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Title: Selections from the Prose Writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman

Subtitle: For the Use of Schools

Author: John Henry Newman

Release Date: November 7, 2012 [EBook #41310]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Sue Fleming, Michael and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

Front cover

CARDINAL NEWMAN.

MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.—SPECIAL NUMBER

SELECTIONS

FROM THE PROSE WRITINGS

OF

JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS

NEW YORK

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1906,

by

MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

5

CHARACTER SKETCHES:

Saul

13

Early Years of David

28

Basil and Gregory

45

Augustine and the Vandals

56

Chrysostom

84

THE TURK:

The Tartar and the Turk

111

The Turk and the Saracen

122

The Past and Present of the Ottomans

143

UNIVERSITIES

What is a University?

155

University Life: Athens

163

Supply and Demand: The Schoolmen

180

The Strength and Weakness of Universities: Abelard

186

MISCELLANEOUS:

Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics

200

The Infinitude of the Divine Attributes

218

Christ upon the Waters

222

The Second Spring

229

St.Paul's Characteristic Gift

251

NOTES

269

INTRODUCTION

It has come to be universally admitted that Cardinal Newman fulfills his own definition of a great author: "One whose aim is to give forth what he has within him; and from his very earnestness it happens that whatever be the splendor of his diction, or the harmony of his periods, he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity.

"Whatever be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its own sake.... He writes passionately because he feels keenly; forcibly, because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous.

"When his imagination wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right word for the right idea, and never a word too much....

"He expresses what all feel but cannot say; and his sayings pass into proverbs among his people, and his phrases become household words, idioms of their daily speech, which is tessellated with the rich fragments of his language, as we see in foreign lands the marbles of Roman grandeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern palaces."

Newman may be said to have handled England's prose as Shakespeare handled her verse. His language was wrought up little by little to a finish and refinement, a strength and a subtlety, thrown into the form of eloquence, beyond which no English writer of prose has gone. Nor is his excellence that of mere art in form; he possesses not only skill, which he calls an exercise of talent, but power—a second name for genius—which itself implies personality and points to inspiration.

His mind was large, logical, profoundly thoughtful, imaginative, intense, sincere, and above all, spiritual; his soul was keen, delicate, sympathetic, heroic; and his life, at once severe and tender, passionate and self-controlled, alone and unlonely, stands out in its loftiness and saintliness, a strange, majestic contrast to the agitation and turmoil of "confused passions, hesitating ideals, tentative virtues, and groping philanthropies" amidst which it was lived.

Both by word and work did Newman lead forth his generation on the long pilgrimage to the shrine of Truth, and England of the nineteenth century has no surer claim to holiness and genius for her great sons than that set upon John Henry Newman.

He was born in London, 1801; studied, taught, and preached at Oxford; became the chief promoter of the Tractarian Movement of 1833; entered the Catholic Church in 1845; founded the Oratory at Birmingham, 1848; was created Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. 1879; died at Edgbaston, 1890.

Any attempt to choose from the writings of Newman what seems most desirable for brief class studies is certain to be woefully embarrassed by the very wealth of matter; and apology for risking the choice would be due, were it not lost sight of in the desire to see a literary model so pure, varied, animated, forceful, luminous—"a thing of light and beauty"—given to our students.

What is more significant of the Life Book of the saintly Oxford Scholar than his self-written epitaph: "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem"?

APPRECIATIONS

Newman's best essays display a delicate and flexible treatment of language, without emphasis, without oddity, which hardly arrests the attention at first,—the reader being absorbed in the argument or statement,—but which, in course of time, fascinates, as a thing miraculous in its limpid grace and suavity.

—Edmund Gosse's History of Modern English Literature.

The work of Newman reveals him as one of the great masters of graceful, scholarly, finished prose. It is individual, it has charm, and this is the secret of its power to interest. No writer of our time has reflected his mind and heart in his pages as has Newman. He has light for the intellect and warmth for the heart.

—A. J. George's Types of Literary Art.

Newman towers, with only three or four compeers, above his generation; and now that the benignity of his great nature has passed from our sight, its majesty is more evident year by year.

—Scudder's Modern English Poets.

The finish and urbanity of Newman's prose have been universally commended even by those who are most strenuously opposed to his opinions.

—H. J. Nicoll.

All the resources of a master of English style are at Newman's command: pure diction, clear arrangement, delicate irony, gracious dignity, a copious command of words combined with a chaste reserve in using them.

All these qualities go to make up the charm of Newman's style—the finest flower that the earliest system of a purely classical education has produced.

—J. Jacobs's Literary Studies.

Newman combines a thoroughly classical training, a scholarly form, with the incommunicable and almost inexplicable power to move audiences and readers.

—George Saintsbury.

The pure style of Newman may be compared in its distinguishing quality to the atmosphere. It is at once simple and subtle, vigorous and elastic; it penetrates into every recess of its subject; it is transparent, allowing each object it touches to display its own proper color.

—H. E. Beeching's English Prose.

There are touching passages characteristic of Newman's writings which give them a peculiar charm. They are those which yield momentary glimpses of a very tender heart that has a burden of its own, unrevealed to man.... It is, as I have heard it described, as though he suddenly opened a book and gave you a glimpse for a moment of wonderful secrets, and then as quickly closed it.... In Newman's Sermons, how the old truth became new; how it came home, as he spoke, with a meaning never felt before! He laid his finger how gently, yet how powerfully, on some inner place in the hearer's heart, and told him things about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest truths, which it would have taken philosophers pages of circumlocution and big words to state, were dropped out by the way in a sentence or two of the most transparent Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet what strength! how simple, yet how suggestive! how penetrating, yet how refined! how homely, yet how tender-hearted! You might come away still not believing the tenets peculiar to the High Church System, but you would be harder than most men if you did not feel more than ever ashamed of coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, if you did not feel the things of faith brought closer to the soul.... Newman's innate and intense idealism is, perhaps, his most striking characteristic.... It is a thought of his, always deeply felt and many times repeated, that this visible world is but the outward shell of an invisible kingdom, a screen which hides from our view things far greater and more wonderful than any which we see, and that the unseen world is close to us and ever ready to break through the shell and manifest itself.

—Shairp.

Newman's great reputation for prose and the supreme interest attaching to his life seem to have obscured the fame he might have won as a poet. He was in poetry, as in theology, a more masculine Keble, but with all the real purity of Keble, with also the indispensable flavor of earth.

—H. Walker.

The Dream of Gerontius resembles Dante more than any other poetry written since the great Tuscan's time.

—Sir Henry Taylor.

The Dream is a rare poetic rendering into English verse of that high ritual which from the death-bed to the Mass of Supplication encompasses the faithful soul.... Newman has no marked affinities with English writers of his day. He is strikingly different from Macaulay, whose eloquence betrays the fury, as it is annealed in the fire, of the Western Celt. To Ruskin, who deliberately built up a monument, stately as the palace of Kubla Khan, he is a contrast, for the very reason that he does not handle words as if they were settings in architecture or colors in a palette; rather, he would look upon them as transparencies which let his meaning through. He is more like De Quincey, but again no player upon the organ for the sake of its music; and that which is common to both is the literary tradition of the eighteenth century enhanced by a power to which abstract and concrete yielded in almost equal degree.... With so prompt and intense an intellect at his call, there was no subject, outside purely technical criticism, which Newman could not have mastered.

—Barry's Literary Lives.

It is when Newman exerts his flexible and vivid imagination in depicting the deepest religious passion that we are most carried away by him and feel his great genius most truly.... Whether tried by the test of nobility, intensity, and steadfastness of his work, or by the test of the greatness of the powers which have been consecrated to that work, Cardinal Newman has been one of the greatest of our modern great men.

—R. H. Hutton's Life of Newman.

Newman's mind was world-wide. He was interested in everything that was going on in science, in the highest form of politics, in literature.... Nothing was too large for him, nothing too trivial, if it threw light upon the central question,—what man really is and what is his destiny.

—J. A. Froude.

In Newman's sketch of the influence of Abelard on his disciples is seen his belief in the immense power for good or ill of a dominating personality. And he himself supplied an object-lesson in his theory. Shairp, Froude, Church, Wilberforce, Gladstone, are only a few of those who have borne testimony to the personal magnetism which left its mark on the whole of thinking Oxford. "Cor ad cor loquitur," the motto chosen by Newman on his receiving the Cardinal's hat, expressed to him the whole reality of intercourse between man and man, and man and God.

—Wilfrid Ward's Problems and Persons.

Newman's mind swung through a wide arc, and thoughts apparently antagonistic often were to him supplemental each to each.... A man of dauntless courage and profound thoughtfulness, while his intellect was preëminently a logical one, both the heart and the moral sense possessed with him their sacred tribunals in matters of reasoning as well as of sentiment.... The extreme subtlety of his intelligence opposed no hindrance to his power of exciting vehement emotion.

—A. De Vere's Literary Reminiscences.

I. CHARACTER SKETCHES

SAUL

"I gave them a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath."—Hosea xiii. 11.

The Israelites seem to have asked for a king

from an unthankful caprice and waywardness.

The ill conduct, indeed, of Samuel's sons was the

occasion of the sin, but "an evil heart of

unbelief," to use Scripture language, was the real cause{5}

of it. They had ever been restless and

dissatisfied, asking for flesh when they had manna,

fretful for water, impatient of the wilderness, bent

on returning to Egypt, fearing their enemies,

murmuring against Moses. They had miracles{10}

even to satiety; and then, for a change, they

wished a king like the nations. This was the

chief reason of their sinful demand. And further,

they were dazzled with the pomp and splendor

of the heathen monarchs around them, and they{15}

desired some one to fight their battles, some

visible succor to depend on, instead of having

to wait for an invisible Providence, which came in

its own way and time, by little and little, being

dispensed silently, or tardily, or (as they might{20}

consider) unsuitably. Their carnal hearts did

not love the neighborhood of heaven; and, like

the inhabitants of Gadara afterwards, they prayed

that Almighty God would depart from their

coasts.

{5}

Such were some of the feelings under which they

desired a king like the nations; and God at length

granted their request. To punish them, He gave

them a king after their own heart, Saul, the son of

Kish, a Benjamite; of whom the text speaks in{10}

these terms, "I gave them a king in Mine anger,

and took him away in My wrath."

There is, in true religion, a sameness, an absence

of hue and brilliancy, in the eyes of the natural

man; a plainness, austereness, and (what he {15}

considers) sadness. It is like the heavenly manna of

which the Israelites complained, insipid, and at

length wearisome, "like wafers made with honey."

They complained that "their soul was dried

away." "There is nothing at all," they said,{20}

"beside this manna, before our eyes.... We

remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt

freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the

leeks, and the onions, and the garlick."[1]Such

were the dainty meats in which their soul{25}

delighted; and for the same reason they desired a

king. Samuel had too much of primitive

simplicity about him to please them, they felt they

were behind the world, and clamored to be put

on a level with the heathen.{30}

[1] Exod. xvi.; Numb. xi. 5.

Saul, the king whom God gave them, had much

to recommend him to minds thus greedy of the

dust of the earth. He was brave, daring,

resolute; gifted, too, with strength of body as well

as of mind—a circumstance which seems to{5}

have attracted their admiration. He is described

in person as if one of those sons of Anak, before

whose giant-forms the spies of the Israelites in the

wilderness were as grasshoppers—"a choice

young man, and a goodly; there was not among{10}

the children of Israel a goodlier person than he:

from his shoulders and upward he was higher

than any of the people."[2] Both his virtues and

his faults were such as became an eastern monarch,

and were adapted to secure the fear and{15}

submission of his subjects. Pride, haughtiness,

obstinacy, reserve, jealousy, caprice—these, in

their way, were not unbecoming qualities in the

king after whom their imaginations roved. On

the other hand, the better parts of his character{20}

were of an excellence sufficient to engage the

affection of Samuel himself.

[2] 1 Sam. ix. 2—vide ibid. x. 23.

As to Samuel, his conduct is far above human

praise. Though injuriously treated by his countrymen,

who cast him off after he had served them{25}

faithfully till he was "old and gray-headed,"[3] and

who resolved on setting over themselves a king

against his earnest entreaties, still we find no trace

of coldness or jealousy in his behavior towards

Saul. On his first meeting with him, he addressed{30}

him in the words of loyalty—"On whom

is all the desire of Israel? is it not on thee, and

on all thy father's house?" Afterwards, when he

anointed him king, he "kissed him, and said, Is it

not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be{5}

captain over His inheritance?" When he announced

him to the people as their king, he said,

"See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that

there is none like him among all the people?"

And, some time after, when Saul had irrecoverably{10}

lost God's favor, we are told, "Samuel came no

more to see Saul until the day of his death:

nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul." In the

next chapter he is even rebuked for immoderate

grief—"How long wilt thou mourn for Saul,{15}

seeing I have rejected him from reigning over

Israel?"[4] Such sorrow speaks favorably for

Saul as well as for Samuel; it is not only the grief

of a loyal subject and a zealous prophet, but,

moreover, of an attached friend; and, indeed,{20}

instances are recorded, in the first years of his

reign, of forbearance, generosity, and neglect of

self, which sufficiently account for the feelings

with which Samuel regarded him. David, under

very different circumstances, seems to have felt{25}

for him a similar affection.

[3] Ibid. xii. 2.

[4] 1 Sam. ix. 20; x. 1, 24; xv. 35; xvi. 1.

The higher points of his character are brought

out in instances such as the following: The

first announcement of his elevation came upon

him suddenly, but apparently without unsettling{30}

him. He kept it secret, leaving it to Samuel, who

had made it to him, to publish it. "Saul said

unto his uncle, He" (that is, Samuel) "told us

plainly that the asses were found. But of the

matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake,{5}

he told him not." Nay, it would even seem he

was averse to the dignity intended for him; for

when the Divine lot fell upon him, he hid himself,

and was not discovered by the people, without

recourse to Divine assistance. The appointment{10}

was at first unpopular. "The children of Belial

said, How shall this man save us? They despised

him, and brought him no presents, but he held his

peace." Soon the Ammonites invaded the

country beyond Jordan, with the avowed intention of{15}

subjugating it. The people sent to Saul for relief

almost in despair; and the panic spread in the

interior as well as among those whose country

was immediately threatened. The history

proceeds: "Behold, Saul came after the herd out of{20}

the field; and Saul said, What aileth the people

that they weep? and they told him the tidings

of the men of Jabesh. And the Spirit of God

came upon Saul, and his anger was kindled

greatly." His order for an immediate gathering{25}

throughout Israel was obeyed with the alacrity

with which the multitude serve the strong-minded

in times of danger. A decisive victory over the

enemy followed; then the popular cry became,

"Who is he that said, Shall Saul reign over us?{30}

bring the men, that we may put them to death.

And Saul said, There shall not a man be put to

death this day, for to-day the Lord hath wrought

salvation in Israel."[5]

[5] 1 Sam. xi. 12, 13.

Thus personally qualified, Saul was, moreover,

a prosperous king. He had been appointed to{5}

subdue the enemies of Israel, and success attended

his arms. At the end of the fourteenth chapter,

we read: "So Saul took the kingdom over Israel

and fought against all his enemies on every side,

against Moab, and against the children of{10}

Ammon, and against Edom, and against the kings of

Zobah, and against the Philistines; and

whithersoever he turned himself, he vexed them. And

he gathered an host, and smote the Amalekites,

and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that{15}

spoiled them."

Such was Saul's character and success; his

character faulty, yet not without promise; his

success in arms as great as his carnal subjects

could have desired. Yet, in spite of Samuel's{20}

private liking for him, and in spite of the good

fortune which actually attended him, we find that

from the beginning the prophet's voice is raised

both against people and king in warnings and

rebukes, which are omens of his destined{25}

destruction, according to the text, "I gave them a king in

Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath."

At the very time that Saul is publicly received as

king, Samuel protests, "Ye have this day rejected

your God, who Himself saved you out of all your {30}

adversities and your tribulations."[6] In a

subsequent assembly of the people, in which he

testified his uprightness, he says, "Is it not wheat

harvest to-day? I will call unto the Lord, and

He shall send thunder and rain; that ye may{5}

perceive and see that your wickedness is great, in asking

you a king." Again, "If ye shall still do wickedly,

ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king."[7]

And after this, on the first instance of disobedience

and at first sight no very heinous sin, the sentence{10}

of rejection is passed upon him: "Thy kingdom

shall not continue; the Lord hath sought Him a

man after His own heart."[8]

[6] 1 Sam. x. 19.

[7] Ibid. xii. 17, 25.

[8] Ibid. xiii. 14.

Here, then, a question may be raised—-Why

was Saul thus marked for vengeance from the{15}

beginning? Why these presages of misfortune,

which from the first hung over him, gathered, fell

in storm and tempest, and at length overwhelmed

him? Is his character so essentially faulty that

it must be thus distinguished for reprobation{20}

above all the anointed kings after him? Why,

while David is called a man after God's own heart,

should Saul be put aside as worthless?

This question leads us to a deeper inspection of,

his character. Now, we know, the first duty of{25}

every man is the fear of God—a reverence for His

word, a love of Him, and a desire to obey Him; and,

besides, it was peculiarly incumbent on the king of

Israel, as God's vicegerent, by virtue of his office, to

promote His glory whom his subjects had rejected.{30}

Now Saul "lacked this one thing." His

character, indeed, is obscure, and we must be cautious

while considering it; still, as Scripture is given us

for our instruction, it is surely right to make the

most of what we find there, and to form our{5}

judgment by such lights as we possess. It would

appear, then, that Saul was never under the

abiding influence of religion, or, in Scripture language,

"the fear of God," however he might be at times

moved and softened. Some men are inconsistent{10}

in their conduct, as Samson; or as Eli, in a

different way; and yet may have lived by faith,

though a weak faith. Others have sudden falls,

as David had. Others are corrupted by

prosperity, as Solomon. But as to Saul, there is no{15}

proof that he had any deep-seated religious

principle at all; rather, it is to be feared, that his

history is a lesson to us, that the "heart of unbelief"

may exist in the very sight of God, may rule a man

in spite of many natural advantages of character,{20}

in the midst of much that is virtuous, amiable,

and commendable.

Saul, it would seem, was naturally brave,

active, generous, and patient; and what nature

made him, such he remained, that is, without{25}

improvement; with virtues which had no value,

because they required no effort, and implied the

influence of no principle. On the other hand,

when we look for evidence of his faith, that is, his

practical sense of things unseen, we discover{30}

instead a deadness to all considerations not connected

with the present world. It is his habit to

treat prophet and priest with a coldness, to say

the least, which seems to argue some great internal

defect. It would not be inconsistent with the

Scripture account of him, even should the real{5}

fact be, that (with some general notions

concerning the being and providence of God) he doubted

of the divinity of the Dispensation of which he was

an instrument. The circumstance which first

introduces him to the inspired history is not in his{10}

favor. While in search of his father's asses,

which were lost, he came to the city where

Samuel was; and though Samuel was now an old

man, and from childhood known as the especial

minister and prophet of the God of Israel, Saul{15}

seems to have considered him as a mere diviner,

such as might be found among the heathen, who,

for "the fourth part of a shekel of silver," would

tell him his way.

The narrative goes on to mention, that after his{20}

leaving Samuel "God gave him another heart,"

and on meeting a company of prophets, "the

Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied

among them." Upon this, "all that knew him

beforetime" said, "What is this that is come unto{25}

the son of Kish: is Saul also among the prophets?

... therefore it became a proverb." From this

narrative we gather, that his carelessness and

coldness in religious matters were so notorious,

that, in the eyes of his acquaintance, there was{30}

a certain strangeness and incongruity, which at

once struck the mind, in his being associated with

a school of the prophets.

Nor have we any reason to believe, from the

after history, that the Divine gift, then first

imparted, left any religious effect upon his mind.{5}

At a later period of his life we find him suddenly

brought under the same sacred influence on his

entering the school where Samuel taught; but,

instead of softening him, its effect upon his

outward conduct did but testify the fruitlessness of{10}

Divine grace when acting upon a will obstinately

set upon evil.

The immediate occasion of his rejection was his

failing under a specific trial of his obedience, as

set before him at the very time he was anointed.{15}

He had collected with difficulty an army against

the Philistines; while waiting for Samuel to offer

the sacrifice, his people became dispirited, and

began to fall off and return home. Here he was

doubtless exposed to the temptation of taking{20}

unlawful measures to put a stop to their defection.

But when we consider that the act to which he was

persuaded was no less than that of his offering

sacrifice—he being neither priest nor prophet,

nor having any commission thus to interfere{25}

with the Mosaic ritual—it is plain "his forcing

himself" to do so (as he tenderly described his

sin) was a direct profaneness—a profaneness

which implied that he was careless about forms,

which in this world will ever be essential to{30}

things supernatural, and thought it mattered

little whether he acted in God's way or in his

own.

After this, he seems to have separated himself

from Samuel, whom he found unwilling to become

his instrument, and to have had recourse to the{5}

priesthood instead. Ahijah or Ahimelech (as he

is afterwards called), the high priest, followed his

camp; and the ark, too, in spite of the warning

conveyed by the disasters which attended the

presumptuous use of it in the time of Eli. "And{10}

Saul said unto Ahijah, Bring hither the ark of

God;" while it was brought, a tumult which was

heard in the camp of the Philistines increased.

On this interruption Saul irreverently put the ark

aside, and went out to the battle.{15}

It will be observed, that there was no professed

or intentional irreverence in Saul's conduct; he

was still on the whole the same he had ever been.

He outwardly respected the Mosaic

ritual—about this time he built his first altar to the Lord,[9]{20}

and in a certain sense seemed to acknowledge God's

authority. But nothing shows he considered that

there was any vast distinction between Israel and

the nations around them. He was indifferent, and

cared for none of these things. The chosen people{25}

desired a king like the nations, and such a one

they received.

[9] 1 Sam. xiv. 35.

After this he was commanded to "go and smite

the sinners, the Amalekites, and utterly destroy

them and their cattle." This was a judgment on{30}

them which God had long decreed, though He had

delayed it; and He now made Saul the minister

of His vengeance. But Saul performed it so far

only as fell in with his own inclination and

purposes. He smote, indeed, the Amalekites, and{5}

"destroyed all the people with the edge of the

sword"—this exploit had its glory; the best of

the flocks and herds he spared, and why? to

sacrifice therewith to the Lord. But since God

had expressly told him to destroy them, what{10}

was this but to imply, that Divine intimations had

nothing to do with such matters? what was it but

to consider that the established religion was but

a useful institution, or a splendid pageant

suitable to the dignity of monarchy, but resting on no{15}

unseen supernatural sanction? Certainly he in

no sense acted in the fear of God, with the wish

to please Him, and the conviction that he was in

His sight. One might consider it mere pride and

willfulness in him, acting in his own way because{20}

it was his own (which doubtless it was in great

measure), except that he appears to have had an

eye to the feelings and opinions of men as to his

conduct, though not to God's judgment. He

"feared the people and obeyed their voice."{25}

Again, he spared Agag, the king of the

Amalekites. Doubtless he considered Agag as "his

brother," as Ahab afterwards called Ben-hadad.

Agag was a king, and Saul observed towards him

that courtesy and clemency which earthly{30}

monarchs observe one towards another, and rightly

when no Divine command comes in the way. But

the God of Israel required a king after His own

heart, jealous of idolatry; the people had desired

a king like the nations around them.

It is remarkable, moreover, that while he spared {5}

Agag, he attempted to exterminate the Gibeonites

with the sword, who were tolerated in Israel by

virtue of an oath taken in their favor by Joshua

and "the princes of the congregation." This he

did "in his zeal to the children of Israel and{10}

Judah."[10]

[10] Josh. ix. 2; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-5.

From the time of his disobedience in the matter

of Amalek, Samuel came no more to see Saul,

whose season of probation was over. The evil

spirit exerted a more visible influence upon him;{15}

and God sent Samuel to anoint David privately,

as the future king of Israel. I need not trace

further the course of moral degradation which is

exemplified in Saul's subsequent history. Mere

natural virtue wears away, when men neglect to {20}

deepen it into religious principle. Saul appears

in his youth to be unassuming and forbearing;

in advanced life he is not only proud and gloomy

(as he ever was in a degree), but cruel, resentful,

and hard-hearted, which he was not in his youth.{25}

His injurious treatment of David is a long

history; but his conduct to Ahimelech, the high

priest, admits of being mentioned here.

Ahimelech assisted David in his escape. Saul resolved

on the death of Ahimelech and all his father's{30}

house.[11] On his guards refusing to execute his

command, Doeg, a man of Edom, one of the

nations which Saul was raised up to withstand,

undertook the atrocious deed. On that day,

eighty-five priests were slain. Afterwards Nob,{5}

the city of the priests, was smitten with the edge

of the sword, and all destroyed, "men and women,

children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and

sheep." That is, Saul executed more complete

vengeance on the descendants of Levi, the sacred{10}

tribe, than on the sinners, the Amalekites, who

laid wait for Israel in the way, on their going up

from Egypt.

[11] 1 Sam. xxii. 16.

Last of all, he finishes his bad history by an open

act of apostasy from the God of Israel. His last{15}

act is like his first, but more significant. He

began, as we saw, by consulting Samuel as a diviner;

this showed the direction of his mind. It steadily

persevered in its evil way—and he ends by

consulting a professed sorceress at Endor. The{20}

Philistines had assembled their hosts; Saul's

heart trembled greatly—he had no advisers or

comforters; Samuel was dead—the priests he had

himself slain with the sword. He hoped, by magic

rites, which he had formerly denounced, to{25}

foresee the issue of the approaching battle. God

meets him even in the cave of Satanic

delusions—but as an Antagonist. The reprobate king

receives, by the mouth of dead Samuel, who had

once anointed him, the news that he is to be{30}

"taken away in God's wrath"—that the Lord

would deliver Israel, with him, into the hands of

the Philistines, and that on the morrow he and his

sons should be numbered with the dead.[12]

[12] 1 Sam. xxviii. 19.

The next day "the battle went sore against him,{5}

the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of

the archers."[13] "Anguish came upon him,"[14] and

he feared to fall into the hands of the

uncircumcised. He desired his armor-bearer to draw his

sword and thrust him through therewith. On his{10}

refusing, he fell upon his own sword, and so came

to his end.

[13] Ibid. xxxi. 3.

[14] 2 Sam. i. 9.

EARLY YEARS OF DAVID

"Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him."—1 Samuel xvi. 18.

Such is the account given to Saul of David, in

many respects the most favored of the ancient

Saints. David is to be accounted the most

favored, first as being the principal type of Christ,

next as being the author of great part of the book{5}

of Psalms, which have been used as the Church's

form of devotion ever since his time. Besides, he

was a chief instrument of God's providence, both

in repressing idolatry and in preparing for the

gospel; and he prophesied in an especial manner{10}

of that Saviour whom he prefigured and preceded.

Moreover, he was the chosen king of Israel, a man

after God's own heart, and blessed, not only in

himself, but in his seed after him. And, further,

to the history of his life a greater share is given of{15}

the inspired pages than to that of any other of

God's favored servants. Lastly, he displays in

his personal character that very temper of mind

in which his nation, or rather human nature

itself, is especially deficient. Pride and unbelief{20}

disgrace the history of the chosen people; the

deliberate love of this world, which was the sin of

Balaam, and the presumptuous willfulness which

is exhibited in Saul. But David is conspicuous

for an affectionate, a thankful, a loyal heart{5}

towards his God and defender, a zeal which was

as fervent and as docile as Saul's was sullen,

and as keen-sighted and as pure as Balaam's was

selfish and double-minded. Such was the son

of Jesse the Beth-lehemite; he stands midway{10}

between Abraham and his predicted seed, Judah

and the Shiloh, receiving and transmitting the

promises; a figure of the Christ, and an inspired

prophet, living in the Church even to the end of

time, in his office, his history, and his sacred{15}

writings.

Some remarks on his early life, and on his

character, as therein displayed, may profitably

engage our attention at the present time.

When Saul was finally rejected for not{20}

destroying the Amalekites, Samuel was bid go to

Bethlehem, and anoint, as future king of Israel, one

of the sons of Jesse, who should be pointed out to

him when he was come there. Samuel

accordingly went thither and held a sacrifice; when, at{25}

his command, Jesse's seven sons were brought by

their father, one by one, before the prophet; but

none of them proved to be the choice of Almighty

God. David was the youngest and out of the

way, and it seemed to Jesse as unlikely that God's{30}

choice should fall upon him, as it appeared to

Joseph's brethren and to his father, that he and

his mother and brethren should, as his dreams

foretold, bow down before him. On Samuel's

inquiring, Jesse said, "There remaineth yet the

youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep."{5}

On Samuel's bidding, he was sent for. "Now

he was ruddy," the sacred historian proceeds,

"and withal of a beautiful countenance, and

goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise,

anoint him, for this is he." After Samuel had{10}

anointed him, "the Spirit of the Lord came upon

David from that day forward." It is added,

"But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul."

David's anointing was followed by no other

immediate mark of God's favor. He was tried{15}

by being sent back again, in spite of the promise,

to the care of his sheep, till an unexpected

occasion introduced him to Saul's court. The

withdrawing of the Spirit of the Lord from Saul was

followed by frequent attacks from an evil spirit, as{20}

a judgment upon him. His mind was depressed,

and a "trouble," as it is called, came upon him,

with symptoms very like those which we now

refer to derangement. His servants thought that

music, such, perhaps, as was used in the schools{25}

of the prophets, might soothe and restore him;

and David was recommended by one of them for

that purpose, in the words of the text: "Behold,

I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite,

that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant{30}

man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters,

and a comely person, and the Lord is with

him."

David came in the power of that sacred

influence whom Saul had grieved and rejected.

The Spirit which inspired his tongue guided his{5}

hand also, and his sacred songs became a medicine

to Saul's diseased mind. "When the evil spirit

from God was upon Saul, ... David took an

harp, and played with his hand; so Saul was

refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed{10}

from him." Thus he is first introduced to us in

that character in which he still has praise in the

Church, as "the anointed of the God of Jacob,

and the sweet psalmist of Israel."[15]

[15] 2 Sam. xxiii. 1.

Saul "loved David greatly, and he became his{15}

armor-bearer;" but the first trial of his humility

and patience was not over, while many other trials

were in store. After a while he was a second time

sent back to his sheep; and though there was war

with the Philistines, and his three eldest brethren{20}

were in the army with Saul, and he had already

essayed his strength in defending his father's

flocks from wild beasts, and was "a mighty

valiant man," yet he contentedly stayed at home

as a private person, keeping his promise of{25}

greatness to himself, till his father bade him go to his

brethren to take them a present from him, and

report how they fared. An accident, as it

appeared to the world, brought him forward. On

his arrival at the army, he heard the challenge of{30}

the Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath. I need

not relate how he was divinely urged to engage

the giant, how he killed him, and how he was, in

consequence, again raised to Saul's favor; who,

with an infirmity not inconsistent with the{5}

deranged state of his mind, seems to have altogether

forgotten him.

From this time began David's public life; but

not yet the fulfillment of the promise made to him

by Samuel. He had a second and severer trial{10}

of patience to endure for many years; the trial

of "being still" and doing nothing before God's

time, though he had (apparently) the means in his

hands of accomplishing the promise for himself.

It was to this trial that Jeroboam afterwards{15}

showed himself unequal. He, too, was promised

a kingdom, but he was tempted to seize upon it

in his own way, and so forfeited God's protection.

David's victory over Goliath so endeared him

to Saul, that he would not let him go back to his{20}

father's house. Jonathan, too, Saul's son, at once

felt for him a warm affection, which deepened into

a firm friendship. "Saul set him over the men

of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the

people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants."[16]{25}

This prosperous fortune, however, did not long

continue. As Saul passed through the cities from

his victory over his enemies, the women of Israel

came out to meet him, singing and dancing, and

they said, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and{30}

David his ten thousands." Immediately the

jealous king was "very wroth, and the saying

displeased him"; his sullenness returned; he

feared David as a rival; and "eyed him from that

day and forward." On the morrow, as David{5}

was playing before him, as at other times, Saul

threw his javelin at him. After this, Saul

displaced him from his situation at his court, and

sent him to the war, hoping so to rid himself of

him by his falling in battle; but, by God's{10}

blessing, David returned victorious.

[16] 1 Sam. xviii. 5.

In a second war with the Philistines, David was

successful as before; and Saul, overcome with

gloomy and malevolent passions, again cast at him

with his javelin, as he played before him, with the{15}

hope of killing him.

This repeated attempt on his life drove David

from Saul's court; and for some years after, that

is, till Saul's death, he was a wanderer upon the

earth, persecuted in that country which was{20}

afterwards to be his own kingdom. Here, as in his

victory over Goliath, Almighty God purposed to

show us, that it was His hand which set David on

the throne of Israel. David conquered his enemy

by a sling and stone, in order, as he said at the{25}

time, that all ... might know "that the Lord

saveth not with sword and spear; for the battle

is the Lord's."[17] Now again, but in a different

way, His guiding providence was displayed. As

David slew Goliath without arms, so now he{30}

refrained himself and used them not, though he

possessed them. Like Abraham, he traversed

the land of promise "as a strange land,"[18] waiting

for God's good time. Nay, far more exactly, even

than to Abraham, was it given to David to act and{5}

suffer that life of faith which the Apostle describes,

and by which "the elders obtained a good report."

By faith he wandered about, "being destitute,

afflicted, evil-entreated, in deserts, and in

mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth."{10}

On the other hand, through the same faith, he

"subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,

obtained promises, waxed valiant in fight, turned to

flight the armies of the aliens."

[17] 1 Sam. xvii. 47.

[18] Heb. xi. 9.

On escaping from Saul, he first went to Samuel{15}

to ask his advice. With him he dwelt some time.

Driven thence by Saul he went to Bethlehem, his

father's city, then to Ahimelech, the high priest,

at Nob. Thence he fled, still through fear of Saul,

to Achish, the Philistine king of Gath; and{20}

finding his life in danger there, he escaped to Adullam,

where he was joined by his kindred, and put

himself at the head of an irregular band of men, such

as, in the unsettled state of the country, might be

usefully and lawfully employed against the{25}

remnant of the heathen. After this he was driven to

Hareth, to Keilah, which he rescued from the

Philistines, to the wilderness of Ziph among the

mountains, to the wilderness of Maon, to the

strongholds of Engedi, to the wilderness of Paran. After{30}

a time he again betook himself to Achish, king of

Gath, who gave him a city; and there it was that

the news was brought him of the death of Saul in

battle, which was the occasion of his elevation first

to the throne of Judah, afterwards to that of all{5}

Israel, according to the promise of God made to

him by Samuel.

It need not be denied that, during these years of

wandering, we find in David's conduct instances

of infirmity and inconsistency, and some things{10}

which, without being clearly wrong, are yet

strange and startling in so favored a servant of

God. With these we are not concerned, except

so far as a lesson may be gained from them for

ourselves. We are not at all concerned with them{15}

as regards our estimate of David's character.

That character is ascertained and sealed by the

plain word of Scripture, by the praise of Almighty

God, and is no subject for our criticism; and if we

find in it traits which we cannot fully reconcile{20}

with the approbation divinely given to him, we

must take it in faith to be what it is said to be,

and wait for the future revelations of Him who

"overcomes when He is judged." Therefore I

dismiss these matters now, when I am engaged{25}

in exhibiting the eminent obedience and

manifold virtues of David. On the whole his situation

during these years of trial was certainly that of a

witness for Almighty God, one who does good and

suffers for it, nay, suffers on rather than rid{30}

himself from suffering by any unlawful act.

Now, then, let us consider what was, as far as

we can understand, his especial grace, what is his

gift; as faith was Abraham's distinguishing virtue,

meekness the excellence of Moses, self-mastery the

gift especially conspicuous in Joseph.{5}

This question may best be answered by

considering the purpose for which he was raised up.

When Saul was disobedient, Samuel said to him,

"Thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath

sought Him a man after His own heart, and the{10}

Lord hath commanded him to be captain over

His people, because thou hast not kept that which

the Lord commanded thee."[19] The office to

which first Saul and then David were called was

different from that with which other favored{15}

men before them had been entrusted. From the

time of Moses, when Israel became a nation, God

had been the king of Israel, and His chosen

servants, not delegates, but mere organs of His

will. Moses did not direct the Israelites by his{20}

own wisdom, but he spake to them, as God spake

from the pillar of the cloud. Joshua, again, was

merely a sword in the hand of God. Samuel was

but His minister and interpreter. God acted, the

Israelites "stood still and saw" His miracles, then{25}

followed. But, when they had rejected Him

from being king over them, then their chief ruler

was no longer a mere organ of His power and will,

but had a certain authority intrusted to him,

more or less independent of supernatural direction;{30}

and acted, not so much from God, as for

God, and in the place of God. David, when taken

from the sheepfolds "to feed Jacob His people and

Israel His inheritance," "fed them," in the words

of the Psalm, "with a faithful and true heart;{5}

and ruled them prudently with all his power."[20]

From this account of his office, it is obvious that

his very first duty was that of fidelity to Almighty

God in the trust committed to him. He had

power put into his hands, in a sense in which{10}

neither Moses had it nor Samuel. He was charged

with a certain office, which he was bound to

administer according to his ability, so as best to

promote the interests of Him who appointed him.

Saul had neglected his Master's honor; but{15}

David, in this an eminent type of Christ, "came

to do God's will" as a viceroy in Israel, and, as

being tried and found faithful, he is especially

called "a man after God's own heart."

[19] 1 Sam. xiii. 14.

[20] Ps. lxxviii. 71-73.

David's peculiar excellence, then, is that of{20}

fidelity to the trust committed to him; a firm,

uncompromising, single-hearted devotion to the

cause of his God, and a burning zeal for His

honor.

This characteristic virtue is especially{25}

illustrated in the early years of his life which have

engaged our attention. He was tried therein and

found faithful; before he was put in power, it

was proved whether he could obey. Till he came

to the throne, he was like Moses or Samuel, an{30}

instrument in God's hands, bid do what was told

him and nothing more;—having borne this trial

of obedience well, in which Saul had failed, then

at length he was intrusted with a sort of

discretionary power, to use in his Master's service.{5}

Observe how David was tried, and what

various high qualities of mind he displayed in

the course of the trial. First, the promise of

greatness was given him, and Samuel anointed

him. Still he stayed in the sheepfolds; and{10}

though called away by Saul for a time, yet

returned contentedly when Saul released him from

attendance. How difficult is it for such as know

they have gifts suitable to the Church's need to

refrain themselves, till God make a way for their{15}

use! and the trial would be the more severe in

David's case, in proportion to the ardor and

energy of his mind; yet he fainted not under it.

Afterwards for seven years, as the time appears

to be, he withstood the strong temptation, ever{20}

before his eyes, of acting without God's guidance,

when he had the means of doing so. Though

skillful in arms, popular with his countrymen,

successful against the enemy, the king's

son-in-law, and on the other hand grievously injured by{25}

Saul, who not only continually sought his life,

but even suggested to him a traitor's conduct

by accusing him of treason, and whose life was

several times in his hands, yet he kept his

honor pure and unimpeachable. He feared God{30}

and honored the king; and this at a time of

life especially exposed to the temptations of

ambition.

There is a resemblance between the early

history of David and that of Joseph. Both

distinguished for piety in youth, the youngest and{5}

the despised of their respective brethren, they

are raised, after a long trial to a high station,

as ministers of God's Providence. Joseph was

tempted to a degrading adultery; David was

tempted by ambition. Both were tempted to{10}

be traitors to their masters and benefactors.

Joseph's trial was brief; but his conduct under it

evidenced settled habits of virtue which he could

call to his aid at a moment's notice. A long

imprisonment followed, the consequence of his{15}

obedience, and borne with meekness and patience;

but it was no part of his temptation, because,

when once incurred, release was out of his power.

David's trial, on the other hand, lasted for years,

and grew stronger as time went on. His master,{20}

too, far from "putting all that he had into his

hand,"[21] sought his life. Continual opportunity

of avenging himself incited his passions;

self-defense, and the Divine promise, were specious

arguments to seduce his reason. Yet he mastered{25}

his heart—he was "still"; he kept his hands clean

and his lips guileless—he was loyal

throughout—and in due time inherited the promise.

Let us call to mind some of the circumstances

of his steadfastness recorded in the history.{30}

[21] Gen. xxxix. 4.

He was about twenty-three years old when he

slew the Philistine; yet, when placed over Saul's

men of war, in the first transport of his victory,

we are told he "behaved himself wisely."[22]

When fortune turned, and Saul became jealous{5}

of him, still "David behaved himself wisely in

all his ways, and the Lord was with him." How

like is this to Joseph under different circumstances!

"Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved

himself very wisely he was afraid of him; and all{10}

Israel and Judah loved David." Again, "And

David behaved himself more wisely than all the

servants of Saul, so that his name was much set

by." Here, in shifting fortunes, is evidence of

that staid, composed frame of mind in his youth,{15}

which he himself describes in the one hundred

and thirty-first Psalm. "My heart is not haughty,

nor mine eyes lofty.... Surely I have behaved

and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his

mother."{20}

[22] 1 Sam. xviii. 5-30.

The same modest deportment marks his

subsequent conduct. He consistently seeks counsel

of God. When he fled from Saul he went to

Samuel; afterwards we find him following the

directions of the prophet Gad, and afterwards of{25}

Abiathar the high priest.[23] Here his character is

in full contrast to the character of Saul.

[23] Ibid. xxii. 5, 20; xxiii. 6.

Further, consider his behavior towards Saul,

when he had him in his power; it displays a most

striking and admirable union of simple faith and{30}

unblemished loyalty.

Saul, while in pursuit of him, went into a cave

in Engedi. David surprised him there, and his

companions advised to seize him, if not to take{5}

his life. They said, "Behold the day of which the

Lord said unto thee."[24] David, in order to show

Saul how entirely his life had been in his power,

arose and cut off a part of his robe privately.

After he had done it, his "heart smote him" even{10}

for this slight freedom, as if it were a disrespect

offered towards his king and father. "He said

unto his men, The Lord forbid that I should do

this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed,

to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he{15}

is the anointed of the Lord." When Saul left

the cave, David followed him and cried, "My

Lord the king. And when Saul looked behind

him, David stooped with his face to the earth

and bowed himself." He hoped that he could{20}

now convince Saul of his integrity. "Wherefore

hearest thou men's words," he asked, "saying,

Behold, David seeketh thy hurt? Behold, this

day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had

delivered thee to-day into mine hand in the cave:{25}

and some bade me kill thee.... Moreover, my

father, see, yea see the skirt of thy robe in my

hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe,

and killed thee not, know thou and see, that

there is neither evil nor transgression in mine{30}

hand, and I have not sinned against thee: yet

thou huntest my soul to take it. The Lord judge

between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me

of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon

thee.... After whom is the king of Israel come out?{5}

after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog,

after a flea. The Lord therefore judge ... and

see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of

thine hand." Saul was for the time overcome;

he said, "Is this thy voice, my son David? and{10}

Saul lifted up his voice and wept." And he said,

"Thou art more righteous than I; for thou hast

rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee

evil." He added, "And now, behold, I know well

that thou shalt surely be king." At another time{15}

David surprised Saul in the midst of his camp,

and his companion would have killed him; but

he said, "Destroy him not, for who can stretch

forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and

be guiltless?"[25] Then, as he stood over him, he{20}

meditated sorrowfully on his master's future

fortunes, while he himself refrained from

interfering with God's purposes. "Surely the Lord

shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or

he shall descend into battle and perish." David{25}

retired from the enemy's camp; and when at a safe

distance, roused Saul's guards, and blamed them

for their negligent watch, which had allowed a

stranger to approach the person of their king. Saul

was moved the second time; the miserable man,{30}

as if waking from a dream which hung about

him, said, "I have sinned; return, my son David

... behold, I have played the fool, and have erred

exceedingly." He added, truth overcoming him,

"Blessed be thou, my son David; thou shalt{5}

both do great things, and also shalt still prevail."

[24] 1 Sam. xxiv. 4.

[25] 1 Sam. xxvi. 9,

How beautiful are these passages in the history

of the chosen king of Israel! How do they draw

our hearts towards him, as one whom in his

private character it must have been an extreme{10}

privilege and a great delight to know! Surely,

the blessings of the patriarchs descended in a

united flood upon "the lion of the tribe of Judah,"

the type of the true Redeemer who was to come.

He inherits the prompt faith and magnanimity{15}

of Abraham; he is simple as Isaac; he is humble

as Jacob; he has the youthful wisdom and

self-possession, the tenderness, the affectionateness,

and the firmness of Joseph. And, as his own

especial gift, he has an overflowing thankfulness,{20}

an ever-burning devotion, a zealous fidelity to

his God, a high unshaken loyalty towards his

king, an heroic bearing in all circumstances, such

as the multitude of men see to be great, but

cannot understand. Be it our blessedness, unless{25}

the wish be presumptuous, so to acquit ourselves

in troubled times; cheerful amid anxieties,

collected in dangers, generous towards enemies,

patient in pain and sorrow, subdued in good

fortune! How manifold are the ways of the{30}

Spirit, how various the graces which He imparts;

what depth and width is there in that moral truth

and virtue for which we are created! Contrast

one with another the Scripture Saints; how

different are they, yet how alike! how fitted for

their respective circumstances, yet how unearthly,{5}

how settled and composed in the faith and fear

of God! As in the Services, so in the patterns of

the Church, God has met all our needs, all our

frames of mind. "Is any afflicted? let him

pray; is any merry? let him sing Psalms."[26]{10}

Is any in joy or in sorrow? there are Saints at

hand to encourage and guide him. There is

Abraham for nobles, Job for men of wealth and

merchandise, Moses for patriots, Samuel for

rulers, Elijah for reformers, Joseph for those who{15}

rise into distinction; there is Daniel for the

forlorn, Jeremiah for the persecuted, Hannah for the

downcast, Ruth for the friendless, the

Shunamite for the matron, Caleb for the soldier, Boaz

for the farmer, Mephibosheth for the subject;{20}

but none is vouchsafed to us in more varied lights,

and with more abundant and more affecting

lessons, whether in his history or in his writings,

than he whose eulogy is contained in the words of

the text, as cunning in playing, and a mighty{25}

valiant man, and prudent in matters, and comely

in person, and favored by Almighty God. May

we be taught, as he was, to employ the gifts, in

whatever measure given us, to God's honor and

glory, and to the extension of that true and only{30}

faith which is the salvation of the soul!

[26] James v. 13.

BASIL AND GREGORY

"What are these discourses that you hold one with another, as you walk and are sad?"

I

The instruments raised up by Almighty God

for the accomplishment of His purposes are of

two kinds, equally gifted with faith and piety,

but from natural temper and talent, education,

or other circumstances, differing in the means by{5}

which they promote their sacred cause. The

first of these are men of acute and ready mind,

with accurate knowledge of human nature, and

large plans, and persuasive and attractive

bearing, genial, sociable, and popular, endued with{10}

prudence, patience, instinctive tact and decision

in conducting matters, as well as boldness and

zeal. Such in a measure we may imagine the

single-minded, the intrepid, the much-enduring

Hildebrand, who, at a time when society was{15}

forming itself anew, was the Saviour, humanly

speaking, of the City of God. Such, in an earlier age,

was the majestic Ambrose; such the

never-wearied Athanasius. These last-named

luminaries of the Church came into public life early,{20}

and thus learned how to cope with the various

tempers, views, and measures of the men they

encountered there. Athanasius was but

twenty-seven when he went with Alexander to the Nicene

Council, and the year after he was Bishop of

Alexandria. Ambrose was consecrated soon after{5}

the age of thirty.

Again, there is an instrument in the hand of

Providence, of less elaborate and splendid

workmanship, less rich in its political endowments,

so to call them, yet not less beautiful in its{10}

texture, nor less precious in its material. Such is

the retired and thoughtful student, who remains

years and years in the solitude of a college or a

monastery, chastening his soul in secret, raising

it to high thought and single-minded purpose,{15}

and when at length called into active life,

conducting himself with firmness, guilelessness, zeal

like a flaming fire, and all the sweetness of purity

and integrity. Such an one is often unsuccessful

in his own day; he is too artless to persuade, too{20}

severe to please; unskilled in the weaknesses of

human nature, unfurnished in the resources of

ready wit, negligent of men's applause,

unsuspicious, open-hearted, he does his work, and so

leaves it; and it seems to die; but in the{25}

generation after him it lives again, and on the long run

it is difficult to say which of the two classes of

men has served the cause of truth the more

effectually. Such, perhaps, was Basil, who issued

from the solitudes of Pontus to rule like a king,{30}

and minister like the lowest in the kingdom; yet

to meet little but disappointment, and to quit

life prematurely in pain and sorrow. Such was

his friend, the accomplished Gregory, however

different in other respects from him, who left his

father's roof for an heretical city, raised a church{5}

there, and was driven back into retirement by

his own people, as soon as his triumph over the

false creed was secured. Such, perhaps, St. Peter

Damiani in the middle age; such St. Anselm,

such St. Edmund. No comparison is, of course,{10}

attempted here between the religious excellence

of the two descriptions of men; each of them

serves God according to the peculiar gifts given

to him. If we might continue our instances

by way of comparison, we should say that St.{15}

Paul reminds us of the former, and Jeremiah of

the latter....

It often happens that men of very dissimilar

talents and tastes are attracted together by their

very dissimilitude. They live in intimacy for a{20}

time, perhaps a long time, till their circumstances

alter, or some sudden event comes, to try them.

Then the peculiarities of their respective minds

are brought out into action; and quarrels ensue,

which end in coolness or separation. It would{25}

not be right or true to say that this is exemplified

in the instance of the two blessed Apostles, whose

"sharp contention" is related in the Book of

Acts; for they had been united in spirit once for

all by a Divine gift; and yet their strife reminds{30}

us of what takes place in life continually. And it

so far resembled the everyday quarrels of friends,

in that it arose from difference of temper and

character in those favored servants of God.

The zealous heart of the Apostle of the Gentiles

endured not the presence of one who had swerved{5}

in his course; the indulgent spirit of Barnabas

felt that a first fault ought not to be a last trial.

Such are the two main characters which are found

in the Church,—high energy, and sweetness of

temper; far from incompatible, of course, united{10}

in Apostles, though in different relative

proportions, yet only partially combined in ordinary

Christians, and often altogether parted from each

other.

This contrast of character, leading, first, to{15}

intimacy, then to differences, is interestingly

displayed, though painfully, in one passage of the

history of Basil and Gregory: Gregory the

affectionate, the tender-hearted, the man of quick

feelings, the accomplished, the eloquent{20}

preacher,—and Basil, the man of firm resolve and hard

deeds, the high-minded ruler of Christ's flock,

the diligent laborer in the field of ecclesiastical

politics. Thus they differed; yet not as if they

had not much in common still; both had the{25}

blessing and the discomfort of a sensitive mind;

both were devoted to an ascetic life; both were

men of classical tastes; both were special

champions of the Catholic creed; both were skilled

in argument, and successful in their use of it;{30}

both were in highest place in the Church, the one

Exarch of Cæsarea, the other Patriarch of

Constantinople. I will now attempt to sketch the

history of their intimacy.

II

Basil and Gregory were both natives of

Cappadocia, but here, again, under different{5}

circumstances; Basil was born of a good family, and

with Christian ancestors: Gregory was the son of

the Bishop of Nazianzus, who had been brought

up an idolater, or rather an Hypsistarian, a

mongrel sort of religionist, part Jew, part Pagan.{10}

He was brought over to Christianity by the efforts

of his wife Nonna, and at Nazianzus admitted by

baptism into the Church. In process of time he

was made bishop of that city; but not having a

very firm hold of the faith, he was betrayed in{15}

360 into signing the Ariminian creed, which caused

him much trouble, and from which at length his

son recovered him. Cæsarea being at no

unsurmountable distance from Nazianzus, the two

friends had known each other in their own country;{20}

but their intimacy began at Athens, whither

they separately repaired for the purposes of

education. This was about A.D. 350, when each of

them was twenty-one years of age. Gregory

came to the seat of learning shortly before Basil,{25}

and thus was able to be his host and guide on his

arrival; but fame had reported Basil's merits

before he came, and he seems to have made his

way, in a place of all others most difficult to a

stranger, with a facility peculiar to himself. He

soon found himself admired and respected by

his fellow-students; but Gregory was his only

friend, and shared with him the reputation of{5}

talents and attainments. They remained at

Athens four or five years; and, at the end of the

time, made the acquaintance of Julian, since of

evil name in history as the Apostate. Gregory

thus describes in after life his early intimacy{10}

with Basil:

"Athens and letters followed on my stage;

Others may tell how I encountered them;—

How in the fear of God, and foremost found

Of those who knew a more than mortal lore;—{15}

And how, amid the venture and the rush

Of maddened youth with youth in rivalry,

My tranquil course ran like some fabled spring,

Which bubbles fresh beneath the turbid brine;

Not drawn away by those who lure to ill,{20}

But drawing dear ones to the better part.

There, too, I gained a further gift of God,

Who made me friends with one of wisdom high,

Without compeer in learning and in life.

Ask ye his name?—in sooth, 'twas Basil, since{25}

My life's great gain,—and then my fellow dear

In home, and studious search, and knowledge earned.

May I not boast how in our day we moved

A truest pair, not without name in Greece;

Had all things common, and one only soul{30}

In lodgment of a double outward frame?

Our special bond, the thought of God above,

And the high longing after holy things.

And each of us was bold to trust in each,

Unto the emptying of our deepest hearts;

And then we loved the more, for sympathy

Pleaded in each, and knit the twain in one."

The friends had been educated for rhetoricians,

and their oratorical powers were such, that they{5}

seemed to have every prize in prospect which a

secular ambition could desire. Their names were

known far and wide, their attainments

acknowledged by enemies, and they themselves personally

popular in their circle of acquaintance. It was{10}

under these circumstances that they took the

extraordinary resolution of quitting the world

together,—extraordinary the world calls it,

utterly perplexed to find that any conceivable

objects can, by any sane person, be accounted{15}

better than its own gifts and favors. They

resolved to seek baptism of the Church, and to

consecrate their gifts to the service of the Giver.

With characters of mind very different—the

one grave, the other lively; the one desponding,{20}

the other sanguine; the one with deep feelings,

the other with feelings acute and warm;—they

agreed together in holding, that the things that

are seen are not to be compared to the things that

are not seen. They quitted the world, while it{25}

entreated them to stay.

What passed when they were about to leave

Athens represents as in a figure the parting which

they and the world took of each other. When

the day of valediction arrived, their companions{30}

and equals, nay, some of their tutors, came about

them, and resisted their departure by entreaties,

arguments, and even by violence. This occasion

showed, also, their respective dispositions; for

the firm Basil persevered, and went; the

tender-hearted Gregory was softened, and stayed awhile{5}

longer. Basil, indeed, in spite of the reputation

which attended him, had, from the first, felt

disappointment with the celebrated abode of

philosophy and literature; and seems to have given up

the world from a simple conviction of its emptiness.{10}

"He," says Gregory, "according to the way of human

nature, when, on suddenly falling in with what we hoped

to be greater, we find it less than its fame, experienced

some such feeling, began to be sad, grew impatient, and

could not congratulate himself on his place of residence.{15}

He sought an object which hope had drawn for him;

and he called Athens 'hollow blessedness.'"

Gregory himself, on the contrary, looked at

things more cheerfully; as the succeeding

sentences show.{20}

"Thus Basil; but I removed the greater part of his

sorrow, meeting it with reason, and smoothing it with

reflections, and saying (what was most true) that

character is not at once understood, nor except by long time

and perfect intimacy; nor are studies estimated, by{25}

those who are submitted to them, on a brief trial and

by slight evidence. Thus I reassured him, and by

continual trials of each other, I bound myself to him."

—Orat. 43.

III

Yet Gregory had inducements of his own to{30}

leave the world, not to insist on his love of Basil's

company. His mother had devoted him to God,

both before and after his birth; and when he was

a child he had a remarkable dream, which made

a great impression upon him.

"While I was asleep," he says in one of his poems,{5}

which runs thus in prose, "a dream came to me, which

drew me readily to the desire of chastity. Two virgin

forms, in white garments, seemed to shine close to me.

Both were fair and of one age, and their ornament lay

in their want of ornament, which is a woman's beauty.{10}

No gold adorned their neck, nor jacinth; nor had they

the delicate spinning of the silkworm. Their fair robe

was bound with a girdle, and it reached down to their

ankles. Their head and face were concealed by a veil,

and their eyes were fixed on the ground. The fair glow{15}

of modesty was on both of them, as far as could be seen

under their thick covering. Their lips were closed in

silence, as the rose in its dewy leaves. When I saw

them, I rejoiced much; for I said that they were far

more than mortals. And they in turn kept kissing me,{20}

while I drew light from their lips, fondling me as a dear

son. And when I asked who and whence the women

were, the one answered, 'Purity,' the other, 'Sobriety';

'We stand by Christ, the King, and delight in the beauty

of the celestial virgins. Come, then, child, unite thy{25}

mind to our mind, thy light to our light; so shall we carry

thee aloft in all brightness through the air, and place

thee by the radiance of the immortal Trinity.'"

—Carm. p. 930.

He goes on to say, that he never lost the{30}

impression this made upon him, as "a spark of

heavenly fire," or "a taste of divine milk and

honey."

As far, then, as these descriptions go, one might

say that Gregory's abandonment of the world

arose from an early passion, as it may be called,

for a purity higher than his own nature; and

Basil's, from a profound sense of the world's

nothingness and the world's defilements. Both{5}

seem to have viewed it as a sort of penitential

exercise, as well as a means towards perfection.

When they had once resolved to devote

themselves to the service of religion, the question

arose, how they might best improve and employ{10}

the talents committed to them. Somehow, the

idea of marrying and taking orders, or taking

orders and marrying, building or improving their

parsonages, and showing forth the charities, the

humanities, and the gentilities of a family man,{15}

did not suggest itself to their minds. They fancied

that they must give up wife, children, property,

if they would be perfect; and, this being taken

for granted, that their choice lay between two

modes of life, both of which they regarded as{20}

extremes. Here, then, for a time, they were in

some perplexity. Gregory speaks of two ascetic

disciplines, that of the solitary or hermit, and that

of the secular;[27] one of which, he says, profits

a man's self, the other his neighbor. Midway,{25}

however, between these lay the Cœnobite, or

what we commonly call the monastic; removed

from the world, yet acting in a certain select

circle. And this was the rule which the friends

at length determined to adopt, withdrawing from{30}

mixed society in order to be of the greater service

to it.

[27] [Greek: azyges] and [Greek: migades].

The following is the passage in which Gregory

describes the life which was the common choice

of both of them:{5}

"Fierce was the whirlwind of my storm-toss'd mind,

Searching,'mid holiest ways, a holier still.

Long had I nerved me, in the depths to sink

Thoughts of the flesh, and then more strenuously.

Yet, while I gazed upon diviner aims,{10}

I had not wit to single out the best:

For, as is aye the wont in things of earth,

Each had its evil, each its nobleness.

I was the pilgrim of a toilsome course,

Who had o'erpast the waves, and now look'd round,{15}

With anxious eye, to track his road by land.

Then did the awful Thesbite's image rise,

His highest Carmel, and his food uncouth;

The Baptist wealthy in his solitude;

And the unencumbered sons of Jonadab.{20}

But soon I felt the love of holy books,

The spirit beaming bright in learned lore,

Which deserts could not hear, nor silence tell.

Long was the inward strife, till ended thus:—

I saw, when men lived in the fretful world,{25}

They vantaged other men, but risked the while

The calmness and the pureness of their hearts.

They who retired held an uprighter port,

And raised their eyes with quiet strength towards heaven;

Yet served self only, unfraternally.{30}

And so, 'twixt these and those, I struck my path,

To meditate with the free solitary,

Yet to live secular, and serve mankind."

AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS

"The just perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and men of mercy are taken away, for there is none to understand; for the just man is taken away from before the face of evil."

I

I began by directing the reader's attention to

the labors of two great bishops, who restored

the faith of Christianity where it had long been

obscured. Now, I will put before him, by way

of contrast, a scene of the overthrow of{5}

religion,—the extinction of a candlestick,—effected, too,

by champions of the same heretical creed which

Basil and Gregory successfully resisted. It will

be found in the history of the last days of the

great Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa.{10}

The truth triumphed in the East by the power of

preaching; it was extirpated in the South by the

edge of the sword.

Though it may not be given us to appropriate

the prophecies of the Apocalypse to the real{15}

events to which they belong, yet it is impossible

to read its inspired pages, and then to turn to

the dissolution of the Roman empire, without

seeing a remarkable agreement, on the whole,

between the calamities of that period and the{20}

sacred prediction. There is a plain announcement

in the inspired page, of "Woe, woe, woe, to

the inhabitants of the earth"; an announcement

of "hail and fire mingled with blood," the

conflagration of "trees and green grass," the

destruction of ships, the darkening of the sun, and the{5}

poisoning of the rivers over a third of their course.

There is a clear prophecy of revolutions on the

face of the earth and in the structure of society.

And, on the other hand, let us observe how fully

such general foretokenings are borne out, among{10}

other passages of history, in the Vandalic

conquest of Africa.

The coast of Africa, between the great desert

and the Mediterranean, was one of the most

fruitful and opulent portions of the Roman world.{15}

The eastern extremity of it was more especially

connected with the empire, containing in it

Carthage, Hippo, and other towns, celebrated as

being sees of the Christian Church, as well as

places of civil importance. In the spring of the{20}

year 428, the Vandals, Arians by creed, and

barbarians by birth and disposition, crossed the

Straits of Gibraltar, and proceeded along this

fertile district, bringing with them devastation

and captivity on every side. They abandoned{25}

themselves to the most savage cruelties and

excesses. They pillaged, ravaged, burned,

massacred all that came in their way, sparing not even

the fruit trees, which might have afforded some

poor food to the remnant of the population, who{30}

had escaped from them into caves, the recesses

of the mountains, or into vaults. Twice did this

desolating pestilence sweep over the face of the

country.

The fury of the Vandals was especially exercised

towards the memorials of religion. Churches,{5}

cemeteries, monasteries, were objects of their

fiercest hatred and most violent assaults. They

broke into the places of worship, cut to pieces all

internal decorations, and then set fire to them.

They tortured bishops and clergy with the hope of{10}

obtaining treasure. The names of some of the

victims of their ferocity are preserved. Mansuetus,

Bishop of Utica, was burnt alive; Papinianus,

Bishop of Vite, was laid upon red-hot plates of

iron. This was near upon the time when the{15}

third General Council was assembling at Ephesus,

which, from the insecure state of the roads, and

the universal misery which reigned among them,

the African bishops were prevented from

attending. The Clergy, the religious brotherhoods, the{20}

holy virgins, were scattered all over the country.

The daily sacrifice was stopped, the sacraments

could not be obtained, the festivals of the Church

passed unnoticed. At length, only three cities

remained unvisited by the general{25}

desolation,—Carthage, Hippo, and Cirtha.

II

Hippo was the see of St. Austin, then

seventy-four years of age (forty almost of which had been

passed in ministerial labors), and warned, by

the law of nature, of the approach of dissolution.

It was as if the light of prosperity and peace

were fading away from the African Church, as

sank the bodily powers of its great earthly

ornament and stay. At this time, when the terrors{5}

of the barbaric invasion spread on all sides, a

bishop wrote to him to ask whether it was allowable

for the ruler of a Church to leave the scene of his

pastoral duties in order to save his life.

Different opinions had heretofore been expressed on{10}

this question. In Augustine's own country

Tertullian had maintained that flight was unlawful,

but he was a Montanist when he so wrote. On

the other hand, Cyprian had actually fled, and

had defended his conduct when questioned by{15}

the clergy of Rome. His contemporaries,

Dionysius of Alexandria, and Gregory of Neocæsarea,

had fled also; as had Polycarp before them, and

Athanasius after them.

Athanasius also had to defend his flight, and he{20}

defended it, in a work still extant, thus: First,

he observes, it has the sanction of numerous

Scripture precedents. Thus, in the instance of

confessors under the old covenant, Jacob fled

from Esau, Moses from Pharao, David from Saul;{25}

Elias concealed himself from Achab three years,

and the sons of the prophets were hid by Abdias

in a cave from Jezebel. In like manner under

the Gospel, the disciples hid themselves for fear

of the Jews, and St. Paul was let down in a basket{30}

over the wall at Damascus. On the other hand,

no instance can be adduced of overboldness and

headstrong daring in the saints of Scripture.

But our Lord Himself is the chief exemplar of

fleeing from persecution. As a child in arms He

had to flee into Egypt. When He returned, He{5}

still shunned Judea, and retired to Nazareth.

After raising Lazarus, on the Jews seeking His

life, "He walked no more openly among them,"

but retreated to the neighborhood of the desert.

When they took up stones to cast at Him, He{10}

hid Himself; when they attempted to cast Him

down headlong, He made His way through them;

when He heard of the Baptist's death, He retired

across the lake into a desert place, apart. If it

be said that He did so, because His time was not{15}

yet come, and that when it was come, He

delivered up Himself, we must ask, in reply, how a

man can know that his time is come, so as to

have a right to act as Christ acted? And since

we do not know, we must have patience; and,{20}

till God by His own act determines the time, we

must "wander in sheepskins and goatskins,"

rather than take the matter into our own hands;

as even Saul, the persecutor, was left by David

in the hands of God, whether He would "strike{25}

him, or his day should come to die, or he should

go down to battle and perish."

If God's servants, proceeds Athanasius, have

at any time presented themselves before their

persecutors, it was at God's command: thus Elias{30}

showed himself to Achab; so did the prophet

from Juda, to Jeroboam; and St. Paul appealed

to Cæsar. Flight, so far from implying

cowardice, requires often greater courage than not to

flee. It is a greater trial of heart. Death is an

end of all trouble; he who flees is ever expecting{5}

death, and dies daily. Job's life was not to be

touched by Satan, yet was not his fortitude

shown in what he suffered? Exile is full of

miseries. The after-conduct of the saints showed

they had not fled for fear. Jacob, on his{10}

death-bed, contemned death, and blessed each of the

twelve Patriarchs; Moses returned, and

presented himself before Pharao; David was a

valiant warrior; Elias rebuked Achab and

Ochazias; Peter and Paul, who had once hid{15}

themselves, offered themselves to martyrdom at

Rome. And so acceptable was the previous

flight of these men to Almighty God, that we

read of His showing them some special favor

during it. Then it was that Jacob had the{20}

vision of Angels; Moses saw the burning bush;

David wrote his prophetic Psalms; Elias raised

the dead, and gathered the people on Mount

Carmel. How would the Gospel ever have been

preached throughout the world, if the Apostles{25}

had not fled? And, since their time, those, too,

who have become martyrs, at first fled; or, if they

advanced to meet their persecutors, it was by

some secret suggestion of the Divine Spirit. But,

above all, while these instances abundantly{30}

illustrate the rule of duty in persecution, and the

temper of mind necessary in those who observe

it, we have that duty itself declared in a plain

precept by no other than our Lord: "When they

shall persecute you in this city," He says, "flee

into another;" and "let them that are in Judea{5}

flee unto the mountains."

Thus argues the great Athanasius, living in

spirit with the saints departed, while full of

labor and care here on earth. For the

arguments on the other side, let us turn to a writer,{10}

not less vigorous in mind, but less subdued in

temper. Thus writes Tertullian on the same

subject, then a Montanist, a century and a half

earlier: Nothing happens, he says, without

God's will. Persecution is sent by Him, to put{15}

His servants to the test; to divide between good

and bad: it is a trial; what man has any right

to interfere? He who gives the prize, alone can

assign the combat. Persecution is more than

permitted, it is actually appointed by Almighty{20}

God. It does the Church much good, as leading

Christians to increased seriousness while it lasts.

It comes and goes at God's ordering. Satan

could not touch Job, except so far as God gave

permission. He could not touch the Apostles,{25}

except as far as an opening was allowed in the

words, "Satan hath desired to have you, but I

have prayed for thee," Peter, "and thou, being

once converted, confirm thy brethren." We

pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver{30}

us from evil;" why, if we may deliver ourselves?

Satan is permitted access to us, either for

punishment, as in Saul's case, or for our chastisement.

Since the persecution comes from God, we may

not lawfully avoid it, nor can we avoid it. We

cannot, because He is all powerful; we must not,{5}

because He is all good. We should leave the

matter entirely to God. As to the command of

fleeing from city to city, this was temporary. It

was intended to secure the preaching of the

Gospel to the nations. While the Apostles preached{10}

to the Jews,—till they had preached to the

Gentiles,—they were to flee; but one might as

well argue, that we now are not to go "into the

way of the Gentiles," but to confine ourselves

to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," as that{15}

we are now to "flee from city to city." Nor,

indeed, was going from city to city a flight; it was

a continued preaching; not an accident, but a

rule: whether persecuted or not, they were to go

about; and before they had gone through the{20}

cities of Israel, the Lord was to come. The

command contemplated only those very cities.

If St. Paul escaped out of "Damascus by night,

yet afterwards, against the prayers of the disciples

and the prophecy of Agabus, he went up to{25}

Jerusalem. Thus the command to flee did not last

even through the lifetime of the Apostles; and,

indeed, why should God introduce persecution,

if He bids us retire from it? This is imputing

inconsistency to His acts. If we want texts to{30}

justify our not fleeing, He says, "Whoso shall

confess Me before men, I will confess him before

My Father." "Blessed are they that suffer

persecution;" "He that shall persevere to the end,

he shall be saved;" "Be not afraid of them that

kill the body;" "Whosoever does not carry his{5}

cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple."

How are these texts fulfilled when a man flees.

Christ, who is our pattern, did not more than

pray, "If it be possible, let this chalice pass:"

we, too, should both stay and pray as He did.{10}

And it is expressly told us, that "We also ought

to lay down our lives for the brethren." Again, it

is said, "Perfect charity casteth out fear;" he

who flees, fears; he who fears, "is not perfected

in charity." The Greek proverb is sometimes{15}

urged, "He who flees, will fight another day;"

yes, and he may flee another day, also. Again,

if bishops, priests, and deacons flee, why must

the laity stay? or must they flee also? "The

good shepherd," on the contrary, "layeth down{20}

his life for his sheep"; whereas, the bad shepherd

"seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep,

and fleeth." At no time, as Jeremiah, Ezekiel,

and Zechariah tell us, is the flock in greater

danger of being scattered than when it loses its{25}

shepherd. Tertullian ends thus: "This doctrine, my

brother, perhaps appears to you hard; nay,

intolerable. But recollect that God has said, 'He

that can take, let him take it;' that is, he who

receives it not, let him depart. He who fears to{30}

suffer cannot belong to Him who has suffered.

He who does not fear to suffer is perfect in love,

that is, of God. Many are called, few are chosen.

Not he who would walk the broad way is sought

out by God, but he who walks the narrow."

Thus the ingenious and vehement Tertullian.{5}

III

With these remarks for and against flight in

persecution, we shall be prepared to listen to

Augustine on the subject; I have said, it was

brought under his notice by a brother bishop,

with reference to the impending visitation of the{10}

barbarians. His answer happily is preserved to

us, and extracts from it shall now be set before

the reader.

"TO HIS HOLY BROTHERS AND FELLOW-BISHOP

HONORATUS, AUGUSTINE SENDS HEALTH IN THE LORD

"I thought the copy of my letter to our brother

Quodvultdeus, which I sent to you, would have been{15}

sufficient, dear brother, without the task you put on me

of counseling you on the proper course to pursue under

our existing dangers. It was certainly a short letter;

yet I included every question which it was necessary to

ask and answer, when I said that no persons were{20}

hindered from retiring to such fortified places as they were

able and desirous to secure; while, on the other hand, we

might not break the bonds of our ministry, by which

the love of Christ has engaged us not to desert the Church,

where we are bound to serve. The following is what I{25}

laid down in the letter I refer to: 'It remains, then,'

I say, 'that, though God's people in the place where we

are be ever so few, yet, if it does stay, we, whose ministration

is necessary to its staying, must say to the Lord,

Thou art our strong rock and place of defense.'

"But you tell me that this view is not sufficient for

you, from an apprehension lest we should be running

counter to our Lord's command and example, to flee{5}

from city to city. Yet is it conceivable that He meant

that our flocks, whom He bought with His own blood,

should be deprived of that necessary ministration

without which they cannot live? Is He a precedent for

this, who was carried in flight into Egypt by His parents{10}

when but a child, before He had formed Churches which

we can talk of His leaving? Or, when St. Paul was let

down in a basket through a window, lest the enemy

should seize him, and so escaped his hands, was the Church

of that place bereft of its necessary ministration, seeing{15}

there were other brethren stationed there to fulfill what

was necessary? Evidently it was their wish that he,

who was the direct object of the persecutors' search,

should preserve himself for the sake of the Church.

Let then, the servants of Christ, the ministers of His{20}

word and sacraments, do in such cases as He enjoined

or permitted. Let such of them, by all means, flee from

city to city, as are special objects of persecution; so

that they who are not thus attacked desert not the

Church, but give meat to those their fellow-servants,{25}

who they know cannot live without it. But in a case

when all classes—I mean bishops, clergy, and

people—are in some common danger, let not those who need the

aid of others be deserted by those whom they need. Either

let one and all remove into some fortified place, or, if{30}

any are obliged to remain, let them not be abandoned

by those who have to supply their ecclesiastical necessity,

so that they may survive in common, or suffer in common

what their Father decrees they should undergo."

Then he makes mention of the argument of a{35}

certain bishop, that "if our Lord has enjoined

upon us flight, in persecutions which may ripen

into martyrdom, much more is it necessary to

flee from barren sufferings in a barbarian and

hostile invasion," and he says, "this is true and

reasonable, in the case of such as have no{5}

ecclesiastical office to tie them"; but he continues:

"Why should men make no question about obeying

the precept of fleeing from city to city, and yet have

no dread of 'the hireling who seeth the wolf coming, and

fleeth, because he careth not for the sheep'? Why do{10}

they not try to reconcile (as they assuredly can) these

two incontrovertible declarations of our Lord, one of

which suffers and commands flight, the other arraigns

and condemns it? And what other mode is there of

reconciling them than that which I have above laid down?{15}

viz., that we, the ministers of Christ, who are under the

pressure of persecution, are then at liberty to leave our

posts, when no flock is left for us to serve; or again,

when, though there be a flock, yet there are others to

supply our necessary ministry, who have not the same{20}

reason for fleeing,—as in the case of St. Paul; or,

again, of the holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria,

who was especially sought after by the emperor

Constantius, while the Catholic people, who remained

together in Alexandria, were in no measure deserted by the{25}

other ministers. But when the people remain, and the

ministers flee, and the ministration is suspended, what

is that but the guilty flight of hirelings, who care not for

the sheep? For then the wolf will come,—not man, but

the devil, who is accustomed to persuade such believers{30}

to apostasy, who are bereft of the daily ministration of

the Lord's Body; and by your, not knowledge, but

ignorance of duty, the weak brother will perish, for whom

Christ died.

"Let us only consider, when matters come to an{35}

extremity of danger, and there is no longer any means

of escape, how persons flock together to the Church, of

both sexes, and all ages, begging for baptism, or

reconciliation, or even for works of penance, and one and

all of them for consolation, and the consecration and{5}

application of the sacraments. Now, if ministers are

wanting, what ruin awaits those, who depart from this

life unregenerate or unabsolved! Consider the grief

of their believing relatives, who will not have them as

partakers with themselves in the rest of eternal life;{10}

consider the anguish of the whole multitude, nay, the

cursings of some of them, at the absence of ministration

and ministers.

"It may be said, however, that the ministers of God

ought to avoid such imminent perils, in order to{15}

preserve themselves for the profit of the Church for more

tranquil times. I grant it where others are present to

supply the ecclesiastical ministry, as in the case of

Athanasius. How necessary it was to the Church, how

beneficial, that such a man should remain in the flesh, the{20}

Catholic faith bears witness, which was maintained

against the Arians by his voice and his love. But when

there is a common danger, and when there is rather

reason to apprehend lest a man should be thought to

flee, not from purpose of prudence, but from dread of{25}

dying, and when the example of flight does more harm

than the service of living does good, it is by no means

to be done. To be brief, holy David withdrew himself

from the hazard of war, lest perchance he should 'quench

the light of Israel,' at the instance of his people, not on{30}

his own motion. Otherwise, he would have occasioned

many imitators of an inactivity which they had in that

case ascribed, not to regard for the welfare of others,

but to cowardice."

Then he goes on to a further question, what is{35}

to be done in a case where all ministers are likely

to perish, unless some of them take to flight? or

when persecution is set on foot only with the view

of reaching the ministers of the Church? This

leads him to exclaim:

"O, that there may be then a quarrel between God's{5}

ministers, who are to remain, and who to flee, lest the

Church should be deserted, whether by all fleeing or all

dying! Surely there will ever be such a quarrel, where

each party burns in its own charity, yet indulges the

charity of the other. In such a difficulty, the lot seems{10}

the fairest decision, in default of others. God judges

better than man in perplexities of this sort; whether it

be His will to reward the holier among them with the

crown of martyrdom, and to spare the weak, or again,

to strengthen the latter to endure evil, removing those{15}

from life whom the Church of God can spare the better.

Should it, however, seem inexpedient to cast

lots,—a measure for which I cannot bring precedent,—at

least, let no one's flight be the cause of the Church's

losing those ministrations which, in such dangers, are{20}

so necessary and so imperative. Let no one make

himself an exception, on the plea of having some particular

grace, which gives him a claim to life, and therefore to

flight.

"It is sometimes supposed that bishops and clergy,{25}

remaining at their posts in dangers of this kind, mislead

their flocks into staying, by their example. But it is

easy for us to remove this objection or imputation, by

frankly telling them not to be misled by our remaining.

'We are remaining for your sake,' we must say, 'lest you{30}

should fail to obtain such ministration, as we know to

be necessary to your salvation in Christ. Make your

escape, and you will then set us free.' The occasion for

saying this is when there seems some real advantage in

retiring to a safer position. Should all or some make{35}

answer, 'We are in His hands from whose anger no one

can flee anywhere; whose mercy every one may find

everywhere, though he stir not, whether some necessary

tie detains him, or the uncertainty of safe escape deters

him'; most undoubtedly such persons are not to be

left destitute of Christian ministrations.{5}

"I have written these lines, dearest brother, in truth,

as I think, and in sure charity, by way of reply, since you

have consulted me; but not as dictating, if, perchance,

you may find some better view to guide you. However,

better we cannot do in these perils than pray the Lord{10}

our God to have mercy upon us."—Ep. 228.

IV

The luminous judgment, the calm faith, and

the single-minded devotion which this letter

exhibits, were fully maintained in the conduct of

the far-famed writer, in the events which{15}

followed. It was written on the first entrance of

the Vandals into Africa, about two years before

they laid siege to Hippo; and during this

interval of dreadful suspense and excitement, as well

as of actual suffering, amid the desolation of the{20}

Church around him, with the prospect of his own

personal trials, we find this unwearied teacher

carrying on his works of love by pen, and word

of mouth,—eagerly, as knowing his time was

short, but tranquilly, as if it were a season of{25}

prosperity....

His life had been for many years one of great

anxiety and discomfort, the life of one dissatisfied

with himself, and despairing of finding the truth.

Men of ordinary minds are not so circumstanced{30}

as to feel the misery of irreligion. That misery

consists in the perverted and discordant action

of the various faculties and functions of the soul,

which have lost their legitimate governing power,

and are unable to regain it, except at the hands{5}

of their Maker. Now the run of irreligious men

do not suffer in any great degree from this

disorder, and are not miserable; they have neither

great talents nor strong passions; they have not

within them the materials of rebellion in such{10}

measure as to threaten their peace. They follow

their own wishes, they yield to the bent of the

moment, they act on inclination, not on principle,

but their motive powers are neither strong nor

various enough to be troublesome. Their minds{15}

are in no sense under rule; but anarchy is not in

their case a state of confusion, but of deadness;

not unlike the internal condition as it is reported

of eastern cities and provinces at present, in

which, though the government is weak or null,{20}

the body politic goes on without any great

embarrassment or collision of its members one with

another, by the force of inveterate habit. It is

very different when the moral and intellectual

principles are vigorous, active, and developed.{25}

Then, if the governing power be feeble, all the

subordinates are in the position of rebels in arms;

and what the state of a mind is under such

circumstances, the analogy of a civil community will

suggest to us. Then we have before us the{30}

melancholy spectacle of high aspirations without

an aim, a hunger of the soul unsatisfied, and a

never ending restlessness and inward warfare of

its various faculties. Gifted minds, if not

submitted to the rightful authority of religion,

become the most unhappy and the most mischievous.{5}

They need both an object to feed upon, and the

power of self-mastery; and the love of their

Maker, and nothing but it, supplies both the one

and the other. We have seen in our own day, in

the case of a popular poet, an impressive instance{10}

of a great genius throwing off the fear of God,

seeking for happiness in the creature, roaming

unsatisfied from one object to another, breaking

his soul upon itself, and bitterly confessing and

imparting his wretchedness to all around him.{15}

I have no wish at all to compare him to St.

Augustine; indeed, if we may say it without

presumption, the very different termination of their trial

seems to indicate some great difference in their

respective modes of encountering it. The one{20}

dies of premature decay, to all appearance, a

hardened infidel; and if he is still to have a name,

will live in the mouths of men by writings at once

blasphemous and immoral: the other is a Saint

and Doctor of the Church. Each makes{25}

confessions, the one to the saints, the other to the

powers of evil. And does not the difference of

the two discover itself in some measure, even to

our eyes, in the very history of their wanderings

and pinings? At least, there is no appearance in{30}

St. Augustine's case of that dreadful haughtiness,

sullenness, love of singularity, vanity, irritability,

and misanthropy, which were too certainly the

characteristics of our own countryman.

Augustine was, as his early history shows, a man of

affectionate and tender feelings, and open and{5}

amiable temper; and, above all, he sought for some

excellence external to his own mind, instead of

concentrating all his contemplations on himself.

But let us consider what his misery was; it

was that of a mind imprisoned, solitary, and wild{10}

with spiritual thirst; and forced to betake itself

to the strongest excitements, by way of relieving

itself of the rush and violence of feelings, of which

the knowledge of the Divine Perfections was the

true and sole sustenance. He ran into excess,{15}

not from love of it, but from this fierce fever of

mind. "I sought what I might love,"[28] he says

in his Confessions, "in love with loving, and safety

I hated, and a way without snares. For within

me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself,{20}

my God; yet throughout that famine I was not

hungered, but was without any longing for

incorruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith,

but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For

this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores; it{25}

miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped

by the touch of objects of sense."—iii. I.

[28] Most of these translations are from the Oxford edition of 1838.

"O foolish man that I then was," he says elsewhere,

"enduring impatiently the lot of man! So I fretted,

sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor

counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding

soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose

it I found not; not in calm groves, nor in games and

music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings,{5}

nor in indulgence of the bed and the couch, nor, finally, in

books or poetry found it repose. All things looked ghastly,

yea, the very light. In groaning and tears alone found

I a little refreshment. But when my soul was withdrawn

from them, a huge load of misery weighed me down.{10}

To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been raised, for Thee

to lighten; I knew it, but neither could, nor would;

the more, since when I thought of Thee, Thou wast not

to me any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wert not

Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my God.{15}

If I offered to discharge my load thereon, that it might

rest, it glided through the void, and came rushing down

against me; and I had remained to myself a hapless

spot, where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For

whither should my heart flee from my heart? whither{20}

should I flee from myself? whither not follow myself?

And yet I fled out of my country; for so should mine

eyes look less for him, where they were not wont to see

him."—iv. 12.

He is speaking in this last sentence of a friend he{25}

had lost, whose death-bed was very remarkable,

and whose dear familiar name he apparently has

not courage to mention. "He had grown from a

child with me," he says, "and we had been both

schoolfellows and playfellows." Augustine had{30}

misled him into the heresy which he had adopted

himself, and when he grew to have more and more

sympathy in Augustine's pursuits, the latter united

himself to him in a closer intimacy. Scarcely had

he thus given him his heart, when God took him.{35}

"Thou tookest him," he says, "out of this life, when he

had scarce completed one whole year of my friendship,

sweet to me above all sweetness in that life of mine.

A long while, sore sick of a fever, he lay senseless in the

dews of death, and being given over, he was baptized{5}

unwitting; I, meanwhile little regarding, or presuming

that his soul would retain rather what it had received

of me than what was wrought on his unconscious body."

The Manichees, it should be observed, rejected

baptism. He proceeds:{10}

"But it proved far otherwise; for he was refreshed

and restored. Forthwith, as soon as I could speak with

him (and I could as soon as he was able, for I never left

him, and we hung but too much upon each other), I

essayed to jest with him, as though he would jest with{15}

me at that baptism, which he had received, when

utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had now understood

that he had received. But he shrunk from me, as from

an enemy; and with a wonderful and sudden freedom

bade me, if I would continue his friend, forbear such{20}

language to him. I, all astonished and amazed,

suppressed all my emotions till he should grow well, and his

health were strong enough for me to deal with him as I

would. But he was taken away from my madness, that

with Thee he might be preserved for my comfort: a few{25}

days after, in my absence, he was attacked again by

fever, and so departed."—iv. 8.

V

From distress of mind Augustine left his native

place, Thagaste, and came to Carthage, where he

became a teacher in rhetoric. Here he fell in{30}

with Faustus, an eminent Manichean bishop and

disputant, in whom, however, he was

disappointed; and the disappointment abated his

attachment to his sect, and disposed him to look

for truth elsewhere. Disgusted with the license

which prevailed among the students at Carthage,{5}

he determined to proceed to Rome, and

disregarding and eluding the entreaties of his mother,

Monica, who dreaded his removal from his own

country, he went thither. At Rome he resumed

his professions; but inconveniences as great,{10}

though of another kind, encountered him in that

city; and upon the people of Milan sending for a

rhetoric reader, he made application for the

appointment, and obtained it. To Milan then he

came, the city of St. Ambrose, in the year of our{15}

Lord 385.

Ambrose, though weak in voice, had the

reputation of eloquence; and Augustine, who seems

to have gone with introductions to him, and was

won by his kindness of manner, attended his{20}

sermons with curiosity and interest. "I listened,"

he says, "not in the frame of mind which became

me, but in order to see whether his eloquence

answered, what was reported of it: I hung on his

words attentively, but of the matter I was but an{25}

unconcerned and contemptuous hearer."—v. 23.

His impression of his style of preaching is worth

noticing: "I was delighted with the sweetness

of his discourse, more full of knowledge, yet in

manner less pleasurable and soothing, than that{30}

of Faustus." Augustine was insensibly moved:

he determined on leaving the Manichees, and

returning to the state of a catechumen in the

Catholic Church, into which he had been admitted

by his parents. He began to eye and muse upon

the great bishop of Milan more and more, and tried{5}

in vain to penetrate his secret heart, and to

ascertain the thoughts and feelings which swayed him.

He felt he did not understand him. If the

respect and intimacy of the great could make

a man happy, these advantages he perceived{10}

Ambrose to possess; yet he was not satisfied that

he was a happy man. His celibacy seemed a

drawback: what constituted his hidden life? or

was he cold at heart? or was he of a famished

and restless spirit? He felt his own malady, and{15}

longed to ask him some questions about it. But

Ambrose could not easily be spoken with. Though

accessible to all, yet that very circumstance

made it difficult for an individual, especially one

who was not of his flock, to get a private{20}

interview with him. When he was not taken up with

the Christian people who surrounded him, he

was either at his meals or engaged in private

reading. Augustine used to enter, as all persons

might, without being announced; but after{25}

staying awhile, afraid of interrupting him, he

departed again. However, he heard his expositions

of Scripture every Sunday, and gradually made

progress.

He was now in his thirtieth year, and since he{30}

was a youth of eighteen had been searching after

truth; yet he was still "in the same mire, greedy of

things present," but finding nothing stable.

"To-morrow," he said to himself, "I shall find it; it

will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it: lo, Faustus

the Manichee will come and clear everything! O you{5}

great men, ye academics, is it true, then, that no

certainty can be attained for the ordering of life? Nay,

let us search diligently, and despair not. Lo, things in

the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which

sometimes seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken{10}

and in a good sense. I will take my stand where, as a

child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth be

found out. But where shall it be sought, or when?

Ambrose has no leisure; we have no leisure to read;

where shall we find even the books? where, or when,{15}

procure them? Let set times be appointed, and

certain hours be ordered for the health of our soul. Great

hope has dawned; the Catholic faith teaches not what

we thought; and do we doubt to knock, that the rest

may be opened? The forenoons, indeed, our scholars {20}

take up; what do we during the rest of our time? why

not this? But if so, when pay we court to our great

friend, whose favors we need? when compose what we

may sell to scholars? when refresh ourselves, unbending

our minds from this intenseness of care?{25}

"Perish everything: dismiss we these empty

vanities; and betake ourselves to the one search for truth!

Life is a poor thing, death is uncertain; if it surprises

us, in what state shall we depart hence? and when shall

we learn what here we have neglected? and shall we not{30}

rather suffer the punishment of this negligence? What

if death itself cut off and end all care and feeling?

Then must this be ascertained. But God forbid this!

It is no vain and empty thing, that the excellent dignity

of the Christian faith has overspread the whole world.{35}

Never would such and so great things be wrought for

us by God, if with the body the soul also came to an

end. Wherefore delay then to abandon worldly hopes,

and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the

blessed life?..."

Finding Ambrose, though kind and accessible,{5}

yet reserved, he went to an aged man named

Simplician, who, as some say, baptized St.

Ambrose, and eventually succeeded him in his

see. He opened his mind to him, and

happening in the course of his communications to{10}

mention Victorinus's translation of some Platonic

works, Simplician asked him if he knew that

person's history. It seems he was a professor of

rhetoric at Rome, was well versed in literature and

philosophy, had been tutor to many of the{15}

senators, and had received the high honor of a statue

in the Forum. Up to his old age he had

professed, and defended with his eloquence, the old

pagan worship. He was led to read the Holy

Scriptures, and was brought, in consequence, to{20}

a belief in their divinity. For a while he did not

feel the necessity of changing his profession; he

looked upon Christianity as a philosophy, he

embraced it as such, but did not propose to join

what he considered the Christian sect, or, as{25}

Christians would call it, the Catholic Church.

He let Simplician into his secret; but whenever

the latter pressed him to take the step, he was

accustomed to ask, "whether walls made a

Christian." However, such a state could not{30}

continue with a man of earnest mind: the leaven

worked; at length he unexpectedly called upon

Simplician to lead him to church. He was

admitted a catechumen, and in due time baptized,

"Rome wondering, the Church rejoicing." It

was customary at Rome for the candidates for{5}

baptism to profess their faith from a raised place

in the church, in a set form of words. An offer

was made to Victorinus, which was not unusual

in the case of bashful and timid persons, to make

his profession in private. But he preferred to{10}

make it in the ordinary way. "I was public

enough," he made answer, "in my profession of

rhetoric, and ought not to be frightened when

professing salvation." He continued the school

which he had before he became a Christian, till{15}

the edict of Julian forced him to close it. This

story went to Augustine's heart, but it did not

melt it. There was still the struggle of two wills,

the high aspiration and the habitual inertness.

His conversion took place in the summer of 386.{20}

He gives an account of the termination of the

conflict he underwent:

"At length burst forth a mighty storm, bringing

a mighty flood of tears; and to indulge it to the full

even unto cries, in solitude, I rose up from Alypius, ... {25}

who perceived from my choked voice how it was with

me. He remained where we had been sitting, in deep

astonishment. I threw myself down under a fig tree, I

know not how, and allowing my tears full vent, offered

up to Thee the acceptable sacrifice of my streaming eyes.{30}

And I cried out to this effect: 'And Thou, O Lord,

how long, how long, Lord, wilt Thou be angry?

Forever? Remember not our old sins!' for I felt that they

were my tyrants. I cried out, piteously, 'How long?

how long? to-morrow and to-morrow? why not now?{5}

why not in this very hour put an end to this my vileness?'

While I thus spoke, with tears, in the bitter contrition

of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice, as if from a house

near me, of a boy or girl chanting forth again and again,

'TAKE UP AND READ, TAKE UP AND READ!' Changing{10}

countenance at these words, I began intently to think

whether boys used them in any game, but could not

recollect that I had ever heard them. I left weeping and

rose up, considering it a divine intimation to open the

Scriptures and read what first presented itself. I had{15}

heard that Antony had come in during the reading of the

Gospel, and had taken to himself the admonition, 'Go,

sell all that thou hast,' etc., and had turned to Thee at

once, in consequence of that oracle. I had left St.

Paul's volume where Alypius was sitting, when I rose{20}

thence. I returned thither, seized it, opened, and read

in silence the following passage, which first met my eyes,

'Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and

impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the

Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in{25}

its concupiscences.' I had neither desire nor need to

read farther. As I finished the sentence, as though the

light of peace had been poured into my heart, all the

shadows of doubt dispersed. Thus hast Thou converted

me to Thee, so as no longer to seek either for wife or{30}

other hope of this world, standing fast in that rule of

faith in which Thou so many years before hadst revealed

me to my mother."—viii. 26-30.

The last words of this extract relate to a dream

which his mother had had some years before,{35}

concerning his conversion. On his first turning

Manichee, abhorring his opinions, she would not

for a while even eat with him, when she had this

dream, in which she had an intimation that where

she stood, there Augustine should one day be

with her. At another time she derived great{5}

comfort from the casual words of a bishop, who,

when importuned by her to converse with her

son, said at length with some impatience, "Go

thy ways, and God bless thee, for it is not possible

that the son of these tears should perish!" {10}

would be out of place, and is perhaps unnecessary,

to enter here into the affecting and well-known

history of her tender anxieties and persevering

prayers for Augustine. Suffice it to say, she saw

the accomplishment of them; she lived till {15}

Augustine became a Catholic; and she died in her way

back to Africa with him. Her last words were,

"Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it

in any way distress you; this only I ask, that

wherever you be, you remember me at the Altar{20}

of the Lord."

"May she," says her son, in dutiful remembrance of

her words, "rest in peace with her husband, before and

after whom she never had any; whom she obeyed, with

patience bringing forth fruit unto Thee, that she might{25}

win him also unto Thee. And inspire, O Lord my God,

inspire Thy servants, my brethren,—Thy sons, my

masters,—whom, in heart, voice, and writing I serve,

that so many as read these confessions, may at Thy altar

remember Monica, Thy handmaid, with Patricius, her{30}

sometime husband, from whom Thou broughtest me into

this life; how, I know not. May they with pious affection

remember those who were my parents in this

transitory light,—my brethren under Thee, our Father,

in our Catholic Mother,—my fellow-citizens in the

eternal Jerusalem, after which Thy pilgrim people sigh

from their going forth unto their return: that so, her{5}

last request of me may in the prayers of many receive

a fulfillment, through my confessions, more abundant

than through my prayers."—ix. 37.

CHRYSOSTOM

INTRODUCTORY

I confess to a delight in reading the lives, and

dwelling on the characters and actions, of the

Saints of the first ages, such as I receive from none

besides them; and for this reason, because we

know so much more about them than about most{5}

of the Saints who come after them. People are

variously constituted; what influences one does

not influence another. There are persons of

warm imaginations, who can easily picture to

themselves what they never saw. They can at{10}

will see Angels and Saints hovering over them

when they are in church; they see their

lineaments, their features, their motions, their

gestures, their smile or their grief. They can go

home and draw what they have seen, from the{15}

vivid memory of what, while it lasted, was so

transporting. I am not one of such; I am touched

by my five senses, by what my eyes behold and

my ears hear. I am touched by what I read

about, not by what I myself create. As faith{20}

need not lead to practice, so in me mere

imagination does not lead to devotion. I gain more

from the life of our Lord in the Gospels than from

a treatise de Deo. I gain more from three verses

of St. John than from the three points of a

meditation. I like a Spanish crucifix of painted wood

more than one from Italy, which is made of gold.

I am more touched by the Seven Dolors than by

the Immaculate Conception; I am more devout{5}

to St. Gabriel than to one of Isaiah's seraphim.

I love St. Paul more than one of those first

Carmelites, his contemporaries, whose names and acts

no one ever heard of; I feel affectionately towards

the Alexandrian Dionysius, I do homage to St.{10}

George. I do not say that my way is better than

another's; but it is my way, and an allowable

way. And it is the reason why I am so specially

attached to the Saints of the third and fourth

century, because we know so much about them.{15}

This is why I feel a devout affection for St.

Chrysostom. He and the rest of them have

written autobiography on a large scale; they

have given us their own histories, their thoughts,

words, and actions, in a number of goodly folios,{20}

productions which are in themselves some of their

meritorious works....

The Ancient Saints have left behind them just

that kind of literature which more than any other

represents the abundance of the heart, which{25}

more than any other approaches to conversation;

I mean correspondence. Why is it that we feel

an interest in Cicero which we cannot feel in

Demosthenes or Plato? Plato is the very type

of soaring philosophy, and Demosthenes of{30}

forcible eloquence; Cicero is something more than

an orator and a sage; he is not a mere ideality, he

is a man and a brother; he is one of ourselves.

We do not merely believe it, or infer it, but we

have the enduring and living evidence of

it—how? In his letters. He can be studied,{5}

criticised if you will; but still dwelt upon and

sympathized with also. Now the case of the Ancient

Saints is parallel to that of Cicero. We have their

letters in a marvelous profusion. We have

above 400 letters of St. Basil's; above 200 of{10}

St. Augustine's. St. Chrysostom has left us

about 240; St. Gregory Nazianzen the same

number; Pope St. Gregory as many as 840....

A Saint's writings are to me his real "Life";

and what is called his "Life" is not the outline{15}

of an individual, but either of the auto-saint or

of a myth. Perhaps I shall be asked what I

mean by "Life." I mean a narrative which

impresses the reader with the idea of moral unity,

identity, growth, continuity, personality. When{20}

a Saint converses with me, I am conscious of the

presence of one active principle of thought, one

individual character, flowing on and into the

various matters which he discusses, and the

different transactions in which he mixes. It is{25}

what no memorials can reach, however skillfully

elaborated, however free from effort or study,

however conscientiously faithful, however

guaranteed by the veracity of the writers. Why

cannot art rival the lily or the rose? Because the {30}

colors of the flower are developed and blended

by the force of an inward life; while on the other

hand, the lights and shades of the painter are

diligently laid on from without. A magnifying

glass will show the difference. Nor will it

improve matters, though not one only, but a dozen{5}

good artists successively take part in the picture;

even if the outline is unbroken, the coloring is

muddy. Commonly, what is called "the Life,"

is little more than a collection of anecdotes brought

together from a number of independent quarters;{10}

anecdotes striking, indeed, and edifying, but

valuable in themselves rather than valuable as parts

of a biography; valuable whoever was the

subject of them, not valuable as illustrating a

particular Saint. It would be difficult to mistake{15}

for each other a paragraph of St. Ambrose, or of

St. Jerome, or of St. Augustine; it would be very

easy to mistake a chapter in the life of one holy

missionary or nun for a chapter in the life of

another.{20}

An almsgiving here, an instance of meekness

there, a severity of penance, a round of religious

duties,—all these things humble me, instruct

me, improve me; I cannot desire anything

better of their kind; but they do not necessarily{25}

coalesce into the image of a person. From such

works I do but learn to pay devotion to an

abstract and typical perfection under a certain

particular name; I do not know more of the real

Saint who bore it than before. Saints, as other{30}

men, differ from each other in this, that the

multitude of qualities which they have in

common are differently combined in each of them.

This forms one great part of their personality.

One Saint is remarkable for fortitude; not that

he has not other heroic virtues by concomitance,{5}

as it may be called, but by virtue of that one gift

in particular he has won his crown. Another is

remarkable for patient hope, another for

renunciation of the world. Such a particular virtue

may be said to give form to all the rest which are{10}

grouped round it, and are molded and modified

by means of it. Thus it is that often what is

right in one would be wrong in another; and, in

fact, the very same action is allowed or chosen

by one, and shunned by another, as being {15}

consistent or inconsistent with their respective

characters,—pretty much as in the combination of

colors, each separate tint takes a shade from

the rest, and is good or bad from its company.

The whole gives a meaning to the parts; but it{20}

is difficult to rise from the parts to the whole.

When I read St. Augustine or St. Basil, I hold

converse with a beautiful grace-illumined soul,

looking out into this world of sense, and leavening

it with itself; when I read a professed life of him,{25}

I am wandering in a labyrinth of which I cannot

find the center and heart, and am but conducted

out of doors again when I do my best to penetrate

within.

This seems to me, to tell the truth, a sort of{30}

pantheistic treatment of the Saints. I ask something

more than to stumble upon the disjecta

membra of what ought to be a living whole. I

take but a secondary interest in books which

chop up a Saint into chapters of faith, hope,

charity, and the cardinal virtues. They are too{5}

scientific to be devotional. They have their

great utility, but it is not the utility which they

profess. They do not manifest a Saint, they

mince him into spiritual lessons. They are

rightly called spiritual reading, that is just what{10}

they are, and they cannot possibly be anything

better; but they are not anything else. They

contain a series of points of meditation on

particular virtues, made easier because those points

are put under the patronage and the invocation{15}

of a Saint. With a view to learning real

devotion to him, I prefer (speaking for myself) to have

any one action or event of his life drawn out

minutely, with his own comments upon it, than

a score of virtues, or of acts of one virtue, strung{20}

together in as many sentences. Now, in the

ancient writings I have spoken of, certain

transactions are thoroughly worked out. We know all

that happened to a Saint on such or such an

occasion, all that was done by him. We have a view{25}

of his character, his tastes, his natural infirmities,

his struggles and victories over them, which in

no other way can be attained. And therefore it

is that, without quarreling with the devotion of

others, I give the preference to my own.{30}

Here another great subject opens upon us,

when I ought to be bringing these remarks to

an end; I mean the endemic perennial fidget

which possesses us about giving scandal; facts

are omitted in great histories, or glosses are put

upon memorable acts, because they are thought{5}

not edifying, whereas of all scandals such

omissions, such glosses, are the greatest. But I am

getting far more argumentative than I thought

to be when I began; so I lay my pen down, and

retire into myself. {10}

I

John of Antioch, from his sanctity and his

eloquence called Chrysostom, was approaching

sixty years of age, when he had to deliver himself

up to the imperial officers, and to leave

Constantinople for a distant exile. He had been the great{15}

preacher of the day now for nearly twenty years;

first at Antioch, then in the metropolis of the

East; and his gift of speech, as in the instance of

the two great classical orators before him, was to

be his ruin. He had made an Empress his enemy,{20}

more powerful than Antipater,—as passionate,

if not so vindictive, as Fulvia. Nor was this all;

a zealous Christian preacher offends not

individuals merely, but classes of men, and much more

so when he is pastor and ruler too, and has to{25}

punish as well as to denounce. Eudoxia, the

Empress, might be taken off suddenly,—as

indeed she was taken off a few weeks after the

Saint arrived at the place of exile, which she personally,

in spite of his entreaties, had marked out

for him; but her death did but serve to increase

the violence of the persecution directed against

him. She had done her part in it, perhaps she

might have even changed her mind in his favor;{5}

probably the agitation of a bad conscience was,

in her critical condition, the cause of her death.

She was taken out of the way; but her partisans,

who had made use of her, went on vigorously

with the evil work which she had begun. When{10}

Cucusus would not kill him, they sent him on his

travels anew, across a far wilder country than he

had already traversed, to a remote town on the

eastern coast of the Euxine; and he sank under

this fresh trial.{15}

The Euxine! that strange mysterious sea,

which typifies the abyss of outer darkness, as

the blue Mediterranean basks under the smile of

heaven in the center of civilization and religion.

The awful, yet splendid drama of man's history{20}

has mainly been carried on upon the

Mediterranean shores; while the Black Sea has ever been

on the very outskirts of the habitable world,

and the scene of wild unnatural portents; with

legends of Prometheus on the savage Caucasus,{25}

of Medea gathering witch herbs in the moist

meadows of the Phasis, and of Iphigenia

sacrificing the shipwrecked stranger in Taurica; and

then again, with the more historical, yet not more

grateful visions of barbarous tribes, Goths, Huns,{30}

Scythians, Tartars, flitting over the steppes and

wastes which encircle its inhospitable waters.

To be driven from the bright cities and sunny

clime of Italy or Greece to such a region, was

worse than death; and the luxurious Roman

actually preferred death to exile. The suicide{5}

of Gallus, under this dread doom, is well known;

Ovid, too cowardly to be desperate, drained out

the dregs of a vicious life on the cold marshes

between the Danube and the sea. I need scarcely

allude to the heroic Popes who patiently lived on{10}

in the Crimea, till a martyrdom, in which they

had not part but the suffering, released them.

But banishment was an immense evil in itself.

Cicero, even though he had liberty of person, the

choice of a home, and the prospect of a return,{15}

roamed disconsolate through the cities of Greece,

because he was debarred access to the

senate-house and forum. Chrysostom had his own

rostra, his own curia; it was the Holy Temple,

where his eloquence gained for him victories not{20}

less real, and more momentous, than the

detection and overthrow of Catiline. Great as was

his gift of oratory, it was not by the fertility of

his imagination, or the splendor of his diction

that he gained the surname of "Mouth of Gold."{25}

We shall be very wrong if we suppose that fine

expressions, or rounded periods, or figures of

speech, were the credentials by which he claimed

to be the first doctor of the East. His oratorical

power was but the instrument by which he{30}

readily, gracefully, adequately expressed—expressed

without effort and with felicity—the

keen feelings, the living ideas, the earnest

practical lessons which he had to communicate to his

hearers. He spoke, because his heart, his head,

were brimful of things to speak about. His{5}

elocution corresponded to that strength and

flexibility of limb, that quickness of eye, hand, and

foot, by which a man excels in manly games or

in mechanical skill. It would be a great mistake,

in speaking of it, to ask whether it was Attic or{10}

Asiatic, terse or flowing, when its distinctive

praise was that it was natural. His unrivaled

charm, as that of every really eloquent man, lies

in his singleness of purpose, his fixed grasp of his

aim, his noble earnestness.{15}

A bright, cheerful, gentle soul; a sensitive

heart, a temperament open to emotion and

impulse; and all this elevated, refined, transformed

by the touch of heaven,—such was St. John

Chrysostom; winning followers, riveting{20}

affections, by his sweetness, frankness, and neglect

of self. In his labors, in his preaching, he

thought of others only. "I am always in

admiration of that thrice-blessed man," says an able

critic,[29] "because he ever in all his writings puts{25}

before him as his object, to be useful to his

hearers; and as to all other matters, he either

simply put them aside, or took the least possible

notice of them. Nay, as to his seeming ignorant

of some of the thoughts of Scripture, or careless of{30}

entering into its depths, and similar defects, all

this he utterly disregarded in comparison of the

profit of his hearers."

[29] Photius, p. 387.

There was as little affectation of sanctity in his

dress or living as there was effort in his eloquence.{5}

In his youth he had been one of the most austere

of men; at the age of twenty-one, renouncing

bright prospects of the world, he had devoted

himself to prayer and study of the Scriptures.

He had retired to the mountains near Antioch,{10}

his native place, and had lived among the monks.

This had been his home for six years, and he had

chosen it in order to subdue the daintiness of his

natural appetite. "Lately," he wrote to a friend

at the time,—"lately, when I had made up my{15}

mind to leave the city and betake myself to the

tabernacle of the monks, I was forever

inquiring and busying myself how I was to get a

supply of provisions; whether it would be possible

to procure fresh bread for my eating, whether{20}

I should be ordered to use the same oil for my

lamp and for my food, to undergo the hardship

of peas and beans, or of severe toil, such as

digging, carrying wood or water, and the like; in

a word, I made much account of bodily comfort." [30] {25}

Such was the nervous anxiety and fidget of mind

with which he had begun: but this rough

discipline soon effected its object, and at length, even

by preference, he took upon him mortifications

which at first were a trouble to him. For the{30}

last two years of his monastic exercise, he lived

by himself in a cave; he slept, when he did sleep,

without lying down; he exposed himself to the

extremities of cold. At length he found he was

passing the bounds of discretion, nature would{5}

bear no more; he fell ill, and returned to the

city.

[30] Ad Demetrium, i. 6.

A course of ascetic practice such as this would

leave its spiritual effects upon him for life. It

sank deep into him, though the surface might{10}

not show it. His duty at Constantinople was to

mix with the world; and he lived as others,

except as regards such restraints as his sacred

office and archiepiscopal station demanded of

him. He wore shoes, and an under garment;{15}

but his stomach was ever delicate, and at meals

he was obliged to have his own dish, such as it

was, to himself. However, he mixed freely with

all ranks of men; and he made friends,

affectionate friends, of young and old, men and women,{20}

rich and poor, by condescending to all of every

degree. How he was loved at Antioch, is shown

by the expedient used to transfer him thence to

Constantinople. Asterius, count of the East, had

orders to send for him, and ask his company to a{25}

church without the city. Having got him into

his carriage, he drove off with him to the first

station on the highroad to Constantinople, where

imperial officers were in readiness to convey him

thither. Thus he was brought upon the scene of{30}

those trials which have given him a name in history,

and a place in the catalogue of the Saints.

At the imperial city he was as much followed, if

not as popular, as at Antioch. "The people

flocked to him," says Sozomen, "as often as he

preached; some of them to hear what would{5}

profit them, others to make trial of him. He

carried them away, one and all, and persuaded

them to think as he did about the Divine Nature.

They hung upon his words, and could not have

enough of them; so that, when they thrust and{10}

jammed themselves together in an alarming way,

every one making an effort to get nearer to him,

and to hear him more perfectly, he took his seat

in the midst of them, and taught from the pulpit

of the Reader." [31] He was, indeed, a man to make{15}

both friends and enemies; to inspire affection,

and to kindle resentment; but his friends loved

him with a love "stronger" than "death," and

more burning than "hell"; and it was well to be

so hated, if he was so beloved.{20}

[31] Hist. viii. 5.

Here he differs, as far as I can judge, from his

brother saints and doctors of the Greek Church,

St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen. They were

scholars, shy perhaps and reserved; and though

they had not given up the secular state, they were{25}

essentially monks. There is no evidence, that I

remember, to show that they attached men to

their persons. They, as well as John, had a

multitude of enemies; and were regarded, the

one with dislike, the other perhaps with contempt;{30}

but they had not, on the other hand,

warm, eager, sympathetic, indignant, agonized

friends. There is another characteristic in

Chrysostom, which perhaps gained for him this great

blessing. He had, as it would seem, a vigor,{5}

elasticity, and, what may be called, sunniness of

mind, all his own. He was ever sanguine,

seldom sad. Basil had a life-long malady, involving

continual gnawing pain and a weight of physical

dejection. He bore his burden well and{10}

gracefully, like the great Saint he was, as Job bore his;

but it was a burden like Job's. He was a calm, mild,

grave, autumnal day; St. John Chrysostom was

a day in spring-time, bright and rainy, and

glittering through its rain. Gregory was the full{15}

summer, with a long spell of pleasant stillness, its

monotony relieved by thunder and lightning.

And St. Athanasius figures to us the stern

persecuting winter, with its wild winds, its dreary

wastes, its sleep of the great mother, and the{20}

bright stars shining overhead. He and

Chrysostom have no points in common; but Gregory was

a dethroned Archbishop of Constantinople, like

Chrysostom, and, again, dethroned by his

brethren the Bishops. Like Basil, too, Chrysostom was{25}

bowed with infirmities of body; he was often ill;

he was thin and wizened; cold was a misery to

him; heat affected his head; he scarcely dare

touch wine; he was obliged to use the bath;

obliged to take exercise, or rather to be{30}

continually on the move. Whether from a nervous or

febrile complexion, he was warm in temper; or

at least, at certain times, his emotion struggled

hard with his reason. But he had that noble

spirit which complains as little as possible; which

makes the best of things; which soon recovers{5}

its equanimity, and hopes on in circumstances

when others sink down in despair....

II

Whence is this devotion to St. John

Chrysostom, which leads me to dwell upon the thought of

him, and makes me kindle at his name, when so{10}

many other great Saints, as the year brings round

their festivals, command indeed my veneration,

but exert no personal claim upon my heart?

Many holy men have died in exile, many holy

men have been successful preachers; and what{15}

more can we write upon St. Chrysostom's

monument than this, that he was eloquent and that he

suffered persecution? He is not an Athanasius,

expounding a sacred dogma with a luminousness

which is almost an inspiration; nor is he{20}

Athanasius, again, in his romantic life-long adventures,

in his sublime solitariness, in his ascendancy over

all classes of men, in his series of triumphs over

material force and civil tyranny. Nor, except

by the contrast, does he remind us of that{25}

Ambrose who kept his ground obstinately in an

imperial city, and fortified himself against the

heresy of a court by the living rampart of a

devoted population. Nor is he Gregory or Basil,

rich in the literature and philosophy of Greece,

and embellishing the Church with the spoils of

heathenism. Again, he is not an Augustine,

devoting long years to one masterpiece of thought,{5}

and laying, in successive controversies, the

foundations of theology. Nor is he a Jerome, so dead to

the world that he can imitate the point and wit

of its writers without danger to himself or

scandal to his brethren. He has not trampled upon{10}

heresy, nor smitten emperors, nor beautified the

house or the service of God, nor knit together the

portions of Christendom, nor founded a religious

order, nor built up the framework of doctrine, nor

expounded the science of the Saints; yet I love{15}

him, as I love David or St. Paul.

How am I to account for it? It has not

happened to me, as it might happen to many a man,

that I have devoted time and toil to the study of

his writings or of his history, and cry up that{20}

upon which I have made an outlay, or love what

has become familiar to me. Cases may occur

when our admiration for an author is only

admiration of our own comments on him, and when

our love of an old acquaintance is only our love{25}

of old times. For me, I have not written the

life of Chrysostom, nor translated his works, nor

studied Scripture in his exposition, nor forged

weapons of controversy out of his sayings or his

doings. Nor is his eloquence of a kind to carry{30}

any one away who has ever so little knowledge

of the oratory of Greece and Rome. It is not

force of words, nor cogency of argument, nor

harmony of composition, nor depth or richness of

thought, which constitute his power,—whence,

then, has he this influence, so mysterious, yet so{5}

strong?

I consider St. Chrysostom's charm to lie in his

intimate sympathy and compassionateness for

the whole world, not only in its strength, but in

its weakness; in the lively regard with which he{10}

views everything that comes before him, taken

in the concrete, whether as made after its own

kind or as gifted with a nature higher than its

own. Not that any religious man—above all,

not that any Saint—could possibly contrive to{15}

abstract the love of the work from the love of

its Maker, or could feel a tenderness for earth

which did not spring from devotion to heaven;

or as if he would not love everything just in that

degree in which the Creator loves it, and{20}

according to the measure of gifts which the Creator

has bestowed upon it, and preëminently for the

Creator's sake. But this is the characteristic

of all Saints; and I am speaking, not of what St.

Chrysostom had in common with others, but what{25}

he had special to himself; and this specialty, I

conceive, is the interest which he takes in all

things, not so far as God has made them alike,

but as He has made them different from each

other. I speak of the discriminating{30}

affectionateness with which he accepts every one for what is

personal in him and unlike others. I speak of his

versatile recognition of men, one by one, for the

sake of that portion of good, be it more or less,

of a lower order or a higher, which has severally

been lodged in them; his eager contemplation of{5}

the many things they do, effect, or produce, of

all their great works, as nations or as states;

nay, even as they are corrupted or disguised by

evil, so far as that evil may in imagination be

disjoined from their proper nature, or may be{10}

regarded as a mere material disorder apart from

its formal character of guilt. I speak of the

kindly spirit and the genial temper with which

he looks round at all things which this

wonderful world contains; of the graphic fidelity with{15}

which he notes them down upon the tablets of

his mind, and of the promptitude and propriety

with which he calls them up as arguments or

illustrations in the course of his teaching as the

occasion requires. Possessed though he be by{20}

the fire of Divine charity, he has not lost one

fiber, he does not miss one vibration, of the

complicated whole of human sentiment and affection;

like the miraculous bush in the desert, which, for

all the flame that wrapt it round, was not thereby{25}

consumed.

Such, in a transcendent perfection, was the

gaze, as we may reverently suppose, with which

the loving Father of all surveyed in eternity that

universe even in its minutest details which He{30}

had decreed to create such the loving pity with

which He spoke the word when the due moment

came, and began to mold the finite, as He

created it, in His infinite hands; such the watchful

solicitude with which he now keeps His

catalogue of the innumerable birds of heaven, and{5}

counts day by day the very hairs of our head and

the alternations of our breathing. Such, much

more, is the awful contemplation with which He

encompasses incessantly every one of those souls

on whom He heaps His mercies here, in order{10}

to make them the intimate associates of His own

eternity hereafter. And we too, in our measure,

are bound to imitate Him in our exact and vivid

apprehension of Himself and of His works. As to

Himself, we love Him, not simply in His nature,{15}

but in His triple personality, lest we become mere

pantheists. And so, again, we choose our patron

Saints, not for what they have in common with

each other (else there could be no room for choice

at all), but for what is peculiar to them severally.{20}

That which is my warrant, therefore, for particular

devotions at all, becomes itself my reason for

devotion to St. John Chrysostom. In him I

recognize a special pattern of that very gift of

discrimination. He may indeed be said in some sense to{25}

have a devotion of his own for every one who

comes across him,—for persons, ranks, classes,

callings, societies, considered as Divine works and

the subjects of his good offices or good will, and

therefore I have a devotion for him.{30}

It is this observant benevolence which gives to

his exposition of Scripture its chief characteristic.

He is known in ecclesiastical literature as the

expounder, above all others, of its literal sense.

Now in mystical comments the direct object which

the writer sets before him is the Divine Author{5}

Himself of the written Word. Such a writer

sees in Scripture, not so much the works of God,

as His nature and attributes; the Teacher more

than the definite teaching, or its human

instruments, with their drifts and motives, their courses{10}

of thought, their circumstances and personal

peculiarities. He loses the creature in the glory

which surrounds the Creator. The problem

before him is not what the inspired writer directly

meant, and why, but, out of the myriad of{15}

meanings present to the Infinite Being who inspired him,

which it is that is most illustrative of that Great

Being's all-holy attributes and solemn dispositions.

Thus, in the Psalter, he will drop David and Israel

and the Temple together, and will recognize {20}

nothing there but the shadows of those greater truths

which remain forever. Accordingly, the

mystical comment will be of an objective character;

whereas a writer who delights to ponder human

nature and human affairs, to analyze the{25}

workings of the mind, and to contemplate what is

subjective to it, is naturally drawn to investigate

the sense of the sacred writer himself, who was the

organ of the revelation, that is, he will investigate

the literal sense. Now, in the instance of St. {30}

Chrysostom, it so happens that literal exposition

is the historical characteristic of the school in

which he was brought up; so that if he commented

on Scripture at all, he anyhow would have

adopted that method; still, there have been

many literal expositors, but only one{5}

Chrysostom. It is St. Chrysostom who is the charm of

the method, not the method that is the charm

of St. Chrysostom.

That charm lies, as I have said, in his habit and

his power of throwing himself into the minds{10}

of others, of imagining with exactness and with

sympathy circumstances or scenes which were

not before him, and of bringing out what he has

apprehended in words as direct and vivid as the

apprehension. His page is like the table of a{15}

camera lucida, which represents to us the living

action and interaction of all that goes on around

us. That loving scrutiny, with which he follows

the Apostles as they reveal themselves to us in

their writings, he practices in various ways{20}

towards all men, living and dead, high and low,

those whom he admires and those whom he weeps

over. He writes as one who was ever looking

out with sharp but kind eyes upon the world of

men and their history; and hence he has always{25}

something to produce about them, new or old,

to the purpose of his argument, whether from

books or from the experience of life. Head and

heart were full to overflowing with a stream of

mingled "wine and milk," of rich vigorous thought{30}

and affectionate feeling. This is why his manner

of writing is so rare and special; and why, when

once a student enters into it, he will ever

recognize him, wherever he meets with extracts from

him.

LETTERS OF CHRYSOSTOM, WRITTEN IN EXILE

"TO OLYMPIAS

"Why do you bewail me? Why beat your breast,{5}

and abandon yourself to the tyranny of despondency?

Why are you grieved because you have failed in

effecting my removal from Cucusus? Yet, as far as your own

part is concerned, you have effected it, since you have

left nothing undone in attempting it. Nor have you any{10}

reason to grieve for your ill success; perhaps it has seemed

good to God to make my race course longer that my

crown may be brighter. You ought to leap and dance and

crown yourself for this, viz., that I should be accounted

worthy of so great a matter, which far exceeds my merit.{15}

Does my present loneliness distress you? On the

contrary, what can be more pleasant than my sojourn here?

I have quiet, calm, much leisure, excellent health. To

be sure, there is no market in the city, nor anything

on sale; but this does not affect me; for all things, as if{20}

from some fountains, flow in upon me. Here is my lord,

the Bishop of the place, and my lord Dioscorus, making

it their sole business to make me comfortable. That

excellent person Patricius will tell you in what good

spirits and lightness of mind, and amid what kind{25}

attentions, I am passing my time."—Ep. 14.

The same is his report to his friends at Cæesarea,

and the same are his expressions of gratitude

and affection towards them. The following is

addressed to the President of Cappodocia:{30}

"TO CARTERIUS

"Cucusus is a place desolate in the extreme; however,

it does not annoy me so much by its desolateness as it

relieves me by its quiet and its leisure. Accordingly, I

have found a sort of harbor in this desolateness; and

have set me down to recover breath after the miseries{5}

of the journey, and have availed myself of the quiet to

dispose of what remained both of my illness and of the

other troubles which I have undergone. I say this to

your illustriousness, knowing well the joy you feel in

this rest of mine. I can never forget what you did for{10}

me in Cæsarea, in quelling those furious and senseless

tumults, and striving to the utmost, as far as your powers

extended, to place me in security. I give this out

publicly wherever I go, feeling the liveliest gratitude to you,

my most worshipful lord, for so great solicitude towards{15}

me."—Ep. 236.

"TO DIOGENES

"Cucusus is indeed a desolate spot, and moreover

unsafe to dwell in, from the continual danger to which

it is exposed of brigands. You, however, though away,

have turned it for me into a paradise. For, when I{20}

hear of your abundant zeal and charity in my behalf,

so genuine and warm (it does not at all escape me, far

removed as I am from you), I possess a great treasure

and untold wealth in such affection, and feel myself

to be dwelling in the safest of cities, by reason of the{25}

great gladness which bears me up, and the high

consolation which I enjoy."—Ep. 144.

Diogenes was one of the friends who sent him

supplies: he writes in answer:

"You know very well yourself that I have ever been{30}

one of your most warmly attached admirers; therefore

I beg you will not be hurt at my having returned your

presents. I have pressed out of them and have quaffed

the honor which they did me; and if I return the things

themselves, it has been from no slight or distrust of you,

but because I was in no need of them. I have done the

same in the case of many others; for many others too,

with a generosity like yours, ardent friends of mine, have{5}

made me the same offers; and the same apology has set

me right with them which I now ask you to receive. If

I am in want, I will ask these things of you with much

freedom, as if they were my own property, nay with

more, as the event will show. Receive them back, then,{10}

and keep them carefully; so that, if there is a call for

them some time hence, I may reckon on them."—Ep. 50.

As a fellow to the above, I add one of his

letters:

"TO CARTERIA

"What are you saying? that your unintermitting{15}

ailments have hindered you from visiting me? but you

have come, you are present with me. From your very

intention I have gained all this, nor have you any need

to excuse yourself in this matter. That warm and true

charity of yours, so vigorous, so constant, suffices to{20}

make me very happy. What I have ever declared in

my letters, I now declare again, that, wherever I may be,

though I be transported to a still more desolate place

than this, you and your matters I never shall forget.

Such pledges of your warm and true charity have you{25}

stored up for me, pledges which length of time can never

obliterate nor waste; but, whether I am near you or far

away, ever do I cherish that same charity, being

assured of the loyalty and sincerity of your affection for

me, which has been my comfort hitherto."—Ep. 227.{30}

"TO OLYMPIAS

"It is not a light effort," he says (Ep. 2), "but

it demands an energetic soul and a great mind to

bear separation from one whom we love in the

charity of Christ. Every one knows this who

knows what it is to love sincerely, who knows

the power of supernatural love. Take the blessed

Paul: here was a man who had stripped himself{5}

of the flesh, and who went about the world

almost with a disembodied soul, who had

exterminated from his heart every wild impulse, and

who imitated the passionless sereneness of the

immaterial intelligences, and who stood on high{10}

with the Cherubim, and shared with them in their

mystical music, and bore prisons, chains,

transportations, scourges, stoning, shipwreck, and every

form of suffering; yet he, when separated from

one soul loved by him in Christian charity, was{15}

so confounded and distracted as all at once to

rush out of that city, in which he did not find the

beloved one whom he expected. 'When I was

come to Troas,' he says, 'for the gospel of Christ,

and a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had{20}

no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus

my brother; but bidding them farewell, I went

into Macedonia.'

"Is it Paul who says this?" he continues;

"Paul who, even when fastened in the stocks,{25}

when confined in a dungeon, when torn with

the bloody scourge, did nevertheless convert and

baptize and offer sacrifice, and was chary even

of one soul which was seeking salvation? and

now, when he has arrived at Troas, and sees the{30}

field cleansed of weeds, and ready for the sowing,

and the floor full, and ready to his hand,

suddenly he flings away the profit, though he came

thither expressly for it. 'So it was,' he answers

me, 'just so; I was possessed by a predominating

tyranny of sorrow, for Titus was away; and this{5}

so wrought upon me as to compel me to this

course.' Those who have the grace of charity

are not content to be united in soul only, they

seek for the personal presence of him they love.

"Turn once more to this scholar of charity, and{10}

you will find that so it is. 'We, brethren,' he

says, 'being bereaved of you for the time of an

hour, in sight, not in heart, have hastened the

more abundantly to see your face with great

desire. For we would have come unto you, I,{15}

Paul, indeed, once and again, but Satan hath

hindered us. For which cause, forbearing no

longer, we thought it good to remain at Athens

alone, and we sent Timothy.' What force is

there in each expression! That flame of charity{20}

living in his soul is manifested with singular

luminousness. He does not say so much as

'separated from you,' nor 'torn,' nor 'divided,'

nor 'abandoned,' but only 'bereaved'; moreover

not 'for a certain period,' but merely 'for the{25}

time of an hour'; and separated, 'not in heart,

but in presence only'; again, 'have hastened

the more abundantly to see your face.' What!

it seems charity so captivated you that you

desiderated their sight, you longed to gaze upon{30}

their earthly, fleshly countenance? 'Indeed I

did,' he answers: 'I am not ashamed to say so;

for in that seeing all the channels of the senses

meet together. I desire to see your presence;

for there is the tongue which utters sounds and

announces the secret feelings; there is the{5}

hearing which receives words, and there the eyes

which image the movements of the soul.' But

this is not all: not content with writing to them

letters, he actually sends to them Timothy, who

was with him, and who was more than any letters.{10}

And, 'We thought it good to remain alone;'

that is, when he is divided from one brother,

he says, he is left alone, though he had so many

others with him."

II THE TURK

THE TARTAR AND THE TURK

You may think, Gentlemen, I have been very

long in coming to the Turks, and indeed I have

been longer than I could have wished; but I

have thought it necessary, in order to your taking

a just view of them, that you should survey them{5}

first of all in their original condition. When they

first appear in history they are Huns or Tartars,

and nothing else; they are indeed in no

unimportant respects Tartars even now; but, had they

never been made something more than Tartars,{10}

they never would have had much to do with the

history of the world. In that case, they would

have had only the fortunes of Attila and Zingis;

they might have swept over the face of the earth,

and scourged the human race, powerful to destroy,{15}

helpless to construct, and in consequence

ephemeral; but this would have been all. But this has

not been all, as regards the Turks; for, in spite

of their intimate resemblance or relationship to

the Tartar tribes, in spite of their essential{20}

barbarism to this day, still they, or at least great

portions of the race, have been put under

education; they have been submitted to a slow

course of change, with a long history and a profitable

discipline and fortunes of a peculiar kind;

and thus they have gained those qualities of

mind, which alone enable a nation to wield and

to consolidate imperial power.

I have said that, when first they distinctly{5}

appear on the scene of history, they are

indistinguishable from Tartars. Mount Altai, the

high metropolis of Tartary, is surrounded by a

hilly district, rich not only in the useful, but in

the precious metals. Gold is said to abound{10}

there; but it is still more fertile in veins of iron,

which indeed is said to be the most plentiful in

the world. There have been iron works there

from time immemorial, and at the time that the

Huns descended on the Roman Empire (in the{15}

fifth century of the Christian era), we find

the Turks nothing more than a family of slaves,

employed as workers of the ore and as blacksmiths

by the dominant tribe. Suddenly in the course

of fifty years, soon after the fall of the Hunnish{20}

power in Europe, with the sudden development

peculiar to Tartars, we find these Turks spread

from East to West, and lords of a territory so

extensive, that they were connected, by relations

of peace or war, at once with the Chinese, the{25}

Persians, and the Romans. They had reached

Kamtchatka on the North, the Caspian on the

West, and perhaps even the mouth of the Indus

on the South. Here then we have an

intermediate empire of Tartars, placed between the{30}

eras of Attila and Zingis; but in this sketch it has

no place, except as belonging to Turkish history,

because it was contained within the limits of

Asia, and, though it lasted for 200 years, it only

faintly affected the political transactions of

Europe. However, it was not without some sort{5}

of influence on Christendom, for the Romans

interchanged embassies with its sovereign in the

reign of the then Greek Emperor Justin the

younger (A.D. 570), with the view of engaging

him in a warlike alliance against Persia. The{10}

account of one of these embassies remains, and

the picture it presents of the Turks is important,

because it seems clearly to identify them with

the Tartar race.

For instance, in the mission to the Tartars{15}

from the Pope, which I have already spoken of,

the friars were led between two fires, when they

approached the Khan, and they at first refused

to follow, thinking they might be countenancing

some magical rite. Now we find it recorded of{20}

this Roman embassy, that, on its arrival, it was

purified by the Turks with fire and incense. As

to incense, which seems out of place among such

barbarians, it is remarkable that it is used in

the ceremonial of the Turkish court to this day.{25}

At least Sir Charles Fellows, in his work on the

Antiquities of Asia Minor, in 1838, speaks of the

Sultan as going to the festival of Bairam with

incense-bearers before him. Again, when the

Romans were presented to the great Khan, they{30}

found him in his tent, seated on a throne, to which

wheels were attached and horses attachable, in

other words, a Tartar wagon. Moreover, they

were entertained at a banquet which lasted the

greater part of the day; and an intoxicating

liquor, not wine, which was sweet and pleasant,{5}

was freely presented to them; evidently the

Tartar koumiss.[32] The next day they had a

second entertainment in a still more splendid

tent; the hangings were of embroidered silk, and

the throne, the cups, and the vases were of gold.{10}

On the third day, the pavilion, in which they were

received, was supported on gilt columns; a couch

of massive gold was raised on four gold peacocks;

and before the entrance to the tent was what

might be called a sideboard, only that it was a{15}

sort of barricade of wagons, laden with dishes,

basins, and statues of solid silver. All these

points in the description—the silk hangings, the

gold vessels, the successively increasing splendor

of the entertainments—remind us of the courts{20}

of Zingis and Timour, 700 and 900 years

afterwards.

[32] Univ. Hist. Modern, vol. iii. p. 346.

This empire, then, of the Turks was of a Tartar

character; yet it was the first step of their

passing from barbarism to that degree of civilization{25}

which is their historical badge. And it was their

first step in civilization, not so much by what

it did in its day, as (unless it be a paradox to

say so) by its coming to an end. Indeed it so

happens, that those Turkish tribes which have{30}

changed their original character and have a place

in the history of the world, have obtained their

status and their qualifications for it, by a process

very different from that which took place in the

nations most familiar to us. What this process{5}

has been I will say presently; first, however, let

us observe that, fortunately for our purpose, we

have still specimens existing of those other

Turkish tribes, which were never submitted to

this process of education and change, and, in{10}

looking at them as they now exist, we see at this

very day the Turkish nationality in something

very like its original form, and are able to decide

for ourselves on its close approximation to the

Tartar. You may recollect I pointed out to{15}

you, Gentlemen, in the opening of these lectures,

the course which the pastoral tribes, or nomads

as they are often called, must necessarily take

in their emigrations. They were forced along

in one direction till they emerged from their{20}

mountain valleys, and descended their high

plateau at the end of Tartary, and then they had

the opportunity of turning south. If they did

not avail themselves of this opening, but went on

still westward, their next southern pass would{25}

be the defiles of the Caucasus and Circassia, to

the west of the Caspian. If they did not use this,

they would skirt the top of the Black Sea, and

so reach Europe. Thus in the emigration of the

Huns from China, you may recollect a tribe of{30}

them turned to the South as soon as they could,

and settled themselves between the high Tartar

land and the sea of Aral, while the main body

went on to the furthest West by the north of the

Black Sea. Now with this last passage into

Europe we are not here concerned, for the Turks{5}

have never introduced themselves to Europe by

means of it;[33] but with those two southward

passages which are Asiatic, viz., that to the east

of the Aral, and that to the west of the Caspian.

The Turkish tribes have all descended upon the{10}

civilized world by one or other of these two roads;

and I observe, that those which have descended

along the east of the Aral have changed their

social habits and gained political power, while

those which descended to the west of the Caspian{15}

remain pretty much what they ever were. The

former of these go among us by the general

name of Turks; the latter are the Turcomans

or Turkmans.... At the very date at which

Heraclius called the Turcomans into Georgia, at{20}

the very date when their Eastern brethren

crossed the northern border of Sogdiana, an event

of most momentous import had occurred in the

South. A new religion had arisen in Arabia.

The impostor Mahomet, announcing himself the{25}

Prophet of God, was writing the pages of that

book, and molding the faith of that people, which

was to subdue half the known world. The Turks

passed the Jaxartes southward in A.D. 626; just

four years before Mahomet had assumed the royal

dignity, and just six years after, on his death,

his followers began the conquest of the Persian

Empire. In the course of 20 years they effected

it; Sogdiana was at its very extremity, or its{5}

borderland; there the last king of Persia took

refuge from the south, while the Turks were

pouring into it from the north. There was little to

choose for the unfortunate prince between the

Turk and the Saracen; the Turks were his{10}

hereditary foe; they had been the giants and

monsters of the popular poetry; but he threw

himself into their arms. They engaged in his

service, betrayed him, murdered him, and

measured themselves with the Saracens in his stead.{15}

Thus the military strength of the north and south

of Asia, the Saracenic and the Turkish, came into

memorable conflict in the regions of which I have

said so much. The struggle was a fierce one, and

lasted many years; the Turks striving to force{20}

their way down to the ocean, the Saracens to

drive them back into their Scythian deserts.

They first fought this issue in Bactriana or

Khorasan; the Turks got the worst of the fight,

and then it was thrown back upon Sogdiana{25}

itself, and there it ended again in favor of the

Saracens. At the end of 90 years from the time

of the first Turkish descent on this fair region,

they relinquished it to their Mahometan

opponents. The conquerors found it rich, populous,{30}

and powerful; its cities, Carisme, Bokhara, and

Samarcand, were surrounded beyond their

fortifications by a suburb of fields and gardens, which

was in turn protected by exterior works; its plains

were well cultivated, and its commerce extended

from China to Europe. Its riches were{5}

proportionally great; the Saracens were able to extort

a tribute of two million gold pieces from the

inhabitants; we read, moreover, of the crown

jewels of one of the Turkish princesses; and of

the buskin of another, which she dropt in her{10}

flight from Bokhara, as being worth two

thousand pieces of gold.[34] Such had been the prosperity

of the barbarian invaders, such was its end; but

not their end, for adversity did them service, as

well as prosperity, as we shall see.{15}

[33] I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the Turkish stock; vid. Gibbon and Pritchard.

[34] Gibbon.

It is usual for historians to say, that the

triumph of the South threw the Turks back again

upon their northern solitudes; and this might

easily be the case with some of the many hordes,

which were ever passing the boundary and{20}

flocking down; but it is no just account of the

historical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed

do the Oriental nations present us with an

example of versatility of character; the Turks, for

instance, of this day are substantially what they{25}

were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive,

were Turkey overrun by the Russians at the

present moment, that the fanatical tribes, which

are pouring into Constantinople from Asia Minor,

would submit to the foreign yoke, take service{30}

under their conquerors, become soldiers,

custom-officers, police, men of business, attaches,

statesmen, working their way up from the ranks and

from the masses into influence and power; but,

whether from skill in the Saracens, or from {5}

far-reaching sagacity in the Turks (and it is difficult

to assign it to either cause), so it was, that a

process of this nature followed close upon the

Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be

traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many{10}

of the Turks probably were made slaves, and the

service to which they were subjected was no

matter of choice. Numbers had got attached to

the soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians,

White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three{15}

generations, had simply unlearned the wildness

of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims to

the religion of their conquerors, which ultimately,

as we know, exercised a most remarkable

influence upon them. Not all at once, but as{20}

tribe descended after tribe, and generation

followed generation, they succumbed to the creed

of Mahomet; and they embraced it with the

ardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxons

so gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their{25}

conversion to Christianity.

Here again was a very powerful instrument

in modification of their national character. Let

me illustrate it in one particular. If there is one

peculiarity above another, proper to the savage{30}

and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability and

impetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks,

on the other hand, are nationally remarkable for

gravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Now

there are evidently elements in the Mahometan

creed, which would tend to change them from{5}

the one temperament to the other. Its

sternness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; even

the truths which it borrowed from Revelation,

when separated from the truths it rejected, its

monotheism untempered by mediation, its severe{10}

view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of a

sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom

and also an improvement in the barbarian, not

very unlike the effect which some forms of

Protestantism produce among ourselves. But{15}

whatever was the mode of operation, certainly

it is to their religion that this peculiarity of the

Turks is ascribed by competent judges.

Lieutenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively

account of a peculiarity of theirs, which he{20}

unhesitatingly attributes to Islamism. "Nowhere,"

he says, "is the difference between European and

Mahometan society more strongly marked than

in the lower walks of life.... A Kasid, or

messenger, for example, will come into a public{25}

department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and

demean himself throughout the interview with

so much composure and self-possession, that an

European can hardly believe that his grade in

society is so low. After he has delivered his{30}

letters, he takes his seat among the crowd, and

answers, calmly and without hesitation, all the

questions which may be addressed to him, or

communicates the verbal instructions with which

he has been intrusted by his employer, and

which are often of more importance than the{5}

letters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classes

possess an innate self-respect, and a natural

gravity of deportment, which differs as far from

the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the

awkward rusticity of an English clown." ... "Even{10}

children," he continues, "in Mahometan countries

have an unusual degree of gravity in their

deportment. The boy, who can but lisp his 'Peace be

with you,' has imbibed this portion of the national

character. In passing through a village, these{15}

little men will place their hands upon their

breasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequently

have I seen the children of chiefs approach their

father's durbar, and stopping short at the

threshold of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam{20}

Ali-Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; but

nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the

room, and sliding down upon their knees, folded

their arms and took their seat upon the musnad

with all the gravity of grown-up persons." {25}

As Islamism has changed the demeanor of the

Turks, so doubtless it has in other ways materially

innovated on their Tartar nature. It has given

an aim to their military efforts, a political

principle, and a social bond. It has laid them under{30}

a sense of responsibility, has molded them into

consistency, and taught them a course of policy

and perseverance in it. But to treat this part

of the subject adequately to its importance would

require, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness of

discussion unsuitable to the historical sketch{5}

which I have undertaken. I have said enough

for my purpose upon this topic; and indeed

on the general question of the modification of

national character to which the Turks were at

this period subjected.{10}

The Turk and the Saracen

Mere occupation of a rich country is not

enough for civilization, as I have granted already.

The Turks came into the pleasant plains and

valleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into the

well-wooded mountains and sunny slopes of Asia{15}

Minor. The Turcomans were brought out of

their dreary deserts, yet they retained their old

habits, and they remain barbarians to this day.

But why? it must be borne in mind, they neither

subjugated the inhabitants of their new country{20}

on the one hand, nor were subjugated by them

on the other. They never had direct or intimate

relations with it; they were brought into it by

the Roman Government at Constantinople as its

auxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves{25}

there. They were like gypsies in England, except

that they were mounted freebooters instead of

pilferers and fortune tellers. It was far otherwise

with their brethren in Sogdiana; they were

there first as conquerors, then as conquered.

First they held it in possession as their prize for

90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and

enjoyment of it. Next, their political ascendancy{5}

over it involved, as in the case of the White Huns,

some sort of moral surrender of themselves to it.

What was the first consequence of this? that,

like the White Huns, they intermarried with the

races they found there. We know the custom{10}

of the Tartars and Turks; under such

circumstances they would avail themselves of their

national practice of polygamy to its full extent

of license. In the course of twenty years a new

generation would arise of a mixed race; and{15}

these in turn would marry into the native

population, and at the end of ninety or a hundred

years we should find the great-grandsons or the

great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who

first crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their{20}

ancestors in features both of mind and body,

that they hardly would be recognized as deserving

the Tartar name. At the end of that period their

power came to an end, the Saracens became

masters of them and of their country, but the{25}

process of emigration southward from the

Scythian desert, which had never intermitted during

the years of their domination, continued still,

though that domination was no more.

Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the{30}

nature of that association of the Turkish tribes

from the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which I

have given the name of Empire: it was not so

much of a political as of a national character;

it was the power, not of a system, but of a race.

They were not one well-organized state, but a{5}

number of independent tribes, acting generally

together, acknowledging one leader or not,

according to circumstances, combining and

coöperating from the identity of object which acted

on them, and often jealous of each other and{10}

quarreling with each other on account of that

very identity. Each tribe made its way down to

the south as it could; one blocked up the way of

the other for a time; there were stoppages and

collisions, but there was a continual movement{15}

and progress. Down they came one after another,

like wolves after their prey; and as the tribes

which came first became partially civilized, and

as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally

be desirous of keeping back their less polished{20}

uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do so

successfully for a while: but cupidity is stronger

than conservatism; and so, in spite of delay and

difficulty, down they would keep coming, and

down they did come, even after and in spite of{25}

the overthrow of their Empire; crowding down

as to a new world, to get what they could, as

adventurers, ready to turn to the right or the

left, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing to

be forced forward into countries farther still,{30}

careless what might turn up, so that they did but

get down. And this was the process which went

on (whatever were their fortunes when they

actually got down, prosperous or adverse) for

400, nay, I will say for 700 years. The

storehouse of the north was never exhausted; it{5}

sustained the never ending run upon its resources.

I was just now referring to a change in the

Turks, which I have mentioned before, and

which had as important a bearing as any other

of their changes upon their subsequent fortunes.{10}

It was a change in their physiognomy and shape,

so striking as to recommend them to their

masters for the purposes of war or of display.

Instead of bearing any longer the hideous exterior

which in the Huns frightened the Romans and{15}

Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the

ninth century, when they had been among the

natives of Sogdiana only two hundred years,

for the beauty of their persons. An important

political event was the result: hence the{20}

introduction of the Turks into the heart of the

Saracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs had

removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was

the imperial province, and into Persia they were

introduced for the reason I have mentioned,{25}

sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken

in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the

Saracenic armies: at length they were enrolled as

guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to

offices in the palace, to the command of the forces,{30}

and to governorships in the provinces. The son

of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many

as 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And

thus slowly and silently they made their way to

the south, not with the pomp and pretense of

conquest, but by means of that ordinary{5}

inter-communion which connected one portion of the

empire of the Caliphs with another. In this

manner they were introduced even into Egypt.

This was their history for a hundred and fifty

years, and what do we suppose would be the{10}

result of this importation of barbarians into the

heart of a nourishing empire? Would they be

absorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of the

population, or would they, like mercenaries

elsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced{15}

them? The answer is not difficult, considering

that their very introduction argued a want of

energy and resource in the rulers whom they

served. To employ them was a confession of

weakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not{20}

very aged, but the Turkish was much younger,

and more vigorous; then too must be

considered the difference of national character

between the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of

the beginning of the present century[35] compares{25}

the Turks to the Romans; such parallels are

generally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we must

accept it in the present instance, we may

complete the picture by likening the Saracens and

Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was{30}

the result of the collision between Greece and

Rome. The Persians were poets, the Saracens

were philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy,

and botany were especial subjects of the studies of

the latter. Their observatories were celebrated,{5}

and they may be considered to have originated

the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the

other hand, though they are said to have a

literature, and though certain of their princes have

been patrons of letters, have never distinguished{10}

themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but

they have had an energy of character, a

pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in

a word, they then had the qualities of mind

necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than{15}

the people they were serving. The Saracens,

like the Greeks, carried their arms over the

surface of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancy

and an uncheckered success; but their dominion,

like that of Greece, did not last for more than{20}

200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through

many centuries, and its influence lasts to this

day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties

and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult

and complication, for a good 1000 years from{25}

first to last, till at length it found itself in

possession of Constantinople, and a terror to the

whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon

the throne of Constantine; it began it as the

slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire,{30}

of Persia and Sogdiana.

[35] Thornton.

As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one

season of power and then in turn of reverse which

there befell the Turks; and next a more

remarkable outbreak and its reaction mark their presence

in Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force,{5}

consisting of Turks, which formed the guard of

the Caliphs immediately after the time of Harun

al Raschid: suddenly they rebelled against

their master, burst into his apartment at the

hour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body{10}

into seven pieces. They got possession of the

symbols of imperial power, the garment and the

staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make and

unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course

of four years they had elevated, deposed, and{15}

murdered as many as three. At their wanton

caprice, they made these successors of the false

prophet the sport of their insults and their blows.

They dragged them by the feet, stripped them,

and exposed them to the burning sun, beat them{20}

with iron clubs, and left them for days without

food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad

were roused in defense of the Caliphate, and the

Turks for a time were brought under; but they

remained in the country, or rather, by the {25}

short-sighted policy of the moment, were dispersed

throughout it, and thus became in the sequel

ready-made elements of revolution for the

purposes of other traitors of their own race, who, at

a later period, as we shall presently see, descended{30}

on Persia from Turkistan.

Indeed, events were opening the way slowly,

but surely, to their ascendancy. Throughout the

whole of the tenth century, which followed, they

seem to disappear from history; but a silent

revolution was all along in progress, leading them{5}

forward to their great destiny. The empire of

the Caliphate was already dying in its

extremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first countries

to be detached from his power. The Turks were

still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the{10}

army and the offices of the government; but the

political changes which took place were not at

first to their visible advantage. What first

occurred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy,

who made himself a great kingdom or empire out{15}

of the provinces around, extending it from the

Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of

Sogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, and

from the confines of Georgia to the mountains

of Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established{20}

lasted for four generations and for the space of

ninety years. Then the successor happened to

be a boy; and one of his servants, the governor

of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was

forced by circumstances to rebellion against him.{25}

He was successful, and the whole power of this

great kingdom fell into his hands; now he was a

Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks

suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged

masters of a southern dominion.{30}

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish

dynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh,

or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and it

lasted for two hundred years. We are not

particularly concerned in it, because it has no direct

relations with Europe; but it falls into our{5}

subject, as having been instrumental to the advance

of the Turks towards the West. Its most

distinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he

conquered Hindostan, which became eventually

the seat of the empire. In Mahmood the{10}

Gaznevide we have a prince of true Oriental splendor.

For him the title of Sultan or Soldan was invented,

which henceforth became the special badge of the

Turkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of the

sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the{15}

sovereign of the Saracens. I have already described

generally the extent of his dominions: he

inherited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul;

but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained the

title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of{20}

Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol

temples. There was no need, however, of religious

enthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: the

riches, which he amassed in the course of it, were

a recompense amply sufficient. His Indian{25}

expeditions in all amounted to twelve, and they abound

in battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast....

We have now arrived at what may literally be

called the turning point of Turkish history. We

have seen them gradually descend from the north,{30}

and in a certain degree become acclimated in the

countries where they settled. They first appear

across the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventh

century; they have now come to the beginning

of the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabout

have they been out of their deserts, gaining{5}

experience and educating themselves in such

measure as was necessary for playing their part in

the civilized world. First they came down into

Sogdiana and Khorasan, and the country below

it, as conquerors; they continued in it as{10}

subjects and slaves. They offered their services to

the race which had subdued them; they made

their way by means of their new masters down to

the west and the south; they laid the foundations

for their future supremacy in Persia, and{15}

gradually rose upwards through the social fabric to

which they had been admitted, till they found

themselves at length at the head of it. The

sovereign power which they had acquired in the

line of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan;{20}

but still fresh tribes of their race poured down

from the north, and filled up the gap; and while

one dynasty of Turks was established in the

peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the former

seat of their power.{25}

Now I call the era at which I have arrived the

turning point of their fortunes, because, when

they had descended down to Khorasan and the

countries below it, they might have turned to the

East or to the West, as they chose. They were{30}

at liberty to turn their forces eastward against

their kindred in Hindostan, whom they had driven

out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towards

the west, and make their way thither through the

Saracens of Persia and its neighboring countries.

It was an era which determined the history of the{5}

world....

But this era was a turning point in their

history in another and more serious respect. In

Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become

converts to the Mahometan faith. You will not{10}

suppose I am going to praise a religious imposture,

but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered

in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism.

Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no

supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible{15}

revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on the

other hand, the being of one God, the fact of His

revelation, His faithfulness to His promises, the

eternity of the moral law, the certainty of future

retribution, were borrowed by Mahomet from the{20}

Church, and are steadfastly held by his followers.

The false prophet taught much which is materially

true and objectively important, whatever be its

subjective and formal value and influence in the

individuals who profess it. He stands in his{25}

creed between the religion of God and the religion

of devils, between Christianity and idolatry,

between the West and the extreme East. And

so stood the Turks, on adopting his faith, at

the date I am speaking of; they stood between{30}

Christ in the West, and Satan in the East, and

they had to make their choice; and, alas! they

were led by the circumstances of the time to

oppose themselves, not to Paganism, but to

Christianity. A happier lot indeed had befallen

poor Sultan Mahmood than befell his kindred{5}

who followed in his wake. Mahmood, a

Mahometan, went eastward and found a superstition

worse than his own, and fought against it, and

smote it; and the sandal doors which he tore

away from the idol temple and hung up at his{10}

tomb at Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for him

through centuries as the soldier and the

instrument of Heaven. The tribes which followed him,

Moslem also, faced westward, and found, not

error but truth, and fought against it as zealously,{15}

and in doing so, were simply tools of the Evil One,

and preachers of a lie, and enemies, not witnesses

of God. The one destroyed idol temples, the

other Christian shrines. The one has been saved

the woe of persecuting the Bride of the Lamb;{20}

the other is of all races the veriest brood of the

serpent which the Church has encountered since

she was set up. For 800 years did the sandal

gates remain at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophy

over idolatry; and for 800 years have Seljuk{25}

and Othman been our foe.

The year 1048 of our era is fixed by

chronologists as the date of the rise of the Turkish power,

as far as Christendom is interested in its history.[36]

Sixty-three years before this date, a Turk of high{30}

rank, of the name of Seljuk, had quarreled with

his native prince in Turkistan, crossed the

Jaxartes with his followers, and planted himself in

the territory of Sogdiana. His father had been

a chief officer in the prince's court, and was the{5}

first of his family to embrace Islamism; but

Seljuk, in spite of his creed, did not obtain permission

to advance into Sogdiana from the Saracenic

government, which at that time was in possession of

the country. After several successful encounters,{10}

however, he gained admission into the city of

Bokhara, and there he settled. As time went on, he

fully recompensed the tardy hospitality which

the Saracens had shown him; for his feud with

his own countrymen, whom he had left, took the{15}

shape of a religious enmity, and he fought against

them as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, which

was both an earnest of the devotion of his people

to the faith of Mahomet, and a training for the

exercise of it....{20}

[36] Baronius, Pagi.

For four centuries the Turks are little or hardly

heard of; then suddenly in the course of as many

tens of years, and under three Sultans, they make

the whole world resound with their deeds; and,

while they have pushed to the East through{25}

Hindostan, in the West they have hurried down

to the coasts of the Mediterranean and the

Archipelago, have taken Jerusalem, and threatened

Constantinople. In their long period of silence

they had been sowing the seeds of future{30}

conquests; in their short period of action they were

gathering the fruit of past labors and sufferings.

The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before;

but, as soon as a Turk showed himself at the head

of a military force within its territory, he found

himself surrounded by the armies of his kindred{5}

which had been so long in its pay; he was joined

by the tribes of Turcomans, to whom the Romans

in a former age had shown the passes of the

Caucasus; and he could rely on the reserve of

innumerable swarms, ever issuing out of his{10}

native desert, and following in his track. Such

was the state of Western Asia in the middle of

the eleventh century.

Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of

Seljuk, is said to signify in Turkish "the{15}

courageous lion": and the Caliph gave its possessor the

Arabic appellation of Azzaddin, or "Protector of

Religion." It was the distinctive work of his

short reign to pass from humbling the Caliph to

attacking the Greek Emperor. Togrul had{20}

already invaded the Greek provinces of Asia Minor,

from Cilicia to Armenia, along a line of 600 miles,

and here it was that he had achieved his

tremendous massacres of Christians. Alp Arslan

renewed the war; he penetrated to Cæesarea in{25}

Cappadocia, attracted by the gold and pearls

which incrusted the shrine of the great St. Basil.

He then turned his arms against Armenia and

Georgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineers

of the Caucasus, who at present give such trouble{30}

to the Russians. After this he encountered,

defeated, and captured the Greek Emperor. He

began the battle with all the solemnity and

pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting away

his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and

scimeter; he perfumed his body with musk, as{5}

if for his burial, and dressed himself in white,

that he might be slain in his winding sheet.

After his victory, the captive Emperor of New

Rome was brought before him in a peasant's

dress; he made him kiss the ground beneath his{10}

feet, and put his foot upon his neck. Then,

raising him up, he struck or patted him three times

with his hand, and gave him his life and, on a

large ransom, his liberty.

At this time the Sultan was only forty-four{15}

years of age, and seemed to have a career of glory

still before him. Twelve hundred nobles stood

before his throne; two hundred thousand soldiers

marched under his banner. As if dissatisfied

with the South, he turned his arms against his{20}

own paternal wildernesses, with which his

family, as I have related, had a feud. New tribes

of Turks seem to have poured down, and were

wresting Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, as

the Seljukians had wrested it from the{25}

Gaznevides. Alp had not advanced far into the

country, when he met his death from the hand of a

captive. A Carismian chief had withstood his

progress, and, being taken, was condemned to a

lingering execution. On hearing the sentence, he{30}

rushed forward upon Alp Arslan; and the Sultan,

disdaining to let his generals interfere, bent his

bow, but, missing his aim, received the dagger of

his prisoner in his breast. His death, which

followed, brings before us that grave dignity of the

Turkish character, of which we have already had{5}

an example in Mahmood. Finding his end

approaching, he has left on record a sort of dying

confession: "In my youth," he said, "I was

advised by a sage to humble myself before God,

to distrust my own strength, and never to despise{10}

the most contemptible foe. I have neglected

these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly

punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, I

beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit

of my armies; the earth seemed to tremble under{15}

my feet, and I said in my heart, Surely thou art

the king of the world, the greatest and most

invincible of warriors. These armies are no

longer mine; and, in the confidence of my

personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an{20}

assassin." On his tomb was engraven an

inscription, conceived in a similar spirit. "O ye, who

have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the

heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it

buried in the dust." [37] Alp Arslan was adorned{25}

with great natural qualities both of intellect and

of soul. He was brave and liberal: just, patient,

and sincere: constant in his prayers, diligent in

his alms, and, it is added, witty in his

conversation; but his gifts availed him not.{30}

[37] Gibbon.

It often happens in the history of states and

races, in which there is found first a rise and then

a decline, that the greatest glories take place just

then when the reverse is beginning or begun.

Thus, for instance, in the history of the{5}

Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come,

Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and

greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it

as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the

son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom{10}

its glories ended, is represented to us in history

in colors so bright and perfect, that it is difficult

to believe we are not reading the account of some

mythical personage. He came to the throne at

the early age of seventeen; he was well-shaped,{15}

handsome, polished both in manners and in

mind; wise and courageous, pious and sincere.

He engaged himself even more in the

consolidation of his empire than in its extension. He

reformed abuses; he reduced the taxes; he{20}

repaired the highroads, bridges, and canals; he

built an imperial mosque at Bagdad; he founded

and nobly endowed a college. He patronized

learning and poetry, and he reformed the

calendar. He provided marts for commerce; he{25}

upheld the pure administration of justice, and

protected the helpless and the innocent. He

established wells and cisterns in great numbers

along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fed

the pilgrims, and distributed immense sums{30}

among the poor.

He was in every respect a great prince; he

extended his conquests across Sogdiana to the

very borders of China. He subdued by his

lieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and took

Jerusalem. He is said to have traveled round{5}

his vast dominions twelve times. So potent was

he, that he actually gave away kingdoms, and

had for feudatories great princes. He gave to

his cousin his territories in Asia Minor, and

planted him over against Constantinople, as an{10}

earnest of future conquests; and he may be said

to have finally allotted to the Turcomans the

fair regions of Western Asia, over which they

roam to this day.

All human greatness has its term; the more{15}

brilliant was this great Sultan's rise, the more

sudden was his extinction; and the earlier he

came to his power, the earlier did he lose it. He

had reigned twenty years, and was but

thirty-seven years old, when he was lifted up with pride{20}

and came to his end. He disgraced and

abandoned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the age

of ninety-three, who for thirty years had been the

servant and benefactor of the house of Seljuk.

After obtaining from the Caliph the peculiar{25}

and almost incommunicable title of "the

commander of the faithful," unsatisfied still, he

wished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and to

deprive his impotent superior of his few

remaining honors. He demanded the hand of the{30}

daughter of the Greek Emperor, a Christian, in

marriage. A few days, and he was no more;

he had gone out hunting, and returned

indisposed; a vein was opened, and the blood would

not flow. A burning fever took him off, only

eighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and{5}

less than ten before the day when the Caliph was

to have been removed from Bagdad.

Such is human greatness at the best, even were

it ever so innocent; but as to this poor Sultan,

there is another aspect even of his glorious deeds.{10}

If I have seemed here or elsewhere in these

Lectures to speak of him or his with interest or

admiration, only take me, Gentlemen, as giving

the external view of the Turkish history, and that

as introductory to the determination of its true{15}

significance. Historians and poets may celebrate

the exploits of Malek; but what were they in the

sight of Him who has said that whoso shall strike

against His cornerstone shall be broken; but

on whomsoever it shall fall, shall be ground to{20}

powder? Looking at this Sultan's deeds as

mere exhibitions of human power, they were

brilliant and marvelous; but there was another

judgment of them formed in the West, and other

feelings than admiration roused by them in the{25}

faith and the chivalry of Christendom.

Especially was there one, the divinely appointed

shepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxious

steward of His Church, who from his high and

ancient watch tower, in the fullness of apostolic{30}

charity, surveyed narrowly what was going on at

thousands of miles from him, and with prophetic

eye looked into the future age; and scarcely had

that enemy, who was in the event so heavily to

smite the Christian world, shown himself, when

he gave warning of the danger, and prepared{5}

himself with measures for averting it. Scarcely

had the Turk touched the shores of the

Mediterranean and the Archipelago, when the Pope

detected and denounced him before all Europe.

The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was{10}

then upon the throne of the Apostle; and though

he was engaged in one of the severest conflicts

which Pope has ever sustained, not only against

the secular power, but against bad bishops and

priests, yet at a time when his very life was not{15}

his own, and present responsibilities so urged

him, that one would fancy he had time for no

other thought, Gregory was able to turn his mind

to the consideration of a contingent danger in the

almost fabulous East. In a letter written during{20}

the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea

of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later

popes carried out. He assures the Emperor of

Germany, whom he was addressing, that he had

50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he{25}

would fain have led in person. This was in the

year 1074.

In truth, the most melancholy accounts were

brought to Europe of the state of things in the

Holy Land. A rude Turcoman ruled in{30}

Jerusalem; his people insulted there the clergy of

every profession; they dragged the patriarch by

the hair along the pavement, and cast him into

a dungeon, in hopes of a ransom; and disturbed

from time to time the Latin Mass and office in the

Church of the Resurrection. As to the pilgrims,{5}

Asia Minor, the country through which they had

to travel in an age when the sea was not yet safe

to the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursion

and internal distraction. They arrived at

Jerusalem exhausted by their sufferings, and{10}

sometimes terminated them by death, before they

were permitted to kiss the Holy Sepulchre.

It is commonly said that the Crusades failed

in their object; that they were nothing else but

a lavish expenditure of men and treasure; and{15}

that the possession of the Holy Places by the

Turks to this day is a proof of it. Now I will not

enter here into a very intricate controversy; this

only will I say, that, if the tribes of the desert,

under the leadership of the house of Seljuk, turned{20}

their faces to the West in the middle of the

eleventh century; if in forty years they had

advanced from Khorasan to Jerusalem and the

neighborhood of Constantinople; and if in

consequence they were threatening Europe and{25}

Christianity; and if, for that reason, it was a

great object to drive them back or break them

to pieces; if it were a worthy object of the

Crusades to rescue Europe from this peril and to

reassure the anxious minds of Christian

multitudes; then were the Crusades no failure in

their issue, for this object was fully accomplished.

The Seljukian Turks were hurled back upon the

East, and then broken up, by the hosts of the{5}

Crusaders. The lieutenant of Malek Shah, who

had been established as Sultan of Roum (as Asia

Minor was called by the Turks), was driven to an

obscure town, where his dynasty lasted, indeed,

but gradually dwindled away. A similar fate {10}

attended the house of Seljuk in other parts of

the Empire, and internal quarrels increased and

perpetuated its weakness. Sudden as was its

rise, as sudden was its fall; till the terrible

Zingis, descending on the Turkish dynasties, like{15}

an avalanche, coöperated effectually with the

Crusaders and finished their work; and if

Jerusalem was not protected from other enemies,

at least Constantinople was saved, and Europe

was placed in security, for three hundred years.{20}

THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE OTTOMANS

I think it is clear, that, if my account be only

in the main correct, the Turkish power certainly

is not a civilized, and is a barbarous power.

The barbarian lives without principle and

without aim; he does but reflect the successive{25}

outward circumstances in which he finds himself,

and he varies with them. He changes

suddenly, when their change is sudden, and is as

unlike what he was just before, as one fortune

or external condition is unlike another. He

moves when he is urged by appetite; else, he

remains in sloth and inactivity. He lives, and

he dies, and he has done nothing, but leaves the{5}

world as he found it. And what the individual

is, such is his whole generation; and as that

generation, such is the generation before and

after. No generation can say what it has been

doing; it has not made the state of things better{10}

or worse; for retrogression there is hardly room;

for progress, no sort of material. Now I shall

show that these characteristics of the barbarian

are rudimental points, as I may call them, in the

picture of the Turks, as drawn by those who{15}

have studied them. I shall principally avail

myself of the information supplied by Mr.

Thornton and M. Volney, men of name and ability,

and for various reasons preferable as authorities

to writers of the present day.{20}

"The Turks," says Mr. Thornton, who, though

not blind to their shortcomings, is certainly

favorable to them, "the Turks are of a grave

and saturnine cast ... patient of hunger and

privations, capable of enduring the hardships of{25}

war, but not much inclined to habits of

industry.... They prefer apathy and indolence to

active enjoyments; but when moved by a

powerful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures

in excess." "The Turk," he says elsewhere,{30}

"stretched at his ease on the banks of the Bosphorus,

glides down the stream of existence

without reflection on the past, and without

anxiety for the future. His life is one continued

and unvaried reverie. To his imagination the

whole universe appears occupied in procuring him{5}

pleasures.... Every custom invites to repose,

and every object inspires an indolent

voluptuousness. Their delight is to recline on soft verdure

under the shade of trees, and to muse without

fixing the attention, lulled by the trickling of a{10}

fountain or the murmuring of a rivulet, and

inhaling through their pipe a gently inebriating

vapor. Such pleasures, the highest which the

rich can enjoy, are equally within the reach of

the artisan or the peasant."{15}

M. Volney corroborates this account of them:

"Their behavior," he says, "is serious, austere,

and melancholy; they rarely laugh, and the

gayety of the French appears to them a fit of

delirium. When they speak, it is with{20}

deliberation, without gestures and without passion;

they listen without interrupting you; they are

silent for whole days together, and they by no

means pique themselves on supporting

conversation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and{25}

on business. They have no idea of our

troublesome activity, and our walks backwards and

forwards for amusement. Continually seated,

they pass whole days smoking, with their legs

crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost{30}

without changing their attitude." Englishmen

present as great a contrast to the Ottoman as the

French; as a late English traveler brings before

us, apropos of seeing some Turks in quarantine:

"Certainly," he says, "Englishmen are the least

able to wait, and the Turks the most so, of any{5}

people I have ever seen. To impede an

Englishman's locomotion on a journey, is equivalent to

stopping the circulation of his blood; to disturb

the repose of a Turk on his, is to reawaken him

to a painful sense of the miseries of life. The{10}

one nation at rest is as much tormented as

Prometheus, chained to his rock, with the vulture

feeding on him; the other in motion is as

uncomfortable as Ixion tied to his ever-moving wheel."[38]

[38] Formby's Visit, p. 70.

However, the barbarian, when roused to action,{15}

is a very different being from the barbarian

at rest. "The Turk," says Mr. Thornton, "is

usually placid, hypochondriac, and

unimpassioned; but, when the customary sedateness of

his temper is ruffled, his passions ... are{20}

furious and uncontrollable. The individual seems

possessed with all the ungovernable fury of a

multitude; and all ties, all attachments, all

natural and moral obligations, are forgotten or

despised, till his rage subsides." A similar{25}

remark is made by a writer of the day: "The Turk

on horseback has no resemblance to the Turk

reclining on his carpet. He there assumes a

vigor, and displays a dexterity, which few

Europeans would be capable of emulating; no{30}

horsemen surpass the Turks; and, with all the

indolence of which they are accused, no people

are more fond of the violent exercise of riding."

So was it with their ancestors, the Tartars;

now dosing on their horses or their wagons, now{5}

galloping over the plains from morning to night.

However, these successive phases of Turkish

character, as reported by travelers, have seemed

to readers as inconsistencies in their reports;

Thornton accepts the inconsistency. "The{10}

national character of the Turks," he says, "is a

composition of contradictory qualities. We find

them brave and pusillanimous; gentle and

ferocious; resolute and inconstant; active and

indolent; fastidiously abstemious, and{15}

indiscriminately indulgent. The great are alternately

haughty and humble, arrogant and cringing,

liberal and sordid." [39] What is this but to say in

one word that we find them barbarians?

[39] Bell's Geography.

According to these distinct moods or phases{20}

of character, they will leave very various

impressions of themselves on the minds of successive

beholders. A traveler finds them in their

ordinary state in repose and serenity; he is surprised

and startled to find them so different from what {25}

he imagined; he admires and extols them, and

inveighs against the prejudice which has

slandered them to the European world. He finds them

mild and patient, tender to the brute creation, as

becomes the, children of a Tartar shepherd, kind{30}

and hospitable, self-possessed and dignified, the

lowest classes sociable with each other, and the

children gamesome. It is true; they are as noble

as the lion of the desert, and as gentle and as

playful as the fireside cat. Our traveler observes{5}

all this;[40] and seems to forget that from the

humblest to the highest of the feline tribe, from

the cat to the lion, the most wanton and

tyrannical cruelty alternates with qualities more

engaging or more elevated. Other barbarous{10}

tribes also have their innocent aspects—from

the Scythians in the classical poets and historians

down to the Lewchoo islanders in the pages of

Basil Hall.

[40] Vid. Sir Charles Fellows' Asia Minor.

But whatever be the natural excellences of{15}

the Turks, progressive they are not. This Sir

Charles Fellows seems to allow: "My intimacy

with the character of the Turks," he says, "which

has led me to think so highly of their moral

excellence, has not given me the same favorable{20}

impression of the development of their mental

powers. Their refinement is of manners and

affections; there is little cultivation or activity

of mind among them." This admission implies

a great deal, and brings us to a fresh{25}

consideration. Observe, they were in the eighth century

of their political existence when Thornton and

Volney lived among them, and these authors

report of them as follows: "Their buildings,"

says Thornton, "are heavy in their proportions,{30}

bad in detail, both in taste and execution,

fantastic in decoration, and destitute of genius.

Their cities are not decorated with public

monuments, whose object is to enliven or to embellish."

Their religion forbids them every sort of {5}

painting, sculpture, or engraving; thus the fine arts

cannot exist among them. They have no music

but vocal; and know of no accompaniment

except a bass of one note like that of the bagpipe.

Their singing is in a great measure recitative,{10}

with little variation of note. They have scarcely

any notion of medicine or surgery; and they do

not allow of anatomy. As to science, the

telescope, the microscope, the electric battery, are

unknown, except as playthings. The compass {15}

is not universally employed in their navy, nor

are its common purposes thoroughly understood.

Navigation, astronomy, geography, chemistry,

are either not known, or practiced only on

antiquated and exploded principles. As to their{20}

civil and criminal codes of law, these are

unalterably fixed in the Koran....

Compare the Rome of Junius Brutus to the

Rome of Constantine, 800 years afterwards. In

each of these polities there was a continuous{25}

progression, and the end was unlike the

beginning; but the Turks, except that they have gained

the faculty of political union, are pretty much

what they were when they crossed the Jaxartes

and Oxus. Again, at the time of Togrul Beg, the{30}

Greek schism also took place; now from Michael

Cerularius, in 1054, to Anthimus, in 1853,

Patriarchs of Constantinople, eight centuries have

passed of religious deadness and insensibility: a

longer time has passed in China of a similar

political inertness: yet China has preserved at{5}

least the civilization, and Greece the ecclesiastical

science, with which they respectively passed into

their long sleep; but the Turks of this day are

still in the less than infancy of art, literature,

philosophy, and general knowledge; and we may{10}

fairly conclude that, if they have not learned

the very alphabet of science in eight hundred

years, they are not likely to set to work on it in

the nine hundredth.

It is true that in the last quarter of a century{15}

efforts have been made by the government of

Constantinople to innovate on the existing

condition of its people; and it has addressed itself

in the first instance to certain details of daily

Turkish life. We must take it for granted that it{20}

began with such changes as were easiest; if so, its

failure in these small matters suggests how little

ground there is for hope of success in other

advances more important and difficult. Every

one knows that in the details of dress, carriage,{25}

and general manners, the Turks are very

different from Europeans: so different, and so

consistently different, that the contrariety would

seem to arise from some difference of essential

principle. "This dissimilitude," says Mr.

Thornton, "which pervades the whole of their habits,

is so general, even in things of apparent

insignificance, as almost to indicate design rather than

accident...."{5}

To learn from others, you must entertain a

respect for them; no one listens to those whom

he contemns. Christian nations make progress

in secular matters, because they are aware they

have many things to learn, and do not mind from{10}

whom they learn them, so that he be able to teach.

It is true that Christianity, as well as

Mahometanism, which imitated it, has its visible polity,

and its universal rule, and its especial

prerogatives and powers and lessons, for its disciples.{15}

But, with a Divine wisdom, and contrary to its

human copyist, it has carefully guarded (if I

may use the expression) against extending its

revelations to any point which would blunt the

keenness of human research or the activity of{20}

human toil. It has taken those matters for its

field in which the human mind, left to itself,

could not profitably exercise itself, or progress,

if it would; it has confined its revelations to the

province of theology, only indirectly touching{25}

on other departments of knowledge, so far as

theological truth accidentally affects them; and

it has shown an equally remarkable care in

preventing the introduction of the spirit of caste

or race into its constitution or administration.{30}

Pure nationalism it abhors; its authoritative

documents pointedly ignore the distinction of

Jew and Gentile, and warn us that the first often

becomes the last; while its subsequent history

has illustrated this great principle, by its awful,

and absolute, and inscrutable, and irreversible{5}

passage from country to country, as its territory

and its home. Such, then, it has been in the

Divine counsels, and such, too, as realized in fact;

but man has ways of his own, and, even before

its introduction into the world, the inspired{10}

announcements, which preceded it, were distorted

by the people to whom they were given, to

minister to views of a very different kind. The

secularized Jews, relying on the supernatural

favors locally and temporally bestowed on{15}

themselves, fell into the error of supposing that a

conquest of the earth was reserved for some mighty

warrior of their own race, and that, in

compensation of the reverses which befell them, they

were to become an imperial nation.{20}

What a contrast is presented to us by these

different ideas of a universal empire! The

distinctions of race are indelible; a Jew cannot

become a Greek, or a Greek a Jew; birth is an

event of past time; according to the Judaizers,{25}

their nation, as a nation, was ever to be

dominant; and all other nations, as such, were

inferior and subject. What was the necessary

consequence? There is nothing men more pride

themselves on than birth, for this very reason,{30}

that it is irrevocable; it can neither be given to

those who have it not, nor taken away from

those who have. The Almighty can do anything

which admits of doing; He can compensate every

evil; but a Greek poet says that there is one

thing impossible to Him—to undo what is{5}

done. Without throwing the thought into a

shape which borders on the profane, we may see

in it the reason why the idea of national power

was so dear and so dangerous to the Jew. It was

his consciousness of inalienable superiority that{10}

led him to regard Roman and Greek, Syrian and

Egyptian, with ineffable arrogance and scorn.

Christians, too, are accustomed to think of those

who are not Christians as their inferiors; but the

conviction which possesses them, that they have{15}

what others have not, is obviously not open to

the temptation which nationalism presents.

According to their own faith, there is no insuperable

gulf between themselves and the rest of mankind;

there is not a being in the whole world but is{20}

invited by their religion to occupy the same

position as themselves, and, did he come, would

stand on their very level, as if he had ever been

there. Such accessions to their body they

continually receive, and they are bound under{25}

obligation of duty to promote them. They never

can pronounce of any one, now external to them,

that he will not some day be among them; they

never can pronounce of themselves that, though

they are now within, they may not some day{30}

be found outside, the Divine polity. Such are

the sentiments inculcated by Christianity, even

in the contemplation of the very superiority

which it imparts; even there it is a principle, not

of repulsion between man and man, but of good

fellowship; but as to subjects of secular{5}

knowledge, since here it does not arrogate any

superiority at all, it has in fact no tendency whatever

to center its disciple's contemplation on himself,

or to alienate him from his kind. He readily

acknowledges and defers to the superiority in{10}

art or science of those, if so be, who are

unhappily enemies to Christianity. He admits the

principle of progress on all matters of knowledge

and conduct on which the Creator has not decided

the truth already by revealing it; and he is at{15}

all times ready to learn, in those merely secular

matters, from those who can teach him best.

Thus it is that Christianity, even negatively, and

without contemplating its positive influences, is

the religion of civilization.{20}

III. UNIVERSITIES

WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?

If I were asked to describe as briefly and

popularly as I could, what a University was, I

should draw my answer from its ancient

designation of a Studium Generale, or "School of

Universal Learning." This description implies{5}

the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one

spot—from all parts; else, how will you find

professors and students for every department of

knowledge? and in one spot; else, how can there

be any school at all? Accordingly, in its simple{10}

and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge

of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners

from every quarter. Many things are requisite

to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this

description; but such as this a University seems{15}

to be in its essence, a place for the

communication and circulation of thought, by means of

personal intercourse, through a wide extent of

country.

Mutual education, in a large sense of the word,{20}

is one of the great and incessant occupations of

human society, carried on partly with set

purpose, and partly not. One generation forms

another; and the existing generation is ever

acting and reacting upon itself in the persons of its

individual members. Now, in this process, books,

I need scarcely say, that is, the litera scripta,

are one special instrument. It is true; and{5}

emphatically so in this age. Considering the

prodigious powers of the press, and how they are

developed at this time in the never intermitting

issue of periodicals, tracts, pamphlets, works in

series, and light literature, we must allow there{10}

never was a time which promised fairer for

dispensing with every other means of information

and instruction. What can we want more, you

will say, for the intellectual education of the

whole man, and for every man, than so exuberant{15}

and diversified and persistent a promulgation

of all kinds of knowledge? Why, you will ask,

need we go up to knowledge, when knowledge

comes down to us? The Sibyl wrote her

prophecies upon the leaves of the forest, and wasted{20}

them; but here such careless profusion might be

prudently indulged, for it can be afforded

without loss, in consequence of the almost fabulous

fecundity of the instrument which these latter

ages have invented. We have sermons in stones,{25}

and books in the running brooks; works larger

and more comprehensive than those which have

gained for ancients an immortality, issue forth

every morning, and are projected onwards to

the ends of the earth at the rate of hundreds of{30}

miles a day. Our seats are strewed, our pavements

are powdered, with swarms of little tracts;

and the very bricks of our city walls preach

wisdom, by informing us by their placards where we

can at once cheaply purchase it.

I allow all this, and much more; such{5}

certainly is our popular education, and its effects are

remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, even in this

age, whenever men are really serious about

getting what, in the language of trade, is called "a

good article," when they aim at something{10}

precise, something refined, something really

luminous, something really large, something choice,

they go to another market; they avail themselves,

in some shape or other, of the rival method, the

ancient method, of oral instruction, of present{15}

communication between man and man, of teachers

instead of learning, of the personal influence of a

master, and the humble initiation of a disciple,

and, in consequence, of great centers of

pilgrimage and throng, which such a method of {20}

education necessarily involves.

If the actions of men may be taken as any test

of their convictions, then we have reason for

saying this, viz.: that the province and the

inestimable benefit of the litera scripta is that of{25}

being a record of truth, and an authority of appeal,

and an instrument of teaching in the hands of a

teacher; but that, if we wish to become exact and

fully furnished in any branch of knowledge which

is diversified and complicated, we must consult {30}

the living man and listen to his living voice....

No book can convey the special spirit and

delicate peculiarities of its subject with that

rapidity and certainty which attend on the sympathy

of mind with mind, through the eyes, the look,

the accent, and the manner, in casual expressions{5}

thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied

turns of familiar conversation. But I am already

dwelling too long on what is but an incidental

portion of my main subject. Whatever be the

cause, the fact is undeniable. The general{10}

principles of any study you may learn by books at

home; but the detail, the color, the tone, the

air, the life which makes it live in us, you must

catch all these from those in whom it lives

already. You must imitate the student in French{15}

or German, who is not content with his

grammar, but goes to Paris or Dresden: you must

take example from the young artist, who aspires

to visit the great Masters in Florence and in

Rome. Till we have discovered some{20}

intellectual daguerreotype, which takes off the course of

thought, and the form, lineaments, and features

of truth, as completely and minutely, as the

optical instrument reproduces the sensible

object, we must come to the teachers of wisdom{25}

to learn wisdom, we must repair to the fountain,

and drink there. Portions of it may go from

thence to the ends of the earth by means of

books; but the fullness is in one place alone. It

is in such assemblages and congregations of{30}

intellect that books themselves, the masterpieces

of human genius, are written, or at least

originated.

The principle on which I have been insisting

is so obvious, and instances in point are so ready,

that I should think it tiresome to proceed with{5}

the subject, except that one or two illustrations

may serve to explain my own language about it,

which may not have done justice to the doctrine

which it has been intended to enforce.

For instance, the polished manners and{10}

high-bred bearing which are so difficult of attainment,

and so strictly personal when attained,—which

are so much admired in society, from society

are acquired. All that goes to constitute a

gentleman,—the carriage, gait, address, gestures,{15}

voice; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy,

the power of conversing, the talent of not

offending; the lofty principle, the delicacy of thought,

the happiness of expression, the taste and

propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the{20}

candor and consideration, the openness of

hand—these qualities, some of them come by nature,

some of them may be found in any rank, some of

them are a direct precept of Christianity; but

the full assemblage of them, bound up in the{25}

unity of an individual character, do we expect

they can be learned from books? are they not

necessarily acquired, where they are to be found,

in high society? The very nature of the case

leads us to say so; you cannot fence without an{30}

antagonist, nor challenge all comers in disputation

before you have supported a thesis; and in

like manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn

to converse till you have the world to converse

with; you cannot unlearn your natural

bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other{5}

besetting deformity, till you serve your time in

some school of manners. Well, and is it not so

in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court,

the great houses of the land, are the centers to

which at stated times the country comes up, as to{10}

shrines of refinement and good taste; and then

in due time the country goes back again home,

enriched with a portion of the social

accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call out

and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them.{15}

We are unable to conceive how the

"gentleman-like" can otherwise be maintained; and

maintained in this way it is....

Religious teaching itself affords us an

illustration of our subject to a certain point. It{20}

does not indeed seat itself merely in centers of

the world; this is impossible from the nature of

the case. It is intended for the many not the

few; its subject-matter is truth necessary for us,

not truth recondite and rare; but it concurs in{25}

the principle of a University so far as this, that

its great instrument, or rather organ, has ever

been that which nature prescribes in all education,

the personal presence of a teacher, or, in

theological language, Oral Tradition. It is the living{30}

voice, the breathing form, the expressive countenance,

which preaches, which catechises. Truth,

a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into

the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears,

through his affections, imagination, and reason;

it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there{5}

in perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it,

by questioning and requestioning, by correcting

and explaining, by progressing and then recurring

to first principles, by all those ways which are

implied in the word "catechising." In the first{10}

ages, it was a work of long time; months,

sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task

of disabusing the mind of the incipient Christian

of its pagan errors, and of molding it upon the

Christian faith. The Scriptures indeed were at{15}

hand for the study of those who could avail

themselves of them; but St. Irenæus does not

hesitate to speak of whole races, who had been

converted to Christianity, without being able to

read them. To be unable to read or write was in{20}

those times no evidence of want of learning: the

hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the

word, illiterate; yet the great St. Anthony,

though he knew not letters, was a match in

disputation for the learned philosophers who came{25}

to try him. Didymus again, the great

Alexandrian theologian, was blind. The ancient

discipline, called the Disciplina Arcani, involved the

same principle. The more sacred doctrines of

Revelation were not committed to books but{30}

passed on by successive tradition. The teaching

on the Blessed Trinity, and the Eucharist

appears to have been so handed down for some

hundred years; and when at length reduced to

writing, it has filled many folios, yet has not been

exhausted.{5}

But I have said more than enough in

illustration; end as I began—a University is a place

of concourse, whither students come from every

quarter for every kind of knowledge. You

cannot have the best of every kind everywhere; you{10}

must go to some great city or emporium for it.

There you have all the choicest productions

of nature and art all together, which you find

each in its own separate place elsewhere. All

the riches of the land, and of the earth, are{15}

carried up thither; there are the best markets, and

there the best workmen. It is the center of

trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire

of rival talents, and the standard of things rare

and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries{20}

of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful

voices and performers of transcendent skill. It

is the place for great preachers, great orators,

great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of

things, greatness and unity go together;{25}

excellence implies a center. And such, for the third

or fourth time, is a University; I hope I do not

weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the

place to which a thousand schools make

contributions; in which the intellect may safely{30}

range and speculate, sure to find its equal in

some antagonist activity, and its judge in the

tribunal of truth. It is a place where inquiry

is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and

perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and

error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind,{5}

and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place

where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a

missionary and a preacher, displaying his science

in its most complete and most winning form,

pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and{10}

lighting up his own love of it in the breasts of

his hearers. It is the place where the catechist

makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the

truth day by day into the ready memory, and

wedging and tightening it into the expanding{15}

reason. It is a place which wins the admiration

of the young by its celebrity, kindles the

affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets

the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is a

seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of{20}

the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation.

It is this and a great deal more, and demands a

somewhat better head and hand than mine to

describe it well.

UNIVERSITY LIFE: Athens

It has been my desire, were I able, to bring{25}

before the reader what Athens may have been,

viewed as what we have since called a University;

and to do this, not with any purpose of writing

a panegyric on a heathen city, or of denying

its many deformities, or of concealing what was

morally base in what was intellectually great, but

just the contrary, of representing as they really{5}

were; so far, that is, as to enable him to see what

a University is, in the very constitution of society

and in its own idea, what is its nature and object,

and what its needs of aid and support external to

itself to complete that nature and to secure that{10}

object.

So now let us fancy our Scythian, or Armenian,

or African, or Italian, or Gallic student, after

tossing on the Saronic waves, which would be his

more ordinary course to Athens, at last casting{15}

anchor at Piræus. He is of any condition or rank

of life you please, and may be made to order,

from a prince to a peasant. Perhaps he is some

Cleanthes, who has been a boxer in the public

games. How did it ever cross his brain to betake{20}

himself to Athens in search of wisdom? or, if he

came thither by accident, how did the love of it

ever touch his heart? But so it was, to Athens he

came with three drachms in his girdle, and he got

his livelihood by drawing water, carrying loads,{25}

and the like servile occupations. He attached

himself, of all philosophers, to Zeno the

Stoic,—to Zeno, the most high-minded, the most haughty

of speculators; and out of his daily earnings the

poor scholar brought his master the daily sum of{30}

an obolus, in payment for attending his lectures.

Such progress did he make, that on Zeno's death

he actually was his successor in his school; and,

if my memory does not play me false, he is the

author of a hymn to the Supreme Being, which is

one of the noblest effusions of the kind in classical{5}

poetry. Yet, even when he was the head of a

school, he continued in his illiberal toil as if he

had been a monk; and, it is said, that once, when

the wind took his pallium, and blew it aside, he

was discovered to have no other garment at{10}

all—something like the German student who came up

to Heidelberg with nothing upon him but a great

coat and a pair of pistols.

Or it is another disciple of the Porch—Stoic

by nature, earlier than by profession—who is{15}

entering the city; but in what different fashion

he comes! It is no other than Marcus, Emperor

of Rome and philosopher. Professors long since

were summoned from Athens for his service, when

he was a youth, and now he comes, after his {20}

victories in the battlefield, to make his

acknowledgments at the end of life, to the city of wisdom, and

to submit himself to an initiation into the

Eleusinian mysteries.

Or it is a young man of great promise as an{25}

orator, were it not for his weakness of chest, which

renders it necessary that he should acquire the art

of speaking without over-exertion, and should

adopt a delivery sufficient for the display of his

rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet merciful{30}

to his physical resources on the other. He is

called Cicero; he will stop but a short time, and

will pass over to Asia Minor and its cities, before

he returns to continue a career which will render

his name immortal; and he will like his short

sojourn at Athens so well, that he will take good{5}

care to send his son thither at an earlier age than

he visited it himself.

But see where comes from Alexandria (for we

need not be very solicitous about anachronisms),

a young man from twenty to twenty-two, who{10}

has narrowly escaped drowning on his voyage,

and is to remain at Athens as many as eight or

ten years, yet in the course of that time will not

learn a line of Latin, thinking it enough to

become accomplished in Greek composition, and in{15}

that he will succeed. He is a grave person, and

difficult to make out; some say he is a Christian,

something or other in the Christian line his father

is for certain. His name is Gregory, he is by

country a Cappadocian, and will in time become{20}

preëminently a theologian, and one of the

principal Doctors of the Greek Church.

Or it is one Horace, a youth of low stature and

black hair, whose father has given him an

education at Rome above his rank in life, and now is{25}

sending him to finish it at Athens; he is said to

have a turn for poetry: a hero he is not, and it

were well if he knew it; but he is caught by the

enthusiasm of the hour, and goes off campaigning

with Brutus and Cassius, and will leave his shield{30}

behind him on the field of Philippi.

Or it is a mere boy of fifteen: his name

Eunapius; though the voyage was not long, sea

sickness, or confinement, or bad living on board the

vessel, threw him into a fever, and, when the

passengers landed in the evening at Piræus, he{5}

could not stand. His countrymen who

accompanied him, took him up among them and carried

him to the house of the great teacher of the day,

Proæresius, who was a friend of the captain's,

and whose fame it was which drew the{10}

enthusiastic youth to Athens. His companions

understand the sort of place they are in, and, with the

license of academic students, they break into the

philosopher's house, though he appears to have

retired for the night, and proceed to make {15}

themselves free of it, with an absence of ceremony,

which is only not impudence, because Proæresius

takes it so easily. Strange introduction for our

stranger to a seat of learning, but not out of

keeping with Athens; for what could you expect of a{20}

place where there was a mob of youths and not

even the pretense of control; where the poorer

lived any how, and got on as they could, and the

teachers themselves had no protection from the

humors and caprices of the students who filled{25}

their lecture halls? However, as to this

Eunapius, Proæresius took a fancy to the boy, and told

him curious stories about Athenian life. He

himself had come up to the University with one

Hephæstion, and they were even worse off than{30}

Cleanthes the Stoic; for they had only one cloak

between them, and nothing whatever besides,

except some old bedding; so when Proæresius

went abroad, Hephæstion lay in bed, and

practiced himself in oratory; and then Hephæstion

put on the cloak, and Proæresius crept under the{5}

coverlet. At another time there was so fierce

a feud between what would be called "town and

gown" in an English University, that the

Professors did not dare lecture in public, for fear of

ill treatment.{10}

But a freshman like Eunapius soon got

experience for himself of the ways and manners

prevalent in Athens. Such a one as he had hardly

entered the city, when he was caught hold of by

a party of the academic youth, who proceeded to{15}

practice on his awkwardness and his ignorance.

At first sight one wonders at their childishness;

but the like conduct obtained in the mediæval

Universities; and not many months have passed

away since the journals have told us of sober{20}

Englishmen, given to matter-of-fact calculations,

and to the anxieties of money making, pelting

each other with snowballs on their own sacred

territory, and defying the magistracy, when they

would interfere with their privileges of{25}

becoming boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to

something or other in human nature. Meanwhile,

there stands the newcomer, surrounded by a circle

of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to

frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him,{30}

to the extent of their wit. Some address him with

mock politeness, others with fierceness; and so

they conduct him in solemn procession across the

Agora to the Baths; and as they approach, they

dance about him like madmen. But this was to

be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a sort of{5}

initiation; he thereupon received the pallium, or

University gown, and was suffered by his

tormentors to depart in peace. One alone is

recorded as having been exempted from this

persecution; it was a youth graver and loftier than{10}

even St. Gregory himself: but it was not from his

force of character, but at the instance of Gregory,

that he escaped. Gregory was his bosom friend,

and was ready in Athens to shelter him when

he came. It was another Saint and Doctor; the{15}

great Basil, then, (it would appear,) as Gregory,

but a catechumen of the Church.

But to return to our freshman. His troubles

are not at an end, though he has got his gown

upon him. Where is he to lodge? whom is he{20}

to attend? He finds himself seized, before he

well knows where he is, by another party of men

or three or four parties at once, like foreign

porters at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the

perplexed stranger, and thrust half a dozen cards{25}

into his unwilling hands. Our youth is plied by

the hangers-on of professor this, or sophist that,

each of whom wishes the fame or the profit of

having a houseful. We will say that he escapes

from their hands,—but then he will have to{30}

choose for himself where he will put up; and, to

tell the truth, with all the praise I have already

given, and the praise I shall have to give, to

the city of mind, nevertheless, between ourselves,

the brick and wood which formed it, the actual

tenements, where flesh and blood had to lodge{5}

(always excepting the mansions of great men of

the place), do not seem to have been much better

than those of Greek or Turkish towns, which are

at this moment a topic of interest and ridicule

in the public prints. A lively picture has lately{10}

been set before us of Gallipoli. Take, says the

writer,[41] a multitude of the dilapidated outhouses

found in farm-yards in England, of the rickety

old wooden tenements, the cracked, shutterless

structures of planks and tiles, the sheds and stalls,{15}

which our bye lanes, or fish-markets, or

river-sides can supply; tumble them down on the

declivity of a bare bald hill; let the spaces

between house and house, thus accidentally

determined, be understood to form streets, winding of{20}

course for no reason, and with no meaning, up and

down the town; the roadway always narrow, the

breadth never uniform, the separate houses

bulging or retiring below, as circumstances may have

determined, and leaning forward till they meet{25}

overhead—and you have a good idea of

Gallipoli. I question whether this picture would

not nearly correspond to the special seat of the

Muses in ancient times. Learned writers assure

us distinctly that the houses of Athens were for{30}

the most part small and mean; that the streets

were crooked and narrow; that the upper stories

projected over the roadway; and that staircases,

balustrades, and doors that opened outwards

obstructed it—a remarkable coincidence of{5}

description. I do not doubt at all, though

history is silent, that that roadway was jolting to

carriages, and all but impassable; and that it

was traversed by drains, as freely as any Turkish

town now. Athens seems in these respects to{10}

have been below the average cities of its time.

"A stranger," says an ancient, "might doubt, on

the sudden view, if really he saw Athens."

[41] Mr. Russell's Letters in the Times newspaper (1854).

I grant all this, and much more, if you will;

but, recollect, Athens was the home of the {15}

intellectual and beautiful; not of low mechanical

contrivances and material organization. Why

stop within your lodgings counting the rents in

your wall or the holes in your tiling, when nature

and art call you away? You must put up with{20}

such a chamber, and a table, and a stool, and a

sleeping board, anywhere else in the three

continents; one place does not differ from another

indoors; your magalia in Africa, or your grottoes

in Syria are not perfection. I suppose you did {25}

not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or to

grope about a closet: you came to see and to

hear, what hear and see you could not elsewhere.

What food for the intellect is it possible to

procure indoors, that you stay there looking about{30}

you? do you think to read there? where are your

books? do you expect to purchase books at

Athens—you are much out in your calculations.

True it is, we at this day, who live in the

nineteenth century, have the books of Greece as a

perpetual memorial; and copies there have been,{5}

since the time that they were written; but you

need not go to Athens to procure them, nor would

you find them in Athens. Strange to say, strange

to the nineteenth century, that in the age of Plato

and Thucydides, there was not, it is said, a{10}

bookshop in the whole place: nor was the book trade

in existence till the very time of Augustus.

Libraries, I suspect, were the bright invention of

Attalus or the Ptolemies;[42] I doubt whether

Athens had a library till the reign of Hadrian.{15}

It was what the student gazed on, what he heard,

what he caught by the magic of sympathy, not

what he read, which was the education furnished

by Athens.

[42] I do not go into controversy on the subject, for which the

reader must have recourse to Lipsius, Morhof, Boeckh, Bekker, etc.; and

this of course applies to whatever historical matter I introduce, or

shall introduce.

He leaves his narrow lodging early in the{20}

morning; and not till night, if even then, will he

return. It is but a crib or kennel, in which

he sleeps when the weather is inclement or the

ground damp; in no respect a home. And he

goes out of doors, not to read the day's{25}

newspaper, or to buy the gay shilling volume, but to

imbibe the invisible atmosphere of genius, and

to learn by heart the oral traditions of taste.

Out he goes; and, leaving the tumble-down

town behind him, he mounts the Acropolis to

the right, or he turns to the Areopagus on the left.

He goes to the Parthenon to study the sculptures {5}

of Phidias; to the temple of the Dioscuri to see

the paintings of Polygnotus. We indeed take

our Sophocles or Æschylus out of our coat pocket;

but, if our sojourner at Athens would understand

how a tragic poet can write, he must betake{10}

himself to the theater on the south, and see and

hear the drama literally in action. Or let him go

westward to the Agora, and there he will hear

Lysias or Andocides pleading, or Demosthenes

haranguing. He goes farther west still, along the{15}

shade of those noble planes, which Cimon has

planted there; and he looks around him at the

statues and porticoes and vestibules, each by

itself a work of genius and skill, enough to be the

making of another city. He passes through the{20}

city gate, and then he is at the famous Ceramicus;

here are the tombs of the mighty dead; and here,

we will suppose, is Pericles himself, the most

elevated, the most thrilling of orators, converting a

funeral oration over the slain into a philosophical{25}

panegyric of the living.

Onwards he proceeds still; and now he has

come to that still more celebrated Academe,

which has bestowed its own name on Universities

down to this day; and there he sees a sight which{30}

will be graven on his memory till he dies. Many

are the beauties of the place, the groves, and the

statues, and the temple, and the stream of the

Cephissus flowing by; many are the lessons

which will be taught him day after day by teacher

or by companion; but his eye is just now arrested{5}

by one object; it is the very presence of Plato.

He does not hear a word that he says; he does

not care to hear; he asks neither for discourse

nor disputation; what he sees is a whole,

complete in itself, not to be increased by addition, and{10}

greater than anything else. It will be a point in

the history of his life; a stay for his memory to

rest on, a burning thought in his heart, a bond of

union with men of like mind, ever afterwards.

Such is the spell which the living man exerts on{15}

his fellows, for good or for evil. How nature

impels us to lean upon others, making virtue, or

genius, or name, the qualification for our doing

so! A Spaniard is said to have traveled to Italy,

simply to see Livy; he had his fill of gazing, and{20}

then went back again home. Had our young

stranger got nothing by his voyage but the sight

of the breathing and moving Plato, had he

entered no lecture room to hear, no gymnasium to

converse, he had got some measure of education,{25}

and something to tell of to his grandchildren.

But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight of

him the only lesson to be learned in this

wonderful suburb. It is the region and the realm

of philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of{30}

many centuries later; and they imply a sort of

cloistered life, or at least a life of rule, scarcely

natural to an Athenian. It was the boast of the

philosophic statesman of Athens, that his

countrymen achieved by the mere force of nature and

the love of the noble and the great, what other{5}

people aimed at by laborious discipline; and all

who came among them were submitted to the

same method of education. We have traced our

student on his wanderings from the Acropolis to

the Sacred Way; and now he is in the region of{10}

the schools. No awful arch, no window of

many-colored lights marks the seats of learning there

or elsewhere; philosophy lives out of doors. No

close atmosphere oppresses the brain or inflames

the eyelid; no long session stiffens the limbs.{15}

Epicurus is reclining in his garden; Zeno looks

like a divinity in his porch; the restless Aristotle,

on the other side of the city, as if in antagonism

to Plato, is walking his pupils off their legs in his

Lyceum by the Ilyssus. Our student has{20}

determined on entering himself as a disciple of

Theophrastus, a teacher of marvelous popularity, who

has brought together two thousand pupils from

all parts of the world. He himself is of Lesbos;

for masters, as well as students, come hither from{25}

all regions of the earth—as befits a University.

How could Athens have collected hearers in such

numbers, unless she had selected teachers of such

power? it was the range of territory, which the

notion of a University implies, which furnished{30}

both the quantity of the one and the quality of

the other. Anaxagoras was from Ionia, Carneades

from Africa, Zeno from Cyprus, Protagoras from

Thrace, and Gorgias from Sicily. Andromachus

was a Syrian, Proæresius an Armenian, Hilarius

a Bithynian, Philiscus a Thessalian, Hadrian a{5}

Syrian. Rome is celebrated for her liberality in

civil matters; Athens was as liberal in

intellectual. There was no narrow jealousy, directed

against a Professor, because he was not an

Athenian; genius and talent were the qualifications;{10}

and to bring them to Athens, was to do homage

to it as a University. There was a brotherhood

and a citizenship of mind.

Mind came first, and was the foundation of the

academical polity; but it soon brought along with{15}

it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of fortune

and the prizes of life. As time went on, wisdom

was not always sentenced to the bare cloak of

Cleanthes; but, beginning in rags, it ended in

fine linen. The Professors became honorable{20}

and rich; and the students ranged themselves

under their names, and were proud of calling

themselves their countrymen. The University

was divided into four great nations, as the

mediæval antiquarian would style them; and in the{25}

middle of the fourth century, Proæresius was the

leader or proctor of the Attic, Hephæstion of

the Oriental, Epiphanius of the Arabic, and

Diophantus of the Pontic. Thus the Professors

were both patrons of clients, and hosts and{30}

proxeni of strangers and visitors, as well as masters

of the schools: and the Cappadocian, Syrian,

or Sicilian youth who came to one or other of

them, would be encouraged to study by his

protection, and to aspire by his example.

Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were{5}

not a hundred years old, was in circumstances

to enjoy the otium cum dignitate. He had a villa

out at Heraclea; and he left his patrimony to

his school, in whose hands it remained, not only

safe, but fructifying, a marvelous phenomenon in{10}

tumultuous Greece, for the long space of eight

hundred years. Epicurus too had the property

of the Gardens where he lectured; and these too

became the property of his sect. But in Roman

times the chairs of grammar, rhetoric, politics,{15}

and the four philosophies were handsomely

endowed by the State; some of the Professors

were themselves statesmen or high functionaries,

and brought to their favorite study senatorial

rank or Asiatic opulence.{20}

Patrons such as these can compensate to the

freshman, in whom we have interested ourselves,

for the poorness of his lodging and the turbulence

of his companions. In everything there is a

better side and a worse; in every place a{25}

disreputable set and a respectable, and the one is

hardly known at all to the other. Men come

away from the same University at this day, with

contradictory impressions and contradictory

statements, according to the society they have found{30}

there; if you believe the one, nothing goes on

there as it should be: if you believe the other,

nothing goes on as it should not. Virtue,

however, and decency are at least in the minority

everywhere, and under some sort of a cloud or

disadvantage; and this being the case, it is so{5}

much gain whenever an Herodes Atticus is found,

to throw the influence of wealth and station on

the side even of a decorous philosophy. A

consular man, and the heir of an ample fortune, this

Herod was content to devote his life to a{10}

professorship, and his fortune to the patronage of

literature. He gave the sophist Polemo about

eight thousand pounds, as the sum is calculated,

for three declamations. He built at Athens a

stadium six hundred feet long, entirely of white{15}

marble, and capable of admitting the whole

population. His theater, erected to the memory of

his wife, was made of cedar wood curiously carved.

He had two villas, one at Marathon, the place of

his birth, about ten miles from Athens, the other{20}

at Cephissia, at the distance of six; and thither

he drew to him the èlite, and at times the whole

body of the students. Long arcades, groves of

trees, clear pools for the bath, delighted and

recruited the summer visitor. Never was so{25}

brilliant a lecture room as his evening

banqueting hall; highly connected students from Rome

mixed with the sharp-witted provincial of Greece

or Asia Minor; and the flippant sciolist, and the

nondescript visitor, half philosopher, half tramp,{30}

met with a reception, courteous always, but suitable

to his deserts. Herod was noted for his

repartees; and we have instances on record of

his setting down, according to the emergency,

both the one and the other.

A higher line, though a rarer one, was that{5}

allotted to the youthful Basil. He was one of

those men who seem by a sort of fascination to

draw others around them even without wishing

it. One might have deemed that his gravity and

his reserve would have kept them at a distance;{10}

but, almost in spite of himself, he was the center

of a knot of youths, who, pagans as most of them

were, used Athens honestly for the purpose for

which they professed to seek it; and, disappointed

and displeased with the place himself, he seems{15}

nevertheless to have been the means of their

profiting by its advantages. One of these was

Sophronius, who afterwards held a high office in

the State: Eusebius was another, at that time

the bosom friend of Sophronius, and afterwards{20}

a Bishop. Celsus too is named, who afterwards

was raised to the government of Cilicia by the

Emperor Julian. Julian himself, in the sequel of

unhappy memory, was then at Athens, and known

at least to St. Gregory. Another Julian is also{25}

mentioned, who was afterwards commissioner of

the land tax. Here we have a glimpse of the better

kind of society among the students of Athens; and

it is to the credit of the parties composing it,

that such young men as Gregory and Basil, men{30}

as intimately connected with Christianity, as they

were well known in the world, should hold so high

a place in their esteem and love. When the two

saints were departing, their companions came

around them with the hope of changing their

purpose. Basil persevered; but Gregory relented,{5}

and turned back to Athens for a season.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

THE SCHOOLMEN

It is most interesting to observe how the

foundations of the present intellectual greatness

of Europe were laid, and most wonderful to think

that they were ever laid at all. Let us consider{10}

how wide and how high is the platform of our

knowledge at this day, and what openings in

every direction are in progress—openings of

such promise, that, unless some convulsion of

society takes place, even what we have attained,{15}

will in future times be nothing better than a poor

beginning; and then on the other hand, let us

recollect that, seven centuries ago, putting aside

revealed truths, Europe had little more than that

poor knowledge, partial and uncertain, and at{20}

best only practical, which is conveyed to us by the

senses. Even our first principles now are beyond

the most daring conjectures then; and what has

been said so touchingly of Christian ideas as

compared with pagan, is true in its way and degree{25}

of the progress of secular knowledge also in the

seven centuries I have named.

"What sages would have died to learn,

[Is] taught by cottage dames."

Nor is this the only point in which the

revelations of science may be compared to the

supernatural revelations of Christianity. Though{5}

sacred truth was delivered once for all, and

scientific discoveries are progressive, yet there is

a great resemblance in the respective histories of

Christianity and of Science. We are accustomed

to point to the rise and spread of Christianity as{10}

a miraculous fact, and rightly so, on account of

the weakness of its instruments, and the appalling

weight and multiplicity of the obstacles which

confronted it. To clear away those obstacles

was to move mountains; yet this was done by{15}

a few poor, obscure, unbefriended men, and

their poor, obscure, unbefriended followers. No

social movement can come up to this marvel,

which is singular and archetypical, certainly;

it is a Divine work, and we soon cease to admire{20}

it in order to adore. But there is more in it

than its own greatness to contemplate; it is so

great as to be prolific of greatness. Those whom

it has created, its children who have become such

by a supernatural power, have imitated, in their{25}

own acts, the dispensation which made them

what they were; and, though they have not

carried out works simply miraculous, yet they have

done exploits sufficient to bespeak their own

unearthly origin, and the new powers which had{30}

come into the world. The revival of letters by

the energy of Christian ecclesiastics and laymen,

when everything had to be done, reminds us of

the birth of Christianity itself, as far as a work of

man can resemble a work of God.

Two characteristics, as I have already had{5}

occasion to say, are generally found to attend the

history of Science: first, its instruments have

an innate force, and can dispense with foreign

assistance in their work; and secondly, these

instruments must exist and must begin to act,{10}

before subjects are found who are to profit by

their action. In plainer language, the teacher is

strong, not in the patronage of great men, but

in the intrinsic value and attraction of what he

has to communicate; and next, he must come{15}

forward and advertise himself, before he can gain

hearers. This I have expressed before, in saying

that a great school of learning lived in demand and

supply, and that the supply must be before the

demand. Now, what is this but the very history{20}

of the preaching of the Gospel? who but the

Apostles and Evangelists went out to the ends

of the earth without patron, or friend, or other

external advantage which could insure their

success? and again, who among the multitude they{25}

enlightened would have called for their aid unless

they had gone to that multitude first, and offered

to it blessings which up to that moment it had

not heard of? They had no commission, they

had no invitation, from man; their strength lay{30}

neither in their being sent, nor in their being sent

for; but in the circumstances that they had that

with them, a Divine message, which they knew

would at once, when it was uttered, thrill through

the hearts of those to whom they spoke, and

make for themselves friends in any place,{5}

strangers and outcasts as they were when they first

came. They appealed to the secret wants and

aspirations of human nature, to its laden

conscience, its weariness, its desolateness, and its

sense of the true and the Divine; nor did they{10}

long wait for listeners and disciples, when they

announced the remedy of evils which were so real.

Something like this were the first stages of the

process by which in mediæval Christendom the

structure of our present intellectual elevation{15}

was carried forward. From Rome as from a

center, as the Apostles from Jerusalem, went

forth the missionaries of knowledge, passing to

and fro all over Europe; and, as Metropolitan

sees were the record of the presence of Apostles,{20}

so did Paris, Pavia, and Bologna, and Padua,

and Ferrara, Pisa and Naples, Vienna, Louvain,

and Oxford, rise into Universities at the voice of

the theologian or the philosopher. Moreover, as

the Apostles went through labors untold, by{25}

sea and land, in their charity to souls; so, if

robbers, shipwrecks, bad lodging, and scanty fare

are trials of zeal, such trials were encountered

without hesitation by the martyrs and confessors

of science. And as Evangelists had grounded{30}

their teaching upon the longing for happiness

natural to man, so did these securely rest their

cause on the natural thirst for knowledge: and

again as the preachers of Gospel peace had often

to bewail the ruin which persecution or

dissension had brought upon their nourishing colonies,{5}

so also did the professors of science often find or

flee the ravages of sword or pestilence in those

places, which they themselves perhaps in former

times had made the seats of religious, honorable,

and useful learning. And lastly, as kings and{10}

nobles have fortified and advanced the interests

of the Christian faith without being necessary

to it, so in like manner we may enumerate with

honor Charlemagne, Alfred, Henry the First of

England, Joan of Navarre, and many others, as{15}

patrons of the schools of learning, without being

obliged to allow that those schools could not have

progressed without such countenance.

These are some of the points of resemblance

between the propagation of Christian truth and{20}

the revival of letters; and, to return to the two

points, to which I have particularly drawn

attention, the University Professor's confidence in his

own powers, and his taking the initiative in the

exercise of them, I find both these distinctly{25}

recognized by Mr. Hallam in his history of Literature.

As to the latter point, he says, "The schools of

Charlemagne were designed to lay the basis of a

learned education, for which there was at that time

no sufficient desire"—that is, the supply was{30}

prior to the demand. As to the former: "In

the twelfth century," he says, "the impetuosity

with which men rushed to that source of what

they deemed wisdom, the great University of

Paris, did not depend upon academical privileges

or eleemosynary stipends, though these were{5}

undoubtedly very effectual in keeping it up. The

University created patrons, and was not created

by them"—that is, demand and supply were all

in all....

Bec, a poor monastery of Normandy, set up in {10}

the eleventh century by an illiterate soldier, who

sought the cloister, soon attracted scholars to its

dreary clime from Italy, and transmitted them

to England. Lanfranc, afterwards Archbishop of

Canterbury, was one of these, and he found the{15}

simple monks so necessitous, that he opened a

school of logic to all comers, in order, says William

of Malmesbury, "that he might support his needy

monastery by the pay of the students." The

same author adds, that "his reputation went into{20}

the most remote parts of the Latin world, and

Bec became a great and famous Academy of

letters." Here is an instance of a

commencement without support, without scholars, in order

to attract scholars, and in them to find support.{25}

William of Jumièges, too, bears witness to the

effect, powerful, sudden, wide spreading, and

various, of Lanfranc's advertisement of himself.

The fame of Bec and Lanfranc, he says, quickly

penetrated through the whole world; and "clerks,{30}

the sons of dukes, the most esteemed masters of

the Latin schools, powerful laymen, high nobles,

flocked to him." What words can more strikingly

attest the enthusiastic character of the movement

which he began, than to say that it carried away

with it all classes; rich as well as poor, laymen as{5}

well as ecclesiastics, those who were in that day

in the habit of despising letters, as well as those

who might wish to live by them?...

THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES

ABELARD

We can have few more apposite illustrations

of at once the strength and weakness of what{10}

may be called the University principle, of what

it can do and what it cannot, of its power to

collect students, and its impotence to preserve and

edify them, than the history of the celebrated

Abelard. His name is closely associated with{15}

the commencement of the University of Paris;

and in his popularity and in his reverses, in the

criticisms of John of Salisbury on his method,

and the protest of St. Bernard against his

teaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a{20}

University professes in its essence, and what it

needs for its "integrity." It is not to be supposed,

that I am prepared to show this here, as fully as

it might be shown; but it is a subject so

pertinent to the general object of these Essays, that it{25}

may be useful to devote even a few pages to it.

The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on,

do but repeat the one message from above which

they have ever uttered, since the tongues of fire

attested the coming of the Paraclete; still, as

time goes on, they utter it with greater force and{5}

precision, under diverse forms, with fuller

luminousness, and a richer ministration of thought

statement, and argument. They meet the

varying wants, and encounter the special resistance

of each successive age; and, though prescient of{10}

coming errors and their remedy long before, they

cautiously reserve their new enunciation of the

old Truth, till it is imperatively demanded. And,

as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmises

arise, and rumors spread, of what is said in{15}

council, and is in course of preparation, and secrets

perhaps get wind, true in substance or in direction,

though distorted in detail; so too, before the

Church speaks, one or other of her forward

children speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate{20}

to a certain point what she is about to say or

enjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it error

instead of truth, and risks his own faith in the

process. Indeed, this is actually one source, or

rather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of{25}

some misshapen, huge, and grotesque foreshadow

of true statements which are to come. Speaking

under correction, I would apply this remark to

the heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may

be considered a reaction from existing errors, and{30}

an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuccessful,

to meet them with those divinely

appointed correctives which the Church alone can

apply, and which she will actually apply, when

the proper moment comes. The Gnostics boasted

of their intellectual proficiency before the time{5}

of St. Irenæus, St. Athanasius, and St.

Augustine; yet, when these doctors made their

appearance, I suppose they were examples of that

knowledge, true and deep, which the Gnostics

professed. Apollinaris anticipated the work of{10}

St. Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and became

a heresiarch in consequence; and, to come down

to the present times, we may conceive that

writers, who have impatiently fallen away from

the Church, because she would not adopt their{15}

views, would have found, had they but trusted

her, and waited, that she knew how to profit by

them, though she never could have need to

borrow her enunciations from them; for their

writings contained, so to speak, truth in the ore, truth{20}

which they themselves had not the gift to

disengage from its foreign concomitants, and safely

use, which she alone could use, which she would

use in her destined hour, and which became their

stone of stumbling simply because she did not{25}

use it faster. Now, applying this principle to

the subject before us, I observe, that, supposing

Abelard to be the first master of scholastic

philosophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have still

no difficulty in condemning the author, while we{30}

honor the work. To him is only the glory of

spoiling by his own self-will what would have

been done well and surely under the teaching

and guidance of Infallible Authority.

Nothing is more certain than that some ideas

are consistent with one another, and others{5}

inconsistent; and, again, that every truth must be

consistent with every other truth—hence, that

all truths of whatever kind form into one large

body of Truth, by virtue of the consistency

between one truth and another, which is a{10}

connecting link running through them all. The science

which discovers this connection is logic; and,

as it discovers the connection when the truths are

given, so, having one truth given and the

connecting principle, it is able to go on to ascertain{15}

the other. Though all this is obvious, it was

realized and acted on in the middle age with

a distinctness unknown before; all subjects of

knowledge were viewed as parts of one vast

system, each with its own place in it, and from{20}

knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeed

always rightly inferred, because the art might

be less perfect than the science, the instrument

than the theory and aim; but I am speaking of

the principle of the scholastic method, of which{25}

Saints and Doctors were the teachers—such

I conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fated

logician who had a principal share in bringing it

into operation.

Others will consider the great St. Anselm and{30}

the school of Bec, as the proper source of Scholasticism;

I am not going to discuss the question;

anyhow, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was the

Professor at the University of Paris, and it is

of Universities that I am speaking; anyhow,

Abelard illustrates the strength and the{5}

weakness of the principle of advertising and

communicating knowledge for its own sake, which I have

called the University principle, whether he is,

or is not, the first of scholastic philosophers or

scholastic theologians. And, though I could not{10}

speak of him at all without mentioning the

subject of his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him and

of his teaching itself, that I am going to speak,

whatever that might be which he actually taught.

Since Charlemagne's time the schools of Paris{15}

had continued, with various fortunes, faithful, as

far as the age admitted, to the old learning, as

other schools elsewhere, when, in the eleventh

century, the famous school of Bec began to

develop the powers of logic in forming a new{20}

philosophy. As the inductive method rose in

Bacon, so did the logical in the mediæval

schoolmen; and Aristotle, the most comprehensive

intellect of Antiquity, as the one who had

conceived the sublime idea of mapping the whole{25}

field of knowledge, and subjecting all things to

one profound analysis, became the presiding

master in their lecture halls. It was at the end

of the eleventh century that William of

Champeaux founded the celebrated Abbey of St.{30}

Victor under the shadow of St, Geneviève, and by

the dialectic methods which he introduced into his

teaching, has a claim to have commenced the

work of forming the University out of the Schools

of Paris. For one at least, out of the two

characteristics of a University, he prepared the way;{5}

for, though the schools were not public till after

his day, so as to admit laymen as well as clerks,

and foreigners as well as natives of the place, yet

the logical principle of constructing all sciences

into one system, implied of course a recognition{10}

of all the sciences that are comprehended in it.

Of this William of Champeaux, or de Campellis,

Abelard was the pupil; he had studied the

dialectic art elsewhere, before he offered himself for

his instructions; and, in the course of two years,{15}

when as yet he had only reached the age of

twenty-two, he made such progress, as to be

capable of quarreling with his master, and

setting up a school for himself.

This school of Abelard was first situated in{20}

the royal castle of Melun; then at Corbeil, which

was nearer to Paris, and where he attracted to

himself a considerable number of hearers. His

labors had an injurious effect upon his health;

and at length he withdrew for two years to his{25}

native Britanny. Whether other causes coöperated

in this withdrawal, I think, is not known;

but, at the end of the two years, we find him

returning to Paris, and renewing his attendance

on the lectures of William, who was by this time{30}

a monk. Rhetoric was the subject of the lectures

he now heard; and after a while the pupil

repeated with greater force and success his

former treatment of his teacher. He held a

public disputation with him, got the victory,

and reduced him to silence. The school of{5}

William was deserted, and its master himself became

an instance of the vicissitudes incident to that

gladiatorial wisdom (as I may style it) which was

then eclipsing the old Benedictine method of the

Seven Arts. After a time, Abelard found his{10}

reputation sufficient to warrant him in setting

up a school himself on Mount St. Geneviève;

whence he waged incessant war against the

unwearied logician, who by this time had rallied

his forces to repel the young and ungrateful{15}

adventurer who had raised his hand against him.

Great things are done by devotion to one idea;

there is one class of geniuses, who would never

be what they are, could they grasp a second.

The calm philosophical mind, which{20}

contemplates parts without denying the whole, and the

whole without confusing the parts, is notoriously

indisposed to action; whereas single and simple

views arrest the mind, and hurry it on to carry

them out. Thus, men of one idea and nothing{25}

more, whatever their merit, must be to a certain

extent narrow-minded; and it is not wonderful

that Abelard's devotion to the new philosophy

made him undervalue the Seven Arts out of which

it had grown. He felt it impossible so to honor{30}

what was now to be added, as not to dishonor

what existed before. He would not suffer the

Arts to have their own use, since he had found a

new instrument for a new purpose. So he

opposed the reading of the Classics. The monks

had opposed them before him; but this is little{5}

to our present purpose; it was the duty of men,

who abjured the gifts of this world on the

principle of mortification, to deny themselves

literature just as they would deny themselves

particular friendships or figured music. The doctrine{10}

which Abelard introduced and represents was

founded on a different basis. He did not

recognize in the poets of antiquity any other merit

than that of furnishing an assemblage of elegant

phrases and figures; and accordingly he asks{15}

why they should not be banished from the city

of God, since Plato banished them from his own

commonwealth. The animus of this language is

clear, when we turn to the pages of John of

Salisbury and Peter of Blois, who were champions of{20}

the ancient learning. We find them complaining

that the careful "getting up," as we now call it,

"of books," was growing out of fashion. Youths

once studied critically the text of poets or

philosophers; they got them by heart; they analyzed{25}

their arguments; they noted down their fallacies;

they were closely examined in the matters which

had been brought before them in lecture; they

composed. But now, another teaching was

coming in; students were promised truth in a{30}

nutshell; they intended to get possession of the sum-total

of philosophy in less than two or three

years; and facts were apprehended, not in their

substance and details, by means of living and,

as it were, personal documents, but in dead

abstracts and tables. Such were the{5}

reclamations to which the new Logic gave occasion.

These, however, are lesser matters; we have

a graver quarrel with Abelard than that of his

undervaluing the Classics. As I have said, my

main object here is not what he taught, but why{10}

and how, and how he lived. Now it is certain

his activity was stimulated by nothing very high,

but something very earthly and sordid. I grant

there is nothing morally wrong in the mere desire

to rise in the world, though Ambition and it are{15}

twin sisters. I should not blame Abelard merely

for wishing to distinguish himself at the

University; but when he makes the ecclesiastical

state the instrument of his ambition, mixes up

spiritual matters with temporal, and aims at a{20}

bishopric through the medium of his logic, he

joins together things incompatible, and cannot

complain of being censured. It is he himself,

who tells us, unless my memory plays me false,

that the circumstance of William of Champeaux{25}

being promoted to the see of Chalons, was an

incentive to him to pursue the same path with an

eye to the same reward. Accordingly, we next

hear of his attending the theological lectures of

a certain master of William's, named Anselm, an{30}

old man, whose school was situated at Laon. This

person had a great reputation in his day; John

of Salisbury, speaking of him in the next

generation, calls him the doctor of doctors; he had been

attended by students from Italy and Germany;

but the age had advanced since he was in his{5}

prime, and Abelard was disappointed in a teacher,

who had been good enough for William. He left

Anselm, and began to lecture on the prophet

Ezekiel on his own resources.

Now came the time of his great popularity,{10}

which was more than his head could bear; which

dizzied him, took him off his legs, and whirled

him to his destruction. I spoke in my foregoing

Chapter of those three qualities of true wisdom,

which a University, absolutely and nakedly{15}

considered, apart from the safeguards which

constitute its integrity, is sure to compromise.

Wisdom, says the inspired writer, is desursum, is

pudica, is pacifica, "from above, chaste,

peaceable." We have already seen enough of Abelard's{20}

career to understand that his wisdom, instead of

being "pacifica," was ambitious and contentious.

An Apostle speaks of the tongue both as a blessing

and as a curse. It may be the beginning of a fire,

he says, a "Universitas iniquitatis"; and alas!{25}

such did it become in the mouth of the gifted

Abelard. His eloquence was wonderful; he

dazzled his contemporaries, says Fulco, "by the

brilliancy of his genius, the sweetness of his

eloquence, the ready flow of his language, and the{30}

subtlety of his knowledge." People came to

him from all quarters—from Rome, in spite of

mountains and robbers; from England, in spite

of the sea; from Flanders and Germany; from

Normandy, and the remote districts of France;

from Angers and Poitiers; from Navarre by the{5}

Pyrenees, and from Spain, besides the students

of Paris itself; and among those, who sought his

instructions now or afterwards, were the great

luminaries of the schools in the next generation.

Such were Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, John{10}

of Salisbury, Arnold of Brescia, Ivo, and Geoffrey

of Auxerre. It was too much for a weak head

and heart, weak in spite of intellectual power;

for vanity will possess the head, and worldliness

the heart, of the man, however gifted, whose{15}

wisdom is not an effluence of the Eternal Light.

True wisdom is not only "pacifica," it is

"pudica"; chaste as well as peaceable. Alas for

Abelard! a second disgrace, deeper than

ambition, is his portion now. The strong man—the{20}

Samson of the schools in the wildness of his course,

the Solomon in the fascination of his

genius—shivers and falls before the temptation which

overcame that mighty pair, the most excelling

in body and in mind.{25}

In a time when Colleges were unknown, and the

young scholar was commonly thrown upon the

dubious hospitality of a great city, Abelard might

even be thought careful of his honor, that he

went to lodge with an old ecclesiastic, had not{30}

his host's niece Eloisa lived with him. A more

subtle snare was laid for him than beset the

heroic champion or the all-accomplished monarch of

Israel; for sensuality came upon him under the

guise of intellect, and it was the high mental

endowments of Eloisa, who became his pupil,{5}

speaking in her eyes, and thrilling on her tongue,

which were the intoxication and the delirium of

Abelard....

He is judged, he is punished; but he is not

reclaimed. True wisdom is not only "pacifica,"{10}

not only "pudica;" it is "desursum" too. It is

a revelation from above; it knows heresy as

little as it knows strife or license. But Abelard,

who had run the career of earthly wisdom in two

of its phases, now is destined to represent its{15}

third.

It is at the famous Abbey of St. Denis that we

find him languidly rising from his dream of sin,

and the suffering that followed. The bad dream

is cleared away; clerks come to him, and the{20}

Abbot begging him to lecture still, for love

now, as for gain before. Once more his school is

thronged by the curious and the studious; but

at length a rumor spreads, that Abelard is

exploring the way to some novel view on the{25}

subject of the Most Holy Trinity. Wherefore is

hardly clear, but about the same time the monks

drive him away from the place of refuge he had

gained. He betakes himself to a cell, and thither

his pupils follow him. "I betook myself to a{30}

certain cell," he says, "wishing to give myself to

the schools, as was my custom. Thither so great

a multitude of scholars flocked, that there was

neither room to house them, nor fruits of the

earth to feed them," such was the enthusiasm of

the student, such the attraction of the teacher,{5}

when knowledge was advertised freely, and its

market opened.

Next he is in Champagne, in a delightful

solitude near Nogent in the diocese of Troyes. Here

the same phenomenon presents itself, which is{10}

so frequent in his history. "When the scholars

knew it," he says, "they began to crowd thither

from all parts; and, leaving other cities and

strongholds, they were content to dwell in the

wilderness. For spacious houses they framed for{15}

themselves small tabernacles, and for delicate food they

put up with wild herbs. Secretly did they

whisper among themselves: 'Behold, the whole

world is gone out after him!' When, however,

my Oratory could not hold even a moderate{20}

portion of them, then they were forced to enlarge

it, and to build it up with wood and stone."

He called the place his Paraclete, because it had

been his consolation.

I do not know why I need follow his life further.{25}

I have said enough to illustrate the course of one,

who may be called the founder, or at least the first

great name, of the Parisian Schools. After the

events I have mentioned he is found in Lower

Britanny; then, being about forty-eight years of{30}

age, in the Abbey of St. Gildas; then with St.

Geneviève again. He had to sustain the fiery

eloquence of a Saint, directed against his novelties;

he had to present himself before two Councils;

he had to burn the book which had given offense

to pious ears. His last two years were spent at{5}

Clugni on his way to Rome. The home of the

weary, the hospital of the sick, the school of the

erring, the tribunal of the penitent, is the city

of St. Peter. He did not reach it; but he is

said to have retracted what had given scandal in{10}

his writings, and to have made an edifying end.

He died at the age of sixty-two, in the year of

grace 1142.

In reviewing his career, the career of so great

an intellect so miserably thrown away, we are{15}

reminded of the famous words of the dying

scholar and jurist, which are a lesson to us all,

"Heu, vitam perdidi, operosè nihil agendo." A

happier lot be ours!

IV. MISCELLANEOUS

POETRY, WITH REFERENCE TO ARISTOTLE'S POETICS

Poetry, according to Aristotle, is a

representation of the ideal. Biography and history

represent individual characters and actual facts;

poetry, on the contrary, generalizing from the

phenomenon of nature and life, supplies us with{5}

pictures drawn, not after an existing pattern,

but after a creation of the mind. Fidelity is the

primary merit of biography and history; the

essence of poetry is fiction. "Poesis nihil aliud

est," says Bacon, "quam historiæ imitatio ad{10}

placitum." It delineates that perfection which

the imagination suggests, and to which as a

limit the present system of Divine Providence

actually tends. Moreover, by confining the attention

to one series of events and scene of action, it{15}

bounds and finishes off the confused luxuriance

of real nature; while, by a skillful adjustment of

circumstances, it brings into sight the connection

of cause and effect, completes the dependence of

the parts one on another, and harmonizes the{20}

proportions of the whole. It is then but the type

and model of history or biography, if we may be

allowed the comparison, bearing some resemblance

to the abstract mathematical formulæ of physics,

before they are modified by the contingencies of

atmosphere and friction. Hence, while it recreates

the imagination by the superhuman loveliness of

its views, it provides a solace for the mind broken{5}

by the disappointments and sufferings of actual

life; and becomes, moreover, the utterance of

the inward emotions of a right moral feeling,

seeking a purity and a truth which this world

will not give.{10}

It follows that the poetical mind is one full of

the eternal forms of beauty and perfection; these

are its material of thought, its instrument and

medium of observation; these color each

object to which it directs its view. It is called{15}

imaginative, or creative, from the originality and

independence of its modes of thinking, compared

with the commonplace and matter-of-fact

conceptions of ordinary minds which are fettered

down to the particular and individual. At the{20}

same time it feels a natural sympathy with

everything great and splendid in the physical and

moral world; and selecting such from the mass

of common phenomena, incorporates them, as it

were, into the substance of its own creations.{25}

From living thus in a world of its own, it speaks

the language of dignity, emotion, and refinement.

Figure is its necessary medium of communication

with man; for in the feebleness of ordinary words

to express its ideas, and in the absence of terms of{30}

abstract perfection, the adoption of metaphorical

language is the only poor means allowed it for

imparting to others its intense feelings. A metrical

garb has, in all languages, been appropriated to

poetry—it is but the outward development of

the music and harmony within. The verse, far{5}

from being a restraint on the true poet, is the

suitable index of his sense, and is adopted by his

free and deliberate choice. We shall presently

show the applicability of our doctrine to the

various departments of poetical composition;{10}

first, however, it will be right to volunteer an

explanation which may save it from much

misconception and objection. Let not our notion

be thought arbitrarily to limit the number of

poets, generally considered such. It will be{15}

found to lower particular works, or parts of

works, rather than the authors themselves;

sometimes to disparage only the vehicle in which

the poetry is conveyed. There is an ambiguity

in the word "poetry," which is taken to signify{20}

both the gift itself, and the written composition

which is the result of it. Thus there is an

apparent, but no real, contradiction in saying a poem

may be but partially poetical; in some passages

more so than in others; and sometimes not{25}

poetical at all. We only maintain, not that the

writers forfeit the name of poet who fail at times

to answer to our requisitions, but that they are

poets only so far forth, and inasmuch as they do

answer to them. We may grant, for instance,{30}

that the vulgarities of old Phœnix in the ninth

Iliad, or of the nurse of Orestes in the Choëphoræ,

are in themselves unworthy of their respective

authors, and refer them to the wantonness of

exuberant genius; and yet maintain that the

scenes in question contain much incidental poetry.{5}

Now and then the luster of the true metal catches

the eye, redeeming whatever is unseemly and

worthless in the rude ore; still the ore is not the

metal. Nay, sometimes, and not unfrequently in

Shakspeare, the introduction of unpoetical{10}

matter may be necessary for the sake of relief, or as

a vivid expression of recondite conceptions, and,

as it were, to make friends with the reader's

imagination. This necessity, however, cannot

make the additions in themselves beautiful and{15}

pleasing. Sometimes, on the other hand, while

we do not deny the incidental beauty of a poem,

we are ashamed and indignant on witnessing the

unworthy substance in which that beauty is

embedded. This remark applies strongly to the{20}

immoral compositions to which Lord Byron

devoted his last years.

Now to proceed with our proposed investigation.

1. We will notice descriptive poetry first.{25}

Empedocles wrote his physics in verse, and

Oppian his history of animals. Neither were

poets—the one was an historian of nature, the

other a sort of biographer of brutes. Yet a poet

may make natural history or philosophy the{30}

material of his composition. But under his hands

they are no longer a bare collection of facts or

principles, but are painted with a meaning,

beauty, and harmonious order not their own.

Thomson has sometimes been commended for

the novelty and minuteness of his remarks upon{5}

nature. This is not the praise of a poet, whose

office rather is to represent known phenomena in

a new connection or medium. In L'Allegro and

Il Penseroso the poetical magician invests the

commonest scenes of a country life with the hues,{10}

first of a cheerful, then of a pensive imagination.

It is the charm of the descriptive poetry of a

religious mind, that nature is viewed in a moral

connection. Ordinary writers, for instance,

compare aged men to trees in autumn—a gifted{15}

poet will in the fading trees discern the fading

men.[43] Pastoral poetry is a description of

rustics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off and

corrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil,

and much more Pope and others, have run into{20}

the fault of coloring too highly; instead of

drawing generalized and ideal forms of shepherds, they

have given us pictures of gentlemen and beaux.

Their composition may be poetry, but it is not

pastoral poetry.{25}

[43] Thus:—

"How quiet shows the woodland scene!

Each flower and tree, its duty done,

Reposing in decay serene,

Like weary men when age is won," etc.

2. The difference between poetical and

historical narrative may be illustrated by the Tales

Founded on Facts, generally of a religious

character, so common in the present day, which we

must not be thought to approve, because we use

them for our purpose. The author finds in the

circumstances of the case many particulars too{5}

trivial for public notice, or irrelevant to the main

story, or partaking perhaps too much of the

peculiarity of individual minds: these he omits.

He finds connected events separated from each

other by time or place, or a course of action{10}

distributed among a multitude of agents; he limits

the scene or duration of the tale, and dispenses

with his host of characters by condensing the

mass of incident and action in the history of a

few. He compresses long controversies into a{15}

concise argument, and exhibits characters by

dialogue, and (if such be his object) brings

prominently forward the course of Divine

Providence by a fit disposition of his materials. Thus

he selects, combines, refines, colors—in fact,{20}

poetizes. His facts are no longer actual, but

ideal; a tale founded on facts is a tale generalized

from facts. The authors of Peveril of the Peak,

and of Brambletye House, have given us their

respective descriptions of the profligate times of{25}

Charles II. Both accounts are interesting, but

for different reasons. That of the latter writer

has the fidelity of history; Walter Scott's

picture is the hideous reality, unintentionally softened

and decorated by the poetry of his own mind.{30}

Miss Edgeworth sometimes apologizes for certain

incident in her tales by stating they took place

"by one of those strange chances which occur in

life, but seem incredible when found in writing."

Such an excuse evinces a misconception of the

principle of fiction, which, being the perfection of{5}

the actual, prohibits the introduction of any such

anomalies of experience. It is by a similar

impropriety that painters sometimes introduce

unusual sunsets, or other singular phenomena of

lights and forms. Yet some of Miss Edgeworth's{10}

works contain much poetry of narrative.

Maneuvering is perfect in its way,—the plot and

characters are natural, without being too real to be

pleasing.

3. Character is made poetical by a like process.{15}

The writer draws indeed from experience; but

unnatural peculiarities are laid aside, and harsh

contrasts reconciled. If it be said the fidelity

of the imitation is often its greatest merit, we

have only to reply, that in such cases the pleasure{20}

is not poetical, but consists in the mere

recognition. All novels and tales which introduce real

characters are in the same degree unpoetical.

Portrait painting, to be poetical, should furnish

an abstract representation of an individual; the{25}

abstraction being more rigid, inasmuch as the

painting is confined to one point of time. The

artist should draw independently of the accidents

of attitude, dress, occasional feeling, and transient

action. He should depict the general spirit of{30}

his subject—as if he were copying from memory,

not from a few particular sittings. An ordinary

painter will delineate with rigid fidelity, and will

make a caricature; but the learned artist

contrives so to temper his composition, as to sink all

offensive peculiarities and hardnesses of{5}

individuality, without diminishing the striking effect of

the likeness, or acquainting the casual spectator

with the secret of his art. Miss Edgeworth's

representations of the Irish character are actual, and

not poetical—nor were they intended to be so.{10}

They are interesting, because they are faithful.

If there is poetry about them, it exists in the

personages themselves, not in her representation

of them. She is only the accurate reporter in

word of what was poetical in fact. Hence,{15}

moreover, when a deed or incident is striking in itself,

a judicious writer is led to describe it in the most

simple and colorless terms, his own being

unnecessary; for instance, if the greatness of the action

itself excites the imagination, or the depth of the{20}

suffering interests the feelings. In the usual

phrase, the circumstances are left "to speak for

themselves."

Let it not be said that our doctrine is adverse

to that individuality in the delineation of{25}

character, which is a principal charm of fiction. It is

not necessary for the ideality of a composition to

avoid those minuter shades of difference between

man and man, which give to poetry its

plausibility and life; but merely such violation of{30}

general nature, such improbabilities, wanderings, or

coarseness, as interfere with the refined and

delicate enjoyment of the imagination; which would

have the elements of beauty extracted out of

the confused multitude of ordinary actions and

habits, and combined with consistency and ease.{5}

Nor does it exclude the introduction of imperfect

or odious characters. The original conception of

a weak or guilty mind may have its intrinsic

beauty; and much more so, when it is connected

with a tale which finally adjusts whatever is{10}

reprehensible in the personages themselves.

Richard and Iago are subservient to the plot.

Moral excellence in some characters may become

even a fault. The Clytemnestra of Euripides is

so interesting, that the Divine vengeance, which{15}

is the main subject of the drama, seems almost

unjust. Lady Macbeth, on the contrary, is the

conception of one deeply learned in the poetical

art. She is polluted with the most heinous crimes,

and meets the fate she deserves. Yet there is{20}

nothing in the picture to offend the taste, and

much to feed the imagination. Romeo and

Juliet are too good for the termination to which

the plot leads; so are Ophelia and the Bride of

Lammermoor. In these cases there is something{25}

inconsistent with correct beauty, and therefore

unpoetical. We do not say the fault could be

avoided without sacrificing more than would be

gained; still it is a fault. It is scarcely possible

for a poet satisfactorily to connect innocence with{30}

ultimate unhappiness, when the notion of a future

life is excluded. Honors paid to the memory of

the dead are some alleviation of the harshness.

In his use of the doctrine of a future life, Southey

is admirable. Other writers are content to

conduct their heroes to temporal happiness;{5}

Southey refuses present comfort to his Ladurlad,

Thalaba, and Roderick, but carries them on

through suffering to another world. The death

of his hero is the termination of the action; yet

so little in two of them, at least, does this{10}

catastrophe excite sorrowful feelings, that some

readers may be startled to be reminded of the

fact. If a melancholy is thrown over the

conclusion of the Roderick, it is from the peculiarities

of the hero's previous history.{15}

4. Opinions, feelings, manners, and customs

are made poetical by the delicacy or splendor

with which they are expressed. This is seen in

the ode, elegy, sonnet, and ballad, in which a

single idea, perhaps, or familiar occurrence, is{20}

invested by the poet with pathos or dignity. The

ballad of Old Robin Gray will serve for an instance

out of a multitude; again, Lord Byron's Hebrew

Melody, beginning, "Were my bosom as false,"

etc.; or Cowper's Lines on his Mother's Picture;{25}

or Milman's Funeral Hymn in the Martyr of

Antioch; or Milton's Sonnet on his Blindness; or

Bernard Barton's Dream. As picturesque

specimens, we may name Campbell's Battle of the

Baltic; or Joanna Baillie's Chough and Crow;{30}

and for the more exalted and splendid style,

Gray's Bard; or Milton's Hymn on the Nativity;

in which facts, with which every one is familiar,

are made new by the coloring of a poetical

imagination. It must all along be observed, that

we are not adducing instances for their own sake;{5}

but in order to illustrate our general doctrine, and

to show its applicability to those compositions

which are, by universal consent, acknowledged to

be poetical.

The department of poetry we are now speaking{10}

of is of much wider extent than might at first

sight appear. It will include such moralizing and

philosophical poems as Young's Night Thoughts,

and Byron's Childe Harold. There is much bad

taste, at present, in the judgment passed on{15}

compositions of this kind. It is the fault of the day

to mistake mere eloquence for poetry; whereas,

in direct opposition to the conciseness and

simplicity of the poet, the talent of the orator consists

in making much of a single idea. "Sic dicet ille ut{20}

verset sæpe multis modis eandem et unam rem,

ut hæreat in eâdem commoreturque sententiâ."

This is the great art of Cicero himself, who,

whether he is engaged in statement, argument, or

raillery, never ceases till he has exhausted the{25}

subject; going round about it, and placing it in every

different light, yet without repetition to offend or

weary the reader. This faculty seems to consist

in the power of throwing off harmonious verses,

which, while they have a respectable portion of{30}

meaning, yet are especially intended to charm the

ear. In popular poems, common ideas are

unfolded with copiousness, and set off in polished

verse—and this is called poetry. Such is the

character of Campbell's Pleasures of Hope; it is

in his minor poems that the author's poetical{5}

genius rises to its natural elevation. In Childe

Harold, too, the writer is carried through his

Spenserian stanza with the unweariness and

equable fullness of accomplished eloquence;

opening, illustrating, and heightening one idea, before{10}

he passes on to another. His composition is an

extended funeral sermon over buried joys and

pleasures. His laments over Greece, Rome, and

the fallen in various engagements, have quite the

character of panegyrical orations; while by the{15}

very attempt to describe the celebrated buildings

and sculptures of antiquity, he seems to confess

that they are the poetical text, his the rhetorical

comment. Still it is a work of splendid talent,

though, as a whole, not of the highest poetical{20}

excellence. Juvenal is perhaps the only ancient

author who habitually substitutes declamation for

poetry.

5. The philosophy of mind may equally be made

subservient to poetry, as the philosophy of nature.{25}

It is a common fault to mistake a mere knowledge

of the heart for poetical talent. Our greatest

masters have known better—they have

subjected metaphysics to their art. In Hamlet,

Macbeth, Richard, and Othello, the philosophy of{30}

mind is but the material of the poet. These personages

are ideal; they are effects of the contact

of a given internal character with given outward

circumstances, the results of combined conditions

determining (so to say) a moral curve of original

and inimitable properties. Philosophy is{5}

exhibited in the same subserviency to poetry in

many parts of Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. In the

writings of this author there is much to offend a

refined taste; but, at least in the work in question,

there is much of a highly poetical cast. It is a{10}

representation of the action and reaction of two

minds upon each other and upon the world around

them. Two brothers of different characters and

fortunes, and strangers to each other, meet. Their

habits of mind, the formation of those habits by{15}

external circumstances, their respective media of

judgment, their points of mutual attraction and

repulsion, the mental position of each in relation

to a variety of trifling phenomena of everyday

nature and life, are beautifully developed in a{20}

series of tales molded into a connected narrative.

We are tempted to single out the fourth book,

which gives an account of the childhood and

education of the younger brother, and which for

variety of thought as well as fidelity of{25}

description is in our judgment beyond praise. The

Waverley Novels would afford us specimens of a

similar excellence. One striking peculiarity of

these tales is the author's practice of describing

a group of characters bearing the same general{30}

features of mind, and placed in the same general

circumstances; yet so contrasted with each other

in minute differences of mental constitution, that

each diverges from the common starting point into

a path peculiar to himself. The brotherhood of

villains in Kenilworth, of knights in Ivanhoe,{5}

and of enthusiasts in Old Mortality are instances

of this. This bearing of character and plot on

each other is not often found in Byron's poems.

The Corsair is intended for a remarkable

personage. We pass by the inconsistencies of his{10}

character, considered by itself. The grand fault is,

that whether it be natural or not, we are obliged

to accept the author's word for the fidelity of his

portrait. We are told, not shown, what the hero

was. There is nothing in the plot which results{15}

from his peculiar formation of mind. An

everyday bravo might equally well have satisfied the

requirements of the action. Childe Harold, again,

if he is anything, is a being professedly isolated

from the world, and uninfluenced by it. One{20}

might as well draw Tityrus's stags grazing in the

air, as a character of this kind; which yet, with

more or less alteration, passes through successive

editions in his other poems. Byron had very

little versatility or elasticity of genius; he did not{25}

know how to make poetry out of existing materials.

He declaims in his own way, and has the

upper-hand as long as he is allowed to go on; but, if

interrogated on principles of nature and good

sense, he is at once put out and brought to a{30}

stand.

Yet his conception of Sardanapalus and Myrrha

is fine and ideal, and in the style of excellence

which we have just been admiring in Shakspeare

and Scott.

These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may{5}

suffice.

Now let us proceed to a fresh position; which,

as before, shall first be broadly stated, then

modified and explained. How does originality

differ from the poetical talent? Without{10}

affecting the accuracy of a definition, we may call the

latter the originality of right moral feeling.

Originality may perhaps be defined the power

of abstracting for one's self, and is in thought

what strength of mind is in action. Our opinions{15}

are commonly derived from education and society.

Common minds transmit as they receive, good and

bad, true and false; minds of original talent feel a

continual propensity to investigate subjects, and

strike out views for themselves, so that even old{20}

and established truths do not escape

modification and accidental change when subjected to this

process of mental digestion. Even the style of

original writers is stamped with the peculiarities

of their minds. When originality is found apart{25}

from good sense, which more or less is frequently

the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness

of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct.

Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated

from its good sense, or taste, as it is called, which{30}

is one of its elements. It is originality energizing

in the world of beauty; the originality of grace,

purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not

hesitate to say, that poetry is ultimately founded

on correct moral perception; that where there is

no sound principle in exercise there will be no{5}

poetry; and that on the whole (originality being

granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer's

moral character will his compositions vary in

poetical excellence. This position, however,

requires some explanation.{10}

Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that

a poet must necessarily display virtuous and

religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual

material of poetry, but of its sources. A right

moral state of heart is the formal and scientific{15}

condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow

from our position that every poet must in fact be

a man of consistent and practical principle;

except so far as good feeling commonly produces or

results from good practice. Burns was a man of{20}

inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really

sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged

poetical talent is in no wise inconsistent with

the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the

beauty which exists in his compositions to the{25}

remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within

him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds

good, even though it be shown that a depraved

man may write a poem. As motives short of the

purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames{30}

of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial

and limited poetry. But even where this is

instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be

inconsistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry

as the traces and shadows of holy truth still

remain upon it. On the other hand, a right moral{5}

feeling places the mind in the very center of that

circle from which all the rays have their origin

and range; whereas minds otherwise placed

command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry.

Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of{10}

opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth,

and Southey may be considered, as far as their

writings go, to approximate to this moral center.

The following are added as further illustrations of

our meaning. Walter Scott's center is chivalrous{15}

honor; Shakspeare exhibits the characteristics of

an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the

religion of nature and conscience, at times debased

by polytheism. All these poets are religious. The

occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful{20}

to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy.

Dryden's Alexander's Feast is a magnificent

composition, and has high poetical beauties; but to a

refined judgment there is something intrinsically

unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the{25}

praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to

a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue

foundation—the one is a fallacy, the other is out

of taste. Lord Byron's Manfred is in parts

intensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally{30}

shrinks from the spirit which here and there reveals

itself, and the basis on which the drama is

built. From a perusal of it we should infer,

according to the above theory, that there was right

and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the

central and consistent character was wanting.{5}

From the history of his life we know this to be

the fact. The connection between want of the

religious principle and want of poetical feeling is

seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who

had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, it{10}

may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine.

Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his

work evinces that his miserable philosophy was

rather the result of a bewildered judgment than

a corrupt heart.{15}

According to the above theory, Revealed

Religion should be especially poetical—and it is so

in fact. While its disclosures have an originality

in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty

to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with{20}

those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical

mind delights, and with which all grace and

harmony are associated. It brings us into a new

world—a world of overpowering interest, of the

sublimest views, and the tenderest and purest{25}

feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New

Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect

produced upon the hearts of those who have

imbibed their spirit. At present we are not

concerned with the practical, but the poetical nature{30}

of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical

view of things is a duty—we are bid to color all

things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning

in every event, and a superhuman tendency. Even

our friends around are invested with unearthly

brightness—no longer imperfect men, but beings{5}

taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal,

and in training for future happiness. It may be

added, that the virtues peculiarly Christian are

especially poetical—meekness, gentleness,

compassion, contentment, modesty, not to mention{10}

the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and

more ordinary feelings are the instruments of

rhetoric more justly than of poetry—anger,

indignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of

independence.{15}

THE INFINITUDE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

The attributes of God, though intelligible to us

on their surface,—for from our own sense of

mercy and holiness and patience and consistency,

we have general notions of the All-merciful and

All-holy and All-patient, and of all that is proper{20}

to His Essence,—yet, for the very reason that

they are infinite, transcend our comprehension,

when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed

out, and can only be received by faith. They are

dimly shadowed out, in this very respect, by the{25}

great agents which He has created in the material

world. What is so ordinary and familiar to us

as the elements, what so simple and level to us

as their presence and operation? yet how their

character changes, and how they overmaster us,

and triumph over us, when they come upon us in

their fullness! The invisible air, how gentle is it,

and intimately ours! we breathe it momentarily,{5}

nor could we live without it; it fans our cheek,

and flows around us, and we move through it

without effort, while it obediently recedes at every

step we take, and obsequiously pursues us as we

go forward. Yet let it come in its power, and{10}

that same silent fluid, which was just now the

servant of our necessity or caprice, takes us up

on its wings with the invisible power of an Angel,

and carries us forth into the regions of space, and

flings us down headlong upon the earth. Or go{15}

to the spring, and draw thence at your pleasure,

for your cup or your pitcher, in supply of your

wants; you have a ready servant, a domestic ever

at hand, in large quantity or in small, to satisfy

your thirst, or to purify you from the dust and{20}

mire of the world. But go from home, reach the

coast; and you will see that same humble element

transformed before your eyes. You were equal to

it in its condescension, but who shall gaze

without astonishment at its vast expanse in the bosom{25}

of the ocean? who shall hear without awe the

dashing of its mighty billows along the beach?

who shall without terror feel it heaving under him,

and swelling and mounting up, and yawning wide,

till he, its very sport and mockery, is thrown to{30}

and fro, hither and thither, at the mere mercy of

a power which was just now his companion and

almost his slave? Or, again, approach the flame:

it warms you, and it enlightens you; yet approach

not too near, presume not, or it will change its

nature. That very element which is so beautiful{5}

to look at, so brilliant in its character, so graceful

in its figure, so soft and lambent in its motion,

will be found in its essence to be of a keen,

resistless nature; it tortures, it consumes, it reduces to

ashes that of which it was just before the{10}

illumination and the life. So it is with the attributes

of God; our knowledge of them serves us for our

daily welfare; they give us light and warmth and

food and guidance and succor; but go forth with

Moses upon the mount and let the Lord pass by,{15}

or with Elias stand in the desert amid the wind,

the earthquake, and the fire, and all is mystery

and darkness; all is but a whirling of the reason,

and a dazzling of the imagination, and an

overwhelming of the feelings, reminding us that we{20}

are but mortal men and He is God, and that the

outlines which Nature draws for us are not His

perfect image, nor to be pronounced inconsistent

with those further lights and depths with which it

is invested by Revelation.{25}

Say not, my brethren, that these thoughts are

too austere for this season, when we contemplate

the self-sacrificing, self-consuming charity

wherewith God our Saviour has visited us. It is for that

very reason that I dwell on them; the higher He{30}

is, and the more mysterious, so much the more

glorious and the more subduing is the history of

His humiliation. I own it, my brethren, I love

to dwell on Him as the Only-begotten Word; nor

is it any forgetfulness of His sacred humanity to

contemplate His Eternal Person. It is the very{5}

idea, that He is God, which gives a meaning to

His sufferings; what is to me a man, and nothing

more, in agony, or scourged, or crucified? there

are many holy martyrs, and their torments were

terrible. But here I see One dropping blood,{10}

gashed by the thong, and stretched upon the

Cross, and He is God. It is no tale of human woe

which I am reading here; it is the record of the

passion of the great Creator. The Word and

Wisdom of the Father, who dwelt in His bosom{15}

in bliss ineffable from all eternity, whose very

smile has shed radiance and grace over the whole

creation, whose traces I see in the starry heavens

and on the green earth, this glorious living God,

it is He who looks at me so piteously, so tenderly{20}

from the Cross. He seems to say,—I cannot

move, though I am omnipotent, for sin has bound

Me here. I had had it in mind to come on earth

among innocent creatures, more fair and lovely

than them all, with a face more radiant than the{25}

Seraphim, and a form as royal as that of

Archangels, to be their equal yet their God, to fill

them with My grace, to receive their worship, to

enjoy their company, and to prepare them for the

heaven to which I destined them; but, before I{30}

carried My purpose into effect, they sinned, and

lost their inheritance; and so I come indeed, but

come, not in that brightness in which I went forth

to create the morning stars and to fill the sons of

God with melody, but in deformity and in shame,

in sighs and tears, with blood upon My cheek, and{5}

with My limbs laid bare and rent. Gaze on Me,

O My children, if you will, for I am helpless; gaze

on your Maker, whether in contempt, or in faith

and love. Here I wait, upon the Cross, the

appointed time, the time of grace and mercy; here{10}

I wait till the end of the world, silent and

motionless, for the conversion of the sinful and the

consolation of the just; here I remain in weakness

and shame, though I am so great in heaven, till

the end, patiently expecting My full catalogue of{15}

souls, who, when time is at length over, shall be

the reward of My passion and the triumph of My

grace to all eternity.

CHRIST UPON THE WATERS

The earth is full of the marvels of Divine power;

"Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night{20}

showeth knowledge." The tokens of

Omnipotence are all around us, in the world of matter,

and the world of man; in the dispensation of

nature, and in the dispensation of grace. To do

impossibilities, I may say, is the prerogative of{25}

Him who made all things out of nothing, who

foresees all events before they occur, and controls

all wills without compelling them. In emblem of

this His glorious attribute, He came to His

disciples in the passage I have read to you, walking

upon the sea,—the emblem or hieroglyphic

among the ancients of the impossible, to show

them that what is impossible with man is{5}

possible with God. He who could walk the waters,

could also ride triumphantly upon what is still

more fickle, unstable, tumultuous,

treacherous—the billows of human wills, human purposes,

human hearts. The bark of Peter was struggling{10}

with the waves, and made no progress; Christ

came to him walking upon them; He entered the

boat, and by entering it He sustained it. He did

not abandon Himself to it, but He brought it

near to Himself; He did not merely take refuge{15}

in it, but He made Himself the strength of it,

and the pledge and cause of a successful passage.

"Presently," another gospel says, "the ship was

at the land, whither they were going."

Such was the power of the Son of God, the{20}

Saviour of man, manifested by visible tokens in

the material world, when He came upon earth;

and such, too, it has ever since signally shown

itself to be, in the history of that mystical ark

which He then formed to float upon the ocean of{25}

human opinion. He told His chosen servants to

form an ark for the salvation of souls: He gave

them directions how to construct it,—the length,

breadth, and height, its cabins and its windows;

and the world, as it gazed upon it, forthwith{30}

began to criticise. It pronounced it framed quite

contrary to the scientific rules of shipbuilding; it

prophesied, as it still prophesies, that such a craft

was not sea-worthy; that it was not water-tight;

that it would not float; that it would go to pieces

and founder. And why it does not, who can say,{5}

except that the Lord is in it? Who can say why

so old a framework, put together nineteen

hundred years ago, should have lasted, against all

human calculation, even to this day; always

going, and never gone; ever failing, yet ever{10}

managing to explore new seas and foreign

coasts—except that He, who once said to the rowers,

"It is I, be not afraid," and to the waters,

"Peace," is still in His own ark which He has

made, to direct and to prosper her course?{15}

Time was, my brethren, when the forefathers of

our race were a savage tribe, inhabiting a wild

district beyond the limits of this quarter of the

earth. Whatever brought them thither, they had

no local attachments there or political settlement;{20}

they were a restless people, and whether urged

forward by enemies or by desire of plunder, they

left their place, and passing through the defiles of

the mountains on the frontiers of Asia, they

invaded Europe, setting out on a journey towards{25}

the farther west. Generation after generation

passed away; and still this fierce and haughty

race moved forward. On, on they went; but

travel availed them not; the change of place

could bring them no truth, or peace, or hope, or{30}

stability of heart; they could not flee from themselves.

They carried with them their superstitions

and their sins, their gods of iron and of clay,

their savage sacrifices, their lawless witchcrafts,

their hatred of their kind, and their ignorance

of their destiny. At length they buried themselves{5}

in the deep forests of Germany, and gave

themselves up to indolent repose; but they had not

found their rest; they were still heathens, making

the fair trees, the primeval work of God, and the

innocent beasts of the chase, the objects and the{10}

instruments of their idolatrous worship. And,

last of all, they crossed over the strait and made

themselves masters of this island, and gave their

very name to it; so that, whereas it had hitherto

been called Britain, the southern part, which was{15}

their main seat, obtained the name of England.

And now they had proceeded forward nearly as

far as they could go, unless they were prepared

to look across the great ocean, and anticipate the

discovery of the world which lies beyond it.{20}

What, then, was to happen to this restless race,

which had sought for happiness and peace across

the globe, and had not found it? Was it to grow

old in its place, and dwindle away, and consume

in the fever of its own heart, which admitted{25}

no remedy? or was it to become great by being

overcome, and to enjoy the only real life of man,

and rise to his only true dignity, by being

subjected to a Master's yoke? Did its Maker and

Lord see any good thing in it, of which, under{30}

His Divine nurture, profit might come to His elect,

and glory to His name? He looked upon it, and

He saw nothing there to claim any visitation of

His grace, or to merit any relaxation of the awful

penalty which its lawlessness and impiety had

incurred. It was a proud race, which feared{5}

neither God nor man—a race ambitious,

self-willed, obstinate, and hard of belief, which would

dare everything, even the eternal pit, if it was

challenged to do so. I say, there was nothing

there of a nature to reverse the destiny which{10}

His righteous decrees have assigned to those who

sin wilfully and despise Him. But the Almighty

Lover of souls looked once again; and He saw in

that poor, forlorn, and ruined nature, which He

had in the beginning filled with grace and light,{15}

He saw in it, not what merited His favor, not

what would adequately respond to His influences,

not what was a necessary instrument of His

purposes, but what would illustrate and preach abroad

His grace, if He took pity on it. He saw in it,{20}

a natural nobleness, a simplicity, a frankness of

character, a love of truth, a zeal for justice, an

indignation at wrong, an admiration of purity, a

reverence for law, a keen appreciation of the

beautifulness and majesty of order, nay, further,{25}

a tenderness and an affectionateness of heart,

which He knew would become the glorious

instruments of His high will when illuminated and

vivified by His supernatural gifts. And so He

who, did it so please Him, could raise up children{30}

to Abraham out of the very stones of the earth,

nevertheless determined in this instance in His

free mercy to unite what was beautiful in nature

with what was radiant in grace; and, as if those

poor Anglo-Saxons had been too fair to be heathen,

therefore did He rescue them from the devil's{5}

service and the devil's doom, and bring them

into the house of His holiness and the mountain

of His rest.

It is an old story and a familiar, and I need not

go through it. I need not tell you, my Brethren,{10}

how suddenly the word of truth came to our

ancestors in this island and subdued them to its

gentle rule; how the grace of God fell on them,

and, without compulsion, as the historian tells us,

the multitude became Christian; how, when all{15}

was tempestuous, and hopeless, and dark, Christ

like a vision of glory came walking to them on

the waves of the sea. Then suddenly there was

a great calm; a change came over the pagan

people in that quarter of the country where the{20}

gospel was first preached to them; and from

thence the blessed influence went forth, it was

poured out over the whole land, till one and all,

the Anglo-Saxon people, were converted by it. In

a hundred years the work was done; the idols,{25}

the sacrifices, the mummeries of paganism flitted

away and were not, and the pure doctrine and

heavenly worship of the Cross were found in their

stead. The fair form of Christianity rose up and

grew and expanded like a beautiful pageant from{30}

north to south; it was majestic, it was solemn, it

was bright, it was beautiful and pleasant, it was

soothing to the griefs, it was indulgent to the

hopes of man; it was at once a teaching and a

worship; it had a dogma, a mystery, a ritual of

its own; it had an hierarchical form. A brotherhood{5}

of holy pastors, with miter and crosier and

uplifted hand, walked forth and blessed and ruled

a joyful people. The crucifix headed the

procession, and simple monks were there with hearts in

prayer, and sweet chants resounded, and the holy{10}

Latin tongue was heard, and boys came forth in

white, swinging censers, and the fragrant cloud

arose, and mass was sung, and the Saints were

invoked; and day after day, and in the still night,

and over the woody hills and in the quiet plains,{15}

as constantly as sun and moon and stars go forth

in heaven, so regular and solemn was the stately

march of blessed services on earth, high festival,

and gorgeous procession, and soothing dirge, and

passing bell, and the familiar evening call to{20}

prayer; till he who recollected the old pagan

time, would think it all unreal that he beheld and

heard, and would conclude he did but see a vision,

so marvelously was heaven let down upon earth,

so triumphantly were chased away the fiends of{25}

darkness to their prison below.

THE SECOND SPRING

CANT., c. ii. v. 10-12

Surge, propera, amica mea, columba mea, formosa

mea, et veni. Jam enim hiems transiit, imber abiit et

recessit. Flores apparuerunt in terrâ nostrâ.

Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful

one, and come. For the winter is now past, the rain is

over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land.

We have familiar experience of the order, the

constancy, the perpetual renovation of the material

world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory

as is every part of it, restless and migratory as

are its elements, never ceasing as are its changes,{5}

still it abides. It is bound together by a law of

permanence, it is set up in unity; and, though it

is ever dying, it is ever coming to life again.

Dissolution does but give birth to fresh modes of

organization, and one death is the parent of a{10}

thousand lives. Each hour, as it comes, is but

a testimony, how fleeting, yet how secure, how

certain, is the great whole. It is like an image

on the waters, which is ever the same, though

the waters ever flow. Change upon{15}

change—yet one change cries out to another, like the

alternate Seraphim, in praise and in glory

of their Maker. The sun sinks to rise again;

the day is swallowed up in the gloom of the

night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it{20}

had never been quenched. Spring passes into

summer, and through summer and autumn into

winter, only the more surely, by its own ultimate

return, to triumph over that grave, towards which

it resolutely hastened from its first hour. We

mourn over the blossoms of May, because they{5}

are to wither; but we know, withal, that May is

one day to have its revenge upon November, by

the revolution of that solemn circle which never

stops—which teaches us in our height of hope,

ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation,{10}

never to despair.

And forcibly as this comes home to every one

of us, not less forcible is the contrast which exists

between this material world, so vigorous, so

reproductive, amid all its changes, and the moral{15}

world, so feeble, so downward, so resourceless,

amid all its aspirations. That which ought to

come to naught, endures; that which promises a

future, disappoints and is no more. The same

sun shines in heaven from first to last, and the{20}

blue firmament, the everlasting mountains,

reflect his rays; but where is there upon earth

the champion, the hero, the law giver, the body

politic, the sovereign race, which was great three

hundred years ago, and is great now? Moralists{25}

and poets, often do they descant upon this innate

vitality of matter, this innate perishableness of

mind. Man rises to fall: he tends to dissolution

from the moment he begins to be; he lives on,

indeed, in his children, he lives on in his name,{30}

he lives not on in his own person. He is, as regards

the manifestations of his nature here below,

as a bubble that breaks, and as water poured out

upon the earth. He was young, he is old, he is

never young again. This is the lament over him,

poured forth in verse and in prose, by Christians{5}

and by heathen. The greatest work of God's

hands under the sun, he, in all the manifestations

of his complex being, is born only to die.

His bodily frame first begins to feel the power

of this constraining law, though it is the last to{10}

succumb to it. We look at the gloom of youth

with interest, yet with pity; and the more

graceful and sweet it is, with pity so much the more;

for, whatever be its excellence and its glory, soon

it begins to be deformed and dishonored by the{15}

very force of its living on. It grows into

exhaustion and collapse, till at length it crumbles

into that dust out of which it was originally

taken.

So is it, too, with our moral being, a far higher{20}

and diviner portion of our natural constitution;

it begins with life, it ends with what is worse

than the mere loss of life, with a living death.

How beautiful is the human heart, when it puts

forth its first leaves, and opens and rejoices in{25}

its spring-tide! Fair as may be the bodily form,

fairer far, in its green foliage and bright blossoms,

is natural virtue. It blooms in the young, like

some rich flower, so delicate, so fragrant, and so

dazzling. Generosity and lightness of heart and{30}

amiableness, the confiding spirit, the gentle temper,

the elastic cheerfulness, the open hand, the

pure affection, the noble aspiration, the heroic

resolve, the romantic pursuit, the love in which

self has no part,—are not these beautiful? and

are they not dressed up and set forth for{5}

admiration in their best shapes, in tales and in poems?

and ah! what a prospect of good is there! who

could believe that it is to fade! and yet, as night

follows upon day, as decrepitude follows upon

health, so surely are failure, and overthrow, and{10}

annihilation, the issue of this natural virtue, if

time only be allowed to it to run its course.

There are those who are cut off in the first

opening of this excellence, and then, if we may trust

their epitaphs, they have lived like angels; but{15}

wait awhile, let them live on, let the course of

life proceed, let the bright soul go through the

fire and water of the world's temptations and

seductions and corruptions and transformations;

and, alas for the insufficiency of nature! alas for{20}

its powerlessness to persevere, its waywardness

in disappointing its own promise! Wait till

youth has become age; and not more different

is the miniature which we have of him when a

boy, when every feature spoke of hope, put side{25}

by side of the large portrait painted to his honor,

when he is old, when his limbs are shrunk, his

eye dim, his brow furrowed, and his hair gray,

than differs the moral grace of that boyhood from

the forbidding and repulsive aspect of his soul,{30}

now that he has lived to the age of man. For

moroseness, and misanthropy, and selfishness, is

the ordinary winter of that spring.

Such is man in his own nature, and such, too,

is he in his works. The noblest efforts of his

genius, the conquests he has made, the doctrines{5}

he has originated, the nations he has civilized,

the states he has created, they outlive himself,

they outlive him by many centuries, but they

tend to an end, and that end is dissolution.

Powers of the world, sovereignties, dynasties,{10}

sooner or later come to nought; they have their

fatal hour. The Roman conqueror shed tears

over Carthage, for in the destruction of the rival

city he discerned too truly an augury of the fall

of Rome; and at length, with the weight and the{15}

responsibilities, the crimes and the glories, of

centuries upon centuries, the Imperial City fell.

Thus man and all his works are mortal; they

die, and they have no power of renovation.

But what is it, my Fathers, my Brothers, what{20}

is it that has happened in England just at this

time? Something strange is passing over this

land, by the very surprise, by the very commotion,

which it excites. Were we not near enough the

scene of action to be able to say what is going{25}

on,—were we the inhabitants of some sister planet

possessed of a more perfect mechanism than this

earth has discovered for surveying the

transactions of another globe,—and did we turn our

eyes thence towards England just at this season,{30}

we should be arrested by a political phenomenon

as wonderful as any which the astronomer notes

down from his physical field of view. It would

be the occurrence of a national commotion, almost

without parallel, more violent than has happened

here for centuries—at least in the judgments{5}

and intentions of men, if not in act and deed.

We should note it down, that soon after St.

Michael's day, 1850, a storm arose in the moral

world, so furious as to demand some great

explanation, and to rouse in us an intense desire to{10}

gain it. We should observe it increasing from

day to day, and spreading from place to place,

without remission, almost without lull, up to this

very hour, when perhaps it threatens worse still,

or at least gives no sure prospect of alleviation.{15}

Every party in the body politic undergoes its

influence,—from the Queen upon her throne,

down to the little ones in the infant or day school.

The ten thousands of the constituency, the

sum-total of Protestant sects, the aggregate of{20}

religious societies and associations, the great body

of established clergy in town and country, the bar,

even the medical profession, nay, even literary

and scientific circles, every class, every

interest, every fireside, gives tokens of this{25}

ubiquitous storm. This would be our report of it, seeing

it from the distance, and we should speculate

on the cause. What is it all about? against what

is it directed? what wonder has happened upon

earth? what prodigious, what preternatural event{30}

is adequate to the burden of so vast an effect?

We should judge rightly in our curiosity about

a phenomenon like this; it must be a portentous

event, and it is. It is an innovation, a miracle,

I may say, in the course of human events. The

physical world revolves year by year, and begins{5}

again; but the political order of things does not

renew itself, does not return; it continues, but it

proceeds; there is no retrogression. This is so

well understood by men of the day, that with

them progress is idolized as another name for{10}

good. The past never returns—it is never good;

if we are to escape existing ills, it must be by

going forward. The past is out of date; the past

is dead. As well may the dead live to us, as well

may the dead profit us, as the past return. This,{15}

then, is the cause of this national transport, this

national cry, which encompasses us. The past has

returned, the dead lives. Thrones are overturned,

and are never restored; States live and die, and

then are matter only for history. Babylon was{20}

great, and Tyre, and Egypt, and Nineveh, and

shall never be great again. The English Church

was, and the English Church was not, and the

English Church is once again. This is the

portent, worthy of a cry. It is the coming in of a{25}

Second Spring; it is a restoration in the moral

world, such as that which yearly takes place in

the physical.

Three centuries ago, and the Catholic Church,

that great creation of God's power, stood in this{30}

land in pride of place. It had the honors of near

a thousand years upon it; it was enthroned on

some twenty sees up and down the broad country;

it was based in the will of a faithful people;

it energized through ten thousand instruments of

power and influence; and it was ennobled by a{5}

host of Saints and Martyrs. The churches, one

by one, recounted and rejoiced in the line of

glorified intercessors, who were the respective

objects of their grateful homage. Canterbury

alone numbered perhaps some sixteen, from St.{10}

Augustine to St. Dunstan and St. Elphege, from

St. Anselm and St. Thomas down to St. Edmund.

York had its St. Paulinus, St. John, St. Wilfrid,

and St. William; London, its St. Erconwald;

Durham, its St. Cuthbert; Winton, its St.{15}

Swithun. Then there were St. Aidan of

Lindisfarne, and St. Hugh of Lincoln, and St.

Chad of Lichfield, and St. Thomas of

Hereford, and St. Oswald and St. Wulstan of

Worcester, and St. Osmund of Salisbury, and{20}

St. Birinus of Dorchester, and St. Richard of

Chichester. And then, too, its religious orders,

its monastic establishments, its universities,

its wide relations all over Europe, its high

prerogatives in the temporal state, its wealth, its{25}

dependencies, its popular honors,—where was

there in the whole of Christendom a more

glorious hierarchy? Mixed up with the civil

institutions, with kings and nobles, with the people,

found in every village and in every town,—it{30}

seemed destined to stand, so long as England

stood, and to outlast, it might be, England's

greatness.

But it was the high decree of heaven, that the

majesty of that presence should be blotted out.

It is a long story, my Fathers and {5}

Brothers—you know it well. I need not go through it. The

vivifying principle of truth, the shadow of St.

Peter, the grace of the Redeemer, left it. That

old Church in its day became a corpse (a

marvelous, an awful change!); and then it did but{10}

corrupt the air which once it refreshed, and

cumber the ground which once it beautified. So all

seemed to be lost; and there was a struggle for

a time, and then its priests were cast out or

martyred. There were sacrileges innumerable.{15}

Its temples were profaned or destroyed; its

revenues seized by covetous nobles, or squandered

upon the ministers of a new faith. The presence

of Catholicism was at length simply

removed,—its grace disowned,—its power despised,—its{20}

name, except as a matter of history, at length

almost unknown. It took a long time to do this

thoroughly; much time, much thought, much

labor, much expense; but at last it was done.

Oh, that miserable day, centuries before we were{25}

born! What a martyrdom to live in it and see

the fair form of Truth, moral and material,

hacked piecemeal, and every limb and organ

carried off, and burned in the fire, or cast into

the deep! But at last the work was done. Truth{30}

was disposed of, and shoveled away, and there

was a calm, a silence, a sort of peace—and such

was about the state of things when we were born

into this weary world.

My Fathers and Brothers, you have seen it on

one side, and some of us on another; but one and{5}

all of us can bear witness to the fact of the utter

contempt into which Catholicism had fallen by

the time that we were born. You, alas, know it

far better than I can know it; but it may not be

out of place, if by one or two tokens, as by the{10}

strokes of a pencil, I bear witness to you from

without, of what you can witness so much more

truly from within. No longer the Catholic

Church in the country; nay, no longer, I may

say, a Catholic community; but a few{15}

adherents of the Old Religion, moving silently

and sorrowfully about, as memorials of what had

been. The "Roman Catholics,"—not a sect,

not even an interest, as men conceived of

it,—not a body, however small, representative of the {20}

Great Communion abroad,—but a mere handful

of individuals, who might be counted, like the

pebbles and detritus of the great deluge, and

who, forsooth, merely happened to retain a creed

which, in its day indeed, was the profession of a{25}

Church. Here a set of poor Irishmen, coming and

going at harvest time, or a colony of them lodged

in a miserable quarter of the vast metropolis.

There, perhaps an elderly person, seen walking

in the streets, grave and solitary, and strange,{30}

though noble in bearing, and said to be of good

family, and a "Roman Catholic." An

old-fashioned house of gloomy appearance, closed in

with high walls, with an iron gate, and yews, and

the report attaching to it that "Roman Catholics"

lived there; but who they were, or what they did,{5}

or what was meant by calling them Roman

Catholics, no one could tell—though it had an

unpleasant sound, and told of form and

superstition. And then, perhaps, as we went to and fro,

looking with a boy's curious eyes through the{10}

great city, we might come to-day upon some

Moravian chapel, or Quaker's meeting-house, and

to-morrow on a chapel of the "Roman Catholics";

but nothing was to be gathered from it, except

that there were lights burning there, and some{15}

boys in white, swinging censers; and what it all

meant could only be learned from books, from

Protestant Histories and Sermons; and they did

not report well of the "Roman Catholics," but,

on the contrary, deposed that they had once had{20}

power and had abused it. And then, again, we

might on one occasion hear it pointedly put out

by some literary man, as the result of his careful

investigation, and as a recondite point of

information, which few knew, that there was this{25}

difference between the Roman Catholics of England

and the Roman Catholics of Ireland, that the

latter had bishops, and the former were governed

by four officials, called Vicars-Apostolic.

Such was about the sort of knowledge possessed{30}

of Christianity by the heathen of old time, who

persecuted its adherents from the face of the

earth, and then called them a gens lucifuga, a

people who shunned the light of day. Such were

Catholics in England, found in corners, and alleys,

and cellars, and the housetops, or in the recesses{5}

of the country; cut off from the populous world

around them, and dimly seen, as if through a

mist or in twilight, as ghosts flitting to and fro,

by the high Protestants, the lords of the earth.

At length so feeble did they become, so utterly{10}

contemptible, that contempt gave birth to pity;

and the more generous of their tyrants actually

began to wish to bestow on them some favor,

under the notion that their opinions were simply

too absurd ever to spread again, and that they{15}

themselves, were they but raised in civil

importance, would soon unlearn and be ashamed of

them. And thus, out of mere kindness to us,

they began to vilify our doctrines to the Protestant

world, that so our very idiotcy or our secret{20}

unbelief might be our plea for mercy.

A great change, an awful contrast, between the

time-honored Church of St. Augustine and St.

Thomas, and the poor remnant of their children

in the beginning of the nineteenth century! It{25}

was a miracle, I might say, to have pulled down

that lordly power; but there was a greater and a

truer one in store. No one could have prophesied

its fall, but still less would any one have ventured

to prophesy its rise again. The fall was{30}

wonderful; still after all it was in the order of nature;

all things come to naught: its rise again would

be a different sort of wonder, for it is in the order

of grace,—and who can hope for miracles, and

such a miracle as this? Has the whole course of

history a like to show? I must speak cautiously{5}

and according to my knowledge, but I recollect

no parallel to it. Augustine, indeed, came to

the same island to which the early missionaries

had come already; but they came to Britons, and

he to Saxons. The Arian Goths and Lombards,{10}

too, cast off their heresy in St. Augustine's age,

and joined the Church; but they had never fallen

away from her. The inspired word seems to imply

the almost impossibility of such a grace as the

renovation of those who have crucified to{15}

themselves again, and trodden under foot, the Son of

God. Who then could have dared to hope that,

out of so sacrilegious a nation as this is, a people

would have been formed again unto their Saviour?

What signs did it show that it was to be singled{20}

out from among the nations? Had it been

prophesied some fifty years ago, would not the

very notion have seemed preposterous and wild?

My Fathers, there was one of your own order,

then in the maturity of his powers and his{25}

reputation. His name is the property of this diocese;

yet is too great, too venerable, too dear to all

Catholics, to be confined to any part of England,

when it is rather a household word in the mouths

of all of us. What would have been the feelings{30}

of that venerable man, the champion of God's ark

in an evil time, could he have lived to see this

day? It is almost presumptuous for one who

knew him not, to draw pictures about him, and

his thoughts, and his friends, some of whom are

even here present; yet am I wrong in fancying{5}

that a day such as this, in which we stand, would

have seemed to him a dream, or, if he prophesied

of it, to his hearers nothing but a mockery? Say

that one time, rapt in spirit, he had reached

forward to the future, and that his mortal eye had{10}

wandered from that lowly chapel in the valley

which had been for centuries in the possession of

Catholics, to the neighboring height, then waste

and solitary. And let him say to those about

him: "I see a bleak mount, looking upon an open{15}

country, over against that huge town, to whose

inhabitants Catholicism is of so little account.

I see the ground marked out, and an ample

inclosure made; and plantations are rising there,

clothing and circling in the space.{20}

"And there on that high spot, far from the

haunts of men, yet in the very center of the island,

a large edifice, or rather pile of edifices, appears

with many fronts, and courts, and long cloisters

and corridors, and story upon story. And there{25}

it rises, under the invocation of the same sweet

and powerful name which has been our strength

and consolation in the Valley. I look more

attentively at that building, and I see it is fashioned

upon that ancient style of art which brings back{30}

the past, which had seemed to be perishing from

off the face of the earth, or to be preserved only

as a curiosity, or to be imitated only as a fancy.

I listen, and I hear the sound of voices, grave

and musical, renewing the old chant, with which

Augustine greeted Ethelbert in the free air upon{5}

the Kentish strand. It comes from a long

procession, and it winds along the cloisters. Priests

and Religious, theologians from the schools, and

canons from the Cathedral, walk in due precedence.

And then there comes a vision of well-nigh{10}

twelve mitered heads; and last I see a Prince of

the Church, in the royal dye of empire and of

martyrdom, a pledge to us from Rome of Rome's

unwearied love, a token that that goodly

company is firm in Apostolic faith and hope. And{15}

the shadow of the Saints is there; St. Benedict

is there, speaking to us by the voice of bishop

and of priest, and counting over the long ages

through which he has prayed, and studied, and

labored; there, too, is St. Dominic's white wool,{20}

which no blemish can impair, no stain can dim:

and if St. Bernard be not there, it is only that

his absence may make him be remembered more.

And the princely patriarch, St. Ignatius, too, the

St. George of the modern world, with his chivalrous{25}

lance run through his writhing foe, he, too, sheds

his blessing upon that train. And others, also,

his equals or his juniors in history, whose pictures

are above our altars, or soon shall be, the surest

proof that the Lord's arm has not waxen short,{30}

nor His mercy failed,—they, too, are looking

down from their thrones on high upon the throng.

And so that high company moves on into the holy

place; and there, with august rite and awful

sacrifice, inaugurates the great act which brings

it thither." What is that act? it is the first{5}

synod of a new Hierarchy; it is the resurrection

of the Church.

O my Fathers, my Brothers, had that revered

Bishop so spoken then, who that had heard him

but would have said that he spoke what could{10}

not be? What! those few scattered worshipers,

the Roman Catholics, to form a Church! Shall

the past be rolled back? Shall the grave open?

Shall the Saxons live again to God? Shall the

shepherds, watching their poor flocks by night,{15}

be visited by a multitude of the heavenly army,

and hear how their Lord has been new-born in

their own city? Yes; for grace can, where

nature cannot. The world grows old, but the

Church is ever young. She can, in any time, at{20}

her Lord's will, "inherit the Gentiles, and inhabit

the desolate cities." "Arise, Jerusalem, for thy

light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen

upon thee. Behold, darkness shall cover the

earth, and a mist the people; but the Lord shall{25}

arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon

thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see;

all these are gathered together, they come to

thee; thy sons shall come from afar, and thy

daughters shall rise up at thy side." "Arise,{30}

make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one,

and come. For the winter is now past, and the

rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared

in our land ... the fig tree hath put forth her

green figs; the vines in flower yield their sweet

smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and{5}

come." It is the time for thy Visitation. Arise,

Mary, and go forth in thy strength into that north

country, which once was thine own, and take

possession of a land which knows thee not. Arise,

Mother of God, and with thy thrilling voice speak{10}

to those who labor with child, and are in pain,

till the babe of grace leaps within them! Shine

on us, dear Lady, with thy bright countenance,

like the sun in his strength, O stella matutina, O

harbinger of peace, till our year is one perpetual{15}

May. From thy sweet eyes, from thy pure smile,

from thy majestic brow, let ten thousand

influences rain down, not to confound or

overwhelm, but to persuade, to win over thine enemies.

O Mary, my hope, O Mother undefiled, fulfill to{20}

us the promise of this Spring. A second temple

rises on the ruins of the old. Canterbury has

gone its way, and York is gone, and Durham is

gone, and Winchester is gone. It was sore to

part with them. We clung to the vision of past{25}

greatness, and would not believe it could come

to naught; but the Church in England has died,

and the Church lives again. Westminster and

Nottingham, Beverley and Hexham, Northampton

and Shrewsbury, if the world lasts, shall be{30}

names as musical to the ear, as stirring to the

heart, as the glories we have lost; and Saints

shall rise out of them, if God so will, and

Doctors once again shall give the law to Israel,

and Preachers call to penance and to justice, as

at the beginning.{5}

Yes, my Fathers and Brothers, and if it be

God's blessed will, not Saints alone, not Doctors

only, not Preachers only, shall be ours—but

Martyrs, too, shall re-consecrate the soil to God.

We know not what is before us, ere we win our{10}

own; we are engaged in a great, a joyful work,

but in proportion to God's grace is the fury of

His enemies. They have welcomed us as the

lion greets his prey. Perhaps they may be

familiarized in time with our appearance, but{15}

perhaps they may be irritated the more. To set

up the Church again in England is too great an

act to be done in a corner. We have had reason

to expect that such a boon would not be given

to us without a cross. It is not God's way that{20}

great blessings should descend without the sacrifice

first of great sufferings. If the truth is to be

spread to any wide extent among this people, how

can we dream, how can we hope, that trial and

trouble shall not accompany its going forth? And{25}

we have already, if it may be said without

presumption, to commence our work withal, a large

store of merits. We have no slight outfit for our

opening warfare. Can we religiously suppose that

the blood of our martyrs, three centuries ago and{30}

since, shall never receive its recompense? Those

priests, secular and regular, did they suffer for

no end? or rather, for an end which is not yet

accomplished? The long imprisonment, the fetid

dungeon, the weary suspense, the tyrannous trial,

the barbarous sentence, the savage execution, the{5}

rack, the gibbet, the knife, the caldron, the

numberless tortures of those holy victims, O my God,

are they to have no reward? Are Thy martyrs

to cry from under Thine altar for their loving

vengeance on this guilty people, and to cry in{10}

vain? Shall they lose life, and not gain a

better life for the children of those who persecuted

them? Is this Thy way, O my God, righteous

and true? Is it according to Thy promise, O

King of Saints, if I may dare talk to Thee of{15}

justice? Did not Thou Thyself pray for Thine

enemies upon the cross, and convert them? Did

not Thy first Martyr win Thy great Apostle, then

a persecutor, by his loving prayer? And in that

day of trial and desolation for England, when{20}

hearts were pierced through and through with

Mary's woe, at the crucifixion of Thy body

mystical, was not every tear that flowed, and

every drop of blood that was shed, the seeds of a

future harvest, when they who sowed in sorrow{25}

were to reap in joy?

And as that suffering of the Martyrs is not yet

recompensed, so, perchance, it is not yet

exhausted. Something, for what we know, remains

to be undergone, to complete the necessary{30}

sacrifice. May God forbid it, for this poor nation's

sake! But still could we be surprised, my Fathers

and my Brothers, if the winter even now should

not yet be quite over? Have we any right to

take it strange, if, in this English land, the

spring-time of the Church should turn out to be an{5}

English spring, an uncertain, anxious time of hope

and fear, of joy and suffering,—of bright promise

and budding hopes, yet withal, of keen blasts, and

cold showers, and sudden storms?

One thing alone I know,—that according to{10}

our need, so will be our strength. One thing I

am sure of, that the more the enemy rages against

us, so much the more will the Saints in Heaven

plead for us; the more fearful are our trials from

the world, the more present to us will be our{15}

Mother Mary, and our good Patrons and Angel

Guardians; the more malicious are the devices of

men against us, the louder cry of supplication will

ascend from the bosom of the whole Church to

God for us. We shall not be left orphans; we{20}

shall have within us the strength of the Paraclete,

promised to the Church and to every member of

it. My Fathers, my Brothers in the priesthood,

I speak from my heart when I declare my

conviction, that there is no one among you here{25}

present but, if God so willed, would readily

become a martyr for His sake. I do not say you

would wish it; I do not say that the natural will

would not pray that that chalice might pass

away; I do not speak of what you can do by any{30}

strength of yours; but in the strength of God,

in the grace of the Spirit, in the armor of justice,

by the consolations and peace of the Church, by

the blessing of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and

in the name of Christ, you would do what nature

cannot do. By the intercession of the Saints on{5}

high, by the penances and good works and the

prayers of the people of God on earth, you would

be forcibly borne up as upon the waves of the

mighty deep, and carried on out of yourselves by

the fullness of grace, whether nature wished it or{10}

no. I do not mean violently, or with unseemly

struggle, but calmly, gracefully, sweetly, joyously,

you would mount up and ride forth to the battle,

as on the rush of Angels' wings, as your fathers

did before you, and gained the prize. You, who{15}

day by day offer up the Immaculate Lamb of

God, you who hold in your hands the Incarnate

Word under the visible tokens which He has

ordained, you who again and again drain the

chalice of the Great Victim; who is to make you{20}

fear? what is to startle you? what to seduce

you? who is to stop you, whether you are to

suffer or to do, whether to lay the foundations of

the Church in tears, or to put the crown upon the

work in jubilation?{25}

My Fathers, my Brothers, one word more. It

may seem as if I were going out of my way in

thus addressing you; but I have some sort of

plea to urge in extenuation. When the English

College at Rome was set up by the solicitude of a{30}

great Pontiff in the beginning of England's sorrows,

and missionaries were trained there for

confessorship and martyrdom here, who was it that

saluted the fair Saxon youths as they passed by

him in the streets of the great city, with the

salutation, "Salvete flores martyrum"? And when{5}

the time came for each in turn to leave that

peaceful home, and to go forth to the conflict, to whom

did they betake themselves before leaving Rome,

to receive a blessing which might nerve them for

their work? They went for a Saint's blessing;{10}

they went to a calm old man, who had never

seen blood, except in penance; who had longed

indeed to die for Christ, what time the great St.

Francis opened the way to the far East, but who

had been fixed as if a sentinel in the holy city,{15}

and walked up and down for fifty years on one

beat, while his brethren were in the battle. Oh!

the fire of that heart, too great for its frail

tenement, which tormented him to be kept at home

when the whole Church was at war! and{20}

therefore came those bright-haired strangers to him,

ere they set out for the scene of their passion,

that the full zeal and love pent up in that burning

breast might find a vent, and flow over, from him

who was kept at home, upon those who were to{25}

face the foe. Therefore one by one, each in his

turn, those youthful soldiers came to the old man;

and one by one they persevered and gained the

crown and the palm,—all but one, who had not

gone, and would not go, for the salutary blessing.{30}

My Fathers, my Brothers, that old man was

my own St. Philip. Bear with me for his sake.

If I have spoken too seriously, his sweet smile

shall temper it. As he was with you three

centuries ago in Rome, when our Temple fell, so

now surely when it is rising, it is a pleasant token{5}

that he should have even set out on his travels to

you; and that, as if remembering how he

interceded for you at home, and recognizing the

relations he then formed with you, he should now be

wishing to have a name among you, and to be{10}

loved by you, and perchance to do you a service,

here in your own land.

ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT

EP. II. S. PAUL AD COR., c. xii. v. 9

Libenter igitur gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis, ut

inhabitet in me virtus Christi.

Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that

the power of Christ may dwell in me.

All the Saints, from the beginning of history

to the end, resemble each other in this, that their

excellence is supernatural, their deeds heroic, their{15}

merits extraordinary and prevailing. They all

are choice patterns of the theological virtues;

they all are blessed with a rare and special union

with their Maker and Lord; they all lead lives of

penance; and when they leave this world, they{20}

are spared that torment, which the multitude of

holy souls are allotted, between earth and heaven,

death and eternal glory. But, with all these

various tokens of their belonging to one and the

same celestial family, they may still be divided,{25}

in their external aspect, into two classes.

There are those, on the one hand, who are so{5}

absorbed in the Divine life, that they seem, even

while they are in the flesh, to have no part in

earth or in human nature; but to think, speak,

and act under views, affections, and motives

simply supernatural. If they love others, it is{10}

simply because they love God, and because man

is the object either of His compassion, or of His

praise. If they rejoice, it is in what is unseen; if

they feel interest, it is in what is unearthly; if

they speak, it is almost with the voice of Angels;{15}

if they eat or drink, it is almost of Angels' food

alone—for it is recorded in their histories, that

for weeks they have fed on nothing else but that

Heavenly Bread which is the proper sustenance

of the soul. Such we may suppose to have been{20}

St. John; such St. Mary Magdalen; such the

hermits of the desert; such many of the holy

Virgins whose lives belong to the science of

mystical theology.

On the other hand, there are those, and of the{25}

highest order of sanctity too, as far as our eyes

can see, in whom the supernatural combines with

nature, instead of superseding it,—invigorating

it, elevating it, ennobling it; and who are not

the less men, because they are saints. They do{30}

not put away their natural endowments, but use

them to the glory of the Giver; they do not act

beside them, but through them; they do not

eclipse them by the brightness of Divine grace,

but only transfigure them. They are versed in

human knowledge; they are busy in human{5}

society; they understand the human heart; they

can throw themselves into the minds of other

men; and all this in consequence of natural gifts

and secular education. While they themselves

stand secure in the blessedness of purity and{10}

peace, they can follow in imagination the ten

thousand aberrations of pride, passion, and

remorse. The world is to them a book, to which

they are drawn for its own sake, which they read

fluently, which interests them{15}

naturally,—though, by the reason of the grace which dwells

within them, they study it and hold converse

with it for the glory of God and the salvation

of souls. Thus they have the thoughts, feelings,

frames of mind, attractions, sympathies,{20}

antipathies of other men, so far as these are not

sinful, only they have these properties of human

nature purified, sanctified, and exalted; and they

are only made more eloquent, more poetical, more

profound, more intellectual, by reason of their{25}

being more holy. In this latter class I may

perhaps without presumption place many of the early

Fathers, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen,

St. Athanasius, and above all, the great Saint of

this day, St. Paul the Apostle.{30}

I think it a happy circumstance that, in this

Church, placed, as it is, under the patronage of

the great names of St. Peter and St. Paul, the

special feast days of these two Apostles (for such

we may account the 29th of June as regards St.

Peter, and to-day as regards St. Paul) should, in{5}

the first year of our assembling here, each have

fallen on a Sunday. And now that we have

arrived, through God's protecting Providence, at

the latter of these two days, the Conversion of

St. Paul, I do not like to forego the opportunity,{10}

with whatever misgivings as to my ability, of

offering to you, my brethren, at least a few

remarks upon the wonderful work of God's creative

grace mercifully presented to our inspection in

the person of this great Apostle. Most unworthy{15}

of him, I know, is the best that I can say; and even

that best I cannot duly exhibit in the space of

time allowed me on an occasion such as this;

but what is said out of devotion to him, and for

the Divine glory, will, I trust, have its use,{20}

defective though it be, and be a plea for his favorable

notice of those who say it, and be graciously

accepted by his and our Lord and Master.

Now, since I have begun by contrasting St.

Paul with St. John, and by implying that St.{25}

John lived a life more simply supernatural than

St. Paul, I may seem to you, my brethren, to be

speaking to St. Paul's disparagement; and you

may therefore ask me whether it is possible for

any Saint on earth to have a more intimate{30}

communion with the Divine Majesty than was granted

to St. Paul. You may remind me of his own

words, "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in

me; and, that I now live in the flesh, I live in the

faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and

delivered Himself for me." And you may refer to{5}

his most astonishing ecstasies and visions; as

when he was rapt even to the third heaven, and

heard sacred words, which it "is not granted to

man to utter." You may say, he "no way came

short" of St. John in his awful initiation into the{10}

mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Certainly

you may say so; nor am I imagining anything

contrary to you. We indeed cannot compare

Saints; but I agree with you, that St. Paul was

visited by favors, equal, in our apprehensions, to{15}

those which were granted to St. John. But then,

on the other hand, neither was St. John behind

St. Paul in these tokens of Divine love. In truth,

these tokens are some of those very things which,

in a greater or less degree, belong to all Saints{20}

whatever, as I said when I began; whereas my

question just now is, not what are those points in

which St. Paul agrees with all other Saints, but

what is his distinguished mark, how we recognize

him from others, what there is special in him;{25}

and I think his characteristic is this,—that, as I

have said, in him the fullness of Divine gifts does

not tend to destroy what is human in him, but to

spiritualize and perfect it. According to his own

words, used on another subject, but laying down,{30}

as it were, the principle on which his own character

was formed,—"We would not be

un-clothed," he says, but "clothed upon, that what

is mortal may be swallowed up by life." In him,

his human nature, his human affections, his

human gifts, were possessed and glorified by a new{5}

and heavenly life; they remained; he speaks of

them in the text, and in his humility he calls

them his infirmity. He was not stripped of

nature, but clothed with grace and the power of

Christ, and therefore he glories in his infirmity.{10}

This is the subject on which I wish to enlarge.

A heathen poet has said, Homo sum, humani

nihil a me alienum puto. "I am a man; nothing

human is without interest to me:" and the

sentiment has been widely and deservedly praised.{15}

Now this, in a fullness of meaning which a heathen

could not understand, is, I conceive, the

characteristic of this great Apostle. He is ever

speaking, to use his own words, "human things," and

"as a man," and "according to man," and{20}

"foolishly"; that is, human nature, the

common nature of the whole race of Adam, spoke in

him, acted in him, with an energetical presence,

with a sort of bodily fullness, always under the

sovereign command of Divine grace, but losing{25}

none of its real freedom and power because of

its subordination. And the consequence is, that,

having the nature of man so strong within him,

he is able to enter into human nature, and to

sympathize with it, with a gift peculiarly his own.{30}

Now the most startling instance of this is this,

—that, though his life prior to his conversion

seems to have been so conscientious and so pure,

nevertheless he does not hesitate to associate

himself with the outcast heathen, and to speak

as if he were one of them. St. Philip Neri, before{5}

he communicated, used to say, "Lord, I protest

before Thee that I am good for nothing but to

do evil." At confession he used to say, "I have

never done one good action." He often said, "I

am past hope." To a penitent he said, "Be sure{10}

of this, I am a man like my neighbors, and

nothing more." Well, I mean, that somewhat in this

way, St. Paul felt all his neighbors, all the whole

race of Adam, to be existing in himself. He

knew himself to be possessed of a nature, he was{15}

conscious of possessing a nature, which was

capable of running into all the multiplicity of

emotions, of devices, of purposes, and of sins,

into which it had actually run in the wide world

and in the multitude of men; and in that sense{20}

he bore the sins of all men, and associated

himself with them, and spoke of them and himself

as one. He, I say, a strict Pharisee (as he

describes himself), blameless according to legal

justice, conversing with all good conscience{25}

before God, serving God from his forefathers with a

pure conscience, he nevertheless elsewhere speaks

of himself as a profligate heathen outcast before

the grace of God called him. He not only counts

himself, as his birth made him, in the number of{30}

"children of wrath," but he classes himself with

the heathen as "conversing in the desires of the

flesh," "and fulfilling the will of the flesh." And

in another Epistle, he speaks of himself, at the

time he writes, as if "carnal, sold under sin";

he speaks of "sin dwelling in him," and of his{5}

"serving with the flesh the law of sin"; this, I

say, when he was an Apostle confirmed in grace.

And in like manner he speaks of concupiscence as

if it were sin; all because he vividly apprehended,

in that nature of his which grace had sanctified,{10}

what it was in its tendencies and results when

deprived of grace.

And thus I account for St. Paul's liking for

heathen writers, or what we now call the classics,

which is very remarkable. He, the Apostle of the{15}

Gentiles, was learned in Greek letters, as Moses,

the lawgiver of the Jews, his counterpart, was

learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he

did not give up that learning when he had

"learned Christ." I do not think I am{20}

exaggerating in saying so, since he goes out of his way three

times to quote passages from them; once,

speaking to the heathen Athenians; another time, to

his converts at Corinth; and a third time, in a

private Apostolic exhortation to his disciple St.{25}

Titus. And it is the more remarkable, that one

of the writers whom he quotes seems to be a

writer of comedies, which had no claim to be read

for any high morality which they contain. Now

how shall we account for this? Did St. Paul{30}

delight in what was licentious? God forbid; but

he had the feeling of a guardian-angel who sees

every sin of the rebellious being committed to

him, who gazes at him and weeps. With this

difference, that he had a sympathy with sinners,

which an Angel (be it reverently said) cannot{5}

have. He was a true lover of souls. He loved

poor human nature with a passionate love, and

the literature of the Greeks was only its

expression; and he hung over it tenderly and

mournfully, wishing for its regeneration and salvation.{10}

This is how I account for his familiar

knowledge of the heathen poets. Some of the ancient

Fathers consider that the Greeks were under a

special dispensation of Providence, preparatory

to the Gospel, though not directly from heaven{15}

as the Jewish was. Now St. Paul seems, if I may

say it, to partake of this feeling; distinctly as he

teaches that the heathen are in darkness, and in

sin, and under the power of the Evil One, he will

not allow that they are beyond the eye of Divine{20}

Mercy. On the contrary, he speaks of God as

"determining their times and the limits of their

habitation," that is, going along with the

revolutions of history and the migrations of races, "in

order that they should seek Him, if haply they{25}

may feel after Him and find Him," since, he

continues, "He is not far from every one of us."

Again, when the Lycaonians would have

worshiped him, he at once places himself on their

level and reckons himself among them, and at{30}

the same time speaks of God's love of them,

heathens though they were. "Ye men," he cries,

"why do ye these things? We also are mortals,

men like unto you;" and he adds that God in

times past, though suffering all nations to walk

in their own ways, "nevertheless left not Himself{5}

without testimony, doing good from heaven,

giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts

with food and gladness." You see, he says, "our

hearts," not "your," as if he were one of those

Gentiles; and he dwells in a kindly human way{10}

over the food, and the gladness which food causes,

which the poor heathen were granted. Hence it

is that he is the Apostle who especially insists on

our all coming from one father, Adam; for he

had pleasure in thinking that all men were{15}

brethren. "God hath made," he says, "all

mankind of one"; "as in Adam all die, so in Christ

all shall be made alive." I will cite but one

more passage from the great Apostle on the same

subject, one in which he tenderly contemplates{20}

the captivity, and the anguish, and the longing,

and the deliverance of poor human nature. "The

expectation of the creature," he says, that is, of

human nature, "waiteth for the manifestation

of the sons of God. For the creature was made{25}

subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of

Him that made it subject, in hope; because it

shall be delivered from the servitude of

corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children

of God. For we know that every creature{30}

groaneth and travaileth in pain until now."

These are specimens of the tender affection

which the great heart of the Apostle had for all

his kind, the sons of Adam: but if he felt so much

for all races spread over the earth, what did he

feel for his own nation! O what a special{5}

mixture, bitter and sweet, of generous pride (if I may

so speak), but of piercing, overwhelming anguish,

did the thought of the race of Israel inflict upon

him! the highest of nations and the lowest, his

own dear people, whose glories were before his{10}

imagination and in his affection from his

childhood, who had the birthright and the promise,

yet who, instead of making use of them, had

madly thrown them away! Alas, alas, and he

himself had once been a partner in their madness,{15}

and was only saved from his infatuation by the

miraculous power of God! O dearest ones, O

glorious race, O miserably fallen! so great and so

abject! This is his tone in speaking of the Jews,

at once a Jeremias and a David; David in his{20}

patriotic care for them, and Jeremias in his

plaintive and resigned denunciations.

Consider his words: "I speak the truth in

Christ," he says; "I lie not, my conscience

bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost; that I have{25}

great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart."

In spite of visions and ecstasies, in spite of his

wonderful election, in spite of his manifold gifts,

in spite of the cares of his Apostolate and "the

solicitude for all the churches"—you would{30}

think he had had enough otherwise both to grieve

him and to gladden him—but no, this special

contemplation remains ever before his mind and in

his heart. I mean, the state of his own poor

people, who were in mad enmity against the

promised Saviour, who had for centuries after{5}

centuries looked forward for the Hope of Israel,

prepared the way for it, heralded it, suffered for

it, cherished and protected it, yet, when it came,

rejected it, and lost the fruit of their long patience.

"Who are Israelites," he says, mournfully{10}

lingering over their past glories, "who are Israelites, to

whom belongeth the adoption of children, and

the glory, and the testament, and the giving of

wealth, and the service of God, and the promises:

whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ{15}

according to the flesh, who is over all things, God

blessed forever. Amen."

What a hard thing it was for him to give them

up! He pleaded for them, while they were

persecuting his Lord and himself. He reminded his{20}

Lord that he himself had also been that Lord's

persecutor, and why not try them a little longer?

"Lord," he said, "they know that I cast into

prison, and beat in every synagogue, them that

believed in Thee. And, when the blood of{25}

Stephen, Thy witness, was shed, I stood by and

consented, and kept the garments of them that

killed him." You see, his old frame of mind, the

feelings and notions under which he persecuted

his Lord, were ever distinctly before him, and he{30}

realized them as if they were still his own. "I

bear them witness," he says, "that they have a

zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."

O blind! blind! he seems to say; O that there

should be so much of good in them, so much zeal,

so much of religious purpose, so much of{5}

steadfastness, such resolve like Josias, Mathathias, or

Machabæus, to keep the whole law, and honor

Moses and the Prophets, but all spoiled, all

undone, by one fatal sin! And what is he prompted

to do? Moses, on one occasion, desired to suffer{10}

instead of his rebellious people: "Either forgive

them this trespass," he said, "or if Thou do not,

strike me out of the book." And now, when the

New Law was in course of promulgation, and the

chosen race was committing the same sin, its{15}

great Apostle desired the same: "I wished

myself," he says, speaking of the agony he had

passed through, "I wished myself to be an

anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are

my kinsmen according to the flesh." And then,{20}

when all was in vain, when they remained

obdurate, and the high decree of God took effect, still

he would not, out of very affection for them, he

would not allow after all that they were

reprobate. He comforted himself with the thought of{25}

how many were the exceptions to so dismal a

sentence. "Hath God cast away His people?"

he asks; "God forbid. For I also am an Israelite,

of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."

"All are not Israelites that are of Israel." And{30}

he dwells upon his confident anticipation of their

recovery in time to come. "They are enemies,"

he says, writing to the Romans, "for your sakes;"

that is, you have gained by their loss; "but they

are most dear for the sake of the fathers; for the

gifts and the calling of God are without{5}

repentance." "Blindness in part has happened to

Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should

come in; and so all Israel should be saved."

My Brethren, I have now explained to a

certain extent what I meant when I spoke of St.{10}

Paul's characteristic gift, as being a special

apprehension of human nature as a fact, and an

intimate familiarity with it as an object of

continual contemplation and affection. He made it

his own to the very full, instead of annihilating{15}

it; he sympathized with it, while he mortified it

by penance, while he sanctified it by the grace

given him. Though he had never been a heathen,

though he was no longer a Jew, yet he was a

heathen in capability, as I may say, and a Jew{20}

in the history of the past. His vivid imagination

enabled him to throw himself into the state of

heathenism, with all those tendencies which lay

dormant in his human nature carried out, and

its infirmities developed into sin. His wakeful{25}

memory enabled him to recall those past

feelings and ideas of a Jew, which in the case of

others a miraculous conversion might have

obliterated; and thus, while he was a Saint inferior

to none, he was emphatically still a man, and to{30}

his own apprehension still a sinner.

And this being so, do you not see, my brethren,

how well fitted he was for the office of an

Ecumenical Doctor, and an Apostle, not of the Jews

only, but of the Gentiles? The Almighty

sometimes works by miracle, but commonly He{5}

prepares His instruments by methods of this world;

and, as He draws souls to Him, "by the cords of

Adam," so does He select them for His use

according to their natural powers. St. John, who lay

upon His breast, whose book was the sacred heart{10}

of Jesus, and whose special philosophy was the

"scientia sanctorum," he was not chosen to be

the Doctor of the Nations. St. Peter, taught in

the mysteries of the Creed, the Arbiter of doctrine

and the Ruler of the faithful, he too was passed{15}

over in this work. To him specially was it given

to preach to the world, who knew the world; he

subdued the heart, who understood the heart. It

was his sympathy that was his means of influence;

it was his affectionateness which was his title and{20}

instrument of empire. "I became to the Jews a

Jew," he says, "that I might gain the Jews; to

them that are under the Law, as if I were under

the Law, that I might gain them that were under

the Law. To those that were without the Law,{25}

as if I were without the Law, that I might gain

them that were without the Law. To the weak

I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I

became all things to all men, that I might save

all."{30}

And now, my brethren, my time is out, before

I have well begun my subject. For how can I

be said yet to have entered upon the great

Apostle, when I have not yet touched upon his

Christian affections, and his bearing towards the

children of God? As yet I have chiefly spoken{5}

of his sympathy with human nature unassisted

and unregenerate; not of that yearning of his

heart, as it showed itself in action under the

grace of the Redeemer. But perhaps it is most

suitable on the feast of his Conversion, to stop{10}

at that point at which the day leaves him; and

perhaps too it will be permitted to me on a future

occasion to attempt, if it be not presumption, to

speak of him again.

Meanwhile, may this glorious Apostle, this{15}

sweetest of inspired writers, this most touching

and winning of teachers, may he do me some

good turn, who have ever felt a special devotion

towards him! May this great Saint, this man of

large mind, of various sympathies, of affectionate{20}

heart, have a kind thought for every one of us

here according to our respective needs! He has

carried his human thoughts and feelings with

him to his throne above; and, though he sees

the Infinite and Eternal Essence, he still{25}

remembers well that troublous, restless ocean below, of

hopes and fears, of impulses and aspirations, of

efforts and failures, which is now what it was

when he was here. Let us beg him to intercede

for us with the Majesty on high, that we too may{30}

have some portion of that tenderness, compassion,

mutual affection, love of brotherhood, abhorrence

of strife and division, in which he excelled. Let

us beg him especially, as we are bound, to bless

the most reverend Prelate, under whose

jurisdiction we here live, and whose feast day this is;{5}

that the great name of Paul may be to him a

tower of strength and fount of consolation now,

and in death, and in the day of account.

NOTES

SAUL

Introductory Note. The sketches of Saul and David are contained in the third volume of Parochial and Plain Sermons. These discourses were delivered at Oxford before Newman's conversion to the Catholic Church.

Saul. The first king of Israel reigned from 1091 to 1051 B.C. He ruled conjointly with Samuel the prophet eighteen years, and alone, twenty-two years. Samuel had been judge of Israel twelve years when the discontented Jews demanded a king, and Saul was elected by lot.

13: 7. Manna. Miraculous food supplied to the Jews, wandering in the desert of Sin, after their exodus from Egypt. The taste of manna was that of flour mixed with honey.

13: 10. Moses. Deliverer, lawgiver, ruler, and prophet of Israel, 1447 B.C. The author of the Pentateuch is probably the greatest figure of the Old Law and the most perfect type of Christ.

14: 3. Gadara. Noted for the miracle of casting out demons, wrought there by our Lord. The inhabitants in fear besought Him to leave their coasts. Mark v. 17.

16: 24. David. The prophet and king famous as the royal psalmist. From his line sprang the Messias.

17: 4. The asses. Saul, searching for his father's asses, was met by Samuel and anointed king.

17: 14. The Ammonites and Moabites. Warlike heathen tribes probably descended from Lot. They dwelt near the Dead Sea; were very hostile to the Jews.

17: 15. The Jordan. Largest river of Palestine, especially consecrated by the baptism of Christ in its waters; is called the river of judgment. An air line from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea is sixty miles, but so tortuous is the Jordan, its length is two hundred miles.

18: 12. Philistines (strangers). Gentiles beyond the Western Sea, frequently at war with the Hebrews. Samson, Saul, and David were famous for their victories over these powerful enemies.

19: 29. God's vicegerent. Representative as king. Before Saul the Jewish government was theocratic, i.e. directly from God.

20: 15. Solomon. Son and successor of David, called the wisest of men: built the temple; became exalted with pride; was punished for his sins: died probably unrepentant. A striking example of the vanity of human success unblessed by God.

20: 16. Religious principle. A fundamental truth upon which conduct is consistently built. A conviction of the intellect and hence distinguished from instinct, disposition, feeling, often the spring of men's actions.

21: 18. Shekel. A silver coin worth about fifty-seven cents.

22: 23. Sacrifice offered by Saul. Sacrilegious in Saul, as the right was limited to the priesthood of Aaron.

23: 11. Ark of God. A figure of the Christian Tabernacle; divinely ordained for the Mosaic worship; contained the covenant of God with His chosen people.

24: 13. Religion a utility. Inversion of Christ's command,—"Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew vi. 33.

25: 8. Joshua. Successor of Moses and leader of the Jews into the Promised Land.

27: 8. The uncircumcised. Term applied to all outside the Hebrew people. Circumcision, a figure of baptism, was the sign of covenant given by God to Abraham and his descendants.

EARLY YEARS OF DAVID

28: 6. The Psalms. One hundred and fifty inspired hymns of praise, joy, thanksgiving, and repentance, composed chiefly by David. Humanly speaking, they form the most exquisite lyric poetry extant, and in their strong, majestic beauty are most suitable to the Divine Offices of the Church.

29: 3. Balaam. An Oriental prophet of Mesopotamia, 1500 B.C. Sent for by the Moabite king to curse the Israelites.

29: 11. (a) Judah. (b) Shiloh. (a) The fourth son of Jacob and Leah. (b) The Messias.

30: 14. Anointing of David. To signify that the kingship, like the priesthood, is a sacred office, all power coming from God.

31: 6. Sacred songs. The inspired music of David was the means of restoring grace to the troubled spirit of Saul. Browning's Saul paints strikingly the character of the shepherd boy and of the distracted old king.

32: 1. Goliath of Gath. A type of the giant, Sin; also of Lucifer, overcome by the meek Christ, who is prefigured by David.

34: 6. The Apostle. St. Paul, who recounts to the Hebrews his sufferings for Christ.

36: 5. Joseph. Son of Jacob; governor of Egypt under Pharaoh.

36: 16. From Moses. A fine distinction between the theocratic and the royal government of Israel.

38: 24. The king's son-in-law. Saul in envy married his daughter Michol to David "that she might prove a stumbling-block to him."

39: 4. David and Joseph. Note the consistent and forcible parallel.

43 and 44: The patriarchs. This passage illustrates the exquisite choice of words, the perfect finish of sentence, and the wonderful beauty of thought characteristic of Newman.

BASIL AND GREGORY

Introductory Note. These Essays on the Fathers are to be found in Historical Sketches, Vol. III. They were written to illustrate the tone and mode of thought, the habits and manners of the early times of the Church.

Athens. Most of those who sought Attic wisdom were natures without control. "Basil and Gregory were spoiled for subtle, beautiful, luxurious Athens. They walked their straight and loving road to God, with the simplicity which alone could issue out of the intense purpose of their lives—the love and service of Christ their Lord."

45: 15. Hildebrand. St. Gregory VII, one of the greatest among the great Roman pontiffs. He combated the evils of the eleventh century, within and without the Church, and effected incalculable good, especially in the war of Investitures waged against Henry IV of Germany.

45: 17. City of God. The Church.

45: 18. Ambrose. Archbishop of Milan, noted for zeal in spreading the faith; remembered for his fearless

rebuke of the Emperor Theodosius. 46: 30. Pontus. Part of Cappadocia in Asia Minor; founded by Alexander the Great.

47: 28. The contention. See Acts of the Apostles xv. 39.

49: 16. Armenian creed. Similar to that of the Greek Church.

55: 17. The Thesbite. Elias, who dwelt on Carmel, as did St. John the Baptist, in most rigorous penance.

55: 18. Carmel. A mountain on the coast of Palestine, noted in sacred history.

AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS

56: 7. Heretical creed. The Arians were followers of Arius of Alexandria, who boldly denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The heresy was condemned by the Council of Nice, 325 A.D., but its baneful effects were widely felt for centuries.

56: 15. Apocalypse. Wonderful revelations made to St. John at Patmos concerning the Church, the final judgment, the future life.

57: 21. The Vandals. A barbarian race of Southern Germany, who in the fifth century ravaged Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Northern Africa.

59: 13. Montanists. A sect of the second century that believed in Montanus as a prophet, and in the near advent of Christ to judge the world.

60: 31. (a) The prophet. (b) Jeroboam. (a) Ahias. (b) The first king of Israel after the separation of the tribes; a man perverse and irreverent in his relations with God and subject.

59 to 70. The argument. The apology for flight in times of religious persecution, made by Athanasius, the great bishop of Alexandria, fourth century, and the cogent argument against it of Tertullian, a celebrated writer of the second century, show how circumstances, above all, Divine inspiration, justify opposite lines of action. St. Augustine's letter, written in his strong and luminous style, reconciles the two points of view.

71 to 74. The misery of irreligion. A profound analysis of the two classes of men without religion,—the one distorted, brutalized, and deadened; the other confused, wild, and hungering after what is to them indefinable, yet alone satisfying. Compare in its source, tenor, and effect the unhappiness of the "popular poet" Byron and that of Augustine.

76: 8. St. Monica. One of the greatest women of all times; a model of faith, constancy, and maternal love.

79: 23. Christianity a philosophy. Such it is accounted by many modern thinkers who, in spite of clear, full evidences of its divinity, affect to doubt or deny altogether the supernatural. These reduce the Gospels to a code of ethics, and regard Christ as merely a teacher of morality; the earnestness of Augustine would lead them by a short road to recognize and worship God in Jesus Christ.

CHRYSOSTOM

84 to 90. The Introduction. The personal touch of these pages gives an insight into the tender, sensitive nature of Cardinal Newman. He was a man not only of intense and powerful intellect, but of delicate and affectionate heart. It is his gracious, winning appeal that renders him irresistible in influence.

90: 12. Chrysostom. "Golden mouth," from his eloquence. He is counted among the great Patristic writers.

90: 21. Antipater. Son of Herod the Great; called by Josephus "a monster of iniquity." He was put to death, 1 B.C. 90: 22. Fulvia. Wife of Marc Antony; noted for her cruelty and ambition.

92: 6. (a) Gallus. (b) Ovid. (a) Governor of Egypt under Augustus; accused of crime and oppression, and banished. (b) A celebrated Roman poet, author of Metamorphoses; exiled by Augustus for some grave offense never revealed.

97: 12. The seasons. This apt and ingenious analogy is regarded as one of Newman's more beautiful passages.

100: 30. Chrysostom's discriminating affectionateness. The reason, probably, why he has so great a hold upon the heart of posterity—love begets love.

105: 8. Cucusus. In Caucasus, east of the Black Sea and north of Persia.

108: 19. Troas. In Northwest Asia Minor. Troad contains ancient Troy.

105 to 110. The letters of Chrysostom. The charm of his genius, the sweetness of his temper under suffering, and the unselfishness of his lofty soul appear in these simple lines written on the road or in the desert of his banishment.

THE TARTAR AND THE TURK

Introductory Note. These sketches of Turkish history form the substance of lectures delivered in Liverpool, 1853. Special interest attached to them at the time, as England was about to undertake the defense of the Turks against Russia in the Crimean War. Selections from only three are here possible.

111: 7. The Tartars. Fierce, restless tribes originally inhabiting Manchuria and Mongolia.

112: 31. (a) Attila. (b) Zingis. (a) Leader of the Huns, who overran Southern Europe in the fifth century.

He was defeated by Aëtius at Chalons, 451, and miraculously turned from Rome by Pope Leo the Great. (b) Zenghis Khan, a powerful Mongol chief whose hordes descended upon Eastern Europe in the thirteenth century.

114: 21. Timour. Known as Tamerlane, founder of a Mongol empire in Central Asia; victor over Bajazet at Angora, 1402 A.D.

116: 20. Heraclius. Emperor of Greece in the seventh century; noted for his rescue of the true Cross from the Persians, with whom he waged long wars.

116: 26. That book. The Koran or bible of the Mahometans. It is a mixture of Judaism, Nestorianism, and Mahomet's own so-called "revelations."

120: 10. Monotheism ... mediation. Belief in one God, but denial of the Redemption of fallen man by Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

120: 26. Durbar. A levee held by a dignitary in British India; also the room of reception.

THE TURK AND THE SARACEN

Saracens. Eastern Mahometans that crossed into Turkey, Northern Africa, and Spain. The Moors are a type.

122: 14. Sogdiana. Northeast of the river Oxus; included in modern Bokhara.

123: 6. White Huns. Ancient people living near the Oxus; called white from their greater degree of civilization.

125: 23. Damascus. In Asiatic Turkey; thought to be the oldest city in the world.

126: 1. Harun al Raschid. Caliph of Bagdad; contemporaneous with Charlemagne in the eighth century.

127: 28. Ended its career. The power of the European Turks, virtually broken at Lepanto, 1571, has continued to decline, so that were it not for the jealousy of the Powers, Turkey would long since have been dismembered.

129: 24. Khorasan. North central province of Persia.

133: 25. (a) Seljuk. (b) Othman. (a) Grandfather of Togrul Beg, who founded a powerful dynasty in Central Asia. (b) Third successor of Mahomet; caliph in 644; noted for his extensive conquests and for having given his name to the Ottomans.

135: 20. Greek Emperor. Romanus Diogenes, defeated in 1071 A.D.

THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE OTTOMANS

144: 17. (a) Thornton. (b) Volney. (a) An English writer on political economy, belonging to the nineteenth century. (b) A distinguished French author. His Travels in Egypt and Syria is a work of high reputation.

148: 12. Scythians. In ancient times the inhabitants of all North and Northeastern Europe and Asia.

149: 31. The Greek schism. Separation of the Greek Church from Rome. The schism was begun by the crafty, ambitious Photius in the ninth century, and consummated by Michael Cerularius in 1054.

154. Principle of superiority. A forcible proof that Christianity must be and is the religion of civilization. See Balmes on the Civilization of Europe.

WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?

Introductory Note. Newman's purpose in these Essays is to set forth by description and statement the nature, the work, and the peculiarities of a University; the aims with which it is established, the wants it may supply, the methods it adopts, its relation to other institutions, and its general history. The illustrations of his idea of a University first appeared in the Dublin University Gazette; later, in one volume, Office and Work of Universities. In the present form the author has exchanged the title to Historical Sketches, but has retained the pleasantly conversational tone of the original, lest, as he says, he might become more exact and solid at the price of becoming less readable, in the judgment of a day which considers that "a great book is a great evil."

159: 14. A gentleman. Dr. Newman is unconsciously painting his own portrait in this passage.

161: 17. St. Irenæus. A Christian martyr of the second century. He was a Greek by birth, a pupil of St. Polycarp, and an eminent theologian of his day.

163: 19. Its associations. Universities are both the cause and the effect of great men; and these cherish their Alma with unlimited devotion. Read Gray's Eton, Lowell's Commemoration Ode, etc., as illustrations of this point.

UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS

164: 14. (a) Saronic waves. (b) Piræus. (a) The Gulf of Ægina. (b) Commercial port of Athens.

164: 31. Obolus. A Greek coin worth about three cents. Paid by spirits to Charon for ferriage over the Styx, according to legend.

165: 23. Eleusinian mysteries. Secret rites of the goddess Ceres, celebrated at Eleusis.

166: 31. Philippi. Battle in which Antony defeated the conspirators that had slain Cæsar.

167: 9. Proæresius. Student of Athens, a native of Armenia, famous for his gigantic stature as well as for an astounding memory, displayed in the field of rhetoric.

170: 11. Gallipoli. In Turkey, at the entrance to the Dardanelles. It was the first conquest of the Turks in Europe, 1354 A.D.

173: 3. (a) Acropolis. (b) Areopagus. (a) The citadel of Athens, ornamented by groups of statuary immortal in beauty. (b) The chief tribunal, held on a hill named for Ares or Mars.

173: 5. Parthenon. The official temple of Pallas, protectress of Athens; it is the work of Phidias, under Pericles.

173: 7. Polygnotus. A Greek painter, contemporaneous with Phidias. His work is in statuesque style, few colors, form and outline exquisite.

173: 13. Agora. The commercial and political market place, located near the Acropolis. It was designed by Cimon.

173: 14. Demosthenes. The most famous orator of Greece, if not of all times. He learned philosophy of Plato, oratory of Isocrates. His Philippics are of world-wide note.

174: 6. Plato. The Divine, on whose infant lips the bees are said to have dropped their honey. He was the pupil of Socrates and the master of Aristotle; he founded the Academy, or the Platonic School of Philosophy, and wrote the Republic. Plato was a man of vast intellect, high ideals, and exceptionally pure life.

175: 17. Aristotle. Called the Stagyrite from Stagerius, his birthplace. He was preceptor to Alexander the Great and founder of the Peripatetic School, i.e. of scholasticism. Aristotle undoubtedly possessed the most comprehensive, keen, and logical intellect of antiquity, and his influence on the philosophical thought of all succeeding ages is incalculable. His work in the field of physical science was also profound and extensive.

176: 26. The fourth century. The Golden Age of Athenian art, letters, civil and military prestige; it was the age that crowned Athens Queen of Mind.

177: 12. Epicurus. Founder of a school of materialism whose maxim was, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." The Epicurean said, "indulge the passions," the Stoic, "crush them," the Peripatetic,—like the Christian of later times,—"control them." Imperial Athens, no less than other powers, fell when her sons ceased to follow the counsel of her wisest philosophers.—"Play the immortal."

SUPPLY AND DEMAND: THE SCHOOLMEN

183: 21. Paris, etc. The great Universities reached the zenith of excellence in the thirteenth century, the age of Pope Innocent III, St. Thomas, and Dante.

185: 10. Bec. Famous monastery founded by a poor Norman knight, Herluin. Bec drew the great Lanfranc and others to its school. Many are accustomed to regard the Renaissance as the fountain whence have issued all streams of art, literature, and science. It is only necessary to turn to any of the teeming university or monastic centers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to dispel this so common illusion.

THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES: ABELARD

186: 15. Abelard. Born in Brittany, 1079. He was a contentious, arrogant, but brilliant and fascinating rationalist. He triumphed over William of Champeaux, but was defeated in a theological contest by St. Bernard.

187: 29. Heresy of (a) Tertullian, (b) Sabellius. (a) Modified Montanism; belief in rigid asceticism, the Montanists being, according to their doctrine, "Pneumatics," the Catholics, "Psychics," i.e. men of heaven, men of earth. (b) A heresy which attempted to explain the Trinity, and which denied the Personality of Jesus Christ.

188: 28. Scholastic philosophy. A constructive system founded by Aristotle, Christianized by Boethius, amplified by St. Anselm, Albert the Great, and others, perfected as a school, in its being harmonized with theology, by St. Thomas of Aquin. Love of subtilizing and of display, and barbarity of terminology, caused its decline after the thirteenth century. Political and religious strife also accelerated decadence, until the Council of Trent restored philosophy to its true position as queen of human sciences and handmaid of Religion. The chief feature of Christian scholastic philosophy is the harmonizing of natural and supernatural truth, i.e. the unifying of philosophy and theology, or the perfect conciliation of reason with faith—distinction without opposition.

192: 10. The Seven Arts. The Trivium and Quadrivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric; Music, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Geometry,—these seven comprising the Liberal Arts.

193: 19. John of Salisbury. Noted English scholar of the twelfth century. In disfavor with Henry II, because of his defense of St. Thomas á Becket.

195: 17. St. James iii. 17.

195: 23. St. James iii. 6.

196: 21. Samson and Solomon. Type of bodily and of spiritual strength—strength forfeited by folly. One of Newman's striking comparisons.

199: 18. Heu, vitam.... Alas, I have wasted my life by doing nothing thoroughly.

POETRY ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE

Introductory Note. This instructive Essay on poetry forms one of the series titled Critical and Historical Essays. Cardinal Newman's own gifts and tastes for music and poetry render his appreciation of these arts keen, delicate, and true.

200 to 203. Nature and office of poetry. A profound and beautiful definition of poetry and of the poetical mind.

203: 1. (a) Iliad. (c) Choëphoræ. (a) Epic of the Fall of Troy by Homer. (b) A tragedy by Æschylus, so named from the chorus that bear offerings to the tomb of Agamemnon.

203: 26. (a) Empedocles. (b) Oppian. (a) A Sicilian; haughty, passionate; proclaimed himself a god; plunged into the crater of Mt. Etna. (b) A Greek poet of Cilicia; lived in the second century.

208: 15. The Divine vengeance. Does not the same criticism apply to Milton's Satan, a majestic spirit, punished beyond his due, and therefore worthy our admiration and pity? Compare Dante and Milton in their conception of Lucifer.

210: 17. Eloquence mistaken for poetry. A finely distinguished truth, which explains why much rhetoric, even declamation, passes in our day for poetry.

215: 16. Conditions of the poetical mind. Mark the line drawn between the sources of true poetry and the actual practices of the poet. Compare with the theory of Wordsworth, to find likenesses on this point.

THE INFINITUDE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

Introductory Note. This and other typical addresses

are comprised in Discourses to Mixed Congregations.

The unerring taste of Newman employs the grave, dignified style suited to the subject-matter, which, however, never loses the simplicity and charm we expect in him.

218: 28. The elements. Earth, air, fire, and water were believed primal elements by the ancients.

220: 27. This season. Lent, which commemorates the Sacred Passion of Christ.

221: 21. He seems to say: to the end. An illustration of Newman's sweet, impassioned eloquence. His sentences roll on like music of indefinable tenderness and beauty. What wonder if men "who came to scoff remained to pray," when the tones of that voice Matthew Arnold could not describe—for its singular sweetness—fell upon their listening souls?

CHRIST UPON THE WATERS

Introductory Note. This discourse was written from notes of a sermon preached at Birmingham, on occasion of the installation of Dr. Ullathorne as first bishop of the see. Again it says to us, "I believe, therefore I have spoken."

222: 20. "Day to day." See Psalm xviii. 2.

222: 25. Impossibilities. Extrinsic impossibilities, that is, those things whose elements are not metaphysically opposed, one to another.

223: 1. He came. See St. Matthew xiv. 24, 27.

223: 24. That mystical ark. The Church, called the ark because prefigured by the Ark of Noe,—the House of Salvation.

224: 14. Christ in His ark. "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." St. Matthew xxviii. 20.

224: 17. A savage tribe. The Anglo-Saxons of Teutonic stock and sprung from the Aryan branch of the human family. 226 to 228. It was a proud race ... hierarchical form. A passage of inimitable grace and simplicity. Note the sentence-structure, the repetition of "it" in the last sentence, and other features of the consummate master.

227: 4. Too fair to be heathen. On seeing some Angles in Rome, Pope Gregory exclaimed, "They should rather be called Angels than Angles."

228: 5. A brotherhood ... below. Where in the range of English prose is to be found form wedded to sense in a more surpassingly beautiful way? Neither music, nor painting, nor poetry, can have anything more exquisite to yield, it would seem.

Other numbers of this volume equally admirable are The Second Spring, The Tree beside the Waters, and Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training.

THE SECOND SPRING

Introductory Note. This discourse was given in St. Mary's, Oscott, on the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy to England. It furnishes an excellent specimen of the simplicity and grace of Newman's style. The climax is reached in the glory of the last pages.

229: 17. Alternate Seraphim. The angelic choirs whom St. John in vision heard crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." Apocalypse iv. 8.

231: 24. How beautiful.... A strong presentation of the weakness of human nature left to itself. "Without me you can do nothing," says Christ. John xv. 5.

233: 12. Roman conqueror. Scipio Africanus, victor of the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War.

235: 22. The English Church. The Catholic Church in England was virtually destroyed by Henry VIII, restored by Mary I, and officially re-destroyed by Elizabeth, who attempted, through Matthew Parker, to create new orders. The Second Spring is the resuscitation of the Church in England, 1850.

237: 11. Cumber the ground. "Why doth it (the barren fig tree) cumber the ground?" Newman's writings, like St. Augustine's, are saturated with Scripture.

240: 23. (a) St. Augustine. (b) St. Thomas. (a) Called St. Austin, sent by Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-Saxons, 597 A.D. (b) Martyred at Canterbury by the nobles of Henry II because of his fearless defense of the rights of the Church. The Pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas á Becket.

241: 10. Arian Goths and Lombards. Barbarians that successively conquered and occupied Italy; from the fifth to the eighth century their power was felt. They embraced the heresy of Arius instead of true Christianity.

242: 29. That building. Cathedral of Westminster, built in Gothic style.

243: 11. Prince of the Church. Cardinal Archbishop Wiseman, clad in purple as bishop; in red, as cardinal. In his person the hierarchy was restored to England.

243: 16. St. Benedict. Founder of monasticism in the West. Europe owes much of its progress in early centuries to the zeal and intelligence of the Benedictine monks,—builders of churches and schools, makers of laws, tillers of lands.

244: 15. The shepherds. They who heard from angels

the tidings of Christ's birth in Bethlehem.

244: 22. Arise, Jerusalem.... Quotations from Isaias and the Canticle of Canticles.

245: 6. Thy visitation. Allusion to Mary's going over the hill country to visit her cousin Elisabeth. At the presence of Mary, the unborn child of Elisabeth, John the Baptist, leaped for joy and was sanctified by the grace of Christ.

247: 1. Regular and secular priests. The first are those bound by vows to observe a religious rule, as the Dominicans; the second are those under obedience to their bishop, and bound only by the vow of celibacy.

247: 18. Thy first Martyr. St. Stephen, whose death won the conversion of St. Paul. Note the beauty of the apostrophe.

248: 20. Orphans. "I will not leave you orphans." John xiv. 18.

249: 15. You ... victim. Reference to the august Sacrifice of the Mass.

249: 31. A great Pontiff. Gregory XIII, 1572-1585, established colleges for the spread of the Faith; his work was continued by Gregory XV in the Propaganda; but it was left for Pope Urban VIII to create the great missionary colleges for the six nations.

250: 13. St. Francis. Xavier, the illustrious Jesuit, who converted millions to Christ in India and Japan; he died on his way to China, in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

251: 1. St. Philip. 1515-1595. An Italian saint, contemporaneous with St. Ignatius of Loyola, who established the Society of Jesus. St. Philip Neri founded the Oratorians, a body devoted to preaching and to education.

The Second Spring. This sermon is very characteristic of Newman in its appeal to the whole man listening; he not only rivets the intelligence, but stirs the will and moves the heart by the intensity, the Vigor, and the tenderness that breathe in every word.

ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT

Introductory Note. This discourse on St. Paul, delivered in Dublin, 1857, forms one of the Sermons on Various Occasions. Paul—that godlike man who longed to be anathema from Christ if thereby he could serve the brethren—was Newman's saint by predilection; and allusions to his character and mission are frequent in the Cardinal's writings.

As these selections for study began with Saul, they may well finish with a sketch of the greater Saul—the Apostle of the Gentiles.

251: 17. Theological virtues. Faith, hope, and charity; so-called because God is their direct object and motive.

252: 19. Heavenly Bread. The Holy Eucharist. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven." St. John vi. 51. "And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." St. John vi. 52.

254: 9. Conversion of St. Paul. Commemorated January 25.

256: 12. Heathen poet. Terence. There is much philanthropy in these latter times,—even to altruism,—but less of charity, which loves the neighbor for God's sake.

257: 5. St. Philip Neri. Lived in the sixteenth century. Founder of the Oratorians, a congregation devoted to preaching and works of charity. Newman introduced the Oratorians into England.

259: 28. Lycaonians. People of south central part of Asia Minor; evangelized by St. Paul.

262: 26. Stephen. The first Christian martyr; stoned to death by the Jews, outside the walls of Jerusalem.

263: 6. (a) Josias. (b) Mathathias. (c) Machabeus. (a) King of Juda, seventh century B.C. A great warrior and defender of the Jewish religion. (b) "Gift of God." Lived in the second century B.C. and fought bravely in defense of Juda during the bloody persecutions of Antiochus. He appointed Judas Machabeus, the most famous of his five sons, to succeed him in the struggle, (c) "The Hammer." Judas gained glorious victories over the Idumeans, Ammonites, and other heathen tribes, and the Bible immortalizes his character as that of one of the greatest of the sons of Juda. "He made Jacob glad with his works and his memory is blessed forever."

The books of the Machabees are the history of the final struggles of the Jews against their Syrian and Persian foes.

265: 2. Ecumenical Doctor. A teacher of the universal Church.

265: 31. And now my time is out. This conclusion exhibits once more the felicity of diction, the delicate rhythm of structure, the simple grace, the direct force—above all, the unconsciousness, almost disdain of producing literary effect, that everywhere characterize Newman's writings, whatever be the subject.

267: 4. Reverend Prelate. Paul Cardinal Cullen, primate of Ireland in 1850.

Transcriber's Note.

There were a few minor printers' errors which have been amended. For example, ascendency is now ascendancy, rebrobate is now reprobate and offically is now officially.

In the original book the line numbers ran from 1 to 30 on each page. In the Notes, the first figure represents the page number and the second number represents the line number. For example, in the third note:

13: 7. Manna. Miraculous food supplied to the Jews, wandering in the desert of Sin, after their exodus from Egypt. The taste of manna was that of flour mixed with honey.

the 13 refers to the page number and the 7 refers to the line number on that page.

Links to the end notes have been made to the nearest line number, for the convenience of the reader.

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Selections from the Prose Writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman, by John Henry Newman

SELECTIONS FROM THE PROSE WRITINGS OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

APPRECIATIONS

I. CHARACTER SKETCHES

SAUL

EARLY YEARS OF DAVID

BASIL AND GREGORY

AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS

CHRYSOSTOM

II THE TURK

The Tartar and the Turk

The Turk and the Saracen

The Past and Present of the Ottomans

III. UNIVERSITIES

What is a University?

University Life: Athens

Supply and Demand

The Strength and Weakness of Universities

IV. MISCELLANEOUS

Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics

The Infinitude of the Divine Attributes

Christ upon the Waters

The Second Spring

St. Paul's Characteristic Gift

NOTES

SAUL

EARLY YEARS OF DAVID

BASIL AND GREGORY

AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS

CHRYSOSTOM

THE TARTAR AND THE TURK

THE TURK AND THE SARACEN

THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE OTTOMANS

WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?

UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS

SUPPLY AND DEMAND: THE SCHOOLMEN

THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES: ABELARD

POETRY ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE

THE INFINITUDE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

CHRIST UPON THE WATERS

THE SECOND SPRING

ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE