AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By Noah Webster, LL.D. Thoroughly Revised and Greatly Enlarged and Improved, by Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Late Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, and also Professor of the Pastoral Charge in Yale College, and Noah Porter, D.D., Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale College. Royal quarto, pp. 1840. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Meiriam. 1866.
There have been published, within the last twenty-five years, several editions of "Webster's Dictionary," but the present one, the title of which is given above, seems to be the crowning effort of dictionary making. It surpasses all other editions of the same work both in its typography, its illustrations--some 3,000 in number--and its philological completeness. "Webster's Dictionary" has always been of high authority in this country, and is now held in great repute in England, where it is accepted by several writers as the best authority in defining the English language. The present edition is a most beautiful one, and contains all the modern words which custom has engrafted upon our language. It also contains, in its pronouncing table of Scripture proper names, a supplementary list of the names found in the Douay Bible, but not in King James's version. In fact, care has been taken to make this edition as free as possible from partisan and theological differences in regard to the definitions of certain words which heretofore got a peculiarly Protestant twitch when being defined. The publishers deserve great praise for the manner in which they have done their portion of the work; it is a credit and an honor to the American press.
THE CRITERION; OR, THE TEST OF TALK ABOUT FAMILIAR THINGS: A Series of Essays. By Henry T. Tuckerman. 12mo., pp. 377. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
Mr. H. T. Tuckerman is a man of letters, and we thought he would not be likely to put his name to anything discreditable to an enlightened author; but, to judge from many things in the above production, we think he has missed his vocation, and would find more appropriate employment as a contributor to the publications of the American Tract Society, or the magazine put forth, monthly, by the "Foreign and Christian Union." Else, why is every pope "shrewd," every priest an "incarnation of fiery zeal?" why "the lonely existence and the subtle eye of the Catholic?" why "the medical Jesuit, who, like his religious prototype, operates through the female branches, and thus controls the heads of families, regulating their domestic arrangements, etc.?" why "Bloody Mary" and "Romish?" why is "superstition the usual trait of Romanists?" and this: "One may pace the chaste aisles of the Madeleine, and feel his devotion stirred, perhaps, by the dark catafalque awaiting the dead in the centre of the spacious floor; and then what to him is the doctrine of transubstantiation?" (!) We are truly sorry to see these indications of a spirit with which we think the author will find very little sympathy outside the clique of benighted readers of the publications above quoted.
CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. By C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Vicar of Doncaster. 18mo., pp. 269. Alexander Strahan, London and New York. 1865.
This beautiful little volume contains twelve sermons, or rather religious essays, written in a pleasing style, but altogether too lengthy and too exhaustive in character. We have no doubt but that the author is a good preacher, and if these essays were ever preached by him as sermons, they were listened to with pleasure. But in their present shape, enlarged, systematized, and--shall we say--almost too carefully prepared for the press, they are a little tiresome. One feels in reading them how much the naturalness, as well as the elegance of diction, is marred by the vague evangelical phraseology, "coming to Christ," "laying hold on Christ," etc., which occurs so constantly in these pages. The author, being a Low Evangelical Churchman, gives us, of course, "justification by faith" and the Calvinistic view of the Fall. Yet, in the latter half of the volume he seems to speak more like one who imagines that man has something to do for his own justification, and takes a higher and nobler view of humanity. We give the following passage from the last sermon, entitled "Cast out and found," as a good specimen of what we should call practical preaching. "When Jesus found him, he said unto him. Dost thou believe on the Son of God? 'Thou!' The word is emphatic in the original, 'Thou--believest thou?' We are glad to escape into the crowd, and shelter ourselves behind a church's confession. But a day is coming, in which nothing but an individual faith will carry with it either strength or comfort. It will be idle to say in a moment of keen personal distress, such as probably lies before us in life and certainly in death and in judgment, 'Every one believes--all around us believe--the world itself believes in the Son of God:' there is no strength and no help there: the very object of Christ's finding thee and speaking to thee is to bring the question home, 'Dost thou believe?' A trying, a fearful moment, when Christ, face to face with man's soul, proposes that question! Perhaps that moment has not yet come to you. You have been fighting it off. You do not wish to come to these close quarters with it. The world does not press you with it. The world is willing enough that you should answer it in the general; and even if you ever say, 'I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,' it shall be in a chorus of voices, almost robbing the individual of personality, and making 'I' sound like 'we.' But if ever your religion is to be a real thing, if ever it is to enable you to do battle with a sin, or to face a mortal risk, if ever it is to be a religion for the hour of death, or for the day of judgment, you must have had that question put to you by yourself, and you must have answered it from the heart in one way. Then you will be a real Christian, not before!"
The book is elegantly got up in the style and care for which the publisher is noted.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street. New York: Nos. 18, 19, and 20 of Darras' History of the Church.
From P. Donahoe, Boston: The Peep o' Day; or, John Doe, and the Last Baron of Crana. By the O'Hara Family. 12mo., pp. 204 and 243.
From Hon. Wm. H. Seward. Secretary of State, Washington, his speech on the "Restoration of the Union," delivered in New York, Feb. 22, 1866.
From Peter F. Cunningham, Philadelphia: The Life of Blessed John Berchmans, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the French. With an Appendix, giving an account of the Miracles after Death which have been approved by the Holy See. From the Italian of Father Boreo, S.J. 1 vol. 12mo., pp. 358.
From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore: The Apostleship of Prayer. A Holy League of Christian Hearts united with the Heart of Jesus, to obtain the Triumph of the Church and the Salvation of Souls. Preceded by a Brief of the Sovereign Pontiff Plus IX., the approbation of several Archbishops and Bishops and Superiors of Religious Congregations. By the Rev. H. Ramiero, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the latest French Edition, and Revised by a Father of the Society. With the approbation of the Most Rev. Archbishop Spalding. 12mo., pp. 393.
From Kelly & Piet, Baltimore: Life in the Cloister; or, Faithful and True. By the author of "The World and Cloister." 12mo., pp. 224.
[ORIGINAL.]
We wish to state distinctly and openly, at the outset of this work, that the solution given of the problems therein discussed is a solution derived from the Catholic faith. Its sole object will be to make an exposition of the doctrines of the Catholic faith bearing on these problems. By an exposition, is not meant a mere expansion or paraphrase of the articles of the Creed, but such a statement as shall include an exhibition of their positive, objective truth, or conformity to the real order of being and existence; and of their reasonableness or analogy to the special part of that universal order lying within the reach of rational knowledge. In doing this we choose what appears to us the best and simplest method. It differs, however, in certain respects, from the one most in vogue, and therefore requires a few preliminary words of explanation.
The usual method is, to proceed as far as possible in the analysis of the religious truths provable by reason, to introduce afterward the evidences of revealed religion, and finally to proceed to an exposition of revealed doctrines. We have no wish to decry the many valuable works constructed on this plan, but simply to vindicate the propriety of following another, which is better suited to our special purpose. We conceive it not to be necessary to follow the first method in explaining the faith of a Christian mind, because the Christian mind itself does not actually attain to faith by this method. We do not proceed by a course of reasoning through natural theology and evidences of revelation to our Christian belief. We begin by submitting to instruction, and receiving all it imparts at once, without preliminaries. The Christian child begins by saying "Credo in Unum Deum." This is the first article of his faith. It is proposed to him, by an authority which he reveres as divine, as the first and principal {146} article of a series of revealed truths. If that act is right and rational, it can be justified on rational grounds. It can be shown to be in conformity to the real order. If it is in conformity to the real order, it is in conformity also to the logical order. The exposition of the real order of things is the exposition of truth, and is, therefore, sound philosophy. A child who has attained the full use of his reason and received competent instruction, either has, or has not, a faith; not merely objectively certain, but subjectively also, as certain and as capable of being rationally accounted for, though not by his own reflection, as that of a theologian. If he has this subjective certitude, a simple explication of the creditive act in his mind will show the nature and ground of it in the clearest manner. If he has not, children and simple persons who are children in science, i.e., the majority of mankind, are incapable of faith--a conclusion which oversets theology.
We have now indirectly made known what our own method will be; namely, to present the credible object in contact or relation with the creditive subject, as it really is when the child makes the first complete act of faith. Instead of inviting the reader to begin at the viewing point of a sceptic or atheist, and reason gradually up from certain postulates of natural reason, through natural theology, to the Catholic faith, we invite him to begin at once at the viewing point of a Catholic believer, and endeavor to get the view which one brought up in the church takes of divine truth. We do not mean to ask him to take anything for granted. We will endeavor to show the internal coherence of Catholic doctrine, and its correspondence with the primitive judgments of reason. We cannot pretend to exhibit systematically the evidence sustaining each portion of this vast system. It would only be doing over again a work already admirably done. We must suppose it to be known or within the reach of the knowledge of our readers, and in varying degrees admitted by different classes of them, contenting ourselves with indicating rather than completing the line of argument on special topics.
The Catholic reader will see in this exposition of the Catholic idea only that which he already believes, stated perhaps in such a way as to aid his intellectual conception of it. The Protestant reader, accordingly as he believes less or more of the Catholic Creed, will see in it less or more to accept without argument, together with much which he does not accept, but which is proposed to his consideration as necessary to complete the Christian idea. The unbeliever will find an affirmation of the necessary truths of pure reason, together with an attempt to show the legitimate union between the primitive ideal formula and the revealed or Christian formula, binding them into one synthesis, philosophically coherent and complete.
II.
RELATION OF THE CREDIBLE OBJECT AND THE CREDITIVE SUBJECT.
Let us begin with a child, or a simple, uneducated adult, who is in a state of perpetual childhood as regards scientific knowledge. Let us take him as a creditive subject or Christian believer, with the credible object or Catholic faith in contact with his reason from its earliest dawn. Before proceeding formally to analyze his creditive act, we will illustrate it by a supposed case.
Let us suppose that, when our Lord Jesus Christ was upon earth, he went to visit a pagan in order to instruct him in the truths of religion. We will suppose him to be intelligent, upright, and sincere, with as much knowledge of religious truth as was ordinarily attainable through the heathen tradition. Let us suppose him to receive the instructions of Christ with faith, to be baptized, and to remain ever after a firm and undoubting {147} believer in the Christian doctrine. Now by what process does he attain a rational certitude of the truth of the revelation made by the lips of Christ?
In the first place, the human wisdom and virtue of our Lord are intelligible to him by the human nature common to both, and in proportion to his own personal wisdom and goodness. Having in himself, by virtue of his human nature, the essential type of human goodness, he is able to recognize the excellence of one in whom it is carried to its highest possible perfection. The human perfection visible in Jesus Christ predisposes him to believe his testimony. The testimony that Jesus Christ bears of himself is that he is the Son of God. This declaration includes two propositions. The chief term of the first proposition is "God." The chief term of the second proposition is "Jesus Christ." The first term includes all that can be understood by the light of reason concerning the Creator and his creative act. The second term includes all that can be apprehended by the light of faith concerning the interior relations of God, the incarnation of the Son, or Word, the entire supernatural order included in it, and the entire doctrine revealed by Christ. The idea expressed by the first term is already in the mind of the pagan, as the first and constitutive principle of his reason. His reflective consciousness of this idea and his ability to make a correct and complete explication of its contents are very imperfect. But when the distinct affirmation and explication of the idea of God are made to him by one who possesses a perfect knowledge of God, he has an immediate and certain perception of the truth of the conception thus acquired by his intelligence. God has already affirmed himself to his reason, and Christ, in affirming God to his intellect, has only repeated and manifested by sensible images, and in distinct, unerring language, this original affirmation.
It is otherwise with the affirmation which Christ makes respecting the second term. God does not affirm to his reason by the creative act the internal relations of Father and Son, completed by the third, or Holy Spirit, and therefore, although it is a necessary truth, and in itself intelligible as such, it is not intelligible as a necessary truth to his intellect. The incarnation, redemption, and other mysteries affirmed to him by Christ, are not in themselves necessary truths, but only necessary on the supposition that they have been decreed by God. The certitude of belief in all this second order of truths rests, therefore, entirely on the veracity of God, authenticating the affirmation of his own divine mission made by Jesus Christ. We must, therefore, suppose that this affirmation is made to the mind of the pagan with such clear and unmistakable evidence of the fact that the veracity of God is pledged to its truth, that it would be irrational to doubt it. Catholic doctrine also requires us to suppose that Christ imparts to him a supernatural grace, as the principle of a divine faith and a divine life based upon it. The nature and effect of this grace must be left for future consideration.
These truths received on the faith of the testimony of the Son of God by the pagan are not, however, entirely unintelligible to his natural reason. We can suppose our Lord removing his difficulties and misapprehensions, showing him that these truths do not contradict reason, but harmonize with it as far as it goes, and pointing out to him certain analogies in the natural order which render them partially apprehensible by his intellect. Thus, while his mind cannot penetrate into the substance of these mysteries, or grasp the intrinsic reason of them after the mode of natural knowledge, it can nevertheless see them indirectly, as reflected in the natural order, and by resemblance, and rests its undoubting belief of them on the revelation made by Jesus Christ, attested by the veracity of God.
In this supposed case, the pagan has the Son of God actually before his eyes, and with his own ears can hear his words. This is the credible object. He is made inwardly certain that he is the Son of God by convincing evidence and the illustration of divine grace. This is the creditive subject, in contact with the credible object. It exemplifies the process by which God has instructed the human race from the beginning, a process carried on in the most perfect and successful manner in the instance we are about to examine of a child brought up in the Catholic Church.
The mind of the child has no prejudices and no imperfect conceptions derived from a perverted and defective instruction to be rectified. Its soul is in the normal and natural condition. The grace of faith is imparted to it in baptism, so that the rational faculties unfold under its elevating and strengthening influence with a full capacity to elicit the creditive act as soon as they are brought in contact with the credible object. This credible object, in the case of the child, as in that of the pagan, is Christ revealing himself and the Father. He reveals himself, however, not by his visible form to the eye, or his audible word to the ear, but by his mystical body the church, which is a continuation and amplification of his incarnation. The church is visible and audible to the child as soon as his faculties begin to open. At first this is only in an imperfect way, as Jesus Christ was at first only known in an imperfect way to the pagan above described. As he merely knew Christ at first as a man, and in a purely human way, so the child receives the instruction of his parents, teachers, and pastors, in whom the church is represented, in regard to the truths of faith, just as he does in regard to common matters. He begins with a human faith, founded in the trusting instincts of nature, which incline the young to believe and obey their superiors. As soon as his reason is capable of understanding the instruction given him, he is able to discover the strong probability of its truth. He sees this dimly at first, but more and more clearly as his mind unfolds, and the conception of the Catholic Church comes before it more distinctly. Some will admit that even a probability furnishes a sufficient motive for eliciting an act of perfect faith. This is the doctrine of Cardinal de Lugo, and it has been more recently propounded by that extremely acute and brilliant writer, Dr. John Henry Newman. [Footnote 24]
[Footnote 24: Since the above was written the author has seen reason to suspect that he misunderstood Dr. Newman. The point will be more fully discussed hereafter.]
According to their theory, the undoubting firmness of the act of faith is caused by an imperate act of the will determining the intellect to adhere firmly to the doctrine proposed, as revealed by God. There are many, however, who will not be satisfied with this, and we acknowledge that we are of the number. It appears to us that the mind must have indubitable certitude that God has revealed the truth in order to a perfect act of faith. Therefore we believe that the mind of the child proceeds from the first apprehension of the probability that God has revealed the doctrines of faith to a certitude of the fact, and that, until it reaches that point, its faith is a human faith, or an inchoate faith, merely. The ground and nature of that certitude will be discussed hereafter. In the meantime, it is sufficient to remark that the child or other ignorant person apprehends the very same ground of certitude in faith with the mature and educated adult, only more implicitly and obscurely, and with less power to reflect on his own acts. Just as the child has the same certainty of facts in the natural order with an adult, so it has the same certainty of facts in the supernatural order. When we have once established the proper ground of human faith in testimony in general, and of the certitude of our rational judgments, we have no need of a particular application to the case of {149} children. It is plain enough that, so soon as their rational powers are sufficiently developed, they must act according to this universal law. So in regard to faith. When we have established in general its constitutive principles, it is plain that the mind of the child, just as soon as it is capable of eliciting an act of faith, must do it according to these principles.
The length of lime, and the number of preparatory acts requisite, before the mind of a child is fully capable of eliciting a perfect act of faith, cannot be accurately determined, and may vary indefinitely. It may require years, months, or only a few weeks, days, or hours. Whenever it does elicit this perfect act, the intelligible basis of the creditive act may be expressed by the formula, Christus creat ecclesiam, [Footnote 25] In the church, which is the work of Christ and his medium or instrument for manifesting himself, the person and the doctrine of Christ are disclosed. In the first term of the formula, Christus, is included another proposition, viz., Christus est Filius Dei. [Footnote 26] Finally, in the last term of the second proposition is included a third, Deus est creator mundi. [Footnote 27] The whole may be combined into one formula, which is only the first one explicated, Christus, Filius Dei, qui est creator mundi, creat ecclesiam.[Footnote 28]
[Footnote 25: Christ creates the Church.]
[Footnote 26: Christ Is the Son of God.]
[Footnote 27: God is the creator of the world.]
[Footnote 28: Christ, the Son of God, who is the creator of the world, creates the Church.]
In this formula we have the synthesis of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology, of nature and grace. It is the formula of the natural and supernatural worlds, or rather of the natural universe, elevated into a supernatural order and directed to a supernatural end. In the order of instruction, Ecclesia comes first, as the medium of teaching correct conceptions concerning God, Christ, and the relations in which they stand toward the human race. These conceptions may be communicated in positive instruction in any order that is convenient. When they are arranged in their proper logical relation, the first in order is Deus creat mundum, including all our rational knowledge concerning God. The second is Christus est Filius Dei, which discloses God in a relation above our natural cognition, revealing himself in his Son, as the supernatural author and the term of final beatitude. Lastly comes Christus creat ecclesiam, in which the church, at first simply a medium for communicating the conceptions of God and Christ, is reflexively considered and explained, embracing all the means and institutions ordained by Christ for the instruction and sanctification of the human race, in order to the attainment of its final end. In the conception of God the Creator, we have the natural or intelligible order and the rational basis of revelation. In the conception of the Son, or Word, we have the super-intelligible order in its connection with the intelligible, in which alone we can apprehend it. God reveals himself and his purposes by his Word, and we believe on the sole ground of his veracity. The remaining conceptions are but the complement of the second.
All this is expressed in the Apostles' Creed. In the first place, by its very nature, it is a symbol of instruction, presupposing a teacher. The same is expressed in the first word, "Credo," explicitly declaring the credence given to a message sent from God. The first article is a confession of God the Father, followed by the confession of the Son and the Holy Ghost. After this comes "Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam," with the other articles depending on it, and lastly the ultimate term of all the relations of God to man, expressed in the words "Vitam aeternam."
Having described the actual attitude of the mind toward the Creed at the time when its reasoning faculty is developed, and the method by which {150} instruction in religious doctrines is communicated to it, we will go over these doctrines in detail, in order to explain and verify them singly and as a whole. The doctrine first in order is that which relates to God, and this will accordingly be first treated of, in the ensuing number.
[Footnote 29: Authorities.--Acta Sanctoram: Butler's Lives of the Saints; Gregory's Dialogues; Mabillon Acta Sanct.; Ord; Benedicti; Zeigelbauer's Hist. Rei Liter.; Fosbrooke and Dugdale.]
As Glastonbury Abbey was one of the chief ornaments of the Benedictine Order; as that order was one of the greatest influences, next to Christianity itself, ever brought to bear upon humanity; as the founder of that order and sole compiler of the rule upon which it was based must have been a legislator, a leader, a great, wise, and good man, such as the world seldom sees, one who, unaided, without example or precedent, compiled a code which has ruled millions of beings and made them a motive-power in the history of humanity; as the work done by that order has left traces in every country in Europe--lives and acts now in the literature, arts, sciences, and social life of nearly every civilized community--it becomes imperatively necessary that we should at this point investigate these three matters--the man, the rule, and the work:--the man, St. Benedict, from whose brain issued the idea of monastic organization; the rule by which it was worked, which contains a system of legislation as comprehensive as the gradually compiled laws of centuries of growth; and the work done by those who were subject to its power, followed out its spirit, lived under its influence, and carried it into every country where the gospel was preached.
Far away in olden times, at the close of the fifth century, when the gorgeous splendor of the Roman day was waning and the shades of that long, dark night of the middle ages were closing in upon the earth; just at that period when, as if impelled by some instinct or led by some mysterious hand, there came pouring down from the wilds of Scandinavia hordes of ferocious barbarians who threatened, as they rolled on like a dark flood, to obliterate all traces of civilization in Europe--when the martial spirit of the Roman was rapidly degenerating into the venal valor of the mercenary--when the western empire had fallen, after being the tragic theatre of scenes to which there is no parallel in the history of mankind--when men, aghast at human crime and writhing under the persecutions of those whom history has branded as the "Scourge of God," sought in vain for some shelter against their kind--when human nature, after that struggle between refined corruption and barbarian ruthlessness, lay awaiting the night of troubles which was to fall upon it as a long penance for human crime--just at this critical period in the world's history appeared the man who was destined to rescue from the general destruction of Roman life the elements of a future civilization; to provide an asylum to which art might flee with her choicest treasures, where science might labor in safety, where {151} learning might perpetuate and multiplied its stores, where the oracles of religion might rest secure, and where man might retire from the woe and wickedness of a world given up to destruction, live out his life in quiet, and make his peace with his God.
That man was St. Benedict, who was born of noble parents about the year 480, at Norcia, a town in the Duchy of Spoleto; his father's name was Eutropius, his grandfather's Justinian. Although the glory of Rome was on the decline, her schools were still crowded with young disciples of all nations, and to Rome the future saint was sent to study literature and science. The poets of this declining age have left behind them a graphic picture of the profligacy and dissipation of Roman life---the nobles had given themselves up to voluptuous and enervating pleasures, the martial spirit which had once found vent in deeds with whose fame the world has ever since rung, had degenerated into the softer bravery which dares the milder dangers of a love intrigue, or into the tipsy valor loudest in the midnight brawl. The sons of those heroes who in their youth had gone out into the world, subdued kingdoms, and had been drawn by captive monarchs through the streets of Rome in triumph, now squandered the wealth and disgraced the name of their fathers over the dice-box and the drinking cup. Roman society was corrupt to its core, the leaders were sinking into the imbecility of licentiousness, the people were following their steps with that impetuosity so characteristic of a demoralized populace, whilst far up in the rude, bleak North the barbarian, with the keen instinct of the wild beast, sat watching from his lonely wilds the tottering towers of Roman glory--the decaying energies of the emasculated giant--until the moment came when he sallied forth and with one hardy blow shattered the mighty fabric and laid the victors of the world in abject slavery at his feet. Into this society came the youthful Benedict, with all the fresh innocence of rustic purity, and a soul already yearning after the great mysteries of religion; admitted into the wild revelry of student life, that prototype of modern Bohemianism, he was at once disgusted with the general profligacy around him. The instincts of his youthful purity sickened at the fetid life of Rome, but in his case time, instead of reconciling him to the ways of his fellows, and transforming, as it so often does, the trembling horror of natural innocence into the wild intrepidity of reckless license, only strengthened his disgust for what he saw, and the timid, thoughtful, pensive student shrank from the noisy revelry, and sought shelter among his books.
About this time, too, the idea of penitential seclusion was prevalent in the West, stimulated by the writings and opinions of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. It has been suggested that the doctrine of asceticism was founded upon the words of Christ, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." [Footnote 30] St. Gregory himself dwells with peculiar emphasis upon this passage, which he expounds thus, "Let us listen to what he said in this passage--let him who will follow me deny himself; in another place it is said that we should forego our possessions; here it is said that we should deny ourselves, and perhaps it is not laborious to a man to relinquish his possessions, but it is very laborious to relinquish himself. For it is a light thing to abandon what one has, but a much greater thing to abandon what one is. " [Footnote 31] Fired by the notion of self-mortification imparted to these words of Christ by their own material interpretation, these men forsook the world and retired to caves, rocks, forests, anywhere out of sight of {152} their fellow-mortals--lived on bitter herbs and putrid water, exposed themselves to the inclemency of the winter and the burning heats of summer.
[Footnote 30: Matt. xvi. 24.]
[Footnote 31: St. Greg. Hom, 32 in Evangel.]
Such was the rise and working of asceticism, which brought out so many anchorites and hermits. Few things in the history of human suffering can parallel the lives of these men.
As regards conventual life, that is, the assemblage of those who ministered in the church under one roof, sharing all things in common, that may be traced back to the apostles and their disciples, who were constrained to live in this way, and, therefore, we find that wherever they established a church, there they also established a sort of college, or common residence, for the priests of that church. This is evident from the epistles of Ignatius, nearly all, of which conclude with a salutation addressed to this congregation of disciples, dwelling together, and styled a "collegium." His epistle to the Church at Antioch concludes thus, "I salute the sacred College of Presbyters" (Saluto Sanctum Presbyterorum Collegium). The Epistle ad Philippenses, "Saluto S. Episcopum et sacrum Presbyterorum Collegium"--so also the epistles to the Philadelphians, the Church at Smyrna, to the Ephesians, and to the Trallians.
But when St. Benedict was sent as a lad to Rome, the inclination toward the severer form of ascetic life, that of anchorites and hermits, had received an impulse by the works of the great fathers of the church, already alluded to; and the pensive student, buried in these more congenial studies, became imbued with their spirit, and was soon fired with a romantic longing for a hermit life. At the tender age of fifteen, unable to endure any longer the dissonance between his desires and his surroundings, he flood from Rome, and took refuge in a wild, cavernous spot in the neighboring country. As he left the city he was followed by a faithful nurse, Cyrilla by name, who had brought him up from childhood, had tended him in his sojourn at Rome, and now, though lamenting his mental derangement, as she regarded it, resolved not to leave her youthful charge to himself, but to watch over him and wait upon him in his chosen seclusion. For some time this life went on, St. Benedict becoming more and more attached to his hermitage, and the nurse, despairing of any change, begged his food from day to day, prepared it for him, and watched over him with a mother's tenderness. A change then came over the young enthusiast, and he began to feel uneasy under her loving care. It was not the true hermit life, not the realization of that grand idea of solitude with which his soul was filled; and under the impulse of this new emotion he secretly fled from the protection of his foster-mother, and, without leaving behind him the slightest clue to his pursuit, hid himself among the rocks of Subiaco, or, as it was then called, Sublaqueum, about forty miles distant from Rome. At this spot, which was a range of bleak, rocky mountains with a river and lake below in the valley, he fell in with one Romanus, a monk, who gave him a monastic dress, with a hair shirt, led him to a part on the mountains where there was a deep, narrow cavern, into which the sun never penetrated, and here the young anchorite took up his abode, subsisting upon bread and water, or the scanty provisions which Romanus could spare him from his own frugal repasts; these provisions the monk used to let down to him by a rope, ringing a bell first to call his attention. For three years he pursued this life, unknown to his friends, and cut off from all communication with the world; but neither the darkness of his cavern nor the scantiness of his fare could preserve him from troubles. He was assailed by many sore temptations.
One day that solitude was disturbed by the appearance of a man in the {153} garb of a priest, who approached his cave and began to address him; but Benedict would hold no conversation with the stranger until they had prayed together, after which they discoursed for a long time upon sacred subjects, when the priest told him of the cause of his coming. The day happened to be Easter Sunday, and as the priest was preparing his dinner, he heard a voice saying, "You are preparing a banquet for yourself, whilst my servant Benedict is starving;" that he thereupon set out upon his journey, found the anchorite's cave, and then producing the dinner, begged St. Benedict to share it with him, after which they parted. A number of shepherds, too, saw him near his cave, and as he was dressed in goat-skins, took him at first for some strange animal; but when they found he was a hermit, they paid their respects to him humbly, brought him food, and implored his blessing in return.
The fame of the recluse of Subiaco spread itself abroad from that time through the neighboring country; many left the world and followed his example; the peasantry brought their sick to him to be healed, emulated each other in their contributions to his personal necessities, and undertook long journeys simply to gaze upon his countenance and receive his benediction. Not far from his cave were gathered together in a sort of association a number of hermits, and when the fame of this youthful saint reached them they sent a deputation to ask him to come among them and take up his position as their superior. It appears that this brotherhood had become rather lax in discipline, and, knowing this, St. Benedict at first refused, but subsequently, either from some presentiment of his future destiny, or actuated simply by the hope of reforming them, he consented, left his lonely cell, and took up his abode with them as their head.
In a very short time, however, the hermits began to tire of his discipline and to envy him for his superior godliness. An event then occurred which forms the second cognizance by which the figure of St. Benedict may be recognized in the fine arts. Endeavors had been made to induce him to relax his discipline, but to no purpose; therefore they resolved upon getting rid of him, and on a certain day, when the saint called out for some wine to refresh himself after a long journey, one of the brethren offered him a poisoned goblet. St. Benedict took the wine, and, as was his custom before eating or drinking anything, blessed it, when the glass suddenly fell from his hands and broke in pieces. This incident is immortalized in stained-glass windows, in paintings, and frescoes, where the saint is either made to carry a broken goblet, or it is to be seen lying at his feet. Disgusted with their obstinacy he left them, voluntarily returned to his cavern at Subiaco, and dwelt there alone. But the fates conspired against his solitude, and a change came gradually over the scene. Numbers were drawn toward the spot by the fame of his sanctity, and by-and-bye huts sprang up around him; the desert was no longer a desert, but a colony waiting only to be organized to form a strong community. Yielding at length to repeated entreaties, he divided this scattered settlement into twelve establishments, with twelve monks and a superior in each, and the monasteries were soon after recognized, talked about, and proved a sufficient attraction to draw men from all quarters, even from the riotous gaieties of declining Rome.
We will mention one or two incidents related of St. Benedict, which claim attention, more especially as being the key to the artistic mysteries of Benedictine pictures. It was one of the customs in this early Benedictine community for the brethren not to leave the church immediately after the divine office was concluded, but to remain for some time in silent mental prayer. One of the brethren, however, took no delight in this holy {154} exercise, and to the scandal of the whole community used to walk coolly out of the church as soon as the psalmody was over. The superior remonstrated, threatened, but to no purpose; the unruly brother persisted in his conduct. St. Benedict was appealed to, and when he heard the circumstances of the case, said he would see the brother himself. Accordingly, he attended the church, and at the conclusion of the divine office, not only saw the brother walk out, but saw also what was invisible to every one else--a black boy leading him by the hand. The saint then struck at the phantom with his staff, and from that time the monk was no longer troubled, but remained after the service with the rest.
St. Gregory also relates an incident to the effect that one day as a Gothic monk was engaged on the border of the lake cutting down thistles, he let the iron part of his sickle, which was loose, fall into the water. St. Maur, one of Benedict's disciples--of whom we shall presently speak--happened to be standing by, and, taking the wooden handle from the man, he held it to the water, when the iron swam to it in miraculous obedience.
As we have said, the monasteries grew daily in number of members and reputation; people came from far and near, some belonging to the highest classes, and left their children at the monastery to be trained up under St. Benedict's protection. Amongst this number, in the year 522, came two wealthy Roman senators, Equitius and Tertullus, bringing with them their sons, Maurus, then twelve years of age, and Placidus, only five. They begged earnestly that St. Benedict would take charge of them, which he did, treated them as if they had been his own sons, and ultimately they became monks under his rule, lived with him all his life, and after his death became the first missionaries of his order in foreign countries, where Placidus won the crown of martyrdom. Again, St. Benedict nearly fell a victim to jealousy. A priest named Florentius, envying his fame, endeavored to poison him with a loaf of bread, but failed. Benedict once more left his charge in disgust; but Florentius, being killed by the sudden fall of a gallery, Maurus sent a messenger after him to beg him to return, which he did, and not only wept over the fate of his fallen enemy, but imposed a severe penance upon Maurus for testifying joy at the judgment which had befallen him. The incident of the poisoned loaf is the third artistic badge by which St. Benedict is to be known in art, being generally painted as a loaf with a serpent coiled round it. These artistic attributes form a very important feature in monastic painting, and in some instances become the only guide to the recognition him the subject. St. Benedict is sometimes represented with all these accompaniments--the broken goblet, the loaf with the serpent, and in the background the figure rolling in the briers. St. Bernard, who wrote much and powerfully against heresy, is represented with the accompanying incident in the background of demons chained to a rock, or being led away captive, to indicate his triumphs over heretics for the faith. Demons placed at the feet indicate Satan and the world overcome. Great preachers generally carry the crucifix, or, if a renowned missionary, the standard and cross. Martyrs carry the palm. A king who has resigned his dignity and entered a monastery has a crown lying at his feet. A book held in the hand represents the gospel, unless it be accompanied by pen and ink-horn, when it implies that the subject was an author, as in the case of Anselm, who is represented as holding in his hands his work on the incarnation, with the title inscribed, "Cur Deus Homo," or it may relate to an incident in the life, as the blood-stained book, which St. Boniface holds, entitled "De Bono Mortis," a work he was devotedly fond of, always {155} carried about with him, and which was found after his murder in the folds of his dress stained with his blood. But the highest honor was the stigmata or wounds of Christ impressed upon the hands, feet, and side. This artistic pre-eminence is accorded to St. Francis, the founder of the order which bears his name, and to St. Catharine, of Siena. A whole world of history lies wrapped up in these artistic symbols, as they appear in the marvellous paintings illustrative of the hagiology of the monastic orders which are cherished in half the picture galleries and sacred edifices of Europe, and form as it were a living testimony and a splendid confirmation of the written history and traditions of the church.
Although, at the period when we left St. Benedict reinstalled in his office as superior, Christianity was rapidly being established in the country, yet there were still lurking about in remote districts of Italy the remains of her ancient paganism. Near the spot now called Monte Cassino was a consecrated grove in which stood a temple dedicated to Apollo. St. Benedict resolved upon clearing away this relic of heathendom, and, fired with holy seal, went amongst the people, preached the gospel of Christ to them, persuaded them at length to break the statue of the god and pull down the altar; he then burned the grove and built two chapels there--the one dedicated to St. John the Baptist and the other to St. Martin. Higher up upon the mountain he laid the foundation of his celebrated monastery, which still bears his name, and here he not only gathered together a powerful brotherhood, but elaborated that system which infused new vigor into the monastic life, cleared it of its impurities, established it upon a firm and healthy basis, and elevated it, as regards his own order, into a mighty power, which was to exert an influence over the destinies of humanity inferior only to that of Christianity itself. St. Benedict, with the keen perception of genius, saw in the monasticism of his time, crude as it was, the elements of a great system. For five centuries it had existed and vainly endeavored to develop itself into something like an institution, but the grand idea had never yet been struck out--that idea which was to give it permanence and strength. Hitherto the monk had retired from the world to work out his own salvation, caring little about anything else, subsisting on what the devotion of the wealthy offered him from motives of charity; then, as time advanced, they acquired possessions and wealth, which tended only to make them more idle and selfish. St. Benedict detected in all this the signs of decay, and resolved on revivifying its languishing existence by starting a new system, based upon a rule of life more in accordance with the dictates of reason. He was one of those who held as a belief that to live in this world a man must do something--that life which consumes, but produces not, is a morbid life, in fact, an impossible life, a life that must decay, and therefore, imbued with the importance of this fact, he made labor, continuous and daily labor, the great foundation of his rule. His vows were like those of other institutions--poverty, chastity, and obedience--but he added labor, and in that addition, as we shall endeavor presently to show, lay the whole secret of the wondrous success of the Benedictine Order. To every applicant for admission, these conditions were read, and the following words added, which were subsequently adopted as a formula: "This is the law under which thou art to live and to strive for salvation; if thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." No sooner was his monastery established than it was filled by men who, attracted by his fame and the charm of the new mode of life, came and eagerly implored permission to submit themselves to his rule. Maurus and Placidus, his favorite disciples, still {156} remained with him, and the tenor of his life flowed on evenly.
After Belisarius, the emperor's general, had been recalled, a number of men totally incapacitated for their duties were sent in his place. Totila, who had recently ascended the Gothic throne, at once invaded and plundered Italy; and in the year 542, when on his triumphant march, after defeating the Byzantine army, he was seized with a strong desire to pay a visit to the renowned Abbot Benedict, who was known amongst them as a great prophet. He therefore sent word to Monte Cassino to announce his intended visit, to which St. Benedict replied that he would be happy to receive him. On receiving the answer he resolved to employ a stratagem to test the real prophetic powers of the abbot, and accordingly, instead of going himself, he caused the captain of the guard to dress himself in the imperial robes, and, accompanied by three lords of the court and a numerous retinue, to present himself to the abbot as the kingly visitor. However, as soon as they entered into his presence, the abbot detected the fraud, and, addressing the counterfeit king, bid him put off a dress which did not belong to him. In the utmost alarm they all fled back to Totila and related the result of their interview; the unbelieving Goth, now thoroughly convinced, went in proper person to Monte Cassino, and, on perceiving the abbot seated waiting to receive him, he was overcome with terror, could go no further, and prostrated himself to the ground. [Footnote 32] St. Benedict bid him rise, but as he seemed unable, assisted him himself. A long conversation ensued, during which St. Benedict reproved him for his many acts of violence, and concluded with this prophetic declaration: "You have done much evil, and continue to do so; you will enter Rome; you will cross the sea; you will reign nine years longer, but death will overtake you on the tenth, when you will be arraigned before a just God to give an account of your deeds." Totila trembled at this sentence, besought the prayers of the abbot, and took his leave. The prediction was marvellously fulfilled; in any case the interview wrought a change in the manner of this Gothic warrior little short of miraculous, for from that time he treated those whom he had conquered with gentleness. When he took Rome, as St. Benedict had predicted he should, he forbade all carnage, and insisted on protecting women from insult; stranger still, in the year 552, only a little beyond the time allotted him by the prediction, he fell in a battle which he fought against Narses, the eunuch general of the Greco-Roman army. St. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, who had become a nun, discovered the whereabouts of her lost brother, came to Monte Cassino, took up her residence near him, and founded a convent upon the principles of his rule. She was, therefore, the first Benedictine nun, and is often represented in paintings, prominent in that well-known group composed of herself, St. Benedict, and the two disciples, Maurus and Placidus.
[Footnote 32: "Quem cum a longe sedentem cerneret, non ausus accedero sese in terram dedit."--St. Greg. Dial., lib. ii., c. 14.]
It appears that her brother was in the habit of paying her a visit every year, and upon one occasion stayed until late in the evening, so late that Scholastica pressed him not to leave; but he persisting, she offered a prayer that heaven might interpose and prevent his going, when suddenly a tempest came on so fierce and furious that he was compelled to remain until it was over, when he returned to his monastery. Two days after this occurrence, as he was praying in his cell, he beheld the soul of his beloved sister ascending to heaven in the form of a dove, and the same day intelligence was brought him of her death. This vision forms the subject of many of the pictures in Benedictine nunneries. One short month after the decease of this affectionate sister, St. {157} Benedict, through visiting and attending to the sick and poor in his neighborhood, contracted a fever which prostrated him; he immediately foretold his death, and ordered the tomb in which his sister lay in the church to be opened. On the sixth day of his illness he asked to be carried to it, where he remained for some time in silent, prayerful contemplation; he then begged to be removed to the steps of the high alter, where, having received the holy viaticum, he suddenly stretched out his arms to heaven and fell back dead. This event took place on Saturday, the 21st March, 543, in the 63d year of his age. He was buried by the side of his sister Scholastica, on the very spot, it is said, where he threw down the altar of Apollo. In the seventh century, however, some of his remains were dug up, brought to France, and placed in the Abbey of Fleury, from which circumstance it took the name of St. Benoit, on the Loire. After his death his disciples spread themselves abroad over the continent and founded monasteries of his name and rule. Placidus became a martyr, and was canonized; Maurus founded a monastery in France, was also introduced to England, and from his canonized name, St. Maurus, springs one of the oldest English names--St. Maur, Seymaur, or Seymour.
Divesting this narrative of its legendary accompaniments, and judging of St. Benedict, the man, by the subsequent success of his work, and the influence of his genius upon the whole mechanism of European monasticism, and even upon the destinies of a later civilization, we are compelled to admit that he must have been a man whose intellect and character were far in advance of his age. By instituting the vow of labor, that peculiarity in his rule which we shall presently examine more fully, he struck at the root of the evils attending the monasticism of his times, an evil which would have ruined it as an institution in the fifth century had he not interposed, and an evil which in the sixteenth century alone caused its downfall in England.
Before proceeding to examine the rule upon which all the greatness of the Benedictine order was based, it will be necessary to mention the two, earliest mission efforts of the order. The first was conducted under the immediate direction of St. Benedict himself, who in the year 534 sent Placidus, with two others, Gordian and Donatus, into Sicily, to erect a monastery upon land which Tertullus, the father of Placidus, had given to St. Benedict. Shortly after the death of the saint, Innocent, bishop of Mans, in France, sent Flodegarde, his archdeacon, and Hardegarde, his steward, to ask for the assistance of some monks of St. Benedict's monastery, for the purpose of introducing the order into France. St. Maurus was selected for the mission, and, accompanied by Simplicius, Constantinian, Antony, and Faustus, he set out from Monte Cassino, and arrived in France the latter end of the year 543; but to their great consternation, upon reaching Orleans, they were told that the Bishop of Mans was dead, and another hostile to their intentions had succeeded him. They then bent their steps toward Anjou, where they founded the monastery of Glanfeuil, from whose cloisters issued the founders of nearly all the Benedictine institutions in France. From these two centres radiated that mighty influence which we shall now proceed to examine.
As we have in a former paper sketched the internal structure of the monastery, we will before going further fill each compartment with its proper officers, people the whole monastery with its subjects, and then examine the law which kept them together.
The abbot was, of course, the head and ruler of the little kingdom, and when that officer died the interval between his death and the installation {158} of his successor was beautifully called the "widowhood of the monastery." The appointment was considered to rest with the king, though the Benedictine rule enjoined a previous election by the monks and then the royal sanction. This election was conducted in the chapter-house: the prior who acted as abbot daring the time the mitre was vacant summoned the monks at a certain hour, the license to elect was then read, the hymn of the Holy Ghost sung, all who were present and had no vote were ordered to leave, the license was repeated--three scrutators took the votes separately, and the chanter declared the result--the monks then lifted up the elect on their shoulders, and, chanting the Te Deum, carried him to the high altar in the church, where he lay whilst certain prayers were said over him; they then carried him to the vacant apartments of the late abbot, which were thrown open, and where he remained in strict seclusion until the formal and magnificent ceremony of installation was gone through. In the meantime the aspect of the monastery was changed, the signs of mourning were laid aside, the bells which had been silent were once more heard, the poor were again admitted and received relief, and preparations were at once commenced for the installation. Outside also there was a commotion, for the peasantry, and in fact all the neighborhood, joined in the rejoicings. The immense resources of the refectory were taxed to their utmost, for the installation of the lord abbot was a feast, and to it were invited all the nobility and gentry in the neighborhood. On the day of the ceremony the gate of the great church was thrown open to admit all who were to witness the solemn ceremony, and, as soon as the bells had ceased, the procession began to move from the cloisters, headed by the prior, who was immediately followed by the priest of the divine office, clad in their gorgeous ceremonial robes; then followed the monks, in scapulary and cowled tunic, and last of all the lay brethren and servants; the newly elect and two others who were to officiate in his installation remained behind, as they were not to appear until later. The prior then proceeded to say mass, and just before the gospel was read there was a pause, during which the organ broke out into strains of triumphant music, and the newly chosen abbot with his companions were seen to enter the church, and walk slowly up the aisle toward the altar. As they approached they were met by the prior (or the bishop, if the abbey were in the jurisdiction of one), who then read the solemn profession, to which the future abbot responded; the prior and the elect then prostrated themselves before the high altar, in which position they remained whilst litanies and prayers were chanted; after the litany the prior arose, stood on the highest step of the altar, and whilst all were kneeling in silence pronounced the words of the benediction; then all arose, and the abbot received from the hands of the prior the rule of the order and the pastoral staff, a hymn was sung, and, after the gospel, the abbot communicated, and retired with his two attendants, to appear again in the formal ceremony of introduction. During his absence the procession was re-formed by the chanter, and, at a given signal, proceeded down the choir to meet the new abbot, who reappeared at the opposite end bare-footed, in token of humility, and clad no longer in the simple habit of a monk, but with the abbot's rich dalmatic, the ring on his finger, and a glittering mitre of silver, ornamented with gold, on his brow. As soon as he had entered he knelt for a few moments in prayer upon a carpet, spread on the upper step of the choir; when he arose he was formally introduced as the lord high abbot, led to his stall, and seated there with the pastoral staff in his hand. The monks then advanced, according to {159} seniority, and, kneeling before him, gave him the kiss of peace, first upon the hand, and afterward, when rising, upon the month. When this ceremony was over, amid the strains of the organ and the uplifted voices of the choir, the newly proclaimed arose, marched through the choir in full robes, and, carrying the pastoral staff, entered the vestiary, and then proceeded to divest himself of the emblems of his office. The service was concluded, the abbot returned to his apartments, the monks to the cloisters, the guests to prepare for the feast, and the widowhood of the abbey was over. The sway of the abbot was unlimited--they were all sworn to obey him implicitly, and he had it in his power to punish delinquents with penances, excommunication, imprisonment, and in extreme cases with corporal punishment--he ranked as a peer, was styled "My Lord Abbot," and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries kept an equal state and lived as well as the king on the throne: some of them had the power of conferring the honor of knighthood, and the monarch himself could not enter the monastery without permission. The next man in office to the abbot was the prior, [Footnote 33] who, in the absence of his superior, was invested with full powers; but on other occasions his jurisdiction was limited--in some monasteries he was assisted by sub-priors, in proportion to the size of the institution and number of its inmates.
[Footnote 33: Heads of priories were priors also, but they were equally subject to their respective abbeys.]
After the prior in rank came the precentor or chanter, an office only given to a monk who had been brought up in the monastery from a child. He had the supervision of the choral service, the writing out the tables of divine service for the monks, the correction of mistakes in chanting, which he led off from his place in the centre of the choir; he distributed the robes at festivals, and arranged processions. The cellarer was intrusted with the food, drink, etc., of the monastery, also with the mazers or drinking cups of the monks, and all other vessels used in the cellar, kitchen, and refectory; he had to attend at the refectory table, and collect the spoons after dinner. The treasurer had charge of the documents, deeds, and moneys belonging to the monastery; he received the rents, paid all the wages and expenses, and kept the accounts. The sacristan's duties were connected with the church; he had to attend to the altar, to carry a lantern before the priest, as he went from the altar to the lecturn, to cause the bell to be rung; he took charge of all the sacred vessels in use, prepared the host, the wine, and the altar bread. The almoner's duty was to provide the monks with mats or hassocks for their feet in the church, also matting in the chapter-house, cloisters, and dormitory stairs; he was to attend to the poor, and distribute alms amongst them, and in the winter warm clothes and shoes. After the monks had retired from the refectory, it was his duty to go round and collect any drink left in the mazers to be given away to the poor. The kitchener was filled by a different monk every week in turn, and he had to arrange what food was to be cooked, go round to the infirmary, visit the sick and provide for them, and superintend the labors of his assistants. The infirmarer had care of the sick; it was his office to administer to their wants, to give them their meals, to sprinkle holy water on their beds every night after the service of complin. A person was generally appointed to this duty who, in case of emergency, was competent to receive the confession of a sick man. The porter was generally a grave monk of mature age; he had an assistant to keep the gate when he delivered messages, or was compelled to leave his post. The chamberlain's business was to look after the beds, bedding, and shaving room, to attend to the dormitory windows, and to have the chambers swept, and the straw of the beds changed once every year, and under his {160} supervision was the tailory, where clothes, etc., were made and repaired. There were other offices connected with the monastery, but these were the principal, and next to these came the monks who formed the convent with the lay brethren and novices. If a child were dedicated to God by being sent to a monastery, his parents were required to swear that he would receive no portion of fortune, directly or indirectly; if a mature man presented himself, he was required to abandon all his possessions, either to his family or to the monastery itself, and then to enter as a novitiate. In order to make this as trying as possible, the Benedictine rule enjoined that no attention should be at first paid to an applicant, that the door should not be even opened to him for four or five days, to test his perseverance. If he continued to knock, then he was to be admitted to the guests' house, and after more delay to the novitiate, where he was submitted to instruction and examination. Two months were allowed for this test, and if satisfactory, the applicant had the rule read to him, which reading was concluded with the words used by St. Benedict himself, and already quoted: "This is the law under which thou art to live, and to strive for salvation. If thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." The novitiate lasted one year, and during this time the rule was read and the question put thrice. If at the end of that time the novice remained firm, he was introduced to the community in the church, made a declaration of his vows in writing, placed it on the altar, threw himself at the feet of the brethren, and from that moment was a monk. The rule which swayed this mass of life, wherever it existed, in a Benedictine monastery, and indirectly the monasteries of other orders, which are only modifications of the Benedictine system, was sketched out by that solitary hermit of Subiaco. It consists of seventy-three chapters, which contain a code of laws regulating the duties between the abbot and his monks, the mode conducting the divine services, the administration of penalties and discipline, the duties of monks to each other, and the internal economy of the monastery, the duties of the institution toward the world outside, the distribution of charity, the kindly reception of strangers, the laws to regulate the actions of those who were compelled to be absent or to travel; in fine, everything which could pertain to the administration of an institution composed of an infinite variety of characters subjected to one absolute ruler. It has elicited the admiration of the learned and good of all subsequent ages. It begins with the simple sentence: "Listen, O son, to the precepts of the master! Do not fear to receive the counsel of a good father, and to fulfil it fully, that thy laborious obedience may lead thee back to him from whom disobedience and weakness have alienated thee. To thee, whoever thou art, who renouncest thine own will to fight under the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and takest in hand the valiant and glorious weapons of obedience, are my words at this moment addressed." The first words, "Ausculta, O fili!" are often to be seen inscribed on a book placed in the hands of St. Benedict, in paintings and stained glass. The preamble contains the injunction of the two leading principles of the rule; all the rest is detail, marvellously thorough and comprehensive. These two grand principles were obedience and labor--the former became absorbed in the latter, for he speaks of that also as a species of labor--"Obedientiae laborem;" but the latter was the genius, the master-spirit of the whole code. There was to be labor, not only of contemplation, in the shape of prayer, worship, and self-discipline, to nurture the soul, but labor of action, vigorous, healthy, bodily labor, with the pen in the scriptorium, with the spade in the fields, with the hatchet in the forest, or with the trowel on the walls. Labor of some sort there must be daily, but no idleness: that was branded as "the {161} enemy of the soul"--"Otiositas inimica est animiae." It was enjoined with all the earnestness of one thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the great Master, who said, "Work whilst it is yet day, for the night cometh, when no man shall work;" who would not allow the man he had restored to come and remain with him--that is, to lead the life of religious contemplation, but told him to "go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee!" That is the life of religious activity. The error of the early monasticism was the making it solely a life of contemplation. Religious contemplation and religious activity must go together. In the contemplation the Christian acquires strength, in the activity he uses that strength for others; in the activity he is made to feel his weakness and driven to seek for aid in contemplation and prayer.
But, beside being based upon divine authority and example, this injunction of labor was formed upon a clear insight into and full appreciation of one of the most subtle elements of our constitution. It is this, that without labor no man can live; exist he may, but not live. This is one of the great mysteries of life--its greatest mystery; and its most emphatic lesson, which, if men would only learn, it would be one great step toward happiness, or at least toward that highest measure of happiness attainable below. If we can only realize this fact in the profundity of its truth, we shall have at once the key to half the miseries and anomalies which beset humanity. Passed upon man, in the first instance, by the Almighty as a curse, yet it carried in it the germ of a blessing; pronounced upon him as a sentence of punishment, yet there lurked in the chastisement the Father's love. Turn where we may, to the pages of bygone history or to the unwritten page of everyday life, from the gilded saloons of the noble to the hut of the peasant, we shall find this mysterious law working out its results with the unerring precision of a fundamental principle of nature. Where men obey that injunction of labor, no matter what their station, there is in the act the element of happiness, and wherever men avoid that injunction there is always the shadow of the unfulfilled curse darkening their path. This is the great clue to the balance of compensation between the rich and the poor. The rich man has no urgent need to labor; his wealth provides him with the means of escape from the injunction, and there is to be found in that man's life, unless he, in some way, with his head or with his hands, works out his measure of the universal task, a dissonance and a discord, a something which, in spite of all his wealth and all his luxury, corrupts and poisons his whole existence. It is a truth which cannot be ignored--no man who has studied life closely has failed to notice it, and no merely rich man lives who has not felt it and would not confess to its truth, if the question were pressed upon him. But in the case of the man who works, there is in his daily life the element of happiness, cares flee before him, and all the little caprices and longings of the imagination--those gad-flies which torment the idle--are to him unknown. He fulfils the measure of life; and whatever his condition, even if destitute in worldly wealth, we may be assured that the poor man has great compensations, and if he sat down with the rich man to count up grievances would check off a less number than his wealthier brother. Whatever his position, man should labor diligently; if poor he should labor and he may become rich, and if rich he should labor still, that all the evils attendant upon riches may disappear. Pure health steals over the body, the mind becomes dear, and the little miseries of life, the petty grievances, the fantastic wants, the morbid jealousies, the wasting weariness, and the terrible sense of vacuity which haunt {162} the life of one-half of the rich in the world, all flee before the talisman of active labor; nor should we be discouraged by failure, for it is better to fail in action than to do nothing. After all, what is commonly called failure we shall find to be not altogether such if we examine more closely. We set out upon some action or engagement, and after infinite toil we miss the object of that action or engagement, and they say we have failed; but there is consolation in this incontrovertible fact, that although we may have missed the particular object toward which our efforts have been directed, yet we have not altogether failed. There are many collateral advantages attendant upon exertion which may even be of greater importance than the attainment of the immediate object of that exertion, so that it is quite possible to fail wholly in achieving a certain object and yet make a glorious success. Half the achievements of life are built up on failures, and the greater the achievement, the greater evidence it is of persistent combat with failure. The student devotes his days and nights to some intellectual investigation, and though he may utterly fail in attaining to the actual object of that search, yet he may be drawn into some narrow diverging path in the wilderness of thought which may lead him gradually away from his beaten track on to the broad open light of discovery. The navigator goes out on the broad ocean in search of unknown tracts of land, and though he may return, after long and fruitless wanderings, yet in the voyages he has made he has acquired experience, and may, perchance, have learned some fact or thing which will prove the means of saving him in the hour of danger. Those great luminaries of the intellectual firmament--men who devoted their whole lives to investigate, search, study, and think for the elevation and good of their fellows--have only succeeded after a long discipline of failure, but by that discipline their powers have been developed, their capacity of thought expanded, and the experience gradually acquired which at length brought success. There is, then, no total failure to honest exertion, for he who diligently labors must in some way reap. It is a lesson often reiterated in apostolic teaching that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;" and the truth of that lesson may be more fully appreciated by a closer contemplation of life, more especially this phenomenon of life in which we see the Father's love following close upon the heels of his chastisement. The man who works lives, but he who works not lives but a dying and a hopeless life.
That vow of labor infused new vitality into the monks, and instead of living as they had hitherto done upon the charity of the public, they soon began not only to support themselves, but to take the poor of their neighborhood under their own especial protection. Whenever the Benedictines resolved on building a monastery, they chose the most barren, deserted spot they could find, often a piece of land long regarded as useless, and therefore frequently given without a price, then they set to work, cleared a space for their buildings, laid their foundations deep in the earth, and by gradual but unceasing toil, often with their own hands, alternating their labor with their prayers, they reared up those stately abbeys which still defy the ravages of age. In process of time the desert spot upon which they had settled underwent a complete transformation--a little world populous with busy life sprang up in its midst, and far and near in its vicinity the briers were cleared away--the hard soil broken up--gardens and fields laid out, and soon the land, cast aside by its owners as useless, bore upon its fertile bosom flowers, fruit, corn, in all the rich exuberance of heaven's blessing upon man's toil--plenty and peace smiled upon the whole scene--its halls were vocal with the voice of praise and the incense of charity arose {163} to heaven from its altars. They came upon the scene poor and friendless--they made themselves rich enough to become the guardians of the poor and friendless; and the whole secret of their success, the magic by which they worked these miracles, was none other than that golden rule of labor instituted by the penetrating intellect of their great founder; simple and only secret of all success in this world, now and ever--work--absolute necessity to real life, and, united with faith, one of the elements of salvation.
Before we advance to the consideration of the achievements of the Benedictine order, we wish to call attention to a circumstance which has seldom, if ever, been dwelt upon by historians, and which will assist us in estimating the influence of monachism upon the embryo civilization of Europe.
It is a remarkable fact that two great and renowned phases of life existed in the world parallel to each other, and went out by natural decay just at the same period: chivalry and monasticism. The latter was of elder birth, but as in the reign of Henry VIII. England saw the last of monasticism, so amid some laughter, mingled with a little forced seriousness, did she see the man who was overturning that old system vainly endeavoring to revive the worn-out paraphernalia of chivalry. The jousts and tournaments of Henry's time were the sudden flashing up of that once brilliant life, before its utter extinction. Both had been great things in the world--both had done great things, and both have left traces of their influence upon modern society and modern refinement which have not yet been obliterated, and perhaps never will be. It may then be interesting and instructive if we were to endeavor to compare the value of each by the work it did in the world. The origin of monasticism we have already traced; that of chivalry requires a few comments. Those who go to novels and romances for their history, have a notion that chivalry existed only in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the periods chosen for the incidents of those very highly colored romances which belong to that order of writing. There is also a notion that it sprang out of the Crusades, which, instead of being its origin, were rather the result of the system itself. The real origin of chivalry may be fairly traced to that period when the great empire of the West was broken up and subdivided by the barbarians of the North. Upon the ruins of that empire chivalry arose naturally. The feudal system was introduced, each petty state had a certain number of vassals, commanded by different chiefs, on whose estates they lived, and to whom they swore fealty in return for their subsistence; these again looked up to the king as head.