The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 108

[Footnote 132: Parfum de Rome, p. 7]

[Footnote 133: Childe Harold, canto iv.]

But the orphan who turns to her as Byron did, remains an orphan. Rome is no mother to him, and he finds no father in the patriarch who rules there. To the devout Catholic she is the mother of arts and sciences as truly as the Pope is the father of the Christian family. She is, and has been for eighteen hundred years, the centre of true civilization, because she is the central depository of the faith. From her, as from a fountain, the streams of salvation have flowed through all lands, and, having the promise both of this life and that which is to come, they have indirectly produced a large amount of material well-being, and also an infinity of {640} artistic and scientific results. Rome civilizes as Christ civilized, by sowing the seeds of civilization. She does not aim directly at material well-being; she does not any more than he teach astronomy or dynamics; she propounds no system of induction; she invents neither printing-press, steam-engines, nor telegraphs; but she so raises man above the brute, curbs his pa.s.sions, improves his understanding, instils into him principles of duty, and a sense of responsibility, so hallows his ambition and kindles his desire for the good of his kind and the progress of humanity, that under her influence he acquires insensibly an apt.i.tude even for the successful pursuit of physical science, such as no other teacher could impart. He looks abroad into the s.p.a.cious field of nature, and finds in every star and in every drop of dew an unfathomable depth of creative design. His heart quickens the energies of his brain, and he says, smiling, "My Father made them all; he made them that I may, to the best of my feeble powers, investigate and cla.s.sify them, and that he may be glorified in science as in religion." He rises to higher studies than those of physical science; he looks within, and a.n.a.lyzes his complex nature. He sees that human minds in the aggregate are capable of indefinite development as time goes on, and he concludes that, as the works of nature can be investigated to the glory of the Creator, so may the mind of man be developed to the glory of its Redeemer--be trained in philosophy, and exercised also in the application of science to the wants and usages of social life. Thus, to his apprehension, the links are clear which connect Rome--the centre of civilization--with matters which appear at first sight absolutely distinct from religion, with sewing-machines and electric cables, with Huyghens's undulatory theory of light, and Guthrie's researches into the relative sizes of drops and of bubbles.

But here, perhaps, we shall be met by an objection. "Science," it will be said, "surely not merely _appears_, but _is_ independent of religion, as the experience of ancient and modern times will show.

Still more is independent of Papal Rome, which has always been on the alert to check its progress, condemned Bishop Virgil for teaching the existence of the antipodes, and Galileo for maintaining the heliocentric system. Egypt under the Ptolemies, Etruria and Mexico, Aristotle, Lord Bacon, and Sir Isaac Newton, alike scatter your a.s.sertion to the winds; and if any doubt on the subject could linger in the mind of any one, the late encyclical would the sufficient to disabuse him of his fond delusion."

To this we reply: We will not allow that even in ancient times attainments in physical science were made irrespectively of religion.

Without religion, man lives in a savage state akin to brutes. Natural religion, on which revealed religion is founded, exalts him in a degree, and qualifies him for intellectual pursuits. Yet, even with its a.s.sistance, so corrupt is his nature, that philosophy and science can obtain no permanent command over his pa.s.sions, and his highest degrees of refinement are always succeeded by periods of degradation, and no steady advance is made. As natural religion placed the heathen in a condition somewhat favorable to the pursuit of science, so revealed religion, or, in other words, Roman Catholicism, did the like more completely, in consequence of its divine origin and perfect adaptation to the needs of mankind. It brought society step by step out of a state of semi-barbarism, and overcame the resistance offered to its social improvements by the Roman people and Emperors, by Huns and Vandals, by Islamism, Iconoclasts, and Feudalism. It covered Europe with seats of learning, and kindled the student's lamp in the monastic recesses of deep valleys and vast forests. It created a body of theological science, and of philosophical in connection with it, {641} which the more profound even of infidel thinkers admit to have been among the most marvellous products of the human mind; and this scientific system--over and above its higher purposes--was the very best intellectual training possible under the circ.u.mstances of the period. Then, as time went on, religion accepted gratefully and employed in its own service the art of printing, and prepared the human mind for those most energetic thoughts and often misdirected efforts which have been made, from the fifteenth century downward, for the discovery of physical truth. It is therefore manifest to all whose thoughts reach below the surface of things, that the services which Lord Bacon rendered to philosophy and Newton to Science, were indirectly due to the Catholic Church.

Rome, the central civilizer of society, exerts an influence far beyond her visible domain. The earth is hers, and the fulness thereof.

Whatsoever things are true and holy in faith and morals among her truants, whatever portions of her divine creed they carry away with them to build up their sects, whatever books or texts of the mutilated scriptures they retain, whatever graces shine forth in them, and in part redeem their delinquency, are all to be ascribed to her as the primary channel of communication between earth and heaven, and all belong to her as their chartered proprietress, although they have been wrested from her hands. "There is nothing right, useful, pleasing (jucundum) in human society, which the Roman pontiffs have not brought into it, or have not refined and fostered (expoliverint et foverint) when introduced." [Footnote 134] Heresy is always blended with truth, and the truth is always Rome's, while the heresy is theirs who have corrupted it. Whatever is good and true in Protestantism is of Rome; and as Protestants would have no Bible but for the councils which settled its canon, and the despised monks who transcribed it age after age, so Protestant churches would never have been founded if the great old church had not overspread Europe. Nay, the _Novum Organon_ and _Principia_ would in all probability never have seen the light.

Christianity, on the whole, keeps science alive; and but for the popes, Christianity would soon vanish from the face of the earth. As far as Bacon and Newton are indebted to Christianity for their philosophy, just in so far are they indebted to Rome as its fountain-head. Whatever stress is to be laid on the fact of their being Christians, glorifies Rome indirectly as the source of civilization. It is her very greatness and her perfect system of doctrine which brings her into collision with every form of spiritual rebellion; but those who fly off from her authority are still her children, _in so far_ as they continue members at all of the family of G.o.d. The prodigal son, amid all his degradation and wanderings, is yearned over by his father, and belongs to his father's house in a certain sense.

[Footnote 134: Pope Pius IX. Letter to M. Mahon de Monaghan.]

As to Rome being the enemy of physical science, it is not difficult to see the causes which have led to so extreme a misconception. She has ever protested, and that most energetically, against the prevalent tendency to give physics a supremacy over theology, where the two seem to clash; and she has also steadfastly resisted the pretension so constantly made by physical science to thrust into a corner some higher branches of human philosophy. Her conduct in the latter case has been simply in accordance with what is now a growing conviction in the philosophical world; while in the former case she has done nothing more than uphold as infallibly certain the doctrinal deposit committed to her charge. But with these most reasonable qualifications, she has ever been active in stimulating the keenest physical researches. Well may the present pope say that "it is _impudently_ bruited abroad that the Catholic {642} religion and the Roman pontificate are adverse to civilization and progress, and therefore to the happiness which may thence be expected." [Footnote 135] To harp upon Virgil and Galileo, proves how few and slender are the arguments which our accusers can adduce in support of their charge. If we defer to facts, and regard the entire history of Christendom, we can certainly name ten persons distinguished for physical discoveries in our own communion, for every one whom Protestantism can boast. In no Catholic country is such science discouraged, but its professors are, on the contrary, everywhere rewarded and honored. Nowhere among us has any recent science, such as geology, been prohibited, or even combated, except by individuals. Its conclusions, when really established, have been admitted by all learned Catholics notwithstanding they appeared at first sight to run counter to the words of inspiration. Cardinal Wiseman's "Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion" abundantly ill.u.s.trate what is here stated; and his whole life was a refutation of the calumny with which his creed is so often a.s.sailed. New arts, which are each the visible expression of a corresponding science, have been welcomed abroad as readily as in England; and Belgium could be traversed by steam long before the Great Western line between London and Bristol was completed. If it so happened that the greatest English astronomer, naturalist, or mathematician, were a Catholic, his co-religionists would be the most forward of all Englishmen to extol his genius. His scientific pursuits would never make him an object of suspicion with us, provided his loyalty to the church were complete; nor would his zeal be damped by any ecclesiastical authority, so, long as his conclusions involved nothing adverse to religion. The Catholic, it is true, can never make the claims of science paramount to those of faith, but the restraint thus imposed on him is of the most salutary kind, and will be no real check on his liberty of thought; for science and revelation, though it may for a while be difficult to harmonize some of their statements, must ever be found to agree strictly on closer examination.

[Footnote 135: Pius IX. Letter to M. Mahon de Monaghan.]

It would be easy to mark the successive stages in European civilization by the pontificates of popes remarkable for their energy of character and the brightness of their abilities. The average length of the reigns of the first thirty-seven was rather less than ten years; and during this time they had to struggle for something infinitely more important than art and science. They were penetrated with a deep sense of their sublime mission, and neither old age, infirmities, nor persecution, paralyzed their labors. "They employed their revenues in maintaining the poor, the sick, the infirm, the widows, orphans, and prisoners, in burying the martyrs, in erecting and embellishing oratories, in comforting and redeeming confessors and captives, and in sending aid of every description to the suffering churches of other provinces." [Footnote 136] Thus, in the wise order of providence, papal civilization began in the moral world before it extended to the intellectual. Yet in the middle of the fourth century, the pope and his coadjutors in different quarters of the globe, presented a striking spectacle, when considered merely in their intellectual aspect. St. Damasus, the thirty-eighth pope, occupied the see of St. Peter. While he zealously promoted ecclesiastical discipline, he won for himself general admiration by his virtues and his writings. His taste for letters carried him beyond the sphere of theological labor; he composed verses, and wrote several heroic poems.

[Footnote 137] He was the light of Rome, while St. Augustine, the brightest star that ever adorned the Catholic episcopate, shone at Hippo. St. Ambrose, at the same time, was the glory of Milan; St.

Gregory taught at Nyssa; St. Gregory n.a.z.ianzen {643} wrote in Constantinople; St. Martin evangelized the Gauls; St. Basil composed his "Moralia" and his Treatise on the study of ancient Greek authors at Caesarea; St. Hilary and St. Paulinus bore witness to the truth in Poitiers and Treves; St. Jerome unfolded the sacred stores of his learning in Thrace, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pontus; St. Cyril wrote beside his Saviour's tomb; and St. Patrick converted Ireland from the darkness of Druidic paganism.

[Footnote 136: J. Chantrel, "La Royaute Pontifieale," p. 74]

[Footnote 137: St. Jerome, "De Ill.u.s.tr. Eccles. Script."]

Every faithful prelate at that period--nay, every true Christian; however humble his condition--stood out more prominently from the ma.s.s of society than we can now imagine. Christianity has produced among us a certain general level of morality. But it was not so then. The ma.s.ses were still heathen, and Christians were often in a very small minority. Their principles and conduct, therefore, were so distinct from those around them, that each attracted attention, and exerted more influence than he was aware of. Each Roman Catholic--for we joyfully accept a designation which is erroneously supposed to limit our claims--each Roman Catholic was then a light shining in a dark place, and, in his measure, an apostle of civilization. He promoted science, even though he had never heard its name, for he diminished that amount of moral depravity, on the ruins of which alone science can build her gorgeous fanes. He was member of a church, which, wherever it was established, protested by its inst.i.tutions against the excessive indulgence of carnal affections. A celibate priesthood, societies of monks and nuns, hermits, and vows of chast.i.ty observed by persons living in the world, like St. Cecilia and St. Scholastica, and expiring in the arms of wife or husband without ever having done violence to the pure intentions which marked their bridal--these things formed a spectacle so extraordinary to the heathen, who had been accustomed to make sensual indulgence a feature in their religious solemnities, that it could not but excite inquiry, and issue in affixing a fresh stamp of divinity on the faith of Christ. What would have become of society by this time if the elements of decomposition which then existed had been allowed to work unchecked by the laws of Christian marriage, the prohibition of divorce, and lastly by monasticism--monasticism not forced on any one as a duty, but freely chosen as a privilege--a higher and purer state, best suited for communion with G.o.d and activity in his service!

In the fifth century, the efforts which had been made by Popes Innocent, Boniface, Celestine, and Sixtus III. for the conversion of the barbarians who overran the fairest portions of Europe, were continued with extraordinary perseverance by the great St. Leo. He formed the most conspicuous figure in his age. No element of greatness was wanting to his character, and the complicated miseries of the times only threw into stronger relief the energy of his mind and will.

His reign, from first to last, is a chapter in the history of civilization. Attila, crossing the Jura mountains with his numerous hordes, fell upon Italy. Valentinian III. fled before him, and Leo alone had weight and courage equal to the task of interceding with the resistless devastator. On the 11th of June, 452, he set forth to meet him, and found him on the banks of the Mincio. Rome was saved, and with it religion and the hopes of society. Three years after, Genseric with his Vandals stood before its gates; and though Leo could not this time altogether stay the destroyer, he saved the lives of the citizens, and Rome itself from being burnt. If she had not been possessed of a hidden and supernatural life, far transcending that idea of a civilizing agent which it so abundantly includes, she would already have been razed to the ground, as she was afterward by the Ostrogoths under Totila, and from neither devastation would she ever have been {644} able to revive. At this moment she would be numbered with Nineveh and Sidon, the foxes would bark upon the Aventine as when Belisarius rode through the deserted Forum, and shepherds would fold their flocks upon the hills where St. Peter's and St. John Lateran now dazzle the eye with splendor. [Footnote 138]

[Footnote 138: Monsignor Manning, "The Eternity of Rome."--_Lamp_, Nov. 1863.]

Happily great popes never fail. All are great in their power and influence, and almost all have been good, while from time to time Providence raises up some one also who makes an impression on his age, and is acknowledged by friends and foes alike to be gifted with those qualities which ent.i.tle him to the epithet "great." Pelagus I.

supplied the Romans with provisions during a long siege, and after the example of St. Leo, obtained from Totila some mitigation of his barbarous severities; John III. and Benedict I. ministered largely to the Italians who were dying of want, and driven from their homes by the remorseless Lombards; and writers the most adverse to the papacy--Gibbon, Daunou, [Footnote 139] Sismondi--testify to the disinterested benevolence of these and other pontiffs during the church's struggle with northern devastators. Just a century and a half had elapsed since Leo the Great's elevation, when St. Gregory ascended the papal throne amid the people's acclamation. He was at the same time doctor, legislator, and statesman; and the plain facts of his pontificate might be so related as to appear a panegyric rather than a sober history. In the midst of personal weakness and suffering, the strength of his soul and intellect were felt in every quarter of Christendom and while he composed his "Pastoral" and his "Dialogues,"

or negotiated with the Lombards in behalf of his afflicted country, news reached him frequently of the success of his missions amongst distant and barbarous people. [Footnote 140] To one of these we owe the conversion of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers; and the results it produced extort from Macaulay the admission that the spiritual supremacy a.s.sumed by the pope effected more good than harm, and that the Roman Church, by uniting all men in a bond of brotherhood, and teaching all their responsibility before G.o.d, deserves to be spoken of with respect by philosophers and philanthropists. [Footnote 141]

[Footnote 139: "Essai Historique," t. i.]

[Footnote 140: See Chantrel, "Hist. Populaire des Papes," t. v.]

[Footnote 141: "Hist. of England," chap. i.]

Sabinian, Boniface III. and IV., John IV. and VII., Theodore, Martin, Eugene, and Benedict II., trod firmly in the steps of St. Gregory, and encouraged the clergy everywhere in repairing the evils wrought by the barbarians, and in re-establishing law and order. [Footnote 142] The bishops became the natural chiefs of society, and the administration of justice was often placed in their hands by common consent. Their counsel was taken by untutored kings, and they gradually impressed them with a sense of the distinction between temporal and spiritual power, and of the right of the latter to control the undue exercise of the former. They raised by turns all the great questions that interest mankind, and established the independence of the intellectual world.

[Footnote 143] Such is the impartial testimony of writers unhappily prejudiced against the inst.i.tution they applaud.

[Footnote 142: Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," chap. ixv.]

[Footnote 143: Guizot, "Hist. de la Civilisation en Europe." "Hist.

de la Civilisation en France." t. ii.]

In their protracted conflict with Islamism, the Roman pontiffs were the champions of social improvement. It needs only to survey the opposite coasts of the Mediterranean, in order to gain some idea of the paralyzing influence which the creed of Mohammed would have exerted over human progress, if it had not been vigorously resisted.

Its prevailing dogma being fatalism, and its main precept sensuality, it has, after a lapse of twelve centuries, failed to ameliorate the condition of the tribes who profess it. If, in any respects, they enjoy advantages unknown to their forefathers, these are due, not to Mohammedanism, but to that {645} very anti-Saracenic movement which the popes headed, and which, under different conditions, they carry forward to this day. Permanent degradation was all that Islamism could promise. The Arabs alone kindled for a while the lamp of learning, but even their subtlety and genius did not suffice to keep its flame alive. Everywhere, and with all the forces at their command, the popes repelled its encroachments. More than once they girded on the sword, and led their warriors to the charge against the Moslem host. During a hundred and seventy years--from 1096 to 1270--they roused and united the nations again and again in the common cause. Other statesmen were unable to form extensive combinations, but _they_ were often successful where diplomacy failed. In eight successive crusades, the flower of Europe's chivalry was marshalled on the Syrian plains, and if Catholic arms failed in retaining possession of the city of Jerusalem and the sepulchre of Christ, they at all events saved the cause of European civilization, and ultimately drove back the intruder from the vineyards of Spain and the gates of Vienna, and sank their proud galleys in the waves of Lepanto. When the zeal of crusaders died away, the Roman pontiffs ever tried to rekindle it, constantly rebuked the princes who made terms with the false prophet, and exhorted them to expel the conquered Saracens from their soil. Such was the policy of Clement IV., under whom, in 1268, the last crusade was set on foot.

[Footnote 144] Two centuries later, Calixtus III. was animated with the same sentiments. He was appalled, as his predecessor had been, at the progress the Turks made in Europe after the capture of Constantinople, and made a strenuous appeal to the Catholic kingdoms against the Mussulman invasions. At an advanced age he preserved in his soul the fire of youth, sent preachers in every direction to rouse the slumbering zeal of the faithful, and himself equipped an army of 60,000 men, which he sent under the command of Campestran, his legate, to the help of the n.o.ble Hunyad in Hungary. Pius II. succeeded him in 1458. He was at once theologian, orator, diplomatist, canonist, historian, geographer, and poet. He struggled hard to organize a crusade against the Ottomans, formed a league to this end with Mathias Corvin, king of Hungary, pressed the king of France, the duke of Burgundy, and the republic of Venice into the cause, and placed himself at the head of the expedition. He was on the point of embarking at Ancona, and in sight of the Venetian galleys, waiting to transport him to the foreign sh.o.r.e, when fever surprised him, and he died. "No doubt," he said, "war is unsuitable to the weakness of old men, and the character of pontiffs, but when religion is ready to succ.u.mb, what can detain us? We shall be followed by our cardinals and a large number of bishops. We shall march with our standard unfolded, and with the relics of saints, with Jesus Christ himself in the holy Eucharist." The spectacle would certainly have been grand, if Pius II.

had thus appeared before the walls of Constantinople; but Providence had not willed it so.

[Footnote 144: See his letter to the King of Arragon. Fleury, "Hist, Eccles." An. 1266.]

These are but a few of the great names which lent weight to the appeal in behalf of the hara.s.sed pilgrims in Palestine, the outraged tomb of the Redeemer, and the Christian lands overran by Saracens and Turkish hordes. To whatever causes the worldly-wise historian may attribute the overthrow of the Ottoman power in Europe, the Catholic will ascribe it without hesitation to the untiring activity of the popes.

Divided as the petty kingdoms and princ.i.p.alities of the west were by mutual jealousy and ceaseless warfare, they would never have been able to oppose a compact front to the advances of Islamism, if they had not been persuaded by popes and prelates, by Peter the hermit, St.

Bernard, and {646} Foulque, to lay aside their miserable disputes, and unite against the common enemy. Thus, by the crusades, immediate benefit accrued to European society, and the character of the church as a ruler and leader was never borne in upon the minds of men with greater force than when Adhemar, the apostolic legate, put himself at the head of the Crusade under Urban II., "wore by turns the prelate's mitre and the knight's casque," and proved the model, the consoler, and the stay of the sacred expedition. [Footnote 145] The presence of bishops and priests among the soldiery impressed on the Crusades a religious stamp favorable to the enthusiasm and piety of the combatants, and corrective of the evils which never fail to follow the camp. [Footnote 146] Nations learned their Christian brotherhood, which former ages had taught them to forget; minds were enlarged by travel, and prejudices were dispelled; civilizing arts were acquired even from the infidel, and brought back to western towns and villages as the most precious spoil. As Rome had, at an earlier period, resisted the superst.i.tion and rapacity of Leo the Isaurian, [Footnote 147] and rescued Christian art from the hands of the image-breakers, so now she opened the way to commerce with the east and rewarded the zeal of Catholic populations with the costly bales and rich produce of Arabia and Syria.

[Footnote 145: Michaad et Poujouiat, "Hist. des Croisades."]

[Footnote 146: See Heeren, "Essai sur l'Influence des Croisades."]

[Footnote 147: "Parfum de Rome," t. i. p. 124.]

Having turned the feudal system to good account in its conflict with Mohammedanism, the Church, with Rome for its centre, rejoiced to find that system, at the close of the struggle, considerably weakened. It had grown to maturity in a barbarous age, and was but a milder form of that slavery which had so deeply disgraced the inst.i.tutions of Pagan Rome. [Footnote 148] It perpetuated the distinctions of caste, and the privilege enjoyed by one family of oppressing others. It was selfishness exalted by pride--the right of the strong over the weak.

It exacted forced tribute, and held in its own violent hands the moral, mental, and material well-being of its subjects. It required blind and absolute submission, and often refused to dispense justice even at this price. Immobility was its ruling principle, and there was nothing on which it frowned more darkly than amelioration and progress. In all these particulars it was at variance with the religion of Christ, and for this reason Rome never ceased to combat its manifold abuses.

[Footnote 148: See "Rome under Paganism," etc., vol. 1. pp. 50-53.]

At the close of the Crusades the n.o.bles began to learn their proper place. Petty fiefs and small republics disappeared, and one strong and regal executive swallowed up a mult.i.tude of inferior and vexatious masteries. The barons became the support of the throne whose authority they had so long weakened, and ceased to oppress the people as they had done for ages. Cities multiplied, and rose to opulence; munic.i.p.al governments flourished, acquired and conferred privileges, and afforded to the industrious abundant scope for wholesome emulation, and laudable ambition. All the arts of life were brought into exercise, and a new and middling cla.s.s of society was called into being. The merchants, the tradesmen, and the gentry obtained their recognized footing in the community, and numberless corporations, guilds, and militia testified to the growing importance of the burgess as distinguished from the n.o.ble and the villain. [Footnote 149]

[Footnote 149: See Mably, "Observations sur l'Histoire de France,"

iii. 7.]

Well-ordered governments on a large scale involved of necessity the cultivation of the soil. Myriads of acres which, before the Crusades, had been barren or baneful, now smiled with waving corn, or bore rich harvests of luscious grapes. The want of bulky transports to convey large cargoes of men and munitions to the East had caused great alteration and improvement in the construction of ships. {647} Navigation and commerce gained fresh vigor; maritime laws and customs came to be recognized, and were reduced, about the middle of the thirteenth century, into a manual called _Consolato del mar_, [Footnote 150] Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Ma.r.s.eilles rose to wealth and splendor; sugar and silks were manufactured; stuffs were woven and dyed; metals were wrought; architecture was diversified and improved, medicine learned many a precious rule and remedy from Arab leeches; geography corrected long-standing blunders; and poetry found a new world in which to expatiate. None of these results were unforeseen by the prescience of Rome. She knew that it was her mission to renew the face of the earth; nor, in pursuing her unwavering policy in reference to Islamism, did she ever forget that it was given her from the first to suck the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Gentiles, and to a.s.similate to her own system all that is rich and rare in nature, wonderful in science, beauteous in art, wise in literature, and n.o.ble in man. The Roman Church had ever been the friend and patron of those slaves whom Cato and Cicero, with all their philosophy, so heartily despised.

[Footnote 151] She did not indeed affirm that slavery was impossible under the Christian law, but she discouraged it. "At length," says Voltaire, whose testimony on such a point none will suspect, "Pope Alexander III., in 1167, declared in the name of the Council that all Christians should be (_devaient etre_) exempt from slavery. This law alone ought to render his memory dear to all people, as his efforts to maintain the liberty of Italy should make his name precious to the Italians." [Footnote 152] Lord Macaulay has spoken frankly of the advantage to which the Catholic Church shows in some countries as contrasted with our forms of Christianity, and says it is notorious that the antipathy between the European and African races is less strong at Rio Janeiro than at Washington. [Footnote 153] On the authority of Sir Thomas Smith, one of Elizabeth's most able counsellors, he a.s.sures us that the Catholic priests up to that time had used their most strenuous exertions to abolish serfdom. Confessors never failed to adjure the dying n.o.ble who owned serfs to free his brethren for whom Christ died. Thus the bondsman became loosened from the glebe which gave him birth; many during the Crusades left their plough in the furrow, and their cattle at the trough, and escaped from service they had long detested; and many knights and lords who returned from the Holy Land emanc.i.p.ated their serfs of their own accord. Free hirelings took the place of hereditary bondsmen; and the peasant's life a.s.sumed a pleasant and civilized aspect. In proportion as Rome's genuine influence prevails in any country over clergy and people, the traces of the fall diminish, and those of paradise are restored.

[Footnote 150: E. M. de Monaghan, p. 219. ]

[Footnote 151: Cic. Orat de Harusp, Resp. xii. ]

[Footnote 152: Sur les Moeurs, ch. 83. ]

[Footnote 153: Hist. of England, chap. i.]

The Roman pontiff have often been accused of interfering in the private affairs of princes. But the charge is unjust. It is part of their mission to repress all moral disorders, and especially to punish the licentiousness of sovereigns whose bad example promotes immorality among their subjects. Their jurisdiction is fully admitted; their right of granting or refusing a divorce no Catholic prince disputes any more than their right of inflicting penances in case of adultery or incest. To deny them, therefore, the opportunity of investigating the very cases on which they must ultimately decide, would be manifestly inconsistent and absurd. When Lothaire II. of Lorraine drove away from his court the virtuous Teustberghe, and accused her of disgraceful crimes, who can blame Nicholas I. for having espoused the cause of this persecuted queen, and excommunicated in council her unjust lord? Did the popes "interfere" in such matters otherwise than in the interests of humanity; and if they had {648} consulted their own ease and comfort, would they not have abstained from such interference altogether? Let the world call it papal aggression, usurpation, political scheming, or what other hard name it will, the true Christian will see in it nothing but disinterested devotion to the voice of conscience and the good of society. G.o.d himself seems to have declared in favor of Pope Nicholas in the affair alluded to; for when Louis le Germanique took up arms to avenge his brother, and marched on Rome, the pontiff met his armies with fasting and litanies, and with no other standard than the crucifix given by the Empress Helena containing a fragment of the true cross. The victorious king was overcome by these demonstrations, and, imploring the pope's pardon, submitted to all his conditions. [Footnote 154] We hesitate not to affirm that the "interference" of the popes in temporal affairs has more than once saved Europe from Islamism, even as at the present time they are saving her from total infidelity. Whether successful or unsuccessful, they struggled with equal constancy and valor against that formidable power. About the year 876 Mussulman hordes infested the country around Rome to such an extent that at last scarcely a hamlet or drove of oxen remained to suffer by the widespread disaster.

Three hundred Saracen galleys menaced the mouth of the Tiber, and John VIII., deserted and betrayed by neighboring dukes, implored by letter the aid of Charles the Bald and the Emperor Charles of Germany. Yet he failed, and that not so much through the strength of the Mohammedans as through the base conduct of princes called Christian, who cast him into prison, and then drove him to find refuge in France. Often have the popes been obliged to follow the example of John VIII., and look forth from their retirement in foreign lands on the tempest they have braved and escaped. His 320 letters show how much temporal affairs occupied his attention, because G.o.d willed that his spiritual authority should show forth its civilizing tendency in temporal intervention. His conflict with Islamism, which seemed unproductive at the time, bore fruit in after ages.

[Footnote 154: Milman's Hist. of Latin Christianity. ]

The differences which arose and lasted so long between the popes and the emperors of Germany are constantly misrepresented by writers adverse to the Church. Their origin lay in the attachment of the Roman pontiffs to principles which they can never abandon. The invest.i.ture quarrel was a long struggle of spiritual authority against imperial aggression, and the apparent compromise in which it issued left the divine prerogatives of the Holy See intact. Simony was one great plague of the middle ages, and but for the popes the princes of Europe would have filled the Lord's temple with impious traffic. But for the popes, too, many of them would have been unchecked in their proud dreams of universal empire, which, if realized, would have been as injurious to the liberties of mankind as to the free action of the church. Frederick II., who was born in Italy, and lived to spend long years in its delicious climate, without once visiting his German domains, desired to establish in her the throne of the Caesars. This was the secret of all his disputes with the pope, and this ambitious project every successor of St. Peter felt bound to resist. But amid all these struggles, from Gregory VII. to Calistus II., the life of the church was a continual child-bearing, and while the popes battled with crowned princes, they labored also for the souls of the poor. If you would find the inexhaustible mine of that salt which keeps the whole world from corruption, you must seek it in the hill where Paul was buried, and Peter expired on his inverted cross. Proceeding thus by regular stages in the work of improvement, the Roman Church had the satisfaction of seeing every formula of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt signed by prince or baron in the name of religion. It was {649} always with some Christian idea, some hope of future recompense, some recognition of the equality of all men in the sight of G.o.d, that the strong voluntarily loosened the bonds of the weak. Absurd and barbarous legislation was gradually reformed under the same influence; and trials by single combat, oaths without evidence, and pa.s.sing through fire or cold water as a test of innocence, were supplanted by more rational processes. M. Gnizot has pointed out the great superiority of the laws of the Visigoths over those of other barbarous people around them; and he ascribes this difference to their having been drawn up under the direction of the Councils of Toledo. They laid great stress on the examination of written doc.u.ments in all trials, accepted mere affirmation on oath only as a last resource, and distinguished between the different degrees of guilt in homicide, with or without premeditation, provoked or unprovoked, and the like. If M. Guizot's observation is well founded in the case of an Arian code, how much more weight would it have, if made in reference to laws framed under Catholic influence. Civilization and theology went hand in hand. Every question was considered in its theological bearing. The habits, the feelings, and the language of men continually bespoke religious ideas.

Barbaric wisdom was guided by the Star of the East to Bethlehem, and matured in the school of Christ. The public penances imposed by the church became the form to which penal inflictions were moulded by the law; the repentance of the culprit, and the fear of offending inspired in bystanders, being the twofold object kept in view. The progress made by the nations under such tutelage has been allowed by many Protestant historians, and it would be easy to cite the testimony of Robertson, Sismondi, Leibnitz, Coquerel, Ancillon, [Footnote 155] and De Muller, [Footnote 156] to the truth of our statements. Duels in the middle ages, and even down to the time of Louis XIV., raged like an epidemic, produced deadly feuds between families, abolished all just decision of disputes, and gave the advantage to the more agile and skilful of the combatants. From 1589 to 1607 no less than 4000 French gentleman lost their lives in duels. [Footnote 157] The genius of Sully and Richelieu was unequal to the task of crushing this two-fold crime of suicide and murder. But the church had never ceased to denounce it, and, in the Council of Trent especially, launched all her thunders against it. [Footnote 158] At length temporal princes were guided by her voice in this matter. Charles V. forbade it in his vast dominions; in Portugal it was punished with confiscation and banishment to Africa; and in Sweden it was visited with death.