Our Fathers Have Told Us Part 18

"Bede's account of the Ayrshire seer's vision gives Purgatory in words very like Dante's description of the second stormy circle in h.e.l.l; and the angel which ultimately saves the Scotchman from the fiends comes through h.e.l.l, 'quasi fulgor stellae micantis inter tenebras'--'qual sul presso del mattino Per gli grossi vapor Marte rosseggia.' Bede's name was great in the middle ages. Dante meets him in Heaven, and, I like to hope, may have been helped by the vision of my fellow-countryman more than six hundred years before."]

56. Neither do I know nor care to know--at what time the notion of Justification by Faith, in the modern sense, first got itself distinctively fixed in the minds of the heretical sects and schools of the North. Practically its strength was founded by its first authors on an asceticism which differed from monastic rule in being only able to destroy, never to build; and in endeavouring to force what severity it thought proper for itself on everybody else also; and so striving to make one artless, letterless, and merciless monastery of all the world. Its virulent effort broke down amidst furies of reactionary dissoluteness and disbelief, and remains now the basest of popular solders and plasters for every condition of broken law and bruised conscience which interest can provoke, or hypocrisy disguise.

57. With the subsequent quarrels between the two great sects of the corrupted church, about prayers for the Dead, Indulgences to the Living, Papal supremacies, or Popular liberties, no man, woman, or child need trouble themselves in studying the history of Christianity: they are nothing but the squabbles of men, and laughter of fiends among its ruins. The Life, and Gospel, and Power of it, are all written in the mighty works of its true believers: in Normandy and Sicily, on river islets of France and in the river glens of England, on the rocks of Orvieto, and by the sands of Arno. But of all, the simplest, completest, and most authoritative in its lessons to the active mind of North Europe, is this on the foundation stones of Amiens.

58. Believe it or not, reader, as you will: understand only how thoroughly it _was_ once believed; and that all beautiful things were made, and all brave deeds done in the strength of it--until what we may call 'this present time,' in which it is gravely asked whether Religion has any effect on morals, by persons who have essentially no idea whatever of the meaning of either Religion or Morality.

Concerning which dispute, this much perhaps you may have the patience finally to read, as the Fleche of Amiens fades in the distance, and your carriage rushes towards the Isle of France, which now exhibits the most admired patterns of European Art, intelligence, and behaviour.

59. All human creatures, in all ages and places of the world, who have had warm affections, common sense, and self-command, have been, and are, Naturally Moral. Human nature in its fulness is necessarily Moral,--without Love, it is inhuman, without sense,[70]

inhuman,--without discipline, inhuman.

[Footnote 70: I don't mean aesthesis,--but [Greek: nous], if you _must_ talk in Greek slang.]

In the exact proportion in which men are bred capable of these things, and are educated to love, to think, and to endure, they become n.o.ble,--live happily--die calmly: are remembered with perpetual honour by their race, and for the perpetual good of it. All wise men know and have known these things, since the form of man was separated from the dust. The knowledge and enforcement of them have nothing to do with religion: a good and wise man differs from a bad and idiotic one, simply as a good dog from a cur, and as any manner of dog from a wolf or a weasel. And if you are to believe in, or preach without half believing in, a spiritual world or law--only in the hope that whatever you do, or anybody else does, that is foolish or beastly, may be in them and by them mended and patched and pardoned and worked up again as good as new--the less you believe in--and most solemnly, the less you talk about--a spiritual world, the better.

60. But if, loving well the creatures that are like yourself, you feel that you would love still more dearly, creatures better than yourself--were they revealed to you;--if striving with all your might to mend what is evil, near you and around, you would fain look for a day when some Judge of all the Earth shall wholly do right, and the little hills rejoice on every side; if, parting with the companions that have given you all the best joy you had on Earth, you desire ever to meet their eyes again and clasp their hands,--where eyes shall no more be dim, nor hands fail;--if, preparing yourselves to lie down beneath the gra.s.s in silence and loneliness, seeing no more beauty, and feeling no more gladness--you would care for the promise to you of a time when you should see G.o.d's light again, and know the things you have longed to know, and walk in the peace of everlasting Love--_then_, the Hope of these things to you is religion, the Substance of them in your life is Faith. And in the power of them, it is promised us, that the kingdoms of this world shall yet become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of West porches of Amiens Cathedral]

APPENDICES.

I. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE PRINc.i.p.aL EVENTS REFERRED TO IN THE 'BIBLE OF AMIENS.'

II. REFERENCES EXPLANATORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS ILl.u.s.tRATING CHAPTER IV.

III. GENERAL PLAN OF 'OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US.'

APPENDIX I.

_CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE PRINc.i.p.aL EVENTS REFERRED TO IN THE 'BIBLE OF AMIENS.'_

A.D. PAGE

250. Rise of the Franks 33 301. St. Firmin comes to Amiens 5 332. St. Martin 15 345. St. Jerome born 75 350. First church at Amiens, over St. Firmin's grave 99 358. Franks defeated by Julian near Strasburg 44 405. St. Jerome's Bible 50 420. St. Jerome dies 78 _seq._ 421. St. Genevieve born. Venice founded 27 445. Franks cross the Rhine and take Amiens 7 447. Merovee king at Amiens 7, 8 451. Battle of Chalons. Attila defeated by Aetius 7 457. Merovee dies. Childeric king at Amiens 8 466. Clovis born 7 476. Roman Empire in Italy ended by Odoacer 8 481. Roman Empire ended in France 9 Clovis crowned at Amiens 8, 27 St. Benedict born 27 485. Battle of Soissons. Clovis defeats Syagrius 8, 52 486. Syagrius dies at the court of Alaric 52 489. Battle of Verona. Theodoric defeats Odoacer 54 493. Clovis marries Clotilde 8 496. Battle of Tolbiac. Clovis defeats the Alemanni 53 Clovis crowned at Rheims by St. Remy 9 Clovis baptized by St. Remy 13 508. Battle of Poitiers. Clovis defeats the Visigoths under Alaric. Death of Alaric 9

APPENDIX II.

_REFERENCES EXPLANATORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS ILl.u.s.tRATING CHAPTER IV._

The quatrefoils on the foundation of the west front of Amiens Cathedral, described in the course of the fourth chapter, had never been engraved or photographed in any form accessible to the public until last year, when I commissioned M. Kaltenbacher (6, Pa.s.sage du Commerce), who had photographed them for M. Viollet le Duc, to obtain negatives of the entire series, with the central pedestal of the Christ.

The proofs are entirely satisfactory to me, and extremely honourable to M. Kaltenbacher's skill: and it is impossible to obtain any more instructive and interesting, in exposition of the manner of central thirteenth-century sculpture.

I directed their setting so that the entire succession of the quatrefoils might be included in eighteen plates; the front and two sides of the pedestal raise their number to twenty-one: the whole, unmounted, sold by my agent Mr. Ward (the negatives being my own property) for four guineas; or separately, each five shillings.

Besides these of my own, I have chosen four general views of the cathedral from M. Kaltenbacher's formerly-taken negatives, which, together with the first-named series, (twenty-five altogether,) will form a complete body of ill.u.s.trations for the fourth chapter of the 'BIBLE OF AMIENS'; costing in all five guineas, forwarded free by post from Mr. Ward's (2, Church Terrace, Richmond, Surrey). In addition to these, Mr. Ward will supply the photograph of the four scenes from the life of St. Firmin, mentioned on page 5 of Chapter I.; price five shillings.

For those who do not care to purchase the whole series, I have marked with an asterisk the plates which are especially desirable.

The two following lists will enable readers who possess the plates to refer without difficulty both from the photographs to the text, and from the text to the photographs, which will be found to fall into the following groups:--

Photographs.

1-3. THE CENTRAL PEDESTAL.

DAVID.

4-7. THE CENTRAL PORCH.

VIRTUES AND VICES.

8-9. THE CENTRAL PORCH.

THE MAJOR PROPHETS, WITH MICAH AND NAHUM.

10-13. THE FAcADE.

THE MINOR PROPHETS.

14-17. THE NORTHERN PORCH.

THE MONTHS AND ZODIACAL SIGNS, WITH ZEPHANIAH AND HAGGAI.

18-21. THE SOUTHERN PORCH.

SCRIPTURAL HISTORY, WITH OBADIAH AND AMOS.

22-25. MISCELLANEOUS.

PART I.

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS WITH REFERENCE TO THE QUATREFOILS, ETC.

Photographs.

1-3. CENTRAL PEDASTAL. See pp. 109-110, ---- 32-33.

*1. FRONT David. Lion and Dragon. Vine.

*2. NORTH SIDE Lily and c.o.c.katrice.

*3. SOUTH SIDE Rose and Adder.