?. English statesmen, English parliamentary speakers, Eng-

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32 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

lish diplomatists and writers have been busy for years exciting political passions in this peninsula. Is it not England that urged Sardinia to counterbalance the unlawful preponderance a Austria by the propagation of moral influences ?”*

These are significant words. But England’s mediation failed ; Austria sent her ultimatum to Piedmont and was refused; Napo- leon publicly proclaimed himself the ally of Victor Emmanuel, and the campaign began. Battle after battle in quick succession was a victory for the French and Piedmontese, until finally Austria, at Solferino, lowered her flag and acknowledged her defeat. The Austrian and French Emperors met at Villafranca, and Lombardy was annexed to the Kingdom of Piedmont.

But in the other central Italian states war had also raised its s‘an- dard, under the direction of Garibaldi, a new ally of the King of Sardinia. His tactics, however, were not those of regular warfare ; his part was to prepare the ground for a change of rulers, or to

-create ‘moral influences.” In a document issued to the revolu-

tionary circles and clubs of Italy just before the campaign began, he instructed his adherents how they were to get up rebellion ; and, when it was successful, how they were to organize a military gov- ernment in the name of Victor Emmanuel; and how the provi- sional commissary so appointed was to maintain “ the severest and most inexorable discipline, applying to every person, no matter who he may be, the dispositions of military law in time of war.” In this way Parma, Modena, and Tuscany were revolutionized and their legitimate rulers set aside by riot and violence. Some time after, the Kingdom of Naples went through the like revolutionary process, and that under the cover of British cannon and with the aid of the Piedmontese army. “The official orders of Cialdini (the commander of that army) and those of other Piedmontese gene- rals, are worthy,” said Nicotera in the Parliament of Turin, “ of Tamerlane, of Gengis Khan, and of Attila.” Open robbery, how- ever, at the point of the bayonet was too shameless a thing in the face of the conservative governments of Europe, and would not be accepted by any decent man as grounds whereon to establish a government. But there were other means at hand, one particu- larly,—the plébiscite,—which some years before Napoleon had tried with good effect after he had shut up in prison his opponents, the leaders of the French Republic. On this occasion, in regard to Italy, he maintained the doctrine of non-intervention, and Lord John Russell, then a cabinet minister, in a speech at Aberdeen said that the Italian people must be let choose their rulers without molestation from any foreign nation. To prepare the people for

' From a sketch of the Life of Cavour, written nm by his intimate friend and cousin, Charles de Mazade. “La Revue des Deux Mondes,” July 15th, 1876, p. 369,

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Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 33

voting recourse was had to those expedients which must secure success at all hazards. Many of the inhabitants of Piedmont emigrated freely for the time being into the neighboring states; wholesale bribery and fraud and intimidation were resorted to, and those who went to the booths to vote under the eyes of enemies felt that on their vote perhaps their lives hung. In all the states sweeping majorities were made out in favor of Victor Emmanuel ; but what is strange in all this business is that, in Nice and Savoy, where Italian sentiment ran as high as in Naples, Savoy voted its annexation to France by one hundred and thirty-one thousand seven hundred and forty-four votes against two hundred and thirty- three. The fact is, that this apparent expression of the popular will was a farce got up to flatter public opinion. Two years before Cavour had stipulated with Napoleon, at Plombiéres, that when Piédmont, by the acquisition of Italian territory, would have a population of eleven millions, Nice and Savoy should be given over to France. To test the validity of this voting, however, there was no possibility of establishing an electoral court. But how reckless men had become at the time we may infer from the words of Lord Malmesbury, writing home from Tuscany to England: “I am not scrupulous in political matters,” he wrote, “ but indulgence has its limits. Bon Compagni, ambassador in Tuscany from the court of Turin, is, if not the head, at least one of the most active con- spirators against the sovereign to whom he is accredited.” Here is another passage from the Journal of M. d'Ideville, which gives us barely a glance at the plotting of the revolution at that time: “Sir James Hudson” (the English minister), he writes, “ has been for many years at Turin. It was in his sa/on that, long before it happened, the Italian revolution was prepared. The exiles of Na- ples and Modena, in fact, all the persons most gravely compro- mised in political events, found in the house of the English min- ister a sure asylum, bountiful hospitality, and often even important subsidies. More than once he was in relation with Mazzini. On this subject one of the secretaries of the English legation, Lord Hubert de Burgh, used often to tell me, with a laugh: ‘I have just been dining with Sir James. We were ten at table, and, except the minister and myself, all present were people sentenced to death. I still shudder at it.’”'

In the events just alluded to, there was certainly enough to cor- rupt the political life of Italy, and more than enough, were it not for the Church, to pervert the moral and religious sense of the people. Of the secular Italian governments that were then sup-

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34 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

pressed I have no wish to be the apologist. Doubtless there were many features in them which would not suit republican views. But no charge of tyranny or of undue severity or of excessive taxation was clearly proved against them at the time; they had even entered on the way of constitutional reform, in accordance with the wishes of their peoples. The Church, even had she re- called the past, and had she not the spirit of mercy and forgive- ness, would have no reason to compassionate the fate of those gov- ernments nor the very stock—Bourbon or Hapsburg—from which they had sprung. But for having suffered one wrong she could not sanction another. They were legitimate governments, and their rulers had lawful authority. To deprive them of this, no matter on what plea, was a gross violation of right and of the principles of civilized legislation. But the maxim had gone abroad, through pamphlets attributed to Napoleon, that nationality should be set against treaties, and that mere greatness is better than goodness,

. or that the grandeur of a state is to be measured solely by the

number of its acres. After Austria gave up Venice and the Quadri- lateral, Italy, save the Papal States, came under the sceptre of Vic- tor Emmanuel. “ Italy was made,” as the phrase ran, “ but was not completed,” and for the future was to take her place among the great nations of the world. This was the enthusiastic hope of Italians. They did not care to examine how far this hope was grounded, out of what materials they had made their nation, or whether there were in it those elements that promise national sta- bility.

To every observer, however, it was evident that neither in its foundation nor in any of its parts was there either right or justice. And right, as they might have learned from Cicero,’ is the cement of a state. It is its great bond of union, its life-blood. It is the root of its growth, the very soul that quickens every part of the body politic; and, when a strain is put upon it, that fires the na- tiona] heart with the principles of lofty patriotism. Since its very beginning there has been a blight on the Italian government. “The list of its ministers since Cavour’s death is a little limbo of ruined reputations.” It crossed swords once with Austria, and was shamefully beaten. It protested against the doings of the French in Africa, but dared not speak loud enough. It has been going begging through the world to save itself from bankruptcy ; and, apostate as it is, though it is often called Catholic, it has acted towards the Church in the spirit of an apostate. It is brave only towards the powerless ; it has turned out on the world thousands of poor, helpless religious women, and has appropriated their prop-

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Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 35

erty. What any humane government of the past never did it has done. It has stripped the minister of the altar of his sacerdotal robes and forced him to put on the uniform of a private soldier. It has exiled or imprisoned brave bishops who stood up for the rights of the Church, has confiscated her possessions, and has closed the schools against her. Nay, it has tried to undermine the faith of youth, to corrupt the clergy, and to create rebellion in the Church. How comes this to pass? One may say, What has brought the government of a civilized country to stoop so low? The history of our times answers, the plotting and spirit of “ the secret sects,” which is also the spirit of the Italian government, and the persua- sion and encouragement of foreign anti-Catholic statesmen. “Italy was made but was not completed.” In the way of the Piedmontese government stood another independent power in Italy, the temporal sovereignty of the Pope. With this were blended certain features which it was hazardous to deal with. It had a title-deed the most ancient and the most authentic of any royal house of Europe. It arose in the very twilight of Chris- tian ages, not from conquest, nor from the violation of any right, but by the force of circumstances and from the spontaneous gen- erosity of the faithful. Like the plant, it was the growth of nature. Its first fibre scholars have endeavored to find down through the age of Constantine and beyond it, but it has baffled their researches ; about its very first origin there seem to lie mysteries analogous to those that lie at the root of every natural product. The power of all other temporal rulers has its own special end; the temporal power of the Pope has the same, but it is moreover to be a shield for the perfect freedom of the exercise of another and a higher power. The sovereignty of others has come through the ordinary laws ordained of God in the social order, the temporal sovereignty of the Pope has been ruled by special dispositions of divine Prov- idence. Sovereignty has come to monarchs often as an inheritance, it has come to the Popes as a trust for the benefit of the Catholic world. The right of monarchs to temporal rule has frequently be- come extinct, being swallowed up, as it were, by social changes through time in its onward march,—the right of the Popes as tem- poral rulers has never died. It has often, indeed, been in abey- ance; time and again Popes have been imprisoned or driven into exile, and their territories seized by hostile powers; even in this century Pius VII. had been detained a prisoner at Savona and Fon- tainebleau, by Napoleon I., and Pius IX. had to fly his capital, in order to evade the threats and horrors of the followers of Mazzini ; but no matter when violated and how long, this right, by the shaping of events under special providential laws, swung back in the course of time to its normal rule. In the physical world scientists infer that

36 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

such or such is a law of nature from the recurrence and uniformity of phenomena; Newton deduced the law of gravitation from the ob- servation of falling bodies; with at least an equal force of reason- ing the maintenance and restoration of the Pope's temporal sov- ereignty during fifteen centuries, in spite of all disturbing elements, furnish us with the law of its existence and the necessity of its con- tinuance in the social world. For this sovereignty Italian states- men have undertaken to find a substitute, to give guarantees for the Pope’s independence and freedom, and thus to put in place of an order of divine Providence an expedient of their own making. The fact of their having done so shows that even they recognized the necessity of having the exercise of his sublime powers by the chief pastor of the Church guarded from all external pressure on the part of individuals or nations. But do these guarantees suffice for the Pope’s freedom ?

The Pope, indeed, has no gaoler at his door and no hostile guard

in his palace; he is even styled King, although the attributes of

royalty have been taken from him; a sceptre is put into his hand, and not a subject is left him to rule over. He is face to face with a hostile power, nay, he is under it, as he himself has stated; that power is a standing menace to him. Around his palace he is vili- fied by the public press; his high prerogatives as supreme pastor of the Church are ridiculed, the teaghing of Catholic truth decried, while the clergy and sacred rites are caricatured in shop-prints and on the stage. What treatment he receives from his enemies the Holy Father himself has told us in an address to Italian pilgrims, October, 1881. “ Remember always,” said he, “that the supreme pastor of your souls is in the midst of enemies, in whom the power of rage and hatred can reach such an extreme as Rome beheld with horror on that forever ill-omened night when she was accom- panying with pious duty to the grave the remains of our venerated predecessor. Remember that the person and divine authority of the Pontiff are day by day thrown into the mud by the work of an unbridled press, which casts at him outrages and insults by the handful.” These are words to be remembered not only by Italian Catholics but by Catholics of every nation of the world. They tell us that moral restrictions often curtail the freedom of a sovereign as efficiently as the bars of a prison. Alexander of Russia, through the plotting of the Nihilists, is to-day as helplessly a captive as if he were confined to his winter palace under a hostile guard, and the common Father of the faithful is pilloried in the Vatican, the whole Catholic world looking on. “ It is folly to suppose,” said Pope Leo, last March, to the Cardinals, “ that the Catholics of the world will resign them- selves to suffer peacefully their chief and their master to remain long

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 37

in a condition so incompatible with his dignity and so trying to their own filial love.”

In the crisis the apparent apathy of Catholic peoples seems the more striking when one considers that they have even to tax them- selves in order to support the dignity and to supply the wants of the Holy See. They have seen themselves despoiled of the States of the Church, their common patrimony, by their Catholic ancestors given in trust to the Popes for the support of religion; and now, forsooth, they have to bear the burden of this iniquity, to pay money because miscreants, and conspirators, and a king with a rob- ber’s title have seized on Rome and the papal provinces. The ques- tion is not only one of religion and justice, but also of international finance. It is a question, indeed, which the diplomacy of this age would not readily deal with, but one for the solution of which the Pope, as we have seen, relies on the devotedness and efforts of the whole Catholic body. The moral force of public opinion set in mo- tion by legal agitation unbarred a Parliament closed against Catho- lics for centuries; were that force increased a hundredfold, it would shatter to pieces any institution based on injustice and on the vio- lation of the sacred rights of millions of people. Or, in other terms, were the hundreds of millions of Catholics through the globe to de- mand in thunder tones that freedom and independence be granted to their Supreme Pastor, King Humbert would probably do quickly what, it is said, he intends to do finally,—he would leave Rome. The ages of Catholic chivalry are not past, although, indeed, the crowned leaders of Catholic chivalry are dead. Diplomacy in our times has in some countries tied down, and anti-Christian legislation seems well- igh to have paralyzed, the organized codperation of Catholics for the Catholic cause; but should their generous impulses have a vent given to them, or should Catholic peoples see clearly their way for redressing the great wrong put on them, it would be soon known that the Catholic heart throbs as strongly and as lovingly as ever for the freedom and rights of the successor of St. Peter.

Indeed, the present position of the Holy Father has, as it were, set the Church ajar, but the manner in which this has been brought about by an influential faction has been well calculated to injure faith and morals in Italy. In all those Italian political movements the revolutionary or apostate party has had two ends in view: the first, to make Italy one; the second, to destroy, if possible, the papacy. To accomplish this double purpose they united all their efforts to sow disaffection among the population of the Papal States, to censure the Pope’s government, to misrepresent Catholic doc- trine, and to corrupt by the most odious means the faith and morals of the people. In 1860 this party had overturned the papal gov- ernment in the Romagna and the Marches, and spread everywhere

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the seeds of disloyalty to the Pope and to the Church, with the secret approval of Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon. What villainous means were then used to establish this great Italian nationality by the riffraff of Italian towns and by the scum of some European countries we learn from the indignant protest of the bishops of the Marches addressed to the Piedmontese military governor: “ We scarcely believe our own eyes or the testimony of our own hear- ing,” they write, “ when we see and learn the excesses, the abomi- nations, the disorders, enacted in the principal cities of our respec- tive dioceses, to the shame and horror of the inhabitants, to the great detriment of religion, of decency, and of public morality, since the ordinances against which we protest prevent us from pro- tecting religion and morality, or from inveighing against the pre- vailing crimes and licentiousness.”

The papal subjects as a rule stood loyally by their sovereign, and to aid the papal troops armed themselves in his defence, but were overpowered by superior numbers. Public, unprovoked spoliation of the territory of the oldest sovereignty in Europe was carried on in the face of the civilized world, and Prussia and Russia alone protested. Already in 1861 the Pope had lost some three- fourths of his subjects, while conspiracy was mining steadily the rest of his dominions, and Rome itself. In the midst of these cir- cumstances, another move on the chess-board of politics was made by Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel. In September, 1864, “a con- vention” was entered into by them, the first article of which stated, “Italy binds herself not to attack the present territory of the Holy Father, and to prevent by force, if need be, all attacks on it from without.” France bound herself to withdraw her troops gradually from Rome, and another provision sanctioned the forming of a Papal army. To honest men all this meant security for the Pope, but to cunning Piedmontese statesmen it was only so much lan- guage in order to conceal their thoughts. The ink of that treaty was not dry before Nigra, the Italian plenipotentiary, who was a party to it, wrote that it “ was not intended to mar the national aspirations.” Bands of conspirators forthwith swarmed into the Papal provinces, and into Rome, to join this movement, the soldiers of the Pied- montese army deserted with the connivance of their officers, the loyalty of the Pope’s subjects was tampered with, but generally in vain, and the grossest calumnies circulated against the clergy and the Pope’s administration. The Italian government had removed from Turin to Florence, and Ratazzi was at this time prime min-

ister.

“«., . .. Politician, With more heads than a beast in a vision,’”’

1 Hudibras.

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 39

he could be devoted to the Pope, seemingly frank in his policy with Napoleon, and chuckle over all that as he hatched conspiracy with his associates. Garibaldi, in buckram and red shirt, was the hero of the act that was just then on the political stage. So for- midable had he become that, like Napoleon I., he had to be bound to an island. He had broken loose, however, but, as it appeared, for stage effect, for Crispi, a revolutionary leader, had telegraphed to Ratazzi, “All. is ready; let loose Garibaldi.” And when he was loose, in order to throw dust in the eyes of Napoleon, an attempt must be made to capture him; so Ratazzi telegraphs to the Prefect of Perugia, “ Pursue Garibaldi, but so as not to overtake him, and burn this telegram,—Urbano Ratazzi.” Fortunately the telegram was not burned; it remains as a sample of the high-toned diplomacy of the court of Florence. In France, Napoleon III. was in a difficult plight. From the Florentine statesman he heard that the tide of revolutionary passion was rising higher and higher among the inhabitants of the Pope’s dominions; on the other hand, he heard of the true state of things from Cardinal Antonelli, the papal secretary of state. At home he could notice the rumbling of a threatening storm; the French nation was fairly aroused, the old Gallic chivalry was refurbishing its arms in view of the coming fight, and the. French Parliament, led by the great orator, Thiers, spoke in tones which forced the wily imperial policy to uncoil itself. A French fleet, with French troops on board, was ordered to leave Toulon for Civita Vecchia. By the revoluticnary leaders it had been arranged that a general attack was to be made on the 22d of October, 1867. The French army embarked on the 18th, and was twice countermanded by Napoleon, so that it was only on the 26th the fleet could set sail. This certainly looked like trea- son, and that it really was so became a common opinion.’ Mean- while, in the Pope's domain, the Pontifical Zouaves were scoring victory after victory over their enemies, until finally, in the battle of Mentana, with the support of the French, they gave them the coup de grace. The wave of the revolutionary movement was for the time broken, the people of the Papal States, content with their sovereign, could take some rest. But within a year the European firmament was ablaze with war, and the revolution, without hin- drance, could stalk forth from its dens, and the government of Flor- ence, now emancipated from the fear of France, could show its hand. The obligation of a solemn international pact, the sense of justice, or of religion, or of decency, did not stand in the way of

} Twitting General della Marmora, shortly after, with his failure in taking Rome, Napoleon III, said; “ You are a set of imbeciles.’ / gave you eight days to do your work, and you did nothing.”

40 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

that government, and the army of Victor Emmanuel, reinforced by Garibaldian freebooters, following the code of Italian banditti, on the 2oth of September, 1870, took possession of Rome. A few days after, the vote of the Roman people was taken, armed men guarding the booths, and when the vote was counted by the con- querors themselves, only forty-six were found to side with the Pope. People had reason to be dissatisfied with this expression of the popular will, and hence, the year following, a vote was taken by the Romans themselves, and then 27,700 declared for the Pope.

Never since the fall of the lower empire had national honor been so outraged as by this violation of sovereign rights and by this high-handed plunder of national property. A breach of public faith, in the eyes of the monarchs of Italy and France, was a trifle, and the plighted word, that would hold to itself the soul of the savage, could not hold the Christian monarchs to the fulfilment of duty. The Pope’s estate and capital had, indeed, often before been invaded and seized ; this, however, was done by declared en- emies in undisguised defiance of all right. But here are two crowned sovereigns acting their mean part, like expert swindlers, in order by sharp practice to rob their brother sovereign. The crying injustice that was in it fills the upright heart with indigna- tion, but the meanness, in which that injustice was set, provokes in all honorable souls a sense of disgust. All this, be it remem- bered, was done in open day, in sight of Catholic Christendom ; and the eldest son of the Church, and the most Christian king, and their apostolic and Catholic majesties had nothing to say,—would do nothing. The world of right had gone backward; justice had retrograded. In 1813 the sovereigns of Europe, with one accord, restored Pius VII. to his possessions; in 1849 the French repub- lic reseated Pius IX. on his throne; in 1867 the French nation, in spite of its emperor, caused French cannon to thunder at Mentana, but in 1870 not a sovereign in Europe was found to raise a finger in order to give to the Pope right and liberty. As the great Pius, in the midst of his woes,expressed it: “ The poor old Pope is now bereft of all earthly aid. Relief can only come from above.”

“ The Church since then is more than ever before under captivity in Italy. Her property has been’ again confiscated ; her religious orders driven from their homes; civil marriage has been legalized, her liberty restricted, and a share in the education of youth denied her. While the nation is deluged with irreligious and immoral literature, recent acts of rebellion and mob-violence are justified and defended ; truth is kept back or distorted; the Church and the Sovereign Pontiff are the daily object of revilings and accusa-

Social and Moral Aspect of Italy and other Catholic Countries. 41

tions; and no opinion is too absurd or too pernicious to be scat- tered broadcast over the world”!

What the Church suffers to-day in Italy is the consummation, as we have seen, of what she has had to suffer there during this cen- tury. It is not denied that under the pressure of irreligion, and in contact with it, some Italians have fallen, but the Italian people, as such, have preserved through the struggle their Christian faith and morals. In an address read to Pius IX. in 1867, on behalf of the hundred Italian cities, the Count of Modena made his own the saying of a revolutionary leader, to wit: “ that the masses of the Italian people are for you and your authority.” “ Our government,” said, a few months ago, the deputy Sonnino Sidney in the Italian Parliament, “ is feeble—and Iam not speaking of this or that min- istry but of the government itself—and thus fulfils its mission badly ; it is weak, because our political life has become quite su- perficial. The overwhelming majority of the population, more than go per cent. of it, feels itself a stranger to our institutions; it be- holds itself subject to the state, and forced to serve it with blood and with money, but it does not feel that it constitutes a living and organic part of it, and takes no interest in its existence or devel- opment.” What those grand “ national aspirations ” have come to, Italian populations have learned to their cost. “ Carefully pre- pared statistics,” says a writer in the North American Review, “submitted by Senator Pepoli to the Italian senate, in 1879, show that 19% per cent. of the income of the: government is derived from such prime necessities as breadstuffs, meat, and salt, and that nearly one-quarter of the revenue was so levied as to be unduly oppressive to the poor.” ... The ancient city of Venice, once the great mart of the world, has now a population of 140,000, of whom 36,000 are paupers. “ The Italian peasants flee from enor- mous taxes; as those of Germany do from military service,” and the writer remarks, “ Italy sends abroad emigrants, as indus- trious, patient, and saving, as any peasantry in Europe.”

“ Of the population of 26,000,000 Italians,” wrote Cardinal Man- ning, some years ago, “ not 3,000,000 have launched themselves in the revolution of the last twenty years. The great bulk of the people are, as they have always been, Christian, Catholic, and loyal.” ... “In my judgment, and I have formed it, not in Lon- don from newspaper correspondents, but in Rome during many a long residence, extending in all over seven years, those who have encouraged this chronic agitation against the religion of Italians and the independence of Rome, have been among the chief causes of the present disorder in Italy.” As a confirmation of this great testimony, it was only the other day that Pope Leo wrote in one of

1 Encycl. to the Bishops of Italy.

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42 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

his splendid letters: “ The large majority of Italians are still earnest Catholics.”

Nore.—Irreligion has entered Italy mainly through political agitation ; it entered France principally through anti-Christian and philosophical doctrines. The intercourse between France and England, the works of English Deists translated for French read- ers, the influence of some English freethinkers on the highest circles of French society, made the French mind acquainted with many features of infidelity as it prevailed in England in the beginning of the eighteenth century. French apologists of Christianity, ac- cording to Beurier, complained of the number of infidel books that were imported into their country from England. There is no ar- gument, even the most reckless, of French philosophy in the eighteenth century, Villemain maintains, that is not found in the English school at the beginning of the same age. Lecky tells us that “ it was from the writings of Locke and Bacon that Voltaire and his followers drew the principles that shattered the proudest ecclesiastical fabrics of Europe,” and in his Lzfe of Bacon the Ger- man, Fischer, writes: “As Hobbes and Locke have their root in Bacon, so the French philosophy of the eighteenth century had its root in Locke, being related to the English philosophy as a col- ony to the mother country.” These statements are admitted by a writer in the Saturday Review, September 12th, 1874, in a notice of Lange’s History of Materialism: “Strange as the fact may seem to some,” he says, “ England was the hotbed whence sprang the infidelity that spread over France during the years immediately preceding the first revolution, though it attained new forms ina new atmosphere, and especially in the case of Le Mettrie assumed a tone of indecency unknown to its native home.”

Holland had also its share in propagating infidelity in the last century; it was from her printing-presses those infidel works went forth which were retailed through neighboring nations; it was there that Bayle published his dictionary, and that Spinosa, him- self a Dutchman, devised his monstrous system of Pantheism.

Switzerland was as active as Holland in this propagandism of error. In 1763 Voltaire wrote to D’Alembert: “ In Calvin's own town there are only a few, shabby, beggarly fellows, who believe in Christ,” and elsewhere, “ England and Switzerland are overrun with men who hate and despise Christianity, like Julian himself.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau, a Calvinist, hailed from Geneva.

The same causes that have been at the bottom of Italy’s troubles in this century have also been at work in Spain. She, too, has been under the grudging policy of the House of Bourbon. Infidel and immoral literature has been introduced among her

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The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 43

people. False ideas on religion and government were brought to her by foreign armies; and secret societies, under the protection of foreign powers, have been trying to destroy her religion and con- servative institutions. Her political life is kept in agitation by a bold faction, but, as all travellers tell us, her people are still Catho- lic to the core.

THE INFLUENCE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI ON MEDIAEVAL ART.

. “We owe to the mind of St. Francis that inspiration, nobler than human, which stirred the emulation of the greatest artists.”"—Lro P. P. XIII., Encycl., 17 Sept., 1882.

T times convictions take possession of a human soul and de- velop therein with such astonishing power over and beyond all that surrounds it, assuming dimensions in their ultimate results which are out of all proportion with the source whence they appear to spring, that we are forced to look for their reason in some de- sign of Providence bearing testimony to the unfailing truth on which they rest, and giving assurance of their predestined accom- plishment. The Catholic Church is the soil on which such souls ordinarily grow. The fact of Calvary, of all human failures in an earthly point of view the most complete, yet with its prodigious effects, unaccountable unless in the light of a higher principle, has established a norm by which we may measure like phenomena. When St. Francis of Assisi suddenly departed from the common course of men about him, those who loved him best mourned, be- cause, as they said, the beautiful youth had grown mad. But he had turned to follow a master, whom with less reason the enlight- ened world of old Rome had pointed out as a fool; and so he went on securely in his way, “ce fou sublime, dont la folie confondit la sagesse du monde.” And when the.few short years of his earthly life had come to their end, he had set into motion and given a last- ing impulse to a revolution, which in due time overturned the po- litical, social, and religious world from its existing state. Like the sun, which he affectionately calls his brother, and to which Dante aptly compares him, he, “ when not yet much distant from his ris- ing, began to bless the earth by his good influence.”” He illumined

' Paradise, Cant. XI., 53.

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44 American Catholic Quarterly Review,

the darkness into which the world of those days was deeply merged, and created a new growth upon its face, breathing by the genial warmth of his spirit fresh life into the decaying members of society. Popes, emperors, nay, the obstinate princes of the East, who hated with a natural and religious hatred alike whatever bore the Chris- tian name, bowed to his will and vied with one another in shower- ing favors upon him to whom nothing was dearer than the con- tempt and poverty of Christ. Even St. Dominic, if we may believe : the annalist of a past day,’ intimate and familiar friend of our saint, seemed for a moment to have lost confidence in his own distinct and stupendous mission, when he came within the circle of that radiant fire of seraphic love.

But it is not our purpose to measure the influence of St. Frat.cis upon his own or later times except in so far as it caused the revival of the fine arts, which in point of time and place assumes definite form immediately after the death and at the tom of the Saint. It were strange indeed if we could not trace the cause of this sudden change in the sphere of taste to the direct influence of him who from that time forth appeared for several generations at once the . devout object and the patron of the fine arts. And no doubt it

will be well to recall to mind the means which served to raise so ad- mirable a structure as that which the school of Christian art pre- sents to us in the 13th century, at a time when at least the outward conditions of society are much the same as they were then, with perhaps this difference in our favor, of a far more eager search after a high standard of taste.

In order to estimate correctly the influence of St. Francis upon the life of the fine arts for several centuries after his death, it will be necessary to cast a brief glance upon the character of the man

, who, by the sole force of his personal endowments, without any

assistance from without, was able to produce such gigantic effects.

We shall next consider this influence in its further results, I,

The most superficial reader of the life of St. Francis will be im- pressed with two features in the singular career of the Monk of Assisi: that peculiar asceticism, from which, as we know, arose the mystic school of thought, whose best exponent in theology became St. Bonaventure, and which found its truest illustration in the whole . range of Christian schools of art, beginning in faint outlines with Giunta Pisano, the friend of St. Francis, and ending, at least fora considerable time, with Raphael, in his earlier works. The other trait, which aside from this strikes us, is the intense love of and ‘sympathy with nature manifested by the Saint on every occasion.

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The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 45

Nature was, so to speak, poverty, whom he had chosen as his bride, in her fairest apparel. When he had relinquished all for Christ, he had gained all; the whole great world was now his own, and he felt this possession, and it made him happy beyond earthly happiness.

One day, before he had made his choice, when he was returning from a festival, his companions, seeing him strangely pensive and tarrying behind, asked him laughingly what could absorb the light- hearted Giovanni so profoundly at this time. “I was thinking,” said he, “ of taking a spouse, but one so noble, so beautiful, that I know none like her on earth.” From that day the fair young Ber- nadone changed. “ He is lovesick,” they said, and so he was. He had seen a glimpse of some beautiful being, a quick vision of some magnificent reality, and his heart went out to it; went out to God, that Beauty everlasting and surpassing all His creatures, And the Saint loved only the more these creatures, now that he recognized them as love-tokens of God’s munificent affection towards his hum- ble spouse. He would cast aside the gilded deckings and don the wedding garment to please but his new choice. So by vigils and fasts, terrific stripes and crucifixions of his tender flesh, he called to heaven for a spotless robe, until the folly of a thoughtless boyhood had been wholly wiped out.

As sin disappears in man, its consequences vanish one after an- other, or lose their hold on him, and the former state of sinless happiness returns. In Paradise all nature had been subject to Adam. But once he rebelled against his Maker, creation declared enmity to its former master,man. Henceforth his life was one continued toil, and sorrow became as his daily companion. Then, as he bore the burden meekly, it lightened, or perhaps his strength increased, and he felt less of the old crushing weight. Nature grew more kind, the ground yielded more readily to the pressure of his spade, and it brought fruit and flower, which lighted up once more his aged care-worn features, and labor, duty, sacrifice, became a consolation. And when the end came they brought to the saintly patriarch the last born of his grandchildren that he might bless it. But he looked strangely out into the open field where stood the tree which he had planted, a twig of Eden's sad tree of life. And in prophetic vision he discerned the fruit that was one day to grow thereon—arbor decora et fulgida! And he saw how the curse which he had brought upon his progeny was to depart by the strength of that fruit. It was a rapturous thought, and he loved the tree for its destiny, and the birds that nestled in it, and the flowers that grew beneath its shade; he loved all nature, for he saw in it expressed the ineffable love of his Maker. Then his dying hand blessed the babe with the strength of the expected Redeemer, and when with his last look he gazed into that blessed child’s eyes he

46 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

saw there the joy which he had seen in Eve before the fall, the joy of innocence, like to no other joy on earth. How often has that process been repeated in the penitents, saints of the Catholic Church! It was ina manner the process which the soul of St. Francis experienced. He had become again a sinless child, in the baptism of penance, in the strength of his Redeemer’s Precious Blood. Nature spoke to him, and like a child he spoke to her, until both understood and loved each other as brother and sister of the same heavenly Father. See how it comes out, this love, in all its virginal freshness and innocence as we meet him in the by- ways around Assisi, sweetly caressing a rescued pair of turtle-doves: O sirocchie mie tortole, semplici, innocenti e caste—ora io vi voglio scampare da morte e farvii nidi.' Or as we see him stooping -to gather up the little worms from the road, lest they be crushed be- neath the foot of some unthinking traveller; for he remembers how his Master had once said: I am a worm and not a man. Such was his tender love for the works of God's hand, and like some magic spell it accompanied him wherever he journeyed, and where his shadow fell the ancient curse seemed forthwith to depart from the earth. The birds of the air, the beasts of the forest, came gladly at his call; the timid roe looked trustingly into that beau- tiful face and gathered its food from the hand that gave a blessing upon the dumb creature. All nature rejoiced when with him, and the lay “ Laudate ’ of the royal prophet seemed forever on his lips. Well could he write of “true and perfect joy,’” for it was always in his heart and round about him. But this intense love of nature,this perfect harmony between his inner being and the rest of God's image in the outward creation, made St. Francis a poet, we might say an artist, in the truest sense of the word. Every artist isapoet. The history of the great mas- ters amply illustrates this. We know how the genius of Giovanni Santi followed that of Petrarch and Dante, and how the father of the ifnmortal Raphael was celebrated in his day alike for his verses and his paintings. Young Raphael himself was, as Lanzi informs us, a poet. Even Leonardo da Vinci, in spite of his practical turn of mind, has left us some verses. And most of the great painters of the early Italian school were enthusiastic students of Dante. On the other hand, there exists a close and necessary connection between true art and Religion. Indeed art is a species of religion, in which man pays homage to the divine Beauty. Such was the idea of art even among the Greeks in its best days. When high ideals in religion are united to most perfect natural forms, whether

1 My dear little sisters, sweet innocent doves,—yes, I am going to save you from

death and build you little nests. 2 148 Ps. 3 De vera et perfecta laetitia—cited by Wadding.

The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 47

expressed in harmony of sound, or in painting, or in sculpture, we have art in its truest sense.’ The mystic school of art had its source in the realization of the highest ideal of divine love expressed in the purest types of nature. If we trace the origin of the two most characteristic traits in the life of St. Francis, his asceticism and his love of nature, we shall find the one source an intense love, which made him identify everything about him with the motives of his Maker. This love terminates in a complete union with the divine will,and produces that harmony between the creature and his crea- tor, identical in a manner with intuition, wherein the soul com- munes with God directly and faith yields to limited vision. No better argument than the fact of St. Francis can be brought against the assertion of Victor Cousin, that “ he who pretends to commune with God in this mystic way, does thereby ignore Him in his mani- festations in nature,’ and that such communication “ is a dream and an incredible rashness.”” Surely no one could have believed in God more essentially through “His manifestations in nature,” whilst few saints were more closely united to Him, receiving, as he did, almost all the important commissions regarding the institute of his order, like Moses, directly from God. With St. Francis self no longer existed. It was merged in God. “And when he looked upon nature he saw it, too, acting in harmony with that sublime sentiment of entire unselfishness, so beautifully expressed in the lines of a German poet:

O welcher reine heil’ge Edelmuth In der Natur und rings im All, Wo Eins dem Andern, und wo Alles Allen Mitwirkung, Hilfe, alle seine Kraft Und Liebe, selbst sein eignes schoenes Dasein Herzinnig treu, mit stiller Freudigkeit Dahingibt, ohne je daran zu denken Ob auch ein Stiubchen nur dadurch bezahlt sei.

In reality this spirit has always done more, for art as even for abstract science, than did brush, or chisel, or toiling brain. The most devout painters have been more successful as Christian artists than those who possessed the secrets of perfect technique or the most accurate knowledge of anatomy. We know’ how Cardinal di Lugo, that giant mind, went in his subtle perplexities of theology to consult the boyish novice John Berchmans, that God might re-

1 Ruskin goes so far as to maintain that the realization of the divine presence in nature, and the love of nature which springs from and accompanies this consciousness are essential to and the only promise of true art.—Mod. Painters, vol. iii., p. 313.

2 Vict. Cousin’s Lect., Wright’s translation, p. 103. ;

3 Essay on the interest and characteristics of the Lives of the Saints, by F. W. Faber.

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48 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

veal to the prayers of the saint the science withheld from his own comprehensive intellect. Hence, when we come to judge of the effect of this asceticism upon art, we must lay aside the rules of the connoisseur. “ Mysticism,” says Rio,'“ is to painting what ec- stasy is to psychology. It is necessary, in order to estimate it cor- rectly, to associate ourselves by a strong and profound sympathy to certain religious ideas, with which this artist in his studio, or that monk in his cell have been more particularly preoccupied, and combine the results of this preoccupation with the corresponding sentiments in the minds of their fellow-citizens.”

As St. Francis worshipped beauty because it spoke to him of God, the eternal Beauty, reflected in nature, so he found himself drawn to rival nature, or to seek its choicest types, and to beautify, by his own hand, whatever was, in an especial manner, to image forth that heavenly splendor, or to enhance its appreciation among men.

The habitations of his monks were to be severely simple. “ H/a- bentes quocum tegamur his contenti sumus,” he said, with the apos- tle. We remember how, on one occasion, he became all aglow with holy indignation when, on one of his visitations, he found that the monks had, with much labor, built a magnificent convent ; and how it took all the influence of Cardinal Hugolino, the then pro- tector of the order, to pacify him. “ Nostram hanc domum non ag- nosco,” he called out,“ negue meos fratres reputo qui in illa perman- serint.”* But when he reared altars and temples to the Most High, his zeal for their adornment knew no limit. He wanted to be poor, and no other saint in the Church has so entirely made that title of il povero di Dio his own. His patrimony he gave for the restoration of achurch. Long before he had laid the foundation of the order of Friars Minors, he had devoted himself entirely to the reconstruct- ing and beautifying of the house of God. He went from door to door begging alms; crying aloud in the market-place: “Come, help me to build the Church of St. Damian.” It was a passion with him, and people wondered what he meant. Yet he went on restoring. Church after church arose, newly adorned ; St. Damian, St. Peter Apostle, and the Portiuncula, in his native city of Assisi. Cardinal Newman tells us somewhere that it was architecture which directed the thoughts of one of the most zealous priests’ he ever knew towards the Catholic faith. Well, it was architecture which, though in another way, led our Saint to the reform of the spiritual edifice that was swaying to and fro amidst many conflicting ele- ments. When, prostrate before the crucifix in the church, he had first heard the voice of his Lord, bidding him rise and uphold his

1 The Poetry of Christian Art. p. 122. 2 Vita S. Francisci, Boll. 8 The Rev. Hutchison, of the London Oratory.

soul Fra: lady sade the find Sway of th ciple: down poets Strang trimm our sz their canno

The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 49

tottering house, he applied the command as referring entirely to the material church. Yet God had meant it in another sense, and the saint was imperceptibly drifting towards the accomplishment of God's will by beginning his task in this way. With his own hands he set in order and embellished whatever about God's habitation was out of order, and when in after days he found a lovely spot, he would dedicate it to the special glory of the Most High, by raising there a chapel or an altar, or a niche in which to place the statue of some saint, so that it might remind the passing wanderer how good God is in giving us such beautiful things. In a lovely grove between Gemini and Porcaria he erected a church in honor of the Blessed Virgin, very like to the one of St. Maria de Angelis, in Portiuncula. We read, in his life, how, returning from Arezzo to Florence, he was compelled by sickness to stop a few days at Gan- gheretti. God had blessed the place by causing a fountain to spring up at the request of the languishing saint. As if to guard and beautify the spot where “God had been,” he employed the brief time of his convalescence in building a wall about and adorning it.

Thus his love made him happy, for he was ever in full harmony with all that surrounded him. We said above that St. Francis was a poct. In point of time he is one of the first of Italian poets; no less in point of true and deep inspiration. |“ He burned, all on fire with love,” says the author of the last life of St. Teresa,' “and

, that heavenly flame inspired simple bat immortal verses.” What , he has left us of his unquestioned compositions shows that he was f not neglectful of form. Poetry in all ages has had two principal

sources, one secular, the other religious. Thus, at the time of St. f Francis, the Provengal minnesinger sang in glowing words of his P lady-love, and the Oriental element imported by the returning cru- r saders had done nothing to change the existing tendency towards *, the creation of a voluptuous literature. On the other hand, we n find in Italy a healthy element of Christian poetry, asserting its n sway from Dante down to Tasso, and beyond. And the sources 1, of this stream, says Brockhoff,? we find in St. Francis and his dis- 4. ciples. A celebrated troubadour, whose real name has not come h down to us, but who passed among the people as the “king of or poets” (rex versuum), went one day, in frivolous mood, to hear the h, strange Assisian preach. Then he laid down his gold-and-purple- al trimmed mantle, and begged the garb of a Franciscan monk from c- our saint. No longer did Brother Pacifico delight the princes in id their banquet halls, or the people at high harvest-time ; yet we is cannot doubt that he sang for the monks, or that he taught St.

1 Cited in the Civilta Cattolica, Quad. 774. 2 Brockhoff, Die Kloester.

VOL. ViII.—4

50 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

Francis to put into rhyme the hymns which the saint uttered in his wanderings, and which Brother Leo, who generally accompanied him, always noted down. St. Bonaventure tells us that amidst his frequent infirmities St. Francis often expressed a desire to hear music.' Wadding cites among his writings canticles in the ver- nacular and hymns for the use of the nuns of St. Clare. If we may judge from the few specimens yet remaining and accredited to him, they must have been exquisitely beautiful. There is a pe- culiar simplicity of style, a sweet flow of melody, in the Italian of that day. Anyone familiar with Latin will be able to enjoy the following prayer, which the saint is said to have used every day:

“O altissimo omnipotente glorioxo Idio, Illumina le tenebre del core mio. Doname te prego per tua gran bontade Fede drita, speranza certa, con perfecta charitade. E fame da mi havere perfecto cognoscimento A cid che sempre obserua el tuo sancto comandamento.’’?

“His canticum solis (de /o frate sole) is unquestionably,” says Schlosser, in his translation of 7 Cantict di S. Francesco, “ one of the finest productions of sacred poetry.” The hymns /x foco amor mt

mise, and Amor de caritade, found in the works of St. Bernadine of Siena, are, by the weighty authority of Ireneo Affo, attributed to Fra Jacopone, the worthy forerunner of Dante. Yet they breathe all the spirit of St. Francis. Thus sang the Saint. Like a prophecy, reminding us of holy Simeon at once and Zachary, are the last words, the song of the dying swan, when prostrate on the ground, blind, and too weak to reach his beloved Assisi, he turns towards the cherished city with these prophetic words :

« Benedicta tu civitas a Domino Quia per te multz anime salvabuntur Et in te multi servi altissimi habitabunt Et de te mu!ti eligentur ad regnum aeternum.’ ®

‘

How soon the blessing was verified. Less than forty years after, Assisi had sent out of her noviciate 200,000 monks, bearing the seeds of the spirit of St. Francis into every land on the globe.

' Ad jucunditatem spiritus excitandam alicujus audiendi soni harmoniaci desiderium habuisset. Vita S, Francisci.

2 « Q almighty, glorious God on high, enlighten the darkness of my heart. Grant me, I pray Thee, in Thy bounty, right faith, firm hope, and perfect charity. And let me plainly know myself, so that I may ever observe Thy holy laws.”—This prayer appeared first in an ancient life of St. Clara, printed in Milan, 1492. It is not stated that St. Francis himself composed it, though there can hardly be a doubt of it.

3 « Blessed art thou, O city, by the Lord, for through thee many souls shall be saved. In thee shall dwell many servants of the Most High, and out of thee many shall be chosen for eternal glory.”’

The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 51

During his lifetimé the saint had exercised great power over men. As Irnerius drew disciples around him by the fame of his learning, so St. Francis had attracted them by the rumor of his sanctity. Once they had seen him he kept them spellbound by his lovely ways. He was a beautiful man. His broad, chaste brow, and finely-chiselled features, his eyes, with their deep-dreamy joy, catching a spark whenever holy zeal prompted his heart to light them, the grace of his manner, and yet withal, his humble b readiness to serve as beast of burden to the first that chose to claim

such service,—all these things charmed the men that approached

him, and they learned to love the things he loved, they hardly

knew why; but there seemed to be so much superior wisdom and

happiness in his choice. Now that he was dead, men wandered to his tomb. Assisi became the centre of inspiration, the fountain- a head whence a

“ Many rivulets have since been turned Over the garden Catholic to lead Their living waters, and have fed its plant.’

II.

*“ Sanctitati®nova signa

Prodierunt laude digna Mira valde et benigna In Francesco credita,”

sings Brother Thomas a Celano, in his sequence of the Saint. In truth, the effects of that sanctity were at once wonderful and new. Still in the bloom of manhood, according to years, when he left the : scene of his activity, his mark was there indelibly. And its im- ‘ press only deepened and intensified by the shock which his sudden \f summons to heaven created among those who had felt dependent . on him. If there was one thing more pronounced than another, in this influence, it was the fact of a new tendency towards the love of the beautiful as it is in nature, and of its dedication by a unani- mous impulse to the highest ends of man. St. Francis was, as we have seen,a poet, and his poetry pervaded, impersonated everything, t so that the very atmosphere of Assisi seemed sufficient to create |

and nourish the inspiration of Christian art.

Let us hear the Protestant Milman on the subject, who yet fails : in his attempt to explain the singular phenomenon of this in- fluence : )

“ Strange it might appear that the arts, the highest luxuries, if we may so speak, of religion, should be fostered, cultivated, cherished, and distributed by those who pro- i fessed to reduce Christianity to more than its primitive simplicity, its nakedness of all i 8

’ Paradiso, Cant. xii., 96.

52 American Catholic Quarterly Review,

adornment, its poverty. Strange that these should become the most munificent patrons of art, the most consummate artists; that their cloistered palaces should be the most sumptuous in architecture, and the most richly decorated by sculpture and painting ; at once the workshops and the abodes of those whe executed most admirably. Assisi, the birthplace of St, Francis, the poor, self-denying wanderer over the face of the earth, who hardly owned the cord which girt him, who possessed not a breviary of his own, who worshipped in the barren mountains, whose companions were the outcasts of human society,—Assisi becomes the capital, the young, gorgeous capital of Chrisuan art.’’"

He tells us, further on, that men who had an irresistible calling to be artists became Franciscans, because in that order they found those emotions which were to express themselves in art awakened, cherished, and strengthened. And no doubt, as the youth of Eu- rope eager after science journeyed to Bologna, so that in a short time the two great bodies of the university, the Citramontani and the Ultramontani, counted among their hearers students from more than thirty different nationalities, so the youth that loved the arts came from afar to Assisi, there to gather inspiration and gain schooling. And in this concourse of the best geniuses a pious rivalry arose, giving an ever fresh impulse to the work that was going on. With noble generosity each left a monument of his achievements at the tomb of St. Ffancis as a token of gratitude to him to whom they felt that they owed all. Not a church or chapel, not a convent wall or ceiling in that favored city which is not sacred with the touch of some inspired brush. It is one vast academy, containing the noblest creations of human genius and piety; and though age has destroyed much of that which, after all, was but the faint expression of so much that is noble and ad- mirable in the Christian's soul, yet there remains enough to make that single town of Assisi, even at this day, the choicest collection of purely Christian art.

The disciples of St. Francis, who in his own day could be counted by thousands, who could be met with in every town and city throughout Italy, and even beyond the Alps and the sea, these perpetuated the spirit of their holy founder. It was not strange, then, that in the face of this new growth of feeling and devotion, the old mummy-like images of the Byzantine school were unable any longer to awaken a responsive echo in the soul of the Christian. Painting up to that time had been entirely in the hands of the Greeks. Their stiff, often grotesque forms, conventional coloring, and unnatural drapery had nothing in them of the ancient grace of their early masters. The new generation, growing up under the monastic discipline and general influence in all spheres of life of the Friars Minor, missed the freshness, the life, the something with a seraph touch in it at which their own hearts could catch fire.

, Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. viii., p. 477.

The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 53

But the young artist, the devout painter who drew the breith of inspiration from the hallowed Grotto of Alvernia, him they under- stood, and quickly his fame spread, and the builders and the guar- dians of God’s house sought him out, that he might breathe life into the walls, which were to instruct their people and at the same time fitly enshrine the holy of holies.

Some writers have dated the beginning of the mystic school from Gentile da Fabriano, perhaps because at that time it presents a more marked contrast to the Florentine and Bolognese schools, to which the anything but beneficial patronage of the Medici gave even- tually so dangerous a direction that it actually undid much of the work of St. Francis by substituting the love of nature for its own sake in place of that love for God's sake. Other writers place Ode- risio Gubbio at the head of this school, whilst the honor of having been the first at least to abandon the manner of the Greeks is gene- rally accorded to Cimabue. And yet such men as Giunta Pisano, Guido of Sienna, and others of the same day, unquestionably pointed the way to this departure. An old inscription, mentioned by P. Angeli, says of Giunta that he was the first Italian artist."

It is true that in the works of these early painters there is still a great deal of indecision. It could hardly be otherwise. Art is not in every stage of its life the complete expression of either the spirit or the time that produces it. The soul may be said to be breathed into the rough mass of solid stone in the very conception of the artist, but it wants time to assume shape and form and be- come the perfect reflection of the original mind. It is in the ma- ture man’s face that we trace the peculiar character which is his, developed, indeed, in action, but there in all its peculiarity from the days of his babyhood. Thus these artists served as the con- necting link between St. Francis and the most perfect exponents in art of his-spirit. They gathered the seed and scattered it about the surrounding mountains and valleys, and it was some time be- fore the new flowers grew up to perfume the air about with their sweet odors. As for Giunta, he was certainly under the direct in- fluence of St. Francis. We knowthat he went to see him at Assisi, where, as we gather from Lanzi, he painted the first known portrait of the Saint. Soon after the death of the latter he returned to As- sisi, and here has left us his best pictures. His paintings in the Church of the Angioli are far superior to the best efforts of the Byzantine school, both in truth to human expression and in dis- position of the drapery. He also directed the paintings that were to honor St. Francis in his church at Pisa, which Cimabue and Giotto, it appears, afterwards completed. ‘“ These paintings may

7 . : a 1 Juncta Pisanus ruditer a Graecis instructus Primus ex Italis artem apprehendit circa, Ann. Sal., 1210,

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54 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

be ruder, but they are not less expressive than the floating forms of Guido or Murillo.”?

Next in order we have Cimabue. He also had learned his art from the Greeks, and his early manner strongly betrays their style. All at once, however, he seems to have come under the spell of St. Francis. There is a picture of the Saint and various little le- gends surrounding it in the Church of Santa Croce accredited to him, and bearing decided marks of Byzantine training. If it be authentic, which Lanzi doubts, it certainly indicates the direction which his genius took. It seems as if he had vowed henceforth to paint only for the glory of our Saint. In Pisa he completed an altar-piece for the Sons of St. Francis. He then went to Assisi. Here, as in the case of Giunta, we find his best productions. “ None of his frescoes,” says Lanzi, “ give so good an idea of Cimabue’s power as the truly magnificent paintings in the Church of Assisi.”

-Here we see the evangelists and doctors of the Church instructing

the monks of the Franciscan Order, executed with an originality of conception and arrangement altogether new in the light of con- temporary works.

But Giotto still excels him. The paintings of both masters are side by side. Giotto too, true to the love that gave birth to his conceptions, chose for the principal subject of his brush the life of St. Francis. He became the model for generations through- out Tuscany. With him at the same fountain drank Dante. As in the days of Pericles, so there existed at this time a close resem- blance of spirit between the art of poetry and that of painting.’ It was but natural, then, that there should likewise exist an intimate friendship between men of similar talent and like aims. Dante seems even at one time to have given his attention to painting under Giotto’s guidance. He certainly was a master in the art of drawing, and we have it on the authority of Benvenuto da Imola? and of Baldinucci, in his Life ef Giotto, that the latter painted at Na- ples from designs drawn for him by Dante. We may here add the name of Oderisio da Gubbio, who painted with Giotto. Imagine the intercourse of these three men, great souls, inspired by the same noble motives, they pictured, each in his way, yet all in the same grand way, the glories of St. Francis. They have likewise immortalized each other. The undoubtedly most correct portrait of Dante which we have is from the hand of Giotto, whose praises in turn, together with those of Oderisio, are chanted in the melo- dious stanzas of the Divina Commedia. .

Restless in his activity and zeal, we see Giotto, so like his holy

1 « Schools and Masters of Painting.” A, G. Radcliffe. 2 « Comento al Canto XI. del Purg.,” cited from “ Vita di Dante,” Leon. Aretino.

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The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 55

patron, spreading the newly-learned gospel of his art in all the cities of Italy, from Naples to Lombardy, and beyond.

We must pass over a host of great painters, masters such as Or- cagna, Gentile da Fabriano,—so truly the gentle, in name and in character,—the Bartolos, especially Taddeo, and that remarkable devotee of St. Francis, Margaritone of Arezzo, all in turn con- tinuing and swelling the stream that had its source on Mount Al- verno. Following the central line of the Apennines, we see it di- viding, one branch with sportive and sounding current passing up into the Romagna, the other peacefully and gently flowing south- ward through Umbria and towards the Eternal City, both reach- ing out far into the next century, and inundating with their sweet fresh waters the charming valleys of Italy. And looking north, we meet an angel keeping guard over the waters. His white robe is that of the Sons of St. Dominic. With Fra Angelico the Do- minicans take the lead in the field of Christian art. Did the angelic youth of Fiesole, so superior in his way, owe aught to St. Francis of Assisi? We shall see.

It is admitted on all hands that Fra Angelico studied Giotto’s manner of painting with great assiduity. His angels—and in these he excels—are imitations of the great master-disciple of Assisi, with only the difference that Angelico applied purer colors. This fact alone might be sufficient to convince us that the genius which St. Francis had diffused about him must likewise have touched the young Dominican. We have seen howthe flame that issued from the seraphic patriarch had laid its hold even on St. Dominic, in spite of his totally different genius; how he had sought out St. Francis, sat at his feet to listen to his tales of divine love, and eagerly asked permission to be present at the general chapter of the Friars Minor. He wished to learn from men who had no other school than that of charity, fo training but that of unlimited obedience in execut- ing works of love, no doctrine but that of Christian poverty and hu- mility. Whilst his was the lofty intellect appointed by God to gather the straying minds, to confound the heresy of the Albi- genses, to crush the serpent’s head of a false philosophy, St. Francis was the heart overflowing with affectionate sympathy for his fallen brethren, at war with one another, and without peace in themselves, To him had been assigned the giant task to stay the tide of the lust of the eyes, the passions of the flesh, and to counteract the false asceticism which had taken form in the vagaries of the Waldenses. Yet if we may be permitted to judge the comparative strength of

two such giants, so different in parts yet exercising a mutual at- traction towards each other, we should incline to call St. Francis the stronger. Love informing the will exercises a greater strain than intellect, convincing and moving to action. And like his

56 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

master must have felt the disciple, the pure, the simple-hearted Fra Angelico. How often he traversed, as we read in his life, the beautiful valley between Foligno and Assisi to where St. Francis lay entombed and his daughter in Christ, St. Clare; and there, before the masterpieces we have mentioned, he kindled his devo- tion and animated his genius, for both were one with him; the handling of his brush was but a prayer of the uplifted soul in con- templation. Looking at his own pictures, and there are compara- tively few that remain, we find St. Francis introduced wherever the unity in the conception of his subject permitted it. In almost all his more remarkable pictures of the Blessed Virgin the seraphic saint figures prominently.

If the teacher ordinarily transmits his predilections and his zeal to his pupils, Benozzo Gozzoli, the cherished disciple of Fra Angelico, stands as another proof of the spirit which animated the holy friar of San Marco. “ Gozzoli,” says Rio,’ “is another star which con- tributed to the formation of the crown of glory by which the arts encircled the tomb of St. Francis.” His pictures are almost trans- parent in their chaste purity, singularly so those found in the Fran- ciscan church at Montefalco. When he had to paint the portrait of St. Francis he frequently copied the picture at San Marco. Strange to say, when Benozzo left these pure mountain regions to go to Florence, he seemed to lose his inspiration. His works ex- ecuted between 1464 and 1467 are said to rise scarcely above medi- ocrity. Yet the frescoes at Pisa, painted in the decline of his years, are simply marvels of what has been called the patriarchal style of Christian art.?

We might go on recounting painters, not only such as nourished their talents with the spirit communicated to them by men who had stood in direct relation to the Saint and his order, but such as were devoted to St. Francis as if he were still their only master; who learned nothing from those whom he had taught, but all from him- self; artists who flocked to the place of his birth, to the principal scene of his activity and now his earthly resting-place, as if to in- voke the aid of his spirit where they could be nearest to his re- mains—Pinturicchio and Perugino, whose art was so exquisite that it seemed altogether new—/ferdita st fuerat pingendi hic retulit artem ; si nusquam inventa est, hactenus ipse dedit;> Francia also, friend and rival of Raphael, with Giacomo his son and Giuglio his relative, who sought shelter even in death in the Church of St. Francis, where they are buried. Raphael himself, in his earlier works, has acknowledged the tribute he owed to St. Francis. And

1 “ The Poetry of Christian Art,” p. 133. 2 These have been restored lately, but, according to accounts, to their utter ruin, 3 Inscription cited by Orsini.

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The Influence of St. Francis of Assisi on Medieval Art. 57

when the Renaissance had given a new turn to art, even then Assisi was still the place where best men sought inspiration, and St. Francis still remained the subject and his glory the object of their labors. There was always enough to allure the artist to that singular spot, independent of the devout memory he might enter- tain of the saint. The eleven or twelve communities of Francis- cans, in devout procession moving to the tomb of the Saint, their solemn chants, above all, the stirring harmonies of the patriarchal choir, famous by the traditions of several ages, would attune the soul to the right appreciation of those marvellous frescoes that adorn the walls. Wherever the eye turns, from chancel to choir, naves all and dome, even the mosaiqued floors, are wrought by the hands of the Umbrian masters. Nay, the streets of the city itself are full of devout representations in painting, many of rare artistic merit, all breathing the love and spirit of St. Francis.

Even architecture contributes here in an altogether unique way to verify what we have said in the beginning, that the genius of St. Francis had impersonated everything. The architectural struc- ture of the Grand Basilica in Assisi expresses perfectly the idea of the life of St. Francis. “An Italian writer,’ says the Abbé Riche,’ “sees in the creation of so wonderful a monument a supernatural effect of divine Providence. He finds himself unable to explain in any other way its appearance at an age when mankind appeared scarcely to awake from barbarism and ignorance.”

Roman architecture, such as it existed before this time, expressed on the whole the idea of rest, of strength. It was, as such, not unworthy as an expression of the Christian faith and the security which it had begotten. But lately, the times had become troubled, not, indeed, with the troubles of the early persecutions, when men felt safest as they approached the torture-block—no, these were other troubles. Darkness of pride and strifes and false lights had dimmed the air, and they that felt the stifling atmosphere looked up and sought the pure light of the noonday, and prayed with raised heart and eye, as we see St. Francis pray, in ecstatic longing for the light. The Gothic architecture expressed, so to say, the new feeling. It was a striving upwards. Its long slender columns supporting the pointed arch seemed to end in heaven, all pointed to the infinite that awaits man.- But we see much more than this in the temple which enshrines the remains of St. Francis. There are here two churches,—we might say three,—one within the other. In them we have the twofold aspect of his life. His penitence, with its train of voluntary poverty, sacrifices, and suffering resignation, symbolized in the tomb of the saint, who lies there on the ground as he had desired to die, poor, with barely a shroud to cover him;

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58 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

and his monument, the little church of Portiuncula, built with his own hand and still untouched as he had left it. And high above it there tower in noble proportion the marble columns and Gothic dome, speaking to the beholder without his asking for the mean- ing of the symbol, of glorious and immortal transfiguration. Whilst the inner edifice pronounces the idea of humility, of sweet sadness, that plaintive, childlike hope which is at once full of diffidence in self and trust in the strength on which it leans ; the other expresses that ineffable joy which knows no limits and no bounds, rising higher and higher until it touches immortality. It was a beauti- ful but difficult thought to express. Nowhere has it been more successfully done than in this epic in stone at Assisi.

How much more might be said to show how the spirit of St. Francis was the mainspring which produced not merely the enthu- siasm and true love for the beautiful in art, but which gave to it at the same time subject, style, and artist, all, in fact, that made Christian art what it was in the Middle Ages.

And wherever the Sons of St. Francis went, whatever the name or garb or particular rule under which they perpetuated through- out long ages his teachings and his spirit, everywhere we see traces of that same enthusiasm for the arts. The convents and churches of the monks became the treasure-houses and nurseries of paint- ing and sculpture. Raphael, Guido Reni, Domenichino, gave them the best of their pencils in Rome. The Church of St. Francis at Rimini became one of the wonders of the age, for here worked, next to Giotto, his most illustrious disciples, and Giorgio da Ri- mini, who loved to call himself Giorgio Francesco. But it is time that we conclude our sketch.

Perhaps the reader has, to some extent, realized what the love of God ina single individual is able to effect for the benefit of succeeding generations. Art is certainly a valuable element in the production of human happiness, and the very eagerness with which éven its shadow and its counterfeit are sought, stands in confirmation of this truth. May we not hope for a chaster growth of true and elevated taste from the intercession of St. Francis ? Our venerable Pontiff, Leo XIII., has seen opportune to recom- mend, with fatherly solicitude, devotion to the Saint as a powerful means of counteracting the existing evils of modern society. And whilst in reality the conditions of our present society are funda- mentally different from those in the thirteenth century, when there was still a strong faith underlying all the vagaries of the human intellect and heart, yet the spirit of St. Francis, if we could revive it in its freshness, would heal many wounds, would undoubtedly diffuse a purer atmosphere round about the world of art. The humble monk out of the dark ages, he could bring light to us. May he vouchsafe to do so!

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Frequent Communion. 59

FREQUENT COMMUNION.

Joannis Bapt. Franzelin e Soc. Jesu. S. R. E. Cardinalis.

Tractatus de SS. Eucharistie Sacramento et Sacrificio. Rome: Ex. Typog. Polyglotta S. C. de Prop. Fide, 1879.

De Re Sacramentaria, Prelectiones Scholastica Dogmatica, quas habebat Aem. M. De Augustinis, S.J. Woodstock : Ex offic. typog. Collegii, 1878.

Theologie Dogmaticea Compendium. HH. Hurter, S. J. (@niponte. Libraria Academica Wagner, 188t. Le Confesseur de la Jeunesse. Rev. Pére L.J.M.Cros,S.J. Toulouse,

1577.

FT HE works here mentioned are a standing proof, if such were needed, of the untiring zeal of that great Society which has produced and still presents innumerable champions in every field of literature, and especially those who do valiant service not only in battling against error in its many modern forms, but also in pre- senting the entire system of the faith once delivered to the saints reasonably and distinctly. In every age, from their institution by St. Ignatius, and in nearly every country, they have been eminently the great thinkers of the Church, from the Council of Trent to that of the Vatican, in each of which their learning and piety were most conspicuous. Yet the practical work, enduring beyond any praise, is probably to be found in the vast erudition of their theologians, who constantly are engaged in enriching the Church of the living God, the mother they love so well, by their marvellous talent in presenting clearly and definitely the most abstruse doctrines, and making the same to be living verities for the salvation of souls. This is, indeed, the ulterior motive of the existence of that So- ciety which has for its motto the symbol A. M. D. G—Ad ma- jorem Det gloriam—emblazoned on its banner. And since the greater glory of God consists in the salvation of souls by making known the truth, it has always been the aim of these faithful sol- diers of the cross to excel in leading men to a knowledge of the means divinely instituted to attain the end of creation; to know, reverence, and adore their Creator, and thus forever be happy. The means of advancing in this nobler life of the soul, or spir- itual life, are found in the Church, which teaches authoritatively all truth. They may be called, in some sense, subjective and objec- tive. The former require, at all events, some correspondence with Divine grace; the latter include this, indeed, but by the institution of Christ possess in themselves an active principle, whereby cer-

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60 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

tain graces, not otherwise attainable, are conveyed to the soul of him who places no positive hindrance in the way. The former, always supposing sufficient foregoing grace to act, consist in a thoughtful consideration of one’s origin, destiny, and condition, —an examination of one’s life; meditation on truths which con- stantly present themselves to sober minds ; and finally, prayer, as the outburst of our needs to Him who can help us.

The Sacraments, however, are of an infinitely greater value, for they are the channels of God's mercy to man, and by the will of Jesus Christ, their Founder and Author, have the power of con- veying to the soul that grace which they signify; and this takes place by their own intrinsic worth wheresoever an absolute hin- drance be not interposed. This efficacy is contained in each, ac- cording to its nature.and the object of its institution, which object varies, indeed, according to the different conditions of life, covering every state of society in which men are found. The Sacraments, therefore, offer a complete armor against human frailty, or they lift fallen and disabled nature, which was never destroyed, but only wounded and weakened by original sin, and further depressed by actual transgressions; they give to our lives some foretaste of eternal peace; they elevate our minds to heavenly desires and make us wish for our heritage of true dignity.

Since, then, these are the chief means by and through which we can attain salvation, and since these learned theologians have com- pressed whole libraries into brief and concise shape, as witnessed above, it would be no easy task to formulate sufficient praise for the work accomplished. In order to do so, it would require something of the immense learning they themselves possess, for, speaking in their praise seems like the work of a tyro in arithmetic daring to dis- cuss concerning numbers with a perfect and accomplished mathe- matician. Toany, even the most superficial, reader, however, it must occur that the magnificent apparatus of doctrinal proof from the teaching of the Church, as shown by plain texts of Holy Scripture, not wrested or twisted to agree with preconceived opinions, but interpreted by the best hermeneutical and exegetical skill; the coinciding testimony of the Fathers, whose works are not ran- sacked and ravaged and forced to say what the writers never could have thought, and what is incoherent with all the rest of their writings, but the well-weighed-out teachings which are in perfect harmony with the body of doctrine they elsewhere inculcate— simplex duntaxat et unum. The doctors of the Church, whether Latin or Greek, fully collated, dispassionately interpreted, clearly understood by the ever living practical voice of tradition, are here marshalled in battle array before the thoughtful student. Well may the saints sing pzans of holy triumph for the overwhelming

Frequent Communion. 61

victory of the infallible Church, which is ever conquering, for she has and maintains superiority as the unflinching witness of truth throughout all ages. We may very fairly infer that our faith is little likely to suffer any diminution when such works, in marked earnestness, are con- stantly being edited, for they are but the echo of the living voice of these erudite professors, who have youth under their charge from every part of the world, drinking in deep draughts of wisdom "\ from the fountain and source of truth. The vigor of a living voice in the lecture-room, the magnetism of contact with active and ener- getic young minds, throbbing with anxious questionings, may be wanting in the dead reading of a book, however interesting that : book may be. But in these works we seem to live again, and far from having undergone any diminution, our ardor is in full flow. Not only the young student, but even the advanced theologian feels himself in an incomparably better condition than in former days. Here are the forcible arguments of all time placed before us in the most succinct manner; here we have easy access to the studies of those who have borne the toil of the day and the heat; here are " the well-formed conclusions of those who have collected from the most recondite, and to us inaccessible sources, all the learning of our predecessors. Not only these hidden stores have been lavishly bestowed upon us, but the modern wealth of science, the true as well as that “ falsely so-called” is not ignored, but duly grappled with by these men who spend their venerable lives in laboring for posterity. He who reaps the greatest advantage is, perhaps, not the stu- dent, just making his course of theology, but rather the priest who is on the mission, yet wishes to keep himself fairly well informed in what is to few an alluring study; for it is given to a very small number to have passed more than the mere threshold of the mighty temple of Theology. Now, he who is thrown into the carking cares of an ill-supplied mission has hardly any time to spare in gathering up the arguments of former years, or collecting the apt similes of the Fathers, however striking they may be. Over and above the fact that a full set of these authorities is cer- tainly not possessed by one in a thousand, even if the works were on hand, how many would have time, or patience, supposing even ability to undertake the search after testimonies, the colla- ting of them when found, the joining of them together into one synoptic whole, and, finally, the deducing of practical arguments. |

; We remember that a very learned Father once had the kindness to say to us that the only method of knowing an author, and, par- i | ticularly, any of the Fathers, is by reading him through and

through. How few have done this with any theological work?

62 American Catholic Quarterly Review.

What shall we say of the ponderous tomes of the Greek and Latin Fathers? Only those can have done so who had material time at their disposal.

Here, on the other hand, we have no want of industry ; no defi- cit of time unapplied; here is no deficiency in collecting, arranging, examining, and putting in system, what would cost years of trouble, as it costs the learned writers lives of toil and assiduitv, to collect and place in form before us a perfect harvest of well-se- lected crops.

These, surely, are reasons for thankfulness to the authors, quite in keeping with the modest demeanor justly to be observed by us; itis, therefore, by no means our purpose to speak of the relative merits of the treatises, for we admit our incompetence to criticise,—it is not our forte,—we rather admit the profound awe with which we look upon so much accumulated learning, and, in all sincerity, we dare to express even in public our heartfelt thank- fulness, and an earnest wish that all priests may obtain the works indicated, and make a diligent use of them.

Whilst we merely indicate our appreciation of the Dogmatical part referred to, it would be well that the practical portion, especially treated by the Rev. Father Cros, S. J., should be read carefully by our clergy. Few books have ever fallen in our way more sig- nally concise in their statements than is the work having for title Le Confesseur de la Jeunesse. It is a real treasure, not only for the practical direction of youth, but also of every age and condition of life. After giving in compendious words the facts belonging to Jansenism—that foul insurrection against the voice of legitimate authority, which spread insidiously and rapidly under the guise of superior sanctity, and deluded many Catholics, and left its trail of slime in so many different ways on the theology of France and Belgium and other countries—the assertion is made that the orig- inators of this sect had a design to withdraw the faithful both from their allegiance to the Sovereign Pontiff, which was evident, and from the use of the Sacraments, especially the two which are, and ought to be, of daily importance,—Penance and Holy Communion. Whether or not they actually foresaw what would be the logical effect of their teachings, they certainly obtained such influence over the press as to possess control over many of the spiritual works thence issued, and these were thoroughly saturated with the spirit of ostentatious severity characteristic of the leaders. Instead of bringing the sinner to Christ, in showing that the name Jesus signifies, in its full sense,“ He will save His people from their sins,”—St. Matth. i: 21, they represented Him as a formidable judge, who had no compassion until, by a full and rigorous course of justice, the offended majesty of God had been previously satis-

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fied. The power which He exercised for the benefit of sinners seemed rather a reward of their own good works than a merciful bestowal of omnipotent power by God upon men for the elevation of human nature. In the false theory held by them long and multiplied expiations were requisite in order to receive a favorable sentence. The texts of Scripture which present our Lord as hav- ing come “not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance,” were carefully kept in the background, whilst the terrific judg- ments of God upon the impenitent—and all were depraved en- tirely—were fitfully poured out after a truly Calvinistic method. The choice of a confessor was described as something which re- quired a matured judgment, of which the young were incapable in the nature of things, and the old, or more advanced in years, could not reasonably be expected to make. Then, it was made to be high treason to change one’s spiritual guide, and not even in religious communities was the selection free. The examination of conscience was to be made after the most strenuous style, and unless this had been rigorously carried out by the sinner he should be put off until he had done so to the satisfaction of the confessor, who was thus to impress upon his penitent the depth of his depravity. Added to all this, things were asserted to be sins which are not; precepts were made which nowhere appear as ob- ligatory ; they proclaimed that sins are possible of commission by us without any knowledge on our part; asserted the utterly de- praved nature of man; insisted on the confession of such circum- stances as do not change the nature of a sin ; reproached in harsh tones the poor sinner who, when he comes, stands much rather in need of help and encouragement, and who has this always in his favor, that the very fact of coming of his own accord is prima facie evidence of his good disposition and actual desire for advance.

The oppesite of all tenderness towards the sinner was a standing proof of heresy.

But, if they thus treated the ordinary sinner who had begun to feel, from the saddest experience, his need of the grace of the Sacrament of Penance, what shall we say of the harshness with which they pursued those who fell again? They kept them from the benefit of absolution, and consequently from Communion, under the specious pretext of thus rendering themselves worthy of par- ticipating in this reward of merit. And to keep up this illusion they constantly kept praising the “ primitive church,” as they were pleased to style those ages when a system of public penance had (what they should have mentioned) only a temporary place in the polity of the Church. Thence long exhortations on the //entes, or Weepers, who stood at the doors, and, bowed down in grief, testified the sincerity of their sorrow; or on the Prostratt, Audientes, et Con-

64 American Catholic Quarterly Review,

sistentes. In order to restore this pristine rigor, at least as much as possible, long and arduous penances were kept up after the siege of preparation for admission to first Communion, and between that and the subsequent one, and the intervals were made as pro- tracted as the case would admit. Directions of such impracticable character were given, that earthly duties could not be duly attended, and thus the frequenting of the Sacraments was rendered odious, all, mark you well, under the garb of the absolute necessity of greater preparation. The worst form of Jansenism cropped out, however, in the treatment of children and young persons. They were not heard in the sacred tribunal until a definite year had been attained. Even then, despite the fact that children are very dif- ferent in their precocious mental developments, absolution was in- variably refused until they were about to be stretched on the Pro- custean couch of a first Communion year. This was a favorite theory among the Jansenists, which found not a few imitators even among those who, had they only thought, would never have per- mitted such perversion of right reason.

After sucn lengthy arraignment of some of the charges proved against the Jansenists and their adherents, the learned author gives an instruction of the Holy Father, Pius IX., of happy memory, under date March 12th, 1855, to certain French prelates concern- ing the insufficient manner in which children are prepared for their first Communion, and the time and the method of taking care of them spiritually, both before and after. This instruction is given by the author in full, and deserves very particular mention.

“It has been represented to His Holiness that sacramental ab- solution is refused to young folks before their first Communion, leaving them, one cannot say on what theological principles, even up to the age of twelve or fourteen years, in a truly dangerous state, in a spiritual point of view.

“ Moreover, that even after their admission for the first time to the Holy Table, it is usual to debar them from Communion, even at the Paschal season, and to keep them from the same for a long time, in some places.

“ And that there are even seminaries where the custom reigns of keeping the young pupils for several months from Holy Com- munion, under the pretext of making a riper preparation.

“Knowing of what importance the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist are for keeping and preserving the innocence of youth ; knowing that the frequent use of the Sacraments contrib- utes admirably to the budding piety of these young hearts, we could hardly admit the exactness of these charges, despite the authority of those who attested them; nevertheless, information

Frequent Communion. 65

taken from various places established the fact that in a notable measure the ésordres signalés really exist.

“In consequence, the Holy Father, wishing to put an end to practices so contrary to the spiritual interests of youth, . . . asks you to reform such method, it being opposite to the spirit and dis- cipline of the Church.

“. . .. Thus we shall see that young people are everywhere admitted, in a suitable manner, to the frequenting of the Sacra- ments, and the deplorable customs to the contrary will disap- pear.”

The plan, therefore, of keeping young people from the benefit of the actual use of the Sacraments is distinctly condemned.

In reference to the age at which a child is bound to make the Paschal duty, we have the minimum fixed by the 1V. Council of Lateran : “ Postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, semel saltem confiteatur, suscipiens, reverenter,ad minus in Pascha, Eucharistiae Sacramentum.” The age of discretion is certainly-not the same for all children, but the weight of authority seems to denote the obligation as certainly binding in the tenth year; no #zimum is in any way fixed for permission to give Holy Communion, beyond the general words of the Council of Trent, session xxi., chap. iv., “Eadem Sancta Synodus docet, parvulos, usu rationts carentes, nulla obligari necessitate ad sacramentalem Eucharistiae Com- munionem,” whilst, in like manner, St. Thomas teaches, “ quando jam pueri incipiunt e/gualem usum rationis habere, ut possint de- votionem concipere hujus Sacramenti, tunc potest eis hoc Sacra- mentum conferri.”

If the adage, “train up a child in the way he ‘should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,” be the Scriptural ex- pression of “ the twig being bent, the tree will be inclined,” nothing can be of greater importance than the anticipating of evil in the tender mind of the child, by having our Lord to take possession before actual evil has had the chance to find a resting-place. As the Sacraments are not a recompense of virtues which we possess, but remedies against vice, and auxiliary forces divinely appointed, and necessary for even good wills, we should see that the child be placed betimes in proper guardianship. Now, since the year of one’s first Communion is usually the best spent, and experience seems to state that after one’s first Communion there is still and always marked need of sacramental grace, frequency of Communion should be inculcated, since Christ does not say: “If you receive absolution you shall have life——he who receiveth absolution re- mains in me and I in him,” but He does say: “ He that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me.”

Not only has no law ever been made discountenancing frequent

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Communion, but, on the contrary, the most ancient voice of the Church, the perpetual tradition as handed down by the Fathers, councils, and saints, as well as by all orthodox spiritual advisers, inculcates the advisability and even necessity of approaching often to this eternal fount of divine assistance.

What, then, are the dispositions absolutely required to make a fruitful communion? The Council of Trent, Sess. xiii., Chap. vii., says expressly: “ Ecclesiastica consuetudo declarat eam proba- tionem necessariam esse, ut nullus sibi conscius mortalis peccati, quantumvis sibi contritus videatur, absque pramissa sacramentali confessione ad Sacram Eucharistiam accedere debeat.”

In order to approach Holy Communion in such manner as to fulfil the apostle’s precept, “ Let a man prove himself” (1 Cor. xi., 28), it is not required that more should necessarily be done than to use such diligence as would be manifested by men who are seriously engaged in a matter of importance in every-day life. This in strict necessity requires, for the purpose in hand, a diligent in- spection of those sins which are known to a man’s conscience to be weighty, and the conscience of each is sure to speak when untrammelled. Should still further guidance in knowing sins be required, the spiritual director will judiciously impart the same. Then, detesting these sins, with an earnest purpose of amendment, make a true and entire confession of them, with a willingness to accept and perform the satisfaction imposed. Should it happen, as it very frequently does, that nothing serious weights the conscience, there is no law to hinder an approach to Holy Communion, and the fruit will certainly be produced by the efficacy of the Sacra- ment in virtue of the promise of Christ: “ He who eateth Me, the same shall live by Me” (St. John vi., 58). In either case there will be no fear of falling under the terrible ban of the apostle of “ eating or drinking ... unworthily ... not discerning the Body of the Lord” (1 Cor. xi., 27-29). This takes away the smallest pretext of calling the Sacrament of Penance a torture of conscience, con- scientia carnificinam, so much harped upon by ancient and modern heretics, and it entitles the sinner to that repose of soul which is otherwise not possible even on merely human grounds; much less can it be called a torture when there is a divine command to ex- amine, and, in conformity therewith, if serious sins appear, to con- fess, accept guidance, and hear the application of that power which Christ exercised, promised to the Church, and daily grants, through His priests, to the suitably disposed: ‘“ Whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained” (St. John xx., 23).

As to smaller faults, which have very justly the title of venza/, we have distinctly the teaching of the Council of Trent, Sess. xiv.,

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Chap. 5, “taceri citra culpam, multisque aliis remediis expiari possunt.” Hence, whilst we may confess them with great advan- tage, yet there is simply no obligation, per se, of doing so. The Council insists that the Eucharist is remedy for past, antidote against future sins, and aliment of grace for our souls, whence the doctrine may be summed up for the comfort of timid souls, that no antecedens, foregoing, venial sin can hinder the effect of this Divine Sacrament. That by no accompanying, concomitans fault (in one free from mortal sin) is an increase of habitual grace impeded, but no increase of sensible devotion is promised at all, or probable, in such case. “Sumi autem voluit Sacramentum hoc, tanquam spiritualem animarum cibum, quo alantur et confortentur viventes vita Illius qui dixit: ‘Qui manducat Me, et ipse vivet propter Me, et tanquam antidotum, quo liberemur a culpis quotidianis, et a peccatis mortalibus praservemur,’” Sess. xiii., Chap. 2.

The pious author finishes his work by stating that the whole object of it is chiefly to trace out the general method approved by the Church, through councils, doctors, and saints (whose testi- mony he produces), in the administration of the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. That these Sacraments must be used for the cure of souls, and that youth should be specially for-

tified by frequent approach to these sources of grace. It follows, and is subsequently touched upon, that with those who are already accustomed as young people to come to them greater fruits of sanctity may be lawfully and surely expected, but that to advance in the path of virtue without the use of the Sacraments is truly “il voler passar per l’aer’ senz’ali,’—an attempt to fly wingless.

American Catholic Quarterly Review,

THE IRISH SITUATION.

HE object of the following pages is to lay before the readers

of this Review an impartial and accurate estimate—so far

as the writer is able—of the forces and factors that are at work in

the solution of the Irish question at the present hour. Naturally,

if not logically, the first point of consideration will be the position

of the Gladstone Cabinet, and the change which the new Rules of Procedure have effected in the parliamentary machine.

A month or so ago, there were even cautious political observers ready to declare that the satisfactory results of the Egyptian cam- paign had secured for the government a fund of popular favor that could