The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 11

7. Though, then, common sense may determine for us that the line of prudence and propriety has been certainly pa.s.sed in the instance of certain statements about the Blessed Virgin, it is often not easy to prove the point logically; and in such cases authority, if it attempt to act, would be in the position which so often happens in our courts of law, when the commission of an offence is morally certain, but the government prosecutor cannot find legal evidence sufficient to insure conviction. I am not denying the right of sacred congregations, at their will, to act peremptorily, and without a.s.signing reasons for the judgment they pa.s.s upon writers; but, when they have found it inexpedient to take this severe course, perhaps it may happen from the circ.u.mstances of the case that there is no other that they can take, even if they would. It is wiser then for the most part to leave these excesses to the gradual operation of public opinion--that is, to the opinion of educated and sober Catholics; and this seems to me the healthiest way of putting them down. Yet in matter of fact I believe the Holy See has interfered from time to time, when devotion seemed running into superst.i.tion; and not so long ago. I recollect hearing in Gregory the XVI.'s time of books about the Blessed Virgin which had been suppressed by authority; and in particular of a representation of the immaculate conception which he had forbidden, and of measures taken against the shocking notion that the Blessed Mary is present in the holy eucharist in the sense in which our Lord is present; but I have no means of verifying the information I received.

Nor have I time, any more than you have had, to ascertain how far great theologians have made protests against those various extravagances of which you so rightly complain. Pa.s.sages, however, from three well-known Jesuit fathers have opportunely come in my way, and in one of them is introduced, in confirmation, the name of the great Gerson. They are Canisius, Petavius, and Raynaudus; and as they speak very appositely, and you do not seem to know them, I will here make some extracts from them:

(1.) Canisius:

"We confess that in the _cultus_ of Mary it has been and is possible for corruptions to creep in; and we have a more than ordinary desire that the pastors of the Church should be carefully vigilant here, and give no place to Satan, whose characteristic office it has ever been, while men sleep, to sow the c.o.c.kle amid the Lord's wheat...

. For this purpose it is his wont gladly to avail himself of the aid of heretics, fanatics, and false Catholics, as may be seen in the instance of this _Maria.n.u.s cultus_. This _cultus_, heretics, suborned by Satan, attack with hostility Thus, too, certain mad heads are so {88} demented by Satan, as to embrace superst.i.tions and idolatries instead of the true _cultus_ and neglect altogether the due measures whether in respect to G.o.d or to Mary. Such indeed were the Collyridians of old... . Such that German herdsman a hundred years ago, who gave out publicly that he was a new prophet and had had a vision of the Deipara, and told the people in her name to pay no more tributes and taxes to princes. .... Moreover, how many Catholics does one see who, by great and shocking negligence, have neither care nor regard for her _cultus_, but, given to profane and secular objects, scarce once a year raise their earthly minds to sing her praises or to venerate her!"--_De Maria Deipara_, p. 518.

(2.) Father Petau says, when discussing the teaching of the fathers about the Blessed Virgin (de Incarn. xiv. 8):

"I will venture to give this advice to all who would be devout and panegyrical toward the Holy Virgin, viz., not to exceed in their piety and devotion to her, but to be content with true and solid praises, and to cast aside what is otherwise. The latter kind of idolatry, lurking, as St. Augustine says, nay implanted, in human hearts, is greatly abhorrent from theology, that is from the gravity of heavenly wisdom, which never thinks or a.s.serts anything but what is measured by certain and accurate rules. What that rule should be, and what caution is to be used in our present subject, I will not determine of myself, but according to the mind of a most weighty and most learned theologian, John Gerson, who in one of his epistles proposes certain canons, which he calls truths, by means of which are to be measured the a.s.sertions of theologians concerning the incarnation... By these truly golden precepts Gerson brings within bounds the immoderate license of praising the Blessed Virgin, and restrains it within the measure of sober and healthy piety. And from these it is evident that that sort of reasoning is frivolous and nugatory in which so many indulge, in order to a.s.sign any sort of grace they please, however unusual, to the Blessed Virgin. For they argue thus: 'Whatever the Son of G.o.d could bestow for the glory of his mother, that it became him in fact to furnish;' or again, 'Whatever honors or ornaments he has poured out on other saints, those all together hath he heaped upon his mother;' whence they draw their chain of reasoning to their desired conclusion; a mode of argumentation which Gerson treats with contempt as captious and sophistical."

He adds, what of course we all should say, that, in thus speaking, he has no intention to curtail the liberty of pious persons in such meditations and conjectures, on the mysteries of faith, sacred histories, and the Scripture text, as are of the nature of comments, supplements, and the like.

(3.) Raynaud is an author full of devotion, if any one is so, to the Blessed Virgin; yet, in the work which he has composed in her honor ("Diptycha Mariana"), he says more than I can quote here to the same purpose as Petau. I abridge some portions of his text:

"Let this be taken for granted, that no praises of ours can come up to the praises due to the Virgin Mother. But we must not make up for our inability to reach her true praise by a supply of lying embellishment and false honors. For there are some whose affection for religious objects is so imprudent and lawless, that they transgress the due limits even toward the saints. This Origen has excellently observed upon in the case of the Baptist, for very many, instead of observing the measure of charity, consider whether he might not be the Christ"--p. 9. "... St. Anselm, the first, or one of the first, champions of the public celebration of the Blessed Virgin's immaculate conception, says (de Excell. Virg.) that the church considers it indecent, that anything that admits of doubt should be said in her praise, when the things which are certainly true of her supply such large materials for laudation. It is right so to interpret St. Epiphanius also, when he says that human tongues should not p.r.o.nounce anything lightly of the Deipara; and who is more justly to be charged with speaking lightly of the most holy Mother of G.o.d, than he who, as if what is certain and evident did not suffice for her full invest.i.ture, is wiser than the aged, and obtrudes on us the toadstools of his own mind, and devotions unheard of by those holy fathers who loved her best? Plainly as St. Anselm says that she is the Mother of G.o.d, this by itself exceeds every elevation which can be named or imagined, short of G.o.d. About so sublime a majesty we should not speak hastily from prurience of wit, or flimsy pretext of promoting piety; but with great maturity of thought; and, whenever the maxims of the church and the oracles of {89} faith do not suffice, then not without the suffrages of the doctors... . Those who are subject to this prurience of innovation, do not perceive how broad is the difference between subjects of human science and heavenly things. All novelty concerning the objects of our faith is to be put far away; except so far as by diligent investigation of G.o.d's word, written and unwritten, and a well founded inference from what is thence to be elicited, something is brought to light which, though already indeed there, had not hitherto been recognized. The innovations which we condemn are those which rest neither on the written nor unwritten word, nor on conclusions from it, nor on the judgment of ancient sages, nor sufficient basis of reason, but on the sole color and pretext of doing more honor to the Deipara."--p. 10.

In another portion of the same work, he speaks in particular of one of those imaginations to which you especially refer, and for which, without strict necessity (as it seems to me), you allege the authority of a Lapide:

"Nor is that honor of the Deipara to be offered, viz., that the elements of the body of Christ, which the Blessed Virgin supplied to it, remain perpetually unaltered in Christ, and thereby are found also in the eucharist... . This solicitude for the Virgin's glory must, I consider, be discarded; since, if rightly considered, it involves an injury toward Christ, and such honors the Virgin loveth not. And first, dismissing philosophical bagatelles about the animation of blood, milk, etc., who can endure the proposition that a good portion of the substance of Christ in the eucharist should be worshipped with a _cultus_ less than _latria_? viz., by the inferior _cultus_ of _hyperdulia?_ The preferable cla.s.s of theologians contend that not even the humanity of Christ is to be materially abstracted from the Word of G.o.d, and worshipped by itself; how then shall we introduce a _cultus_ of the Deipara in Christ, which is inferior to the _cultus_ proper to him? How is this other than casting down of the substance of Christ from his royal throne, and a degradation of it to some inferior sitting-place? Is is nothing to the purpose to refer to such fathers as say that the flesh of Christ is the flesh of Mary, for they speak of its origin. What will hinder, if this doctrine be admitted, our also admitting that there is something in Christ which is detestable? for, as the first elements of a body which were communicated by the Virgin to Christ have (as these authors say) remained perpetually in Christ, so the same _materia_, at least in part, which belonged originally to the ancestors of Christ, came down to the Virgin from her father, unchanged, and taken from her grandfather, and so on. And thus, since it is not unlikely that some of these ancestors were reprobate, there would now be something actually in Christ which had belonged to a reprobate and worthy of detestation."--p. 237.

8. After such explanations, and with such authorities, to clear my path, I put away from me, as you would wish, without any hesitation, as matters in which my heart and reason have no part (when taken in their literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them), such sentences, and phrases, as these: that the mercy of Mary is infinite; that G.o.d has resigned into her hands his omnipotence; that (unconditionally) it is safer to seek her than her Son; that the Blessed Virgin is superior to G.o.d; that he is (simply) subject to her command; that our Lord is now of the same disposition as his Father toward sinners, viz., a disposition to reject them, while Mary takes his place as an advocate with Father and Son; that the saints are more ready to intercede with Jesus than Jesus with the Father; that Mary is the only refuge of those with whom G.o.d is angry; that Mary alone can obtain a Protestant's conversion; that it would have sufficed for the salvation of men if our Lord had died not to obey his Father, but to defer to the decree of his mother; that she rivals our Lord in being G.o.d's daughter, not by adoption, but by a kind of nature; that Christ fulfilled the office of Saviour by imitating her virtues; that, as the incarnate G.o.d bore the image of his Father, so he bore the image of his mother; that redemption derived from Christ indeed its sufficiency, but from Mary its beauty and loveliness; that us we are clothed with the merits of Christ, so we are clothed with {90} the merits of Mary; that, as he is priest, in like manner is she priestess; that his body and blood in the eucharist are truly hers and appertain to her; that as he is present and received therein, so is she present and received therein; that priests are ministers, as of Christ, so of Mary; that elect souls are born of G.o.d and Mary; that the Holy Ghost brings into fruitfulness his action by her, producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in his members; that the kingdom of G.o.d in our souls, as our Lord speaks, is really the kingdom of Mary in the soul--and she and the Holy Ghost produce in the soul extraordinary things--and when the Holy Ghost finds Mary in a soul he flies there.

Sentiments such as these I never knew of till I read your book, nor, as I think, do the vast minority of English Catholics know them. They seem to me like a bad dream. I could not have conceived them to be said. I know not to what authority to go for them, to Scripture, or to the fathers, or to the decrees of councils, or to the consent of schools, or to the tradition of the faithful, or to the Holy See, or to reason. They defy all the _loci theologici_. There is nothing of them in the Missal, in the Roman Catechism, in the Roman '"Raccolta,"

in the "Imitation of Christ," in Gother, Challoner, Milner, or Wiseman, as far as I am aware. They do but scare and confuse me. I should not be holier, more spiritual, more sure of perseverance, if I twisted my moral being into the reception of them; I should but be guilty of fulsome, frigid flattery toward the most upright and n.o.ble of G.o.d's creatures if I professed them, and of stupid flattery too; for it would be like the compliment of painting up a young and beautiful princess with the brow of a Plato and the muscle of an Achilles. And I should expect her to tell one of her people in waiting to turn me off her service without warning. Whether thus to feel be the _scandalum parvulorum_ in my case, or the _scandalum Pharisaeorum_, I leave others to decide; but I will say plainly that I had rather believe (which is impossible) that there is no G.o.d at all, than that Mary is greater than G.o.d. I will have nothing to do with statements which can only be explained by being explained away. I do not, however, speak of these statements as they are found in their authors, for I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say; but I take them as they lie in your pages. Were any of them the sayings of saints in ecstasy, I should know they had a good meaning; still, I should not repeat them myself; but I am looking at them not as spoken by the tongues of angels, but according to that literal sense which they bear in the mouths of English men and English women. And, as spoken by man to man, in England, in the nineteenth century, I consider them calculated to prejudice inquirers, to frighten the unlearned, to unsettle consciences, to provoke blasphemy, and to work the loss of souls.

9. And now, after having said so much as this, bear with me, my dear friend, if I end with an expostulation. Have you not been touching us on a very tender point in a very rude way? Is not the effect of what you have said to expose her to scorn and obloquy who is dearer to us than any other creature? Have you even hinted that our love for her is anything else than an abuse? Have you thrown her one kind word yourself all through your book? I trust so, but I have not lighted upon one. And yet I know you love her well. Can you wonder, then--can I complain much, much as I grieve--that men should utterly misconceive of you, and are blind to the fact that you have put the whole argument between you and us on a new footing; and that, whereas it was said twenty-five years ago in the "British Critic," "Till Rome ceases to be what practically she is, union is _impossible_ between her and England," you declare, on the contrary, "It is _possible_ as soon as Italy and England, {91} haying the same faith and the same centre of unity, are allowed to hold severally their own theological opinions?"

They have not done you justice here because, in truth, the honor of our Lady is dearer to them than the conversion of England.

Take a parallel case, and consider how you would decide it yourself.

Supposing an opponent of a doctrine for which you so earnestly contend, the eternity of punishment, instead of meeting you with direct arguments against it, heaped together a number of extravagant descriptions of the place, mode, and circ.u.mstances of its infliction, quoted Tertullian as a witness for the primitive fathers, and the Covenanters and Ranters for these last centuries; brought pa.s.sages from the "Inferno" of Dante, and from the sermons of Whitfield; nay, supposing he confined himself to the chapters on the subject in Jeremy Taylor's work on "The State of Man," would you think this a fair and becoming method of reasoning? and if he avowed that he should ever consider the Anglican Church committed to all these accessories of the doctrine till its authorities formally denounced Taylor and Whitfield, and a hundred others, would you think this an equitable determination, or the procedure of a theologian?

So far concerning the Blessed Virgin, the chief but not the only subject of your volume. And now, when I could wish to proceed, she seems to stop me, for the Feast of her Immaculate Conception is upon us; and close upon its octave, which is kept with special solemnities in the churches of this town, come the great antiphons, the heralds of Christmas. That joyful season, joyful for all of us, while it centres in him who then came on earth, also brings before us in peculiar prominence that Virgin Mother who bore and nursed him. Here she is not in the background, as at Eastertide, but she brings him to us in her arms. Two great festivals, dedicated to her honor, to-morrow's and the Purification, mark out and keep the ground, and, like the towers of David, open the way to and fro for the high holiday season of the Prince of Peace. And all along it her image is upon it, such as we see it in the typical representation of the Catacombs. May the sacred influences of this time bring us all together in unity! May it destroy all bitterness on your side and ours! May it quench all jealous, sour, proud, fierce antagonism on our side; and dissipate all captious, carping, fastidious refinements of reasoning on yours! May that bright and gentle lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, overcome you with her sweetness, and revenge herself on her foes by interceding effectually for their conversion!

I am, yours, most affectionately, John H. Newman.

THE ORATORY, BIRMINGHAM, _In fest. S. Ambrosii_, 1865.

{92}

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

HAVEN'T TIME

A CHAPTER FOR PARENTS.

"That boy needs more attention," said Mr. Green, referring to his eldest son, a lad whose wayward temper and inclination to vice demanded a steady, consistent, wise, and ever-present exercise of parental watchfulness and authority.

"You may well say that," returned the mother of the boy, for to her the remark had been made. "He is getting entirely beyond me."

"If I only had the time to look after him?" Mr. Green sighed as he uttered these words.

"I think you ought to take more time for a purpose like this," said Mrs. Green.

"More time!" Mr. Green spoke with marked impatience. "What time have I to attend to him, Margaret? Am I not entirely absorbed in business?

Even now I should be at the counting-house, and am only kept away by your late breakfast."

Just then the breakfast bell rang, and Mr. and Mrs. Green, accompanied by their children, repaired to the dining-room. John, the boy about whom the parents had been talking, was among the number. As they took their places at the table he exhibited certain disorderly movements, and a disposition to annoy his younger brothers and sisters. But these were checked, instantly, by his father, of whom John stood in some fear.

Before the children had finished eating, Mr. Green laid his knife and fork side by side on his plate, pushed his chair back, and was in the act of rising, when his wife said:

"Don't go yet. Just wait until John is through with his breakfast. He acts dreadfully the moment your back is turned."

Mr. Green turned a quick, lowering glance upon the boy, whose eyes shrank beneath his angry glance, saying as ho did so:

"I haven't time to stay a moment longer; I ought to have been at my business an hour ago, But see here, my lad," addressing himself to John, "there has been enough of this work. Not a day pa.s.ses that I am not worried with complaints about you. Now, mark me! I shall inquire particularly as to your conduct when I come home at dinner-time; and, if you have given your mother any trouble, or acted in any way improperly, I will take you severely to account. It's outrageous that the whole family should be kept in constant trouble by you. Now, be on your guard!"

A moment or two Mr. Green stood frowning upon the boy, and then retired.

Scarcely had the sound of the closing street-door, which marked the fact of Mr. Green's departure, ceased to echo through the house, ere John began to act as was his custom when his father was out of the way. His mother's remonstrances were of no avail; and, when she finally compelled him to leave the table, he obeyed with a most provoking and insolent manner.

All this would have been prevented if Mr. Green had taken from business just ten minutes, and conscientiously devoted that time to {93} the government of his wayward boy and the protection of the family from his annoyances.

On arriving at his counting-house, Mr. Green found two or three persons waiting, and but a single clerk in attendance. He had felt some doubts as to the correctness of his conduct in leaving home so abruptly, under the circ.u.mstances; but the presence of the customers satisfied him that he had done right. Business, in his mind, was paramount to everything else; and his highest duty to his family he felt to be discharged when he was devoting himself most a.s.siduously to the work of procuring for them the means of external comfort, ease, and luxury. Worldly well-doing was a cardinal virtue in his eyes.

Mr. Green was the gainer, perhaps, of two shillings in the way of profit on sales, by being at his counting-house ten minutes earlier than would have been the case had he remained with his family until the completion of their morning meal. What was lost to his boy by the opportunity thus afforded for an indulgence in a perverse and disobedient temper it is hard to say. Something was, undoubtedly, lost--something, the valuation of which, in money, it would be difficult to make.

Mrs. Green did not complain of John's conduct to his father at dinner-time. She was so often forced to complain that she avoided the task whenever she felt justified in doing so; and that was, perhaps, far too often. Mr. Green asked no questions; for he knew, by experience, to what results such questions would lead, and he was in no mood for unpleasant intelligence. So John escaped, as he had escaped hundreds of times before, and felt encouraged to indulge his bad propensities at will, to his own injury and the annoyance of all around him.

If Mr. Green had no time in the morning or through the day to attend to his children, the evening, one might think, would afford opportunity for conference with them, supervision of their studies, and an earnest inquiry into their conduct and moral and intellectual progress. But such was not the case. Mr. Green was too much wearied with the occupation of the day to bear the annoyance of the children; or his thoughts were too busy with business matters, or schemes of profit, to attend to the thousand and one questions they were ready to pour in upon him from all sides; or he had a political club to attend, an engagement with some merchant for the discussion of a matter connected with trade, or felt obliged to be present at the meeting of some society of which he was a member. So he either left home immediately after tea, or the children were sent to bed in order that he might have a quiet evening for rest, business reflection, or the enjoyment of a new book.

Mr. Green had so much to do and so much to think about that he had no time to attend to his children; and this neglect was daily leaving upon them ineffaceable impressions that would inevitably mar the happiness of their after lives. This was particularly the case with John. Better off in the world was Mr. Green becoming every day--better off as it regarded money; but poorer in another sense--poorer in respect to home affections and home treasures. His children were not growing up to love him intensely, to confide in him implicitly, and to respect him as their father and friend. He had no time to attend to them, and rather pushed them away than drew them toward him with the strong cords of affection. To his wife he left their government, and she was not equal to the task.

"I don't believe," said Mrs. Green, one day, "that John is learning much at the school where he goes. I think you ought to see after him a little. He never studies a lesson at home."

"Mr. Elden has the reputation of being one of our best teachers. His school stands high," replied Mr. Green. {94} "That may happen," said Mrs. Green. "Still, I really think you ought to know, for yourself, how John is getting along. Of one thing I am certain, he does not improve in good manners nor good temper in the least. And he is never in the house between school-hours, except to get his meals. I wish you would require him to be at your counting-house during the afternoons.

School is dismissed at four o'clock, and he ranges the streets with other boys, and goes where he pleases from that time until night.

"That's very bad,"--Mr. Green spoke in a concerned voice,--"very bad.

And it must be broken up. But as to having him with me, that is out of the question. He would be into everything, and keep me in hot water all the while. He'd like to come well enough, I do not doubt; but I can't have him there."

"Couldn't you set him to do something?"