Our Lady Saint Mary Part 11

Here at the marriage of Cana the way in which she is mentioned suggests that she was staying in the house where the marriage was celebrated: she was simply there; Jesus and the disciples were called, invited, to the wedding. Some relationship, it has been suggested, between S. Mary and the bride or groom led to her presence in the house. That however is mere conjecture. The marriage in any case was a wonderful one, for both Jesus and Mary were there. It was therefore the ideal of all weddings which seem to lack the true note of the new matrimony which springs from the Incarnation if they take place without such guests. As in imagination we follow Mary as she goes quietly about the house, which like her own was a home of the poor, helping in the arrangements of the wedding, one cannot help recalling many weddings with which one has had something to do, and in the arrangements of which we cannot think of Mary as having any part. They were the arrangements of the weddings of Christians, and the weddings took place in a Christian church; but neither is Mary there nor Jesus called. We are unable to think of Mary as present amid the tumult of worldiness and frivolity, the endless chatter over dress and decoration, which so commonly precedes the celebration of a sacrament which is the symbol of "the mystical union that there is betwixt Christ and His Church." That deep piety which puts G.o.d and G.o.d's will before all else would strike a jarring note here, where the dominant note is still the pagan note of the decking of the slave for her new master. It is perhaps not without significance of the direction of the movement of the modern mind that the protests of the emanc.i.p.ated woman are against the Christian, not the pagan elements in matrimony: she tends to regard marriage as a state of temporary luxury rather than the perfect union of two souls in Christ. Clearly in marriages which are regarded as purely temporary engagements, dependent on the will of the parties for their continuance, there is no place for the mother of Jesus. The purity that emanates from her will be a silent but keenly felt criticism on the whole conception underlying a vast number of modern marriages. Even as I write I read that in a certain great city in the United States the number of divorces granted was one fourth of the number of the marriages celebrated.

Clearly at marriages which are surrounded with this atmosphere of paganism, be they celebrated where they may, there is no place for the Blessed Mother; and neither is Jesus called. His priest, unfortunately, is often called, and dares celebrate a sacrament which in the circ.u.mstances he can hardly help feeling is a sacrilege. There are many cases in which what purports to be Christian marriage is between those who are not Christians, or of whom only one is a Christian in any complete sense. One hears frequently of the sacrament of matrimony being celebrated when only one of the parties is baptised. It is of course possible for any priest to act on the authority conferred upon him by the state and in his capacity as a state official perform marriages between those whom the state authorises to be married: but why do it under the character of a priest? or why throw about the ceremony the suggestions of a sacrament?

If Jesus is really to be called to a marriage, it means that the preparations for the marriage will be largely spiritual. The parties to the marriage will approach the marriage through other sacraments. They will both be members of the Church of G.o.d by baptism; and they will be, or look forward to becoming, communicants. They will prepare for the sacrament of matrimony by receiving the sacrament of penance, and receiving the communion. What better preparation for starting a new life, for setting out to create a new family in the Kingdom of G.o.d, a family in which the ideals of the life at Nazareth are to be the ruling ideals, than that cleansing of soul that fits them for the beginning of a new life? A priest has great joy when he knows that those who are kneeling before him to receive the nuptial blessing are souls pure in G.o.d's sight, dwellings ready and adorned for the coming of Christ.

For it is the normal and fitting crown of the ceremonies of marriage that Jesus be there, that the Holy Ma.s.s be celebrated and that those who have just been indissolubly united may as their first act partake of the Bread of Heaven which giveth life to the world. I myself would rather not be asked to celebrate a wedding unless it is to be approached with the purity of Mary, and sealed by the partaking of Jesus. It is so great and wonderful a thing, this sacrament of matrimony. Here are two human beings setting out to fulfil the vocation of man to build up the Kingdom of G.o.d, to set up a new hearth where the love of G.o.d may be manifest and where children may be trained in the knowledge and love of G.o.d; where the life of Christ may find contact with human life and through it manifest G.o.d to the world--how wonderful and beautiful and holy all that is! And then to remember what commonly takes place is to be overcome with a sense of what must be the pain of G.o.d's heart.

We go back to look into the home where Mary seems to be directing the arrangements of the wedding feast. It was a poor home and not much could be provided; the wine, so essential to the feast, failed. What was to be done? To whom would Mary look? She could have no money to buy wine. One feels that after Joseph's death she had come more and more to look to Jesus for help of all sorts. The deepening of their mutual love, the completeness of their understanding, would make this the natural thing.

S. Mary feels that if there is any help in these embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances, any way of sparing the feelings of the bridegroom, Jesus will know it and help. There is no doubt in her mind; but the certainty that He can help. So she turns to Him with her "they have no wine." The words as we read them contain at once an appeal and a suggestion: an appeal for help, advice, guidance, with the hint that Jesus can effectually help if He will. It is not as some have rather crudely thought a suggestion that He perform a miracle, but the appeal of one who has learned to have unlimited trust in Him.

The reply of our Lord cannot fail to shock the English reader; and the very nature of the shock ought to indicate that there is something wrong with the translation. The words sound brusque and ill-mannered; and our Lord was never that nor could be, least of all to His blessed Mother.

The dictionaries all tell us that the word translated woman is quite as well translated lady, in the sense of mistress or house mother. There is really a shade of meaning that we have no word for. Perhaps we best understand what it is that is missed if we recall the fact that when our Lord addressed S. Mary from the Cross He used the same word: "Woman, behold thy son." In such circ.u.mstances we understand that the word on our Lord's lips is a word of infinite tenderness. I do not believe that we could do better than to translate it mother. We might paraphrase our Lord's saying thus: "Mother, we are both concerned with the trouble of these friends; but do not be anxious; I will act when the time comes."

His words are perfectly simple and courteous, though they do, no doubt, suggest that her anxiety is unnecessary and that He will act in due time. If we are to understand that our Lady was suggesting that He perform a miracle, then He certainly yielded to her intercession.

Indeed, this short aside in the rejoicing of the marriage celebration is suggestive of wide reaches of thought. It suggests, which concerns us most here, something of the mode of prayer. Prayer is not a force exercised upon G.o.d, it is an aspiration that He answers or not as He sees fit, according as He sees our needs to be: and if He answers, He answers in His own way and at His own time--when His hour is come. The intercession of the saints, and of the highest saint of all, the holy Mother, must thus be conceived as aspiration not as force. We hardly need to remind ourselves that Blessed Mary though the highest of creatures is still a creature and infinitely removed from the uncreated G.o.d. When we think of her prayers or the prayers of the saints as having "influence" or "power" with G.o.d, we must remember the limitations of human language. It is quite possible through inaccurate use of language to create the impression that we believe the prayers of the saints to be prevailing with G.o.d because of some peculiar spiritual energy that belongs to them, or, still worse, because we regard them as a sort of court favourites who have special influence and can get things done that ordinary people cannot. We need only to state the supposition to see that we do not mean it. When we think what we mean by the influence of the prayers of the saints, of their prevailingness with G.o.d, we know that we mean that the superior value of the prayers of the saints is due to the superior nature of their spiritual insight, to their better understanding of the mind and purpose of G.o.d. Blessed Mary is our most powerful intercessor because by her perfect sanct.i.ty she understands G.o.d better than any one else. No educated Christian believes that she can persuade G.o.d to change His mind or alter His judgment, or that she or any saint would for a moment want to do so. Nor do we who cry for aid in the end want any other aid than aid to see G.o.d's will and power to do it: we have no wish or hope to impose our will on G.o.d. Prayer is aspiration, the seeking for understanding, the submitting our desires to the love of G.o.d; and the prayer of the saints helps us because they are our brothers and sisters, of the same household, and join with us in the offering of ourselves to G.o.d that we may know and do His holy will. And we can see here in this incident at Cana the whole mode of prayer. There is the just implied suggestion of the need, the hint of her own thought about the matter, in the way in which S. Mary presents the case to Jesus. There is the divine method which approves the end sought but reserves the time and method of fulfilling it to the "hour" which the divine wisdom approves. There is the ideal Christian att.i.tude which accepts the divine will perfectly, and says to the servants: "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it."

"They have no wine": S. Mary's word expresses the present weakness of humanity, Man is born in sin, that is, out of union with G.o.d. That h.o.a.ry statement of dogmatic theology seems to stir the wrath of the modern mind more than any other dogma of the Christian Faith, except it be the dogma of eternal punishment. It is rather an amusing phenomenon that those who have no visible basis for pride are likely to be the most consumed with it. The pride of Diogenes was visible through the holes in his carpet; the pride of liberalism is visible in its irritability whenever the subject of sin, especially original sin, is mentioned. Yet the very complacency of liberalism about the perfection of man, is but another evidence (if we needed another) of his inherent sinfulness, his weakness in the face of moral ideals. If we confess our sins we are on the way to forgiveness; but if we say that we have no sin the truth is not in us.

This boasting of capacity to be pure and strong without G.o.d, theologically the Pelagian heresy, is sufficiently answered by a cursory view of what humanity has done and does do. Even where the Christian religion has been accepted the accomplishment is hardly ground for boasting. The plain fact is (and you may account for it how you like, it remains in any case a fact) that human beings are terribly weak in the face of moral and spiritual ideals. They are not sufficiently drawn by them to overcome the tendency of their nature toward a quite opposite set of ideals. We do run easily and spontaneously after ideals which the calm and enlightened judgment of the race, whether Christian or non-Christian, has continuously disapproved. We know that Buddha and Mahomet and Confucius would repudiate Paris and Berlin and New York and London with the same certainty if not with the same energy as Christ. We live in a time when a decisive public opinion gets its way; and therefore we are quite safe in saying that the misery and sin which go unchecked in the very centres of modern civilisation exist and continue because there is no decided public opinion against them.

All attempts at reform which are merely attempts to reform machinery are futile, they can produce only pa.s.sing and superficial results. There is only one medicine for the disease of the world, and that medicine is the Blood of Christ. Ultimately, one believes, that will be applied; but evidently it will not be applied in any broad way as a social treatment till all the quack remedies have demonstrated their uselessness. The last two centuries have been the flowering time of quacks. The mere history of their theories fills volumes. Our own time shows no decline in productiveness, nor decline in hopefulness in the efficacy of the last remedy to bid for support. But the time of disillusionment must some time come.

When that time comes all men will lift their eyes, as individual men have always lifted them, up to the hills whence cometh their help.

Except they had kept their eyes so resolutely fastened on the earth at their feet they would have seen, what has always been visible to those who lift up their eyes, a crucified Figure on the one supreme hill of earth,--the hill called Calvary. There "one Figure stands, with outstretched hands" saying, with inextinguishable optimism, the indestructible optimism of G.o.d, "and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."

What in the end will prevail with them, what will make them turn to the Tree which is for the healing of the nations, is the perception that in it is the remedy for the weakness that they have either sought to heal by other means, or have resolutely denied to exist at all. There are men whose wills are so strong that even in the grip of some serious disease they will long go on about their business a.s.serting that there is nothing the matter with them and overcoming bodily pain and weakness by sheer will power; but the end comes finally with a collapse that is perhaps beyond remedy. We live in a society which has the same characteristics, but it may be that it will see its state and turn to healing. For G.o.d cannot heal except with our co-operation. Christ pleads from the Cross, but he can do no more. He will not submit to our tests; He will not come down that we may believe in Him. We must come to Him, laying aside all our pride and self-will, and kneel by the Cross to ask His help.

We know, do we not? that that is the law for the individual; that we found the meaning of Christ, and what He can do in life, when we laid aside pride and self-will and humbly asked help and pardon. It may be that we resisted a long while, struggling against the pull of the divine magnet; but if we have attained to spiritual peace it is because the Cross won, because we found ourselves kneeling at the feet of Jesus.

Perhaps we have not got there yet, but are only on the way. Perhaps our religion as yet is a formality and not a devotion. Perhaps our pride still struggles against the Catholic practice of religion. Then why not give way now, to-night? Let Mary take you and lead you to Jesus. She will bring you to him with her half-suggestion, half-prayer: "He has no wine." He has got to the end of his strength, and he has found the weariness of self, he is ready for healing. O my divine Son, is not this your opportunity, your "hour"?

Jesus loves to have us bring one another to Him. It is so obviously the response to His Spirit, that carrying out of His teaching, so to love the brother that we may bring him to the healing of the Cross. To care for the spiritual needs of the brother is a real ministry: it is an extension of Christ in us that clothes us with the power to aid other souls in work or prayer. What a beautiful picture of this work there is in the Gospel of St. John. "And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus." And this work of presenting souls to Jesus which is so clearly one of our chief privileges, how should not that be also the privilege of all the saints, and especially of the Holy Mother? Blessed Mary, we may be sure, delights in leading souls who so hesitatingly come to her, to the presence of her Son,--just presenting them in their need and with her prayer, which is all the plea that is needed to attract the love and mercy of Jesus. "Why not," ask certain people who have not thought out the meaning of Catholic dogma, "why not go at once to our Lord; why go in this roundabout way?" Why not? Because of our human qualities. Because we need company and sympathy. For the same reason precisely that makes us ask one another's prayers here. "The Father Himself loveth you." Why in this roundabout way ask me to pray? You do not come to me because you lack faith in G.o.d or in G.o.d's love; you come to me because you feel, if only implicitly, that in the Body of Christ a.s.sociation in love and sympathy and work is a high privilege, and that it is G.o.d's will that we should work together and "bear one another's burdens." And the frontiers of the Kingdom of G.o.d are not the frontiers of the Church Militant, and its citizens are not only the citizens of the Church here below, but--we believe in the Communion of saints.

The hour of G.o.d strikes for any soul when that soul yields to prevenient grace and places itself utterly at the disposal of G.o.d, confiding wholly in His divine wisdom. When our Lord had answered His Blessed Mother she turned away satisfied. She did not have to concern herself any further; it was now in Jesus' hands to provide as He would.

It remained but to see that His will should be carried out when He made it known.

Submission is a difficult att.i.tude to acquire; but it is such a happy att.i.tude when once one has acquired it. The critics of it wholly mistake it and confound it with fatalism. It is not fatalism, or pa.s.sive acquiescence in another's will--a will that we have no part in forming and cannot reject. Submission is the acceptance of G.o.d's will as the expression of the highest wisdom for us. It is not true that we have no part in forming it; it is at any time an expression of G.o.d's will for us which is determined by the way in which we hitherto have corresponded to that will. Submission means that we have put ourselves in a position of active co-operation with that will, that we have made it ours: because it is the expression of a divine wisdom and love we make it wholly ours.

And we have found in the acceptance of it not bondage but liberty. It is wonderful how our preconceived notion of G.o.d and religion vanishes before the first gleams of experience. To the unregenerate the service of G.o.d is utter bondage; to the regenerate it is perfect freedom. And the difference seems to be accounted for by the reversal of ideals, by a new direction of affections. "I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou hast set my heart at liberty,"

A true conversion is, perhaps, signified, more than in any other way, by the liberty of the heart,--by this change in the object of our love.

That has been the constant exhortation to us, to love that which is worthy of love. "Set your affection on things above." "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." And we, loving the world and the things that are in the world, listen impatiently. But there is no possibility of a sincere conversion without a change of love. "A change of heart" conversion is often called, and so inevitably it is. And as we go through our self-examination one of the most profitable questions we can ask is, "What do I love?" That will commonly tell the whole story of the life, for "where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also."

Richard Rolle said: "Truly he who is stirred with busy love, and is continually with Jesu in thought, full soon perceives his own faults, the which correcting, henceforward he is ware of them; and so he brings righteousness busily to birth, until he is led to G.o.d and may sit with heavenly citizens in everlasting seats. Therefore he stands clear in conscience and is steadfast in all good ways the which is never noyed with worldly heaviness nor gladdened with vainglory."

CANA I

O Glorious Lady, throned in light, Sublime above the starry height, Whose arms thine own creator pressed, A Suckling at thy sacred breast.

Through the dear Blossom of thy womb, Thou changest hapless Eva's doom; Through thee to contrite souls is given An opening to their home in heaven.

Thou art the great King's Portal bright, The shining Gate of living light; Come then, ye ransomed nations, sing The Life Divine 'twas hers to bring.

Mother of Love and Mercy mild, Mother of graces undefiled.

Drive back the foe, and to thy Son Lead thou our souls when life is done.

All glory be to thee, O Lord, A Virgin's Son, by all adored, With Sire and Spirit, Three in One, While everlasting ages run.

PART TWO

CHAPTER XIV

CANA II

And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

S. John II, 3, 4.

We, the faithful, bless thee, O Virgin Mother of G.o.d, and glorify thee as is thy due, the city unshaken, the wall unbroken, the unbreakable defence and refuge of our souls.

BYZANTINE.

"Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." These words have often been called the Gospel according to S. Mary. They certainly sum up her whole att.i.tude in life. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word," she had said in reply to the message S. Gabriel brought her: and that is the meaning of her whole life-story, that she is at all times ready to accept the will of G.o.d, to give herself to the fulfilment of the divine purpose. There is no more perfect att.i.tude, for it is the att.i.tude of her divine Son whose meat it was to do the will of the Father and to finish His work, whose whole life's att.i.tude was compressed into the words of His self-oblation in Gethsemane, "Not my will, but thine be done."

And this is the virtue that Jesus Christ inculcates upon us. "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven ... thy will be done." There is no true religion possible without that att.i.tude. And therefore one is deeply concerned about the immediate future inasmuch as the spirit of obedience, the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of Mary, is so rare. As one looks into the social development of the Christian era, one feels that the life and example of S. Mary has been of immense influence in the development of the ideal of womanhood. The rise of woman from a wholly subordinate and inferior condition to a condition of complete equality with man has owed more to S. Mary than to any other factor. I am not concerned with political equality; that under our present conditions of social development women should have that equality if they want it seems to me just, but I am by no means satisfied that in the long run it will prove a boon either to them or to society at large. But I am at present thinking of their spiritual equality, which after all is the basis of their other claims; and this comes to them through the Gospel, and was shown to the mind of the Church largely through S. Mary. In the earliest records of the Church woman stands on the same level of privilege as man, and the same sort of spiritual accomplishment is expected of her.

There are many members of the Body of Christ and there is a certain spiritual equality among them; but "all members have not the same office." In the Holy Spirit's distribution of functions within the Body there is a difference. Some functions, by the allotment of G.o.d, women are not called to exercise: these are sacramental and ruling functions.

Others, as prophecy (the daughters of S. Philip), and ministry (the deaconess), are given them. For centuries she recognised this allotment and gave her best energies to her appointed works. She showed herself a true daughter of Mary in her loyal acceptance of the divine will and her zeal in its accomplishment. And what was the result? The Calendar of Saints, filled with the names of women, is the answer. There are no more wonderful works of G.o.d than the women whose names are commemorated at the altars of the Church and whose intercession is constantly asked throughout Catholic Christendom. There can be no thought of narrowness of opportunity or limitations in life as we study that wonderful series of women who have illumined the history of the Church from the day of S.

Gabriel's message to this very moment when there are many many women who are faithfully following their vocation and doing G.o.d's will, and who will one day be our intercessors about the throne of G.o.d and of the Lamb, as they are our intercessors in the Church on earth to-day. Why any woman should complain of lack of opportunity and of the narrowness of the Church--the Church that has nourished S. Mary and S. Monica, S.

Catherine of Genoa and S. Theresa; the foundresses of so many and so varied Religious Orders, so many who have devoted their lives to teaching, nursing, conducting works of charity, I am at a loss to understand. To-day we are witnessing all over the world a revolt of women against the Church; we hear not infrequent threats of what is to be done to the Church by those revolted members. I am afraid that woman is on the edge of another tragedy. She is once more looking fascinated at the fruit which "is good for food, and pleasant to the eyes and to be desired to make one wise," and listening to a voice that whispers: "Thou shalt be as G.o.d."

The question which is becoming more urgent everywhere is, What are the women of the future to be,--the daughters of Eve, or the daughters of Mary? It is not a question for declamation, but a question that calls for immediate action: and the action must be the action of women. If women clamour for work in the Church of G.o.d, here it is, and here it is abundantly; and to accomplish it there is no need that they "seek the priesthood also." The work in the Church of G.o.d is in the first place a work that G.o.d has given mothers to do; it is the primary duty of a mother to bring up her children, and especially her daughters, in fear of the Lord. That she can always succeed I do not for a moment claim; there are many adverse factors in the situation that she has to deal with. But she is inexcusable if she does not give her effort to the work as the most important work of her life. She is utterly inexcusable and must answer to G.o.d for the result if she turn her children over to the care of maids and teachers while she occupies herself with society or any exterior work.

In the second place the work of the Church of G.o.d is a work that ought to appeal to all women and a work that any woman can help in. All women can help the spiritual progress of the Church by meditating upon the life of Blessed Mary and fashioning their lives upon her example. We are all tremendously affected by example, and that is especially true of young girls. Their supreme terror seems to be that they should be caught doing or saying something different from what all other girls say or do or wear. Their opinions are as imitative as their clothes. Hence the need of the pressure of a strong Christian example, which would result most readily in the union of Christian women in a single ideal. Our present difficulty is that so many of our women who are devout members of the Church in their private capacity, so far succ.u.mb to the group-mind in their social relations that they are possessed by the same terror as the young girl in the face of the possibility of being different. Therefore are they careful to hide their real feeling for religion and their devotion to spiritual things under the mask of worldly conformity which evacuates their example of much of the power that it might have. I am quite convinced that fear of the world is about as strong an impulse toward evil as love of the world.

We need that women should clear their ideals and realise their public responsibility for the presentation of them. We need terribly at this moment insistence on the purity and simplicity of the Holy Mother of G.o.d. One is stunned at the abandonment of the ideal of reserve and modesty that the last few years have seen. Women seem to take it quite gaily: men, one notes, take it much more seriously. I have been consulted by more than one father during the past year as to the possibility of sending a boy to a school where he would be kept out of the society of half-naked girls. Have mothers no longer any sense of the value of purity? Or have they simply abandoned all responsibility that normally goes with being a mother? One recognises how helpless a man is under the circ.u.mstances, that his intervention in such matters simply casts him for the part of family tyrant; but why should a mother abandon her duty simply because her daughter says: "You don't understand. Girls are not as they were when you were young. All the girls do this. No other mother takes the line that you do. You are not modern."

One knows, of course, that the whole matter of decline in manners and morals is but a part of the world-wide revolt against the morality of Jesus Christ that we are witnessing everywhere. Social and religious teachers, students of history and social movements have seen the approach of this revolt for a long time, have been watching its rise and growth. When they have pointed out the end of the path that we have been travelling, they have been disposed of by calling them pessimists. These "pessimists" pointed out long ago that the denial of the obligation to believe would be followed by an abandonment of all moral standards. They pointed out to the devotees of "liberal religion" that they are in reality the leaders of a moral revolt, that if it does not make any difference what you believe it will soon come to make no difference what you do. It is a rather silly performance to blow up the dam which holds back the ma.s.s of water of an irrigation system and imagine that no more water will flow out than you want to flow out. When the Protestant revolt blew up the restraining dams of the Catholic Religion they had no right to expect that only so much denial of Catholic truth as it suited them to dispense with would be the result. Through the broken dams the whole religion of Christ has been flowing out and it is mere empty pretence to claim that all that is of any value is left. It is impossible to maintain anything of the sort now that all the moral content of the Christian system is openly thrown overboard by vast numbers of the population of the world, in every country that claims to be civilised. It is useless to say that there has always been evil in the world and that the maintenance of the Catholic religion has never anywhere abolished sin. That is true, but it is not to the present point. The social situation is one where there are definite religious and moral ideals strongly maintained and universally recognised, though there are many men and women who violate them; it is quite another situation when the ideals themselves are repudiated and set aside as superst.i.tions. That is our case to-day. The Christian theory is confronted with a theory of naturalism in morals, and those who follow that theory do not do so with a feeling that they are violating accepted ideals, but with the a.s.sumption that they are missionaries setting forth a new faith. Those who have revolted from the Kingdom of G.o.d have now set up another kingdom and proclaimed openly, "We will not have this Man to reign over us." The revolt which began with a breach in the dogmatic system of the Church and denial of the authority of the Catholic Church in favour of the right of private judgment, has ended, as it could not help but end, in open abandonment of the life-ideal of the Gospels. We now have the application of the right of private judgment in the theory that one's morals are one's own concern. Such things have happened before. "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every one did what was right in his own eyes." The social state depicted in the Book of Judges reflects this revolt. The result of the same repudiation of authority is seen in modern society where what is right in one's own eyes is the whole Law and Gospel. Are we to remain quiescent, or are we to make the attempt to generate moral force?

But how can Christendom generate any more moral force? The teaching of the Gospel which it proclaims is perfectly plain. True, but is the adherence of the Church to its statements perfectly plain? Is there no falling away, no compromise, there?

When one speaks thus of the Church one is conscious of a confusion of thought in the use of the word. The teaching of the formal doc.u.ments of the Church is not here in question; what we necessarily mean is the effect that the existing membership of the Church is having upon contemporary life. What we have especially in mind is the att.i.tude of the clergy and the action of the congregation in the way of moral force.

What sort of a front is the church presenting to the world, what sort of moral influence is it exercising?

It seems to me perfectly evident that all along the line the conventions of contemporary society have been accepted in the place of the life-ideals of the Gospel of Jesus. We have accepted plain departures from or compromises with Christian teaching as the recognised law of action. This is due largely to the natural sloth of the human being and his disinclination to struggle for superior standards. He feels safe and comfortable if he can succeed in losing himself in a crowd: thus he escapes both trouble and criticism. A violation of law may become so common that there is no public spirit to oppose it. The same thing may happen in morals,--violations of the Christian standard, if sufficiently widespread, command almost universal acquiesence. What is actually uncovered in the process is the fact that the plain man has no morals of his own, but imitates the prevailing morality; and if fashion sets against some particular ruling of the Christian Religion he feels quite secure in following the fashion. The _vox dei_ in Holy Scripture and in Holy Church affect him not at all if he be conscious that he is on the side of the _vox populi_.

It is easy to ill.u.s.trate this. The non-Catholic Christian world has the Bible, and boasts of its adherence to it as the sole guide of life; but in the matter of divorced persons it utterly disregards its teachings.

By this acceptance of an unchristian att.i.tude it has vastly weakened the fight for purity in the family relation which the Catholic Church, at least in the West, has always waged. It deliberately divides the Christian forces of the community and to a large extent thereby nullifies their action. The divisions of Christendom are terrible from every point of view; but there are certain questions on which a united mind might well be presented, and in relation to which an united mind would go far to control the att.i.tude of society. An united Christian sentiment against divorce would go far to reduce the evil.

On the other hand the progress of the movement to abolish the evils growing out of the use of alcohol has had its strength in the Protestant bodies. On the whole (there were no doubt individual exceptions) the Churches of the Catholic tradition have been lukewarm in the matter. It is quite evident that the reform could never have been carried through if left to them, and especially if left to the bishops and clergy of the Roman and Anglican Communions. It is a plain case of failure to support a vast moral reform because of the pressure of opinion in the social circles in which they move, combined with a purely individualistic att.i.tude toward a grave social question.