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[Illustration: CARDINAL NEWMAN.]




  _MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.--SPECIAL NUMBER_

   SELECTIONS

   FROM THE PROSE WRITINGS

   OF

   JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

  _FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS_




[Illustration]

   NEW YORK
   CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.


   COPYRIGHT, 1906,
   by
   MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO.




  CONTENTS


                                                   PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                                       5

  CHARACTER SKETCHES:

    Saul                                            13

    Early Years of David                            28

    Basil and Gregory                               45

    Augustine and the Vandals                       56

    Chrysostom                                      84

  THE TURK:

    The Tartar and the Turk                        111

    The Turk and the Saracen                       122

    The Past and Present of the Ottomans           143

  UNIVERSITIES:

    What is a University?                          155

    University Life: Athens                        163

    Supply and Demand: The Schoolmen               180

    The Strength and Weakness of Universities:
        Abelard                                    186

  MISCELLANEOUS:

    Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics  200

    The Infinitude of the Divine Attributes        218

    Christ upon the Waters                         222

    The Second Spring                              229

    St. Paul's Characteristic Gift                 251

  NOTES                                            269




  INTRODUCTION


It has come to be universally admitted that Cardinal Newman fulfills his
own definition of a great author: "One whose aim is to give forth what
he has within him; and from his very earnestness it happens that
whatever be the splendor of his diction, or the harmony of his periods,
he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity.

"Whatever be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its
own sake.... He writes passionately because he feels keenly; forcibly,
because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too
serious to be otiose; he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is
rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is
consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous.

"When his imagination wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart
is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right word for
the right idea, and never a word too much....

"He expresses what all feel but cannot say; and his sayings pass into
proverbs among his people, and his phrases become household words,
idioms of their daily speech, which is tessellated with the rich
fragments of his language, as we see in foreign lands the marbles of
Roman grandeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern palaces."

Newman may be said to have handled England's prose as Shakespeare
handled her verse. His language was wrought up little by little to a
finish and refinement, a strength and a subtlety, thrown into the form
of eloquence, beyond which no English writer of prose has gone. Nor is
his excellence that of mere art in form; he possesses not only skill,
which he calls an exercise of talent, but power--a second name for
genius--which itself implies personality and points to inspiration.

His mind was large, logical, profoundly thoughtful, imaginative,
intense, sincere, and above all, spiritual; his soul was keen, delicate,
sympathetic, heroic; and his life, at once severe and tender, passionate
and self-controlled, alone and unlonely, stands out in its loftiness and
saintliness, a strange, majestic contrast to the agitation and turmoil
of "confused passions, hesitating ideals, tentative virtues, and groping
philanthropies" amidst which it was lived.

Both by word and work did Newman lead forth his generation on the long
pilgrimage to the shrine of Truth, and England of the nineteenth century
has no surer claim to holiness and genius for her great sons than that
set upon John Henry Newman.

He was born in London, 1801; studied, taught, and preached at Oxford;
became the chief promoter of the Tractarian Movement of 1833; entered
the Catholic Church in 1845; founded the Oratory at Birmingham, 1848;
was created Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII 1879; died at Edgbaston, 1890.

Any attempt to choose from the writings of Newman what seems most
desirable for brief class studies is certain to be woefully embarrassed
by the very wealth of matter; and apology for risking the choice would
be due, were it not lost sight of in the desire to see a literary model
so pure, varied, animated, forceful, luminous--"a thing of light and
beauty"--given to our students.

What is more significant of the Life Book of the saintly Oxford Scholar
than his self-written epitaph: "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem?"




  APPRECIATIONS


Newman's best essays display a delicate and flexible treatment of
language, without emphasis, without oddity, which hardly arrests the
attention at first,--the reader being absorbed in the argument or
statement,--but which, in course of time, fascinates, as a thing
miraculous in its limpid grace and suavity.

    --_Edmund Gosse's History of Modern English Literature._

The work of Newman reveals him as one of the great masters of graceful,
scholarly, finished prose. It is individual, it has charm, and this is
the secret of its power to interest. No writer of our time has reflected
his mind and heart in his pages as has Newman. He has light for the
intellect and warmth for the heart.

    --_A. J. George's Types of Literary Art._

Newman towers, with only three or four compeers, above his generation;
and now that the benignity of his great nature has passed from our
sight, its majesty is more evident year by year.

    --_Scudder's Modern English Poets._

The finish and urbanity of Newman's prose have been universally
commended even by those who are most strenuously opposed to his
opinions.

    --_H. J. Nicoll._

All the resources of a master of English style are at Newman's command:
pure diction, clear arrangement, delicate irony, gracious dignity, a
copious command of words combined with a chaste reserve in using them.
All these qualities go to make up the charm of Newman's style--the
finest flower that the earliest system of a purely classical education
has produced.

    --_J. Jacobs's Literary Studies._

Newman combines a thoroughly classical training, a scholarly form, with
the incommunicable and almost inexplicable power to move audiences and
readers.

    --_George Saintsbury._

The pure style of Newman may be compared in its distinguishing quality
to the atmosphere. It is at once simple and subtle, vigorous and
elastic; it penetrates into every recess of its subject; it is
transparent, allowing each object it touches to display its own proper
color.

    --_H. E. Beeching's English Prose._

There are touching passages characteristic of Newman's writings which
give them a peculiar charm. They are those which yield momentary
glimpses of a very tender heart that has a burden of its own, unrevealed
to man.... It is, as I have heard it described, as though he suddenly
opened a book and gave you a glimpse for a moment of wonderful secrets,
and then as quickly closed it.... In Newman's Sermons, how the old truth
became new; how it came home, as he spoke, with a meaning never felt
before! He laid his finger how gently, yet how powerfully, on some inner
place in the hearer's heart, and told him things about himself he had
never known till then. Subtlest truths, which it would have taken
philosophers pages of circumlocution and big words to state, were
dropped out by the way in a sentence or two of the most transparent
Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet what strength! how simple, yet how
suggestive! how penetrating, yet how refined! how homely, yet how
tender-hearted! You might come away still not believing the tenets
peculiar to the High Church System, but you would be harder than most
men if you did not feel more than ever ashamed of coarseness,
selfishness, worldliness, if you did not feel the things of faith
brought closer to the soul.... Newman's innate and intense idealism is,
perhaps, his most striking characteristic.... It is a thought of his,
always deeply felt and many times repeated, that this visible world is
but the outward shell of an invisible kingdom, a screen which hides from
our view things far greater and more wonderful than any which we see,
and that the unseen world is close to us and ever ready to break through
the shell and manifest itself.

    --_Shairp._

Newman's great reputation for prose and the supreme interest attaching
to his life seem to have obscured the fame he might have won as a poet.
He was in poetry, as in theology, a more masculine Keble, but with all
the real purity of Keble, with also the indispensable flavor of
earth.

    --_H. Walker._

The _Dream of Gerontius_ resembles Dante more than any other poetry
written since the great Tuscan's time.

    --_Sir Henry Taylor._

The _Dream_ is a rare poetic rendering into English verse of that high
ritual which from the death-bed to the Mass of Supplication encompasses
the faithful soul.... Newman has no marked affinities with English
writers of his day. He is strikingly different from Macaulay, whose
eloquence betrays the fury, as it is annealed in the fire, of the
Western Celt. To Ruskin, who deliberately built up a monument, stately
as the palace of Kubla Khan, he is a contrast, for the very reason that
he does not handle words as if they were settings in architecture or
colors in a palette; rather, he would look upon them as transparencies
which let his meaning through. He is more like De Quincey, but again no
player upon the organ for the sake of its music; and that which is
common to both is the literary tradition of the eighteenth century
enhanced by a power to which abstract and concrete yielded in almost
equal degree.... With so prompt and intense an intellect at his call,
there was no subject, outside purely technical criticism, which Newman
could not have mastered.

    --_Barry's Literary Lives._

It is when Newman exerts his flexible and vivid imagination in depicting
the deepest religious passion that we are most carried away by him and
feel his great genius most truly.... Whether tried by the test of
nobility, intensity, and steadfastness of his work, or by the test of
the greatness of the powers which have been consecrated to that work,
Cardinal Newman has been one of the greatest of our modern great men.

    --_R. H. Hutton's Life of Newman._

Newman's mind was world-wide. He was interested in everything that was
going on in science, in the highest form of politics, in literature....
Nothing was too large for him, nothing too trivial, if it threw light
upon the central question,--what man really is and what is his destiny.

    --_J. A. Froude._

In Newman's sketch of the influence of Abelard on his disciples is seen
his belief in the immense power for good or ill of a dominating
personality. And he himself supplied an object-lesson in his theory.
Shairp, Froude, Church, Wilberforce, Gladstone, are only a few of those
who have borne testimony to the personal magnetism which left its mark
on the whole of thinking Oxford. "Cor ad cor loquitur," the motto chosen
by Newman on his receiving the Cardinal's hat, expressed to him the
whole reality of intercourse between man and man, and man and God.

    --_Wilfrid Ward's Problems and Persons._

Newman's mind swung through a wide arc, and thoughts apparently
antagonistic often were to him supplemental each to each.... A man of
dauntless courage and profound thoughtfulness, while his intellect was
preeminently a logical one, both the heart and the moral sense possessed
with him their sacred tribunals in matters of reasoning as well as of
sentiment.... The extreme subtlety of his intelligence opposed no
hindrance to his power of exciting vehement emotion.

    --_A. De Vere's Literary Reminiscences._




  I. CHARACTER SKETCHES




  SAUL

     "I gave them a king in mine anger, and took him away in my
     wrath."--_Hosea_ xiii. 11.


  The Israelites seem to have asked for a king
  from an unthankful caprice and waywardness.
  The ill conduct, indeed, of Samuel's sons was the
  occasion of the sin, but "an evil heart of
  unbelief," to use Scripture language, was the real cause            5
  of it. They had ever been restless and
  dissatisfied, asking for flesh when they had manna,
  fretful for water, impatient of the wilderness, bent
  on returning to Egypt, fearing their enemies,
  murmuring against Moses. They had miracles                         10
  even to satiety; and then, for a change, they
  wished a king like the nations. This was the
  chief reason of their sinful demand. And further,
  they were dazzled with the pomp and splendor
  of the heathen monarchs around them, and they                      15
  desired some one to fight their battles, some
  visible succor to depend on, instead of having
  to wait for an invisible Providence, which came in
  its own way and time, by little and little, being
  dispensed silently, or tardily, or (as they might                  20
  consider) unsuitably. Their carnal hearts did
  not love the neighborhood of heaven; and, like
  the inhabitants of Gadara afterwards, they prayed
  that Almighty God would depart from their
  coasts.                                                             5

  Such were some of the feelings under which they
  desired a king like the nations; and God at length
  granted their request. To punish them, He gave
  them a king _after their own heart_, Saul, the son of
  Kish, a Benjamite; of whom the text speaks in                      10
  these terms, "I gave them a king in Mine anger,
  and took him away in My wrath."

  There is, in true religion, a sameness, an absence
  of hue and brilliancy, in the eyes of the natural
  man; a plainness, austereness, and (what he                        15
  considers) sadness. It is like the heavenly manna of
  which the Israelites complained, insipid, and at
  length wearisome, "like wafers made with honey."
  They complained that "their soul was dried
  away." "There is nothing at all," they said,                       20
  "beside this manna, before our eyes.... We
  remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt
  freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the
  leeks, and the onions, and the garlick."[1] Such
  were the dainty meats in which their soul                          25
  delighted; and for the same reason they desired a
  king. Samuel had too much of primitive
  simplicity about him to please them, they felt they
  were behind the world, and clamored to be put
  on a level with the heathen.                                       30

    [1] Exod. xvi.; Numb. xi. 5.

  Saul, the king whom God gave them, had much
  to recommend him to minds thus greedy of the
  dust of the earth. He was brave, daring,
  resolute; gifted, too, with strength of body as well
  as of mind--a circumstance which seems to                           5
  have attracted their admiration. He is described
  in person as if one of those sons of Anak, before
  whose giant-forms the spies of the Israelites in the
  wilderness were as grasshoppers--"a choice
  young man, and a goodly; there was not among                       10
  the children of Israel a goodlier person than he:
  from his shoulders and upward he was higher
  than any of the people."[2] Both his virtues and
  his faults were such as became an eastern monarch,
  and were adapted to secure the fear and                            15
  submission of his subjects. Pride, haughtiness,
  obstinacy, reserve, jealousy, caprice--these, in
  their way, were not unbecoming qualities in the
  king after whom their imaginations roved. On
  the other hand, the better parts of his character                  20
  were of an excellence sufficient to engage the
  affection of Samuel himself.

    [2] 1 Sam. ix. 2--_vide ibid._ x. 23.

  As to Samuel, his conduct is far above human
  praise. Though injuriously treated by his countrymen,
  who cast him off after he had served them                          25
  faithfully till he was "old and gray-headed,"[3] and
  who resolved on setting over themselves a king
  against his earnest entreaties, still we find no trace
  of coldness or jealousy in his behavior towards
  Saul. On his first meeting with him, he addressed                  30
  him in the words of loyalty--"On whom
  is all the desire of Israel? is it not on thee, and
  on all thy father's house?" Afterwards, when he
  anointed him king, he "kissed him, and said, Is it
  not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be                       5
  captain over His inheritance?" When he announced
  him to the people as their king, he said,
  "See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that
  there is none like him among all the people?"
  And, some time after, when Saul had irrecoverably                  10
  lost God's favor, we are told, "Samuel came no
  more to see Saul until the day of his death:
  _nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul_." In the
  next chapter he is even rebuked for immoderate
  grief--"How long wilt thou mourn for Saul,                         15
  seeing I have rejected him from reigning over
  Israel?"[4] Such sorrow speaks favorably for
  Saul as well as for Samuel; it is not only the grief
  of a loyal subject and a zealous prophet, but,
  moreover, of an attached friend; and, indeed,                      20
  instances are recorded, in the first years of his
  reign, of forbearance, generosity, and neglect of
  self, which sufficiently account for the feelings
  with which Samuel regarded him. David, under
  very different circumstances, seems to have felt                   25
  for him a similar affection.

    [3] _Ibid._ xii. 2.

    [4] 1 Sam. ix. 20; x. 1, 24; xv. 35; xvi. 1.

  The higher points of his character are brought
  out in instances such as the following: The
  first announcement of his elevation came upon
  him suddenly, but apparently without unsettling                    30
  him. He kept it secret, leaving it to Samuel, who
  had made it to him, to publish it. "Saul said
  unto his uncle, He" (that is, Samuel) "told us
  plainly that the asses were found. But of the
  matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake,                        5
  _he told him not_." Nay, it would even seem he
  was averse to the dignity intended for him; for
  when the Divine lot fell upon him, he hid himself,
  and was not discovered by the people, without
  recourse to Divine assistance. The appointment                     10
  was at first unpopular. "The children of Belial
  said, How shall this man save us? They despised
  him, and brought him no presents, _but he held his
  peace_." Soon the Ammonites invaded the
  country beyond Jordan, with the avowed intention of                15
  subjugating it. The people sent to Saul for relief
  almost in despair; and the panic spread in the
  interior as well as among those whose country
  was immediately threatened. The history
  proceeds: "_Behold, Saul came after the herd out of                20
  the field_; and Saul said, What aileth the people
  that they weep? and they told him the tidings
  of the men of Jabesh. And the Spirit of God
  came upon Saul, and his anger was kindled
  greatly." His order for an immediate gathering                     25
  throughout Israel was obeyed with the alacrity
  with which the multitude serve the strong-minded
  in times of danger. A decisive victory over the
  enemy followed; then the popular cry became,
  "Who is he that said, Shall Saul reign over us?                    30
  bring the men, that we may put them to death.
  And Saul said, _There shall not a man be put to
  death this day_, for to-day the Lord hath wrought
  salvation in Israel."[5]

    [5] 1 Sam. xi. 12, 13.

  Thus personally qualified, Saul was, moreover,
  a prosperous king. He had been appointed to                         5
  subdue the enemies of Israel, and success attended
  his arms. At the end of the fourteenth chapter,
  we read: "So Saul took the kingdom over Israel
  and fought against all his enemies on every side,
  against Moab, and against the children of                          10
  Ammon, and against Edom, and against the kings of
  Zobah, and against the Philistines; and
  whithersoever he turned himself, he vexed them. And
  he gathered an host, and smote the Amalekites,
  and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that                 15
  spoiled them."

  Such was Saul's character and success; his
  character faulty, yet not without promise; his
  success in arms as great as his carnal subjects
  could have desired. Yet, in spite of Samuel's                      20
  private liking for him, and in spite of the good
  fortune which actually attended him, we find that
  from the beginning the prophet's voice is raised
  both against people and king in warnings and
  rebukes, which are omens of his destined                           25
  destruction, according to the text, "I gave them a king in
  Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath."
  At the very time that Saul is publicly received as
  king, Samuel protests, "Ye have this day rejected
  your God, who Himself saved you out of all your                    30
  adversities and your tribulations."[6] In a
  subsequent assembly of the people, in which he
  testified his uprightness, he says, "Is it not wheat
  harvest to-day? I will call unto the Lord, and
  He shall send thunder and rain; _that ye may                        5
  perceive and see that your wickedness is great_, in asking
  you a king." Again, "If ye shall still do wickedly,
  ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king."[7]
  And after this, on the first instance of disobedience
  and at first sight no very heinous sin, the sentence               10
  of rejection is passed upon him: "Thy kingdom
  shall not continue; the Lord hath sought Him a
  man after His own heart."[8]

    [6] 1 Sam. x. 19.

    [7] _Ibid._ xii. 17, 25.

    [8] _Ibid._ xiii. 14.

  Here, then, a question may be raised--Why
  was Saul thus marked for vengeance from the                        15
  beginning? Why these presages of misfortune,
  which from the first hung over him, gathered, fell
  in storm and tempest, and at length overwhelmed
  him? Is his character so essentially faulty that
  it must be thus distinguished for reprobation                      20
  above all the anointed kings after him? Why,
  while David is called a man after God's own heart,
  should Saul be put aside as worthless?

  This question leads us to a deeper inspection of,
  his character. Now, we know, the first duty of                     25
  every man is the fear of God--a reverence for His
  word, a love of Him, and a desire to obey Him; and,
  besides, it was peculiarly incumbent on the king of
  Israel, as God's vicegerent, by virtue of his office, to
  promote His glory whom his subjects had rejected.                  30

  Now Saul "lacked this one thing." His
  character, indeed, is obscure, and we must be cautious
  while considering it; still, as Scripture is given us
  for our instruction, it is surely right to make the
  most of what we find there, and to form our                         5
  judgment by such lights as we possess. It would
  appear, then, that Saul was never under the
  abiding influence of religion, or, in Scripture language,
  "the fear of God," however he might be at times
  moved and softened. Some men are inconsistent                      10
  in their conduct, as Samson; or as Eli, in a
  different way; and yet may have lived by faith,
  though a weak faith. Others have sudden falls,
  as David had. Others are corrupted by
  prosperity, as Solomon. But as to Saul, there is no                15
  proof that he had any deep-seated religious
  principle at all; rather, it is to be feared, that his
  history is a lesson to us, that the "heart of unbelief"
  may exist in the very sight of God, may rule a man
  in spite of many natural advantages of character,                  20
  in the midst of much that is virtuous, amiable,
  and commendable.

  Saul, it would seem, was naturally brave,
  active, generous, and patient; and what nature
  made him, such he remained, that is, without                       25
  improvement; with virtues which had no value,
  because they required no effort, and implied the
  influence of no principle. On the other hand,
  when we look for evidence of his faith, that is, his
  practical sense of things unseen, we discover                      30
  instead a deadness to all considerations not connected
  with the present world. It is his habit to
  treat prophet and priest with a coldness, to say
  the least, which seems to argue some great internal
  defect. It would not be inconsistent with the
  Scripture account of him, even should the real                      5
  fact be, that (with some general notions
  concerning the being and providence of God) he doubted
  of the divinity of the Dispensation of which he was
  an instrument. The circumstance which first
  introduces him to the inspired history is not in his               10
  favor. While in search of his father's asses,
  which were lost, he came to the city where
  Samuel was; and though Samuel was now an old
  man, and from childhood known as the especial
  minister and prophet of the God of Israel, Saul                    15
  seems to have considered him as a mere diviner,
  such as might be found among the heathen, who,
  for "the fourth part of a shekel of silver," would
  tell him his way.

  The narrative goes on to mention, that after his                   20
  leaving Samuel "God gave him another heart,"
  and on meeting a company of prophets, "the
  Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied
  among them." Upon this, "all that knew him
  beforetime" said, "What is this that is come unto                  25
  the son of Kish: is Saul also among the prophets?
  ... therefore it became a proverb." From this
  narrative we gather, that his carelessness and
  coldness in religious matters were so notorious,
  that, in the eyes of his acquaintance, there was                   30
  a certain strangeness and incongruity, which at
  once struck the mind, in his being associated with
  a school of the prophets.

  Nor have we any reason to believe, from the
  after history, that the Divine gift, then first
  imparted, left any religious effect upon his mind.                  5
  At a later period of his life we find him suddenly
  brought under the same sacred influence on his
  entering the school where Samuel taught; but,
  instead of softening him, its effect upon his
  outward conduct did but testify the fruitlessness of               10
  Divine grace when acting upon a will obstinately
  set upon evil.

  The immediate occasion of his rejection was his
  failing under a specific trial of his obedience, as
  set before him at the very time he was anointed.                   15
  He had collected with difficulty an army against
  the Philistines; while waiting for Samuel to offer
  the sacrifice, his people became dispirited, and
  began to fall off and return home. Here he was
  doubtless exposed to the temptation of taking                      20
  unlawful measures to put a stop to their defection.
  But when we consider that the act to which he was
  persuaded was no less than that of his offering
  sacrifice--he being neither priest nor prophet,
  nor having any commission thus to interfere                        25
  with the Mosaic ritual--it is plain "his _forcing
  himself_" to do so (as he tenderly described his
  sin) was a direct profaneness--a profaneness
  which implied that he was careless about forms,
  which in this world will ever be essential to                      30
  things supernatural, and thought it mattered
  little whether he acted in God's way or in his
  own.

  After this, he seems to have separated himself
  from Samuel, whom he found unwilling to become
  his instrument, and to have had recourse to the                     5
  priesthood instead. Ahijah or Ahimelech (as he
  is afterwards called), the high priest, followed his
  camp; and the ark, too, in spite of the warning
  conveyed by the disasters which attended the
  presumptuous use of it in the time of Eli. "And                    10
  Saul said unto Ahijah, Bring hither the ark of
  God;" while it was brought, a tumult which was
  heard in the camp of the Philistines increased.
  On this interruption Saul irreverently put the ark
  aside, and went out to the battle.                                 15

  It will be observed, that there was no professed
  or intentional irreverence in Saul's conduct; he
  was still on the whole the same he had ever been.
  He outwardly respected the Mosaic
  ritual--about this time he built his first altar to the Lord,[9]   20
  and in a certain sense seemed to acknowledge God's
  authority. But nothing shows he considered that
  there was any vast distinction between Israel and
  the nations around them. He was _indifferent_, and
  cared for none of these things. The chosen people                  25
  desired a king like the nations, and such a one
  they received.

    [9] 1 Sam. xiv. 35.

  After this he was commanded to "go and smite
  the sinners, the Amalekites, and utterly destroy
  them and their cattle." This was a judgment on                     30
  them which God had long decreed, though He had
  delayed it; and He now made Saul the minister
  of His vengeance. But Saul performed it so far
  only as fell in with his own inclination and
  purposes. He smote, indeed, the Amalekites, and                     5
  "destroyed all the people with the edge of the
  sword"--this exploit had its glory; the best of
  the flocks and herds he spared, and why? to
  sacrifice therewith to the Lord. But since God
  had expressly told him to destroy them, what                       10
  was this but to imply, that Divine intimations had
  nothing to do with such matters? what was it but
  to consider that the established religion was but
  a useful institution, or a splendid pageant
  suitable to the dignity of monarchy, but resting on no             15
  unseen supernatural sanction? Certainly he in
  no sense acted in the fear of God, with the wish
  to please Him, and the conviction that he was in
  His sight. One might consider it mere pride and
  willfulness in him, acting in his own way because                  20
  it was his own (which doubtless it was in great
  measure), except that he appears to have had an
  eye to the feelings and opinions of men as to his
  conduct, though not to God's judgment. He
  "feared the people and obeyed their voice."                        25
  Again, he spared Agag, the king of the
  Amalekites. Doubtless he considered Agag as "his
  brother," as Ahab afterwards called Ben-hadad.
  Agag was a king, and Saul observed towards him
  that courtesy and clemency which earthly                           30
  monarchs observe one towards another, and rightly
  when no Divine command comes in the way. But
  the God of Israel required a king after His own
  heart, jealous of idolatry; the people had desired
  a king like the nations around them.

  It is remarkable, moreover, that while he spared                    5
  Agag, he attempted to exterminate the Gibeonites
  with the sword, who were tolerated in Israel by
  virtue of an oath taken in their favor by Joshua
  and "the princes of the congregation." This he
  did "_in his zeal_ to the children of Israel and                   10
  Judah."[10]

    [10] Josh. ix. 2; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-5.

  From the time of his disobedience in the matter
  of Amalek, Samuel came no more to see Saul,
  whose season of probation was over. The evil
  spirit exerted a more visible influence upon him;                  15
  and God sent Samuel to anoint David privately,
  as the future king of Israel. I need not trace
  further the course of moral degradation which is
  exemplified in Saul's subsequent history. Mere
  natural virtue wears away, when men neglect to                     20
  deepen it into religious principle. Saul appears
  in his youth to be unassuming and forbearing;
  in advanced life he is not only proud and gloomy
  (as he ever was in a degree), but cruel, resentful,
  and hard-hearted, which he was not in his youth.                   25
  His injurious treatment of David is a long
  history; but his conduct to Ahimelech, the high
  priest, admits of being mentioned here.
  Ahimelech assisted David in his escape. Saul resolved
  on the death of Ahimelech and all his father's                     30
  house.[11] On his guards refusing to execute his
  command, Doeg, a man of Edom, one of the
  nations which Saul was raised up to withstand,
  undertook the atrocious deed. On that day,
  eighty-five priests were slain. Afterwards Nob,                     5
  the city of the priests, was smitten with the edge
  of the sword, and all destroyed, "men and women,
  children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and
  sheep." That is, Saul executed more complete
  vengeance on the descendants of Levi, the sacred                   10
  tribe, than on the sinners, the Amalekites, who
  laid wait for Israel in the way, on their going up
  from Egypt.

    [11] 1 Sam. xxii. 16.

  Last of all, he finishes his bad history by an open
  act of apostasy from the God of Israel. His last                   15
  act is like his first, but more significant. He
  began, as we saw, by consulting Samuel as a diviner;
  this showed the direction of his mind. It steadily
  persevered in its evil way--and he ends by
  consulting a professed sorceress at Endor. The                     20
  Philistines had assembled their hosts; Saul's
  heart trembled greatly--he had no advisers or
  comforters; Samuel was dead--the priests he had
  himself slain with the sword. He hoped, by magic
  rites, which he had formerly denounced, to                         25
  foresee the issue of the approaching battle. God
  meets him even in the cave of Satanic
  delusions--but as an Antagonist. The reprobate king
  receives, by the mouth of dead Samuel, who had
  once anointed him, the news that he is to be                       30
  "taken away in God's wrath"--that the Lord
  would deliver Israel, with him, into the hands of
  the Philistines, and that on the morrow he and his
  sons should be numbered with the dead.[12]

    [12] 1 Sam. xxviii. 19.

  The next day "the battle went sore against him,                     5
  the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of
  the archers."[13] "Anguish came upon him,"[14] and
  he feared to fall into the hands of the
  uncircumcised. He desired his armor-bearer to draw his
  sword and thrust him through therewith. On his                     10
  refusing, he fell upon his own sword, and so came
  to his end.

    [13] _Ibid._ xxxi. 3.

    [14] 2 Sam. i. 9.




   EARLY YEARS OF DAVID

     "Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is
     cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and
     prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with
     him."--1 _Samuel_ xvi. 18.


  Such is the account given to Saul of David, in
  many respects the most favored of the ancient
  Saints. David is to be accounted the most
  favored, first as being the principal type of Christ,
  next as being the author of a great part of the book                5
  of Psalms, which have been used as the Church's
  form of devotion ever since his time. Besides, he
  was a chief instrument of God's providence, both
  in repressing idolatry and in preparing for the
  gospel; and he prophesied in an especial manner                    10
  of that Saviour whom he prefigured and preceded.
  Moreover, he was the chosen king of Israel, a man
  after God's own heart, and blessed, not only in
  himself, but in his seed after him. And, further,
  to the history of his life a greater share is given of             15
  the inspired pages than to that of any other of
  God's favored servants. Lastly, he displays in
  his personal character that very temper of mind
  in which his nation, or rather human nature
  itself, is especially deficient. Pride and unbelief                20
  disgrace the history of the chosen people; the
  deliberate love of this world, which was the sin of
  Balaam, and the presumptuous willfulness which
  is exhibited in Saul. But David is conspicuous
  for an affectionate, a thankful, a loyal heart                      5
  towards his God and defender, a zeal which was
  as fervent and as docile as Saul's was sullen,
  and as keen-sighted and as pure as Balaam's was
  selfish and double-minded. Such was the son
  of Jesse the Beth-lehemite; he stands midway                       10
  between Abraham and his predicted seed, Judah
  and the Shiloh, receiving and transmitting the
  promises; a figure of the Christ, and an inspired
  prophet, living in the Church even to the end of
  time, in his office, his history, and his sacred                   15
  writings.

  Some remarks on his early life, and on his
  character, as therein displayed, may profitably
  engage our attention at the present time.

  When Saul was finally rejected for not                             20
  destroying the Amalekites, Samuel was bid go to
  Bethlehem, and anoint, as future king of Israel, one
  of the sons of Jesse, who should be pointed out to
  him when he was come there. Samuel
  accordingly went thither and held a sacrifice; when, at            25
  his command, Jesse's seven sons were brought by
  their father, one by one, before the prophet; but
  none of them proved to be the choice of Almighty
  God. David was the youngest and out of the
  way, and it seemed to Jesse as unlikely that God's                 30
  choice should fall upon him, as it appeared to
  Joseph's brethren and to his father, that he and
  his mother and brethren should, as his dreams
  foretold, bow down before him. On Samuel's
  inquiring, Jesse said, "There remaineth yet the
  youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep."                       5
  On Samuel's bidding, he was sent for. "Now
  he was ruddy," the sacred historian proceeds,
  "and withal of a beautiful countenance, and
  goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise,
  anoint him, for this is he." After Samuel had                      10
  anointed him, "the Spirit of the Lord came upon
  David from that day forward." It is added,
  "But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul."

  David's anointing was followed by no other
  immediate mark of God's favor. He was tried                        15
  by being sent back again, in spite of the promise,
  to the care of his sheep, till an unexpected
  occasion introduced him to Saul's court. The
  withdrawing of the Spirit of the Lord from Saul was
  followed by frequent attacks from an evil spirit, as               20
  a judgment upon him. His mind was depressed,
  and a "trouble," as it is called, came upon him,
  with symptoms very like those which we now
  refer to derangement. His servants thought that
  music, such, perhaps, as was used in the schools                   25
  of the prophets, might soothe and restore him;
  and David was recommended by one of them for
  that purpose, in the words of the text: "Behold,
  I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite,
  that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant                   30
  man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters,
  and a comely person, and the Lord is with
  him."

  David came in the power of that sacred
  influence whom Saul had grieved and rejected.
  The Spirit which inspired his tongue guided his                     5
  hand also, and his sacred songs became a medicine
  to Saul's diseased mind. "When the evil spirit
  from God was upon Saul, ... David took an
  harp, and played with his hand; so Saul was
  refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed              10
  from him." Thus he is first introduced to us in
  that character in which he still has praise in the
  Church, as "the anointed of the God of Jacob,
  and the sweet psalmist of Israel."[15]

    [15] 2 Sam. xxiii. 1.

  Saul "loved David greatly, and he became his                       15
  armor-bearer;" but the first trial of his humility
  and patience was not over, while many other trials
  were in store. After a while he was a second time
  sent back to his sheep; and though there was war
  with the Philistines, and his three eldest brethren                20
  were in the army with Saul, and he had already
  essayed his strength in defending his father's
  flocks from wild beasts, and was "a mighty
  valiant man," yet he contentedly stayed at home
  as a private person, keeping his promise of                        25
  greatness to himself, till his father bade him go to his
  brethren to take them a present from him, and
  report how they fared. An accident, as it
  appeared to the world, brought him forward. On
  his arrival at the army, he heard the challenge of                 30
  the Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath. I need
  not relate how he was divinely urged to engage
  the giant, how he killed him, and how he was, in
  consequence, again raised to Saul's favor; who,
  with an infirmity not inconsistent with the                         5
  deranged state of his mind, seems to have altogether
  forgotten him.

  From this time began David's public life; but
  not yet the fulfillment of the promise made to him
  by Samuel. He had a second and severer trial                       10
  of patience to endure for many years; the trial
  of "being still" and doing nothing before God's
  time, though he had (apparently) the means in his
  hands of accomplishing the promise for himself.
  It was to this trial that Jeroboam afterwards                      15
  showed himself unequal. He, too, was promised
  a kingdom, but he was tempted to seize upon it
  in his own way, and so forfeited God's protection.

  David's victory over Goliath so endeared him
  to Saul, that he would not let him go back to his                  20
  father's house. Jonathan, too, Saul's son, at once
  felt for him a warm affection, which deepened into
  a firm friendship. "Saul set him over the men
  of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the
  people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants."[16]             25
  This prosperous fortune, however, did not long
  continue. As Saul passed through the cities from
  his victory over his enemies, the women of Israel
  came out to meet him, singing and dancing, and
  they said, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and                     30
  David his ten thousands." Immediately the
  jealous king was "very wroth, and the saying
  displeased him;" his sullenness returned; he
  feared David as a rival; and "eyed him from that
  day and forward." On the morrow, as David                           5
  was playing before him, as at other times, Saul
  threw his javelin at him. After this, Saul
  displaced him from his situation at his court, and
  sent him to the war, hoping so to rid himself of
  him by his falling in battle; but, by God's                        10
  blessing, David returned victorious.

    [16] 1 Sam. xviii. 5.

  In a second war with the Philistines, David was
  successful as before; and Saul, overcome with
  gloomy and malevolent passions, again cast at him
  with his javelin, as he played before him, with the                15
  hope of killing him.

  This repeated attempt on his life drove David
  from Saul's court; and for some years after, that
  is, till Saul's death, he was a wanderer upon the
  earth, persecuted in that country which was                        20
  afterwards to be his own kingdom. Here, as in his
  victory over Goliath, Almighty God purposed to
  show us, that it was _His_ hand which set David on
  the throne of Israel. David conquered his enemy
  by a sling and stone, in order, as he said at the                  25
  time, that all ... might know "that the Lord
  saveth not with sword and spear; for the battle
  is the Lord's."[17] Now again, but in a different
  way, His guiding providence was displayed. As
  David slew Goliath without arms, so now he                         30
  refrained himself and used them not, though he
  possessed them. Like Abraham, he traversed
  the land of promise "as a strange land,"[18] waiting
  for God's good time. Nay, far more exactly, even
  than to Abraham, was it given to David to act and                   5
  suffer that life of faith which the Apostle describes,
  and by which "the elders obtained a good report."
  By faith he wandered about, "being destitute,
  afflicted, evil-entreated, in deserts, and in
  mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth."                10
  On the other hand, through the same faith, he
  "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
  obtained promises, waxed valiant in fight, turned to
  flight the armies of the aliens."

    [17] 1 Sam. xvii. 47.

    [18] Heb. xi. 9.

  On escaping from Saul, he first went to Samuel                     15
  to ask his advice. With him he dwelt some time.
  Driven thence by Saul he went to Bethlehem, his
  father's city, then to Ahimelech, the high priest,
  at Nob. Thence he fled, still through fear of Saul,
  to Achish, the Philistine king of Gath; and                        20
  finding his life in danger there, he escaped to Adullam,
  where he was joined by his kindred, and put
  himself at the head of an irregular band of men, such
  as, in the unsettled state of the country, might be
  usefully and lawfully employed against the                         25
  remnant of the heathen. After this he was driven to
  Hareth, to Keilah, which he rescued from the
  Philistines, to the wilderness of Ziph among the
  mountains, to the wilderness of Maon, to the
  strongholds of Engedi, to the wilderness of Paran. After           30
  a time he again betook himself to Achish, king of
  Gath, who gave him a city; and there it was that
  the news was brought him of the death of Saul in
  battle, which was the occasion of his elevation first
  to the throne of Judah, afterwards to that of all                   5
  Israel, according to the promise of God made to
  him by Samuel.

  It need not be denied that, during these years of
  wandering, we find in David's conduct instances
  of infirmity and inconsistency, and some things                    10
  which, without being clearly wrong, are yet
  strange and startling in so favored a servant of
  God. With these we are not concerned, except
  so far as a lesson may be gained from them for
  ourselves. We are not at all concerned with them                   15
  as regards our estimate of David's character.
  That character is ascertained and sealed by the
  plain word of Scripture, by the praise of Almighty
  God, and is no subject for our criticism; and if we
  find in it traits which we cannot fully reconcile                  20
  with the approbation divinely given to him, we
  must take it in faith to be what it is said to be,
  and wait for the future revelations of Him who
  "overcomes when He is judged." Therefore I
  dismiss these matters now, when I am engaged                       25
  in exhibiting the eminent obedience and
  manifold virtues of David. On the whole his situation
  during these years of trial was certainly that of a
  witness for Almighty God, one who does good and
  suffers for it, nay, suffers on rather than rid                    30
  himself from suffering by any unlawful act.

  Now, then, let us consider what was, as far as
  we can understand, his especial grace, what is his
  gift; as faith was Abraham's distinguishing virtue,
  meekness the excellence of Moses, self-mastery the
  gift especially conspicuous in Joseph.                              5

  This question may best be answered by
  considering the purpose for which he was raised up.
  When Saul was disobedient, Samuel said to him,
  "Thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath
  sought Him _a man after His own heart_, and the                    10
  Lord hath commanded him to be captain over
  His people, because thou hast not kept that which
  the Lord commanded thee."[19] The office to
  which first Saul and then David were called was
  different from that with which other favored                       15
  men before them had been intrusted. From the
  time of Moses, when Israel became a nation, God
  had been the king of Israel, and His chosen
  servants, not delegates, but mere organs of His
  will. Moses did not direct the Israelites by his                   20
  own wisdom, but he spake to them, as God spake
  from the pillar of the cloud. Joshua, again, was
  merely a sword in the hand of God. Samuel was
  but His minister and interpreter. God acted, the
  Israelites "stood still and saw" His miracles, then                25
  followed. But, when they had rejected Him
  from being king over them, then their chief ruler
  was no longer a mere organ of His power and will,
  but had a certain authority intrusted to him,
  more or less independent of supernatural direction;                30
  and acted, not so much _from_ God, as _for_
  God, and _in the place of_ God. David, when taken
  from the sheepfolds "to feed Jacob His people and
  Israel His inheritance," "fed them," in the words
  of the Psalm, "with a faithful and true heart;                      5
  and ruled them prudently with all his power."[20]
  From this account of his office, it is obvious that
  his very first duty was that of _fidelity to Almighty
  God_ in the trust committed to him. He had
  power put into his hands, in a sense in which                      10
  neither Moses had it nor Samuel. He was charged
  with a certain office, which he was bound to
  administer according to his ability, so as best to
  promote the interests of Him who appointed him.
  Saul had neglected his Master's honor; but                         15
  David, in this an eminent type of Christ, "came
  to do God's will" as a viceroy in Israel, and, as
  being tried and found faithful, he is especially
  called "a man after God's own heart."

    [19] 1 Sam. xiii. 14.

    [20] Ps. lxxviii. 71-73.

  David's peculiar excellence, then, is that of                      20
  _fidelity to the trust committed to him_; a firm,
  uncompromising, single-hearted devotion to the
  cause of his God, and a burning zeal for His
  honor.

  This characteristic virtue is especially                           25
  illustrated in the early years of his life which have
  engaged our attention. He was tried therein and
  found faithful; before he was put in power, it
  was proved whether he could obey. Till he came
  to the throne, he was like Moses or Samuel, an                     30
  instrument in God's hands, bid do what was told
  him and nothing more;--having borne this trial
  of obedience well, in which Saul had failed, then
  at length he was intrusted with a sort of
  discretionary power, to use in his Master's service.                5

  Observe how David was tried, and what
  various high qualities of mind he displayed in
  the course of the trial. First, the promise of
  greatness was given him, and Samuel anointed
  him. Still he stayed in the sheepfolds; and                        10
  though called away by Saul for a time, yet
  returned contentedly when Saul released him from
  attendance. How difficult is it for such as know
  they have gifts suitable to the Church's need to
  refrain themselves, till God make a way for their                  15
  use! and the trial would be the more severe in
  David's case, in proportion to the ardor and
  energy of his mind; yet he fainted not under it.
  Afterwards for seven years, as the time appears
  to be, he withstood the strong temptation, ever                    20
  before his eyes, of acting without God's guidance,
  when he had the means of doing so. Though
  skillful in arms, popular with his countrymen,
  successful against the enemy, the king's
  son-in-law, and on the other hand grievously injured by            25
  Saul, who not only continually sought his life,
  but even suggested to him a traitor's conduct
  by accusing him of treason, and whose life was
  several times in his hands, yet he kept his
  honor pure and unimpeachable. He feared God                        30
  and honored the king; and this at a time of
  life especially exposed to the temptations of
  ambition.

  There is a resemblance between the early
  history of David and that of Joseph. Both
  distinguished for piety in youth, the youngest and                  5
  the despised of their respective brethren, they
  are raised, after a long trial to a high station,
  as ministers of God's Providence. Joseph was
  tempted to a degrading adultery; David was
  tempted by ambition. Both were tempted to                          10
  be traitors to their masters and benefactors.
  Joseph's trial was brief; but his conduct under it
  evidenced settled habits of virtue which he could
  call to his aid at a moment's notice. A long
  imprisonment followed, the consequence of his                      15
  obedience, and borne with meekness and patience;
  but it was no part of his temptation, because,
  when once incurred, release was out of his power.
  David's trial, on the other hand, lasted for years,
  and grew stronger as time went on. His master,                     20
  too, far from "putting all that he had into his
  hand,"[21] sought his life. Continual opportunity
  of avenging himself incited his passions;
  self-defense, and the Divine promise, were specious
  arguments to seduce his reason. Yet he mastered                    25
  his heart--he was "still;" he kept his hands clean
  and his lips guileless--he was loyal
  throughout--and in due time inherited the promise.

    [21] Gen. xxxix. 4.

  Let us call to mind some of the circumstances
  of his steadfastness recorded in the history.                      30

  He was about twenty-three years old when he
  slew the Philistine; yet, when placed over Saul's
  men of war, in the first transport of his victory,
  we are told he "behaved himself wisely."[22]
  When fortune turned, and Saul became jealous                        5
  of him, still "David behaved himself wisely in
  all his ways, and the Lord was with him." How
  like is this to Joseph under different circumstances!
  "Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved
  himself very wisely he was afraid of him; and all                  10
  Israel and Judah loved David." Again, "And
  David behaved himself more wisely than all the
  servants of Saul, so that his name was much set
  by." Here, in shifting fortunes, is evidence of
  that staid, composed frame of mind in his youth,                   15
  which he himself describes in the one hundred
  and thirty-first Psalm. "My heart is not haughty,
  nor mine eyes lofty.... Surely I have behaved
  and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his
  mother."                                                           20

    [22] 1 Sam. xviii. 5-30.

  The same modest deportment marks his
  subsequent conduct. He consistently seeks counsel
  of God. When he fled from Saul he went to
  Samuel; afterwards we find him following the
  directions of the prophet Gad, and afterwards of                   25
  Abiathar the high priest.[23] Here his character is
  in full contrast to the character of Saul.

    [23] _Ibid._ xxii. 5, 20; xxiii. 6.

  Further, consider his behavior towards Saul,
  when he had him in his power; it displays a most
  striking and admirable union of simple faith and                   30
  unblemished loyalty.

  Saul, while in pursuit of him, went into a cave
  in Engedi. David surprised him there, and his
  companions advised to seize him, if not to take                     5
  his life. They said, "Behold the day of which the
  Lord said unto thee."[24] David, in order to show
  Saul how entirely his life had been in his power,
  arose and cut off a part of his robe privately.
  After he had done it, his "heart smote him" even                   10
  for this slight freedom, as if it were a disrespect
  offered towards his king and father. "He said
  unto his men, The Lord forbid that I should do
  this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed,
  to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he                  15
  is the anointed of the Lord." When Saul left
  the cave, David followed him and cried, "My
  Lord the king. And when Saul looked behind
  him, David stooped with his face to the earth
  and bowed himself." He hoped that he could                         20
  now convince Saul of his integrity. "Wherefore
  hearest thou men's words," he asked, "saying,
  Behold, David seeketh thy hurt? Behold, this
  day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had
  delivered thee to-day into mine hand in the cave:                  25
  and some bade me kill thee.... Moreover, my
  father, see, yea see the skirt of thy robe in my
  hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe,
  and killed thee not, know thou and see, that
  there is neither evil nor transgression in mine                    30
  hand, and I have not sinned against thee: yet
  thou huntest my soul to take it. The Lord judge
  between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me
  of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon
  thee.... After whom is the king of Israel come out?                 5
  after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog,
  after a flea. The Lord therefore judge ... and
  see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of
  thine hand." Saul was for the time overcome;
  he said, "Is this thy voice, my son David? and                     10
  Saul lifted up his voice and wept." And he said,
  "Thou art more righteous than I; for thou hast
  rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee
  evil." He added, "And now, behold, I know well
  that thou shalt surely be king." At another time                   15
  David surprised Saul in the midst of his camp,
  and his companion would have killed him; but
  he said, "Destroy him not, for who can stretch
  forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and
  be guiltless?"[25] Then, as he stood over him, he                  20
  meditated sorrowfully on his master's future
  fortunes, while he himself refrained from
  interfering with God's purposes. "Surely the Lord
  shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or
  he shall descend into battle and perish." David                    25
  retired from the enemy's camp; and when at a safe
  distance, roused Saul's guards, and blamed them
  for their negligent watch, which had allowed a
  stranger to approach the person of their king. Saul
  was moved the second time; the miserable man,                      30
  as if waking from a dream which hung about
  him, said, "I have sinned; return, my son David
  ... behold, I have played the fool, and have erred
  exceedingly." He added, truth overcoming him,
  "Blessed be thou, my son David; thou shalt                          5
  both do great things, and also shalt still prevail."

    [24] 1 Sam. xxiv. 4.

    [25] 1 Sam. xxvi. 9.

  How beautiful are these passages in the history
  of the chosen king of Israel! How do they draw
  our hearts towards him, as one whom in his
  private character it must have been an extreme                     10
  privilege and a great delight to know! Surely,
  the blessings of the patriarchs descended in a
  united flood upon "the lion of the tribe of Judah,"
  the type of the true Redeemer who was to come.
  He inherits the prompt faith and magnanimity                       15
  of Abraham; he is simple as Isaac; he is humble
  as Jacob; he has the youthful wisdom and
  self-possession, the tenderness, the affectionateness,
  and the firmness of Joseph. And, as his own
  especial gift, he has an overflowing thankfulness,                 20
  an ever-burning devotion, a zealous fidelity to
  his God, a high unshaken loyalty towards his
  king, an heroic bearing in all circumstances, such
  as the multitude of men see to be great, but
  cannot understand. Be it our blessedness, unless                   25
  the wish be presumptuous, so to acquit ourselves
  in troubled times; cheerful amid anxieties,
  collected in dangers, generous towards enemies,
  patient in pain and sorrow, subdued in good
  fortune! How manifold are the ways of the                          30
  Spirit, how various the graces which He imparts;
  what depth and width is there in that moral truth
  and virtue for which we are created! Contrast
  one with another the Scripture Saints; how
  different are they, yet how alike! how fitted for
  their respective circumstances, yet how unearthly,                  5
  how settled and composed in the faith and fear
  of God! As in the Services, so in the patterns of
  the Church, God has met all our needs, all our
  frames of mind. "Is any afflicted? let him
  pray; is any merry? let him sing Psalms."[26]                      10
  Is any in joy or in sorrow? there are Saints at
  hand to encourage and guide him. There is
  Abraham for nobles, Job for men of wealth and
  merchandise, Moses for patriots, Samuel for
  rulers, Elijah for reformers, Joseph for those who                 15
  rise into distinction; there is Daniel for the
  forlorn, Jeremiah for the persecuted, Hannah for the
  downcast, Ruth for the friendless, the
  Shunamite for the matron, Caleb for the soldier, Boaz
  for the farmer, Mephibosheth for the subject;                      20
  but none is vouchsafed to us in more varied lights,
  and with more abundant and more affecting
  lessons, whether in his history or in his writings,
  than he whose eulogy is contained in the words of
  the text, as cunning in playing, and a mighty                      25
  valiant man, and prudent in matters, and comely
  in person, and favored by Almighty God. May
  we be taught, as he was, to employ the gifts, in
  whatever measure given us, to God's honor and
  glory, and to the extension of that true and only                  30
  faith which is the salvation of the soul!

    [26] James v. 13.




  BASIL AND GREGORY

     "What are these discourses that you hold one with another, as you
     walk and are sad?"


  I

  The instruments raised up by Almighty God
  for the accomplishment of His purposes are of
  two kinds, equally gifted with faith and piety,
  but from natural temper and talent, education,
  or other circumstances, differing in the means by                   5
  which they promote their sacred cause. The
  first of these are men of acute and ready mind,
  with accurate knowledge of human nature, and
  large plans, and persuasive and attractive
  bearing, genial, sociable, and popular, endued with                10
  prudence, patience, instinctive tact and decision
  in conducting matters, as well as boldness and
  zeal. Such in a measure we may imagine the
  single-minded, the intrepid, the much-enduring
  Hildebrand, who, at a time when society was                        15
  forming itself anew, was the saviour, humanly
  speaking, of the City of God. Such, in an earlier age,
  was the majestic Ambrose; such the
  never-wearied Athanasius. These last-named
  luminaries of the Church came into public life early,              20
  and thus learned how to cope with the various
  tempers, views, and measures of the men they
  encountered there. Athanasius was but
  twenty-seven when he went with Alexander to the Nicene
  Council, and the year after he was Bishop of
  Alexandria. Ambrose was consecrated soon after                      5
  the age of thirty.

  Again, there is an instrument in the hand of
  Providence, of less elaborate and splendid
  workmanship, less rich in its political endowments,
  so to call them, yet not less beautiful in its                     10
  texture, nor less precious in its material. Such is
  the retired and thoughtful student, who remains
  years and years in the solitude of a college or a
  monastery, chastening his soul in secret, raising
  it to high thought and single-minded purpose,                      15
  and when at length called into active life,
  conducting himself with firmness, guilelessness, zeal
  like a flaming fire, and all the sweetness of purity
  and integrity. Such an one is often unsuccessful
  in his own day; he is too artless to persuade, too                 20
  severe to please; unskilled in the weaknesses of
  human nature, unfurnished in the resources of
  ready wit, negligent of men's applause,
  unsuspicious, open-hearted, he does his work, and so
  leaves it; and it seems to die; but in the                         25
  generation after him it lives again, and on the long run
  it is difficult to say which of the two classes of
  men has served the cause of truth the more
  effectually. Such, perhaps, was Basil, who issued
  from the solitudes of Pontus to rule like a king,                  30
  and minister like the lowest in the kingdom; yet
  to meet little but disappointment, and to quit
  life prematurely in pain and sorrow. Such was
  his friend, the accomplished Gregory, however
  different in other respects from him, who left his
  father's roof for an heretical city, raised a church                5
  there, and was driven back into retirement by
  his own people, as soon as his triumph over the
  false creed was secured. Such, perhaps, St. Peter
  Damiani in the middle age; such St. Anselm,
  such St. Edmund. No comparison is, of course,                      10
  attempted here between the religious excellence
  of the two descriptions of men; each of them
  serves God according to the peculiar gifts given
  to him. If we might continue our instances
  by way of comparison, we should say that St.                       15
  Paul reminds us of the former, and Jeremiah of
  the latter....

  It often happens that men of very dissimilar
  talents and tastes are attracted together by their
  very dissimilitude. They live in intimacy for a                    20
  time, perhaps a long time, till their circumstances
  alter, or some sudden event comes, to try them.
  Then the peculiarities of their respective minds
  are brought out into action; and quarrels ensue,
  which end in coolness or separation. It would                      25
  not be right or true to say that this is exemplified
  in the instance of the two blessed Apostles, whose
  "sharp contention" is related in the Book of
  Acts; for they had been united in spirit once for
  all by a Divine gift; and yet their strife reminds                 30
  us of what takes place in life continually. And it
  so far resembled the everyday quarrels of friends,
  in that it arose from difference of temper and
  character in those favored servants of God.
  The zealous heart of the Apostle of the Gentiles
  endured not the presence of one who had swerved                     5
  in his course; the indulgent spirit of Barnabas
  felt that a first fault ought not to be a last trial.
  Such are the two main characters which are found
  in the Church,--high energy, and sweetness of
  temper; far from incompatible, of course, united                   10
  in Apostles, though in different relative
  proportions, yet only partially combined in ordinary
  Christians, and often altogether parted from each
  other.

  This contrast of character, leading, first, to                     15
  intimacy, then to differences, is interestingly
  displayed, though painfully, in one passage of the
  history of Basil and Gregory: Gregory the
  affectionate, the tender-hearted, the man of quick
  feelings, the accomplished, the eloquent                           20
  preacher,--and Basil, the man of firm resolve and hard
  deeds, the high-minded ruler of Christ's flock,
  the diligent laborer in the field of ecclesiastical
  politics. Thus they differed; yet not as if they
  had not much in common still; both had the                         25
  blessing and the discomfort of a sensitive mind;
  both were devoted to an ascetic life; both were
  men of classical tastes; both were special
  champions of the Catholic creed; both were skilled
  in argument, and successful in their use of it;                    30
  both were in highest place in the Church, the one
  Exarch of Caesarea, the other Patriarch of
  Constantinople. I will now attempt to sketch the
  history of their intimacy.


  II

  Basil and Gregory were both natives of
  Cappadocia, but here, again, under different                        5
  circumstances; Basil was born of a good family, and
  with Christian ancestors: Gregory was the son of
  the Bishop of Nazianzus, who had been brought
  up an idolater, or rather an Hypsistarian, a
  mongrel sort of religionist, part Jew, part Pagan.                 10
  He was brought over to Christianity by the efforts
  of his wife Nonna, and at Nazianzus admitted by
  baptism into the Church. In process of time he
  was made bishop of that city; but not having a
  very firm hold of the faith, he was betrayed in                    15
  360 into signing the Ariminian creed, which caused
  him much trouble, and from which at length his
  son recovered him. Caesarea being at no
  unsurmountable distance from Nazianzus, the two
  friends had known each other in their own country;                 20
  but their intimacy began at Athens, whither
  they separately repaired for the purposes of
  education. This was about A.D. 350, when each of
  them was twenty-one years of age. Gregory
  came to the seat of learning shortly before Basil,                 25
  and thus was able to be his host and guide on his
  arrival; but fame had reported Basil's merits
  before he came, and he seems to have made his
  way, in a place of all others most difficult to a
  stranger, with a facility peculiar to himself. He
  soon found himself admired and respected by
  his fellow-students; but Gregory was his only
  friend, and shared with him the reputation of                       5
  talents and attainments. They remained at
  Athens four or five years; and, at the end of that
  time, made the acquaintance of Julian, since of
  evil name in history as the Apostate. Gregory
  thus describes in after life his early intimacy                    10
  with Basil:

    "Athens and letters followed on my stage;
    Others may tell how I encountered them;--
    How in the fear of God, and foremost found
    Of those who knew a more than mortal lore;--                     15
    And how, amid the venture and the rush
    Of maddened youth with youth in rivalry,
    My tranquil course ran like some fabled spring,
    Which bubbles fresh beneath the turbid brine;
    Not drawn away by those who lure to ill,                         20
    But drawing dear ones to the better part.
    There, too, I gained a further gift of God,
    Who made me friends with one of wisdom high,
    Without compeer in learning and in life.
    Ask ye his name?--in sooth, 'twas Basil, since                   25
    My life's great gain,--and then my fellow dear
    In home, and studious search, and knowledge earned.
    May I not boast how in our day we moved
    A truest pair, not without name in Greece;
    Had all things common, and one only soul                         30
    In lodgment of a double outward frame?
    Our special bond, the thought of God above,
    And the high longing after holy things.
    And each of us was bold to trust in each,
    Unto the emptying of our deepest hearts;
    And then we loved the more, for sympathy
    Pleaded in each, and knit the twain in one."

  The friends had been educated for rhetoricians,
  and their oratorical powers were such, that they                   5
  seemed to have every prize in prospect which a
  secular ambition could desire. Their names were
  known far and wide, their attainments
  acknowledged by enemies, and they themselves personally
  popular in their circle of acquaintance. It was                   10
  under these circumstances that they took the
  extraordinary resolution of quitting the world
  together,--extraordinary the world calls it,
  utterly perplexed to find that any conceivable
  objects can, by any sane person, be accounted                     15
  better than its own gifts and favors. They
  resolved to seek baptism of the Church, and to
  consecrate their gifts to the service of the Giver.
  With characters of mind very different--the
  one grave, the other lively; the one desponding,                  20
  the other sanguine; the one with deep feelings,
  the other with feelings acute and warm;--they
  agreed together in holding, that the things that
  are seen are not to be compared to the things that
  are not seen. They quitted the world, while it                     25
  entreated them to stay.

  What passed when they were about to leave
  Athens represents as in a figure the parting which
  they and the world took of each other. When
  the day of valediction arrived, their companions                   30
  and equals, nay, some of their tutors, came about
  them, and resisted their departure by entreaties,
  arguments, and even by violence. This occasion
  showed, also, their respective dispositions; for
  the firm Basil persevered, and went; the
  tender-hearted Gregory was softened, and stayed awhile              5
  longer. Basil, indeed, in spite of the reputation
  which attended him, had, from the first, felt
  disappointment with the celebrated abode of
  philosophy and literature; and seems to have given up
  the world from a simple conviction of its emptiness.               10

  "He," says Gregory, "according to the way of human
  nature, when, on suddenly falling in with what we hoped
  to be greater, we find it less than its fame, experienced
  some such feeling, began to be sad, grew impatient, and
  could not congratulate himself on his place of residence.          15
  He sought an object which hope had drawn for him;
  and he called Athens 'hollow blessedness.'"

  Gregory himself, on the contrary, looked at
  things more cheerfully; as the succeeding
  sentences show.                                                    20

  "Thus Basil; but I removed the greater part of his
  sorrow, meeting it with reason, and smoothing it with
  reflections, and saying (what was most true) that
  character is not at once understood, nor except by long time
  and perfect intimacy; nor are studies estimated, by                25
  those who are submitted to them, on a brief trial and
  by slight evidence. Thus I reassured him, and by
  continual trials of each other, I bound myself to him."
    --_Orat._ 43.


  III

  Yet Gregory had inducements of his own to                          30
  leave the world, not to insist on his love of Basil's
  company. His mother had devoted him to God,
  both before and after his birth; and when he was
  a child he had a remarkable dream, which made
  a great impression upon him.

  "While I was asleep," he says in one of his poems,                  5
  which runs thus in prose, "a dream came to me, which
  drew me readily to the desire of chastity. Two virgin
  forms, in white garments, seemed to shine close to me.
  Both were fair and of one age, and their ornament lay
  in their want of ornament, which is a woman's beauty.              10
  No gold adorned their neck, nor jacinth; nor had they
  the delicate spinning of the silkworm. Their fair robe
  was bound with a girdle, and it reached down to their
  ankles. Their head and face were concealed by a veil,
  and their eyes were fixed on the ground. The fair glow             15
  of modesty was on both of them, as far as could be seen
  under their thick covering. Their lips were closed in
  silence, as the rose in its dewy leaves. When I saw
  them, I rejoiced much; for I said that they were far
  more than mortals. And they in turn kept kissing me,               20
  while I drew light from their lips, fondling me as a dear
  son. And when I asked who and whence the women
  were, the one answered, 'Purity,' the other, 'Sobriety';
  'We stand by Christ, the King, and delight in the beauty
  of the celestial virgins. Come, then, child, unite thy             25
  mind to our mind, thy light to our light; so shall we carry
  thee aloft in all brightness through the air, and place
  thee by the radiance of the immortal Trinity.'"

      --_Carm._ p. 930.

  He goes on to say, that he never lost the                          30
  impression this made upon him, as "a spark of
  heavenly fire," or "a taste of divine milk and
  honey."

  As far, then, as these descriptions go, one might
  say that Gregory's abandonment of the world
  arose from an early passion, as it may be called,
  for a purity higher than his own nature; and
  Basil's, from a profound sense of the world's
  nothingness and the world's defilements. Both                       5
  seem to have viewed it as a sort of penitential
  exercise, as well as a means towards perfection.

  When they had once resolved to devote
  themselves to the service of religion, the question
  arose, how they might best improve and employ                      10
  the talents committed to them. Somehow, the
  idea of marrying and taking orders, or taking
  orders and marrying, building or improving their
  parsonages, and showing forth the charities, the
  humanities, and the gentilities of a family man,                   15
  did not suggest itself to their minds. They fancied
  that they must give up wife, children, property,
  if they would be perfect; and, this being taken
  for granted, that their choice lay between two
  modes of life, both of which they regarded as                      20
  extremes. Here, then, for a time, they were in
  some perplexity. Gregory speaks of two ascetic
  disciplines, that of the solitary or hermit, and that
  of the secular;[27] one of which, he says, profits
  a man's self, the other his neighbor. Midway,                      25
  however, between these lay the Coenobite, or
  what we commonly call the monastic; removed
  from the world, yet acting in a certain select
  circle. And this was the rule which the friends
  at length determined to adopt, withdrawing from                    30
  mixed society in order to be of the greater service
  to it.

    [27] [Greek: azyges] and [Greek: migades].

  The following is the passage in which Gregory
  describes the life which was the common choice
  of both of them:                                                    5

  "Fierce was the whirlwind of my storm-toss'd mind,
  Searching,'mid holiest ways, a holier still.
  Long had I nerved me, in the depths to sink
  Thoughts of the flesh, and then more strenuously.
  Yet, while I gazed upon diviner aims,                              10
  I had not wit to single out the best:
  For, as is aye the wont in things of earth,
  Each had its evil, each its nobleness.
  I was the pilgrim of a toilsome course,
  Who had o'erpast the waves, and now look'd round,                  15
  With anxious eye, to track his road by land.
  Then did the awful Thesbite's image rise,
  His highest Carmel, and his food uncouth;
  The Baptist wealthy in his solitude;
  And the unencumbered sons of Jonadab.                              20
  But soon I felt the love of holy books,
  The spirit beaming bright in learned lore,
  Which deserts could not hear, nor silence tell.
  Long was the inward strife, till ended thus:--
  I saw, when men lived in the fretful world,                        25
  They vantaged other men, but risked the while
  The calmness and the pureness of their hearts.
  They who retired held an uprighter port,
  And raised their eyes with quiet strength towards heaven;
  Yet served self only, unfraternally.                               30
  And so, 'twixt these and those, I struck my path,
  To meditate with the free solitary,
  Yet to live secular, and serve mankind."




  AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS

     "The just perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and men of
     mercy are taken away, for there is none to understand; for the just
     man is taken away from before the face of evil."


  I

  I began by directing the reader's attention to
  the labors of two great bishops, who restored
  the faith of Christianity where it had long been
  obscured. Now, I will put before him, by way
  of contrast, a scene of the overthrow of                            5
  religion,--the extinction of a candlestick,--effected, too,
  by champions of the same heretical creed which
  Basil and Gregory successfully resisted. It will
  be found in the history of the last days of the
  great Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa.                       10
  The truth triumphed in the East by the power of
  preaching; it was extirpated in the South by the
  edge of the sword.

  Though it may not be given us to appropriate
  the prophecies of the Apocalypse to the real                       15
  events to which they belong, yet it is impossible
  to read its inspired pages, and then to turn to
  the dissolution of the Roman empire, without
  seeing a remarkable agreement, on the whole,
  between the calamities of that period and the                      20
  sacred prediction. There is a plain announcement
  in the inspired page, of "Woe, woe, woe, to
  the inhabitants of the earth;" an announcement
  of "hail and fire mingled with blood," the
  conflagration of "trees and green grass," the
  destruction of ships, the darkening of the sun, and the             5
  poisoning of the rivers over a third of their course.
  There is a clear prophecy of revolutions on the
  face of the earth and in the structure of society.
  And, on the other hand, let us observe how fully
  such general foretokenings are borne out, among                    10
  other passages of history, in the Vandalic
  conquest of Africa.

  The coast of Africa, between the great desert
  and the Mediterranean, was one of the most
  fruitful and opulent portions of the Roman world.                  15
  The eastern extremity of it was more especially
  connected with the empire, containing in it
  Carthage, Hippo, and other towns, celebrated as
  being sees of the Christian Church, as well as
  places of civil importance. In the spring of the                   20
  year 428, the Vandals, Arians by creed, and
  barbarians by birth and disposition, crossed the
  Straits of Gibraltar, and proceeded along this
  fertile district, bringing with them devastation
  and captivity on every side. They abandoned                        25
  themselves to the most savage cruelties and
  excesses. They pillaged, ravaged, burned,
  massacred all that came in their way, sparing not even
  the fruit trees, which might have afforded some
  poor food to the remnant of the population, who                    30
  had escaped from them into caves, the recesses
  of the mountains, or into vaults. Twice did this
  desolating pestilence sweep over the face of the
  country.

  The fury of the Vandals was especially exercised
  towards the memorials of religion. Churches,                        5
  cemeteries, monasteries, were objects of their
  fiercest hatred and most violent assaults. They
  broke into the places of worship, cut to pieces all
  internal decorations, and then set fire to them.
  They tortured bishops and clergy with the hope of                  10
  obtaining treasure. The names of some of the
  victims of their ferocity are preserved. Mansuetus,
  Bishop of Utica, was burnt alive; Papinianus,
  Bishop of Vite, was laid upon red-hot plates of
  iron. This was near upon the time when the                         15
  third General Council was assembling at Ephesus,
  which, from the insecure state of the roads, and
  the universal misery which reigned among them,
  the African bishops were prevented from
  attending. The Clergy, the religious brotherhoods, the             20
  holy virgins, were scattered all over the country.
  The daily sacrifice was stopped, the sacraments
  could not be obtained, the festivals of the Church
  passed unnoticed. At length, only three cities
  remained unvisited by the general                                  25
  desolation,--Carthage, Hippo, and Cirtha.


  II

  Hippo was the see of St. Austin, then
  seventy-four years of age (forty almost of which had been
  passed in ministerial labors), and warned, by
  the law of nature, of the approach of dissolution.
  It was as if the light of prosperity and peace
  were fading away from the African Church, as
  sank the bodily powers of its great earthly
  ornament and stay. At this time, when the terrors                   5
  of the barbaric invasion spread on all sides, a
  bishop wrote to him to ask whether it was allowable
  for the ruler of a Church to leave the scene of his
  pastoral duties in order to save his life.
  Different opinions had heretofore been expressed on                10
  this question. In Augustine's own country
  Tertullian had maintained that flight was unlawful,
  but he was a Montanist when he so wrote. On
  the other hand, Cyprian had actually fled, and
  had defended his conduct when questioned by                        15
  the clergy of Rome. His contemporaries,
  Dionysius of Alexandria, and Gregory of Neocaesarea,
  had fled also; as had Polycarp before them, and
  Athanasius after them.

  Athanasius also had to defend his flight, and he                   20
  defended it, in a work still extant, thus: First,
  he observes, it has the sanction of numerous
  Scripture precedents. Thus, in the instance of
  confessors under the old covenant, Jacob fled
  from Esau, Moses from Pharao, David from Saul;                     25
  Elias concealed himself from Achab three years,
  and the sons of the prophets were hid by Abdias
  in a cave from Jezebel. In like manner under
  the Gospel, the disciples hid themselves for fear
  of the Jews, and St. Paul was let down in a basket                 30
  over the wall at Damascus. On the other hand,
  no instance can be adduced of overboldness and
  headstrong daring in the saints of Scripture.
  But our Lord Himself is the chief exemplar of
  fleeing from persecution. As a child in arms He
  had to flee into Egypt. When He returned, He                        5
  still shunned Judea, and retired to Nazareth.
  After raising Lazarus, on the Jews seeking His
  life, "He walked no more openly among them,"
  but retreated to the neighborhood of the desert.
  When they took up stones to cast at Him, He                        10
  hid Himself; when they attempted to cast Him
  down headlong, He made His way through them;
  when He heard of the Baptist's death, He retired
  across the lake into a desert place, apart. If it
  be said that He did so, because His time was not                   15
  yet come, and that when it was come, He
  delivered up Himself, we must ask, in reply, how a
  man can know that his time is come, so as to
  have a right to act as Christ acted? And since
  we do not know, we must have patience; and,                        20
  till God by His own act determines the time, we
  must "wander in sheepskins and goatskins,"
  rather than take the matter into our own hands;
  as even Saul, the persecutor, was left by David
  in the hands of God, whether He would "strike                      25
  him, or his day should come to die, or he should
  go down to battle and perish."

  If God's servants, proceeds Athanasius, have
  at any time presented themselves before their
  persecutors, it was at God's command: thus Elias                   30
  showed himself to Achab; so did the prophet
  from Juda, to Jeroboam; and St. Paul appealed
  to Caesar. Flight, so far from implying
  cowardice, requires often greater courage than not to
  flee. It is a greater trial of heart. Death is an
  end of all trouble; he who flees is ever expecting                  5
  death, and dies daily. Job's life was not to be
  touched by Satan, yet was not his fortitude
  shown in what he suffered? Exile is full of
  miseries. The after-conduct of the saints showed
  they had not fled for fear. Jacob, on his                          10
  death-bed, contemned death, and blessed each of the
  twelve Patriarchs; Moses returned, and
  presented himself before Pharao; David was a
  valiant warrior; Elias rebuked Achab and
  Ochazias; Peter and Paul, who had once hid                         15
  themselves, offered themselves to martyrdom at
  Rome. And so acceptable was the previous
  flight of these men to Almighty God, that we
  read of His showing them some special favor
  during it. Then it was that Jacob had the                          20
  vision of Angels; Moses saw the burning bush;
  David wrote his prophetic Psalms; Elias raised
  the dead, and gathered the people on Mount
  Carmel. How would the Gospel ever have been
  preached throughout the world, if the Apostles                     25
  had not fled? And, since their time, those, too,
  who have become martyrs, at first fled; or, if they
  advanced to meet their persecutors, it was by
  some secret suggestion of the Divine Spirit. But,
  above all, while these instances abundantly                        30
  illustrate the rule of duty in persecution, and the
  temper of mind necessary in those who observe
  it, we have that duty itself declared in a plain
  precept by no other than our Lord: "When they
  shall persecute you in this city," He says, "flee
  into another;" and "let them that are in Judea                      5
  flee unto the mountains."

  Thus argues the great Athanasius, living in
  spirit with the saints departed, while full of
  labor and care here on earth. For the
  arguments on the other side, let us turn to a writer,              10
  not less vigorous in mind, but less subdued in
  temper. Thus writes Tertullian on the same
  subject, then a Montanist, a century and a half
  earlier: Nothing happens, he says, without
  God's will. Persecution is sent by Him, to put                     15
  His servants to the test; to divide between good
  and bad: it is a trial; what man has any right
  to interfere? He who gives the prize, alone can
  assign the combat. Persecution is more than
  permitted, it is actually appointed by Almighty                    20
  God. It does the Church much good, as leading
  Christians to increased seriousness while it lasts.
  It comes and goes at God's ordering. Satan
  could not touch Job, except so far as God gave
  permission. He could not touch the Apostles,                       25
  except as far as an opening was allowed in the
  words, "Satan hath desired to have you, but I
  have prayed for thee," Peter, "and thou, being
  once converted, confirm thy brethren." We
  pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver                    30
  us from evil;" why, if we may deliver ourselves?
  Satan is permitted access to us, either for
  punishment, as in Saul's case, or for our chastisement.
  Since the persecution comes from God, we may
  not lawfully avoid it, nor can we avoid it. We
  cannot, because He is all powerful; we must not,                    5
  because He is all good. We should leave the
  matter entirely to God. As to the command of
  fleeing from city to city, this was temporary. It
  was intended to secure the preaching of the
  Gospel to the nations. While the Apostles preached                 10
  to the Jews,--till they had preached to the
  Gentiles,--they were to flee; but one might as
  well argue, that we now are not to go "into the
  way of the Gentiles," but to confine ourselves
  to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," as that                15
  we are now to "flee from city to city." Nor,
  indeed, was going from city to city a flight; it was
  a continued preaching; not an accident, but a
  rule: whether persecuted or not, they were to go
  about; and before they had gone through the                        20
  cities of Israel, the Lord was to come. The
  command contemplated only those very cities.
  If St. Paul escaped out of Damascus by night,
  yet afterwards, against the prayers of the disciples
  and the prophecy of Agabus, he went up to                          25
  Jerusalem. Thus the command to flee did not last
  even through the lifetime of the Apostles; and,
  indeed, why should God introduce persecution,
  if He bids us retire from it? This is imputing
  inconsistency to His acts. If we want texts to                     30
  justify our not fleeing, He says, "Whoso shall
  confess Me before men, I will confess him before
  My Father." "Blessed are they that suffer
  persecution;" "He that shall persevere to the end,
  he shall be saved;" "Be not afraid of them that
  kill the body;" "Whosoever does not carry his                       5
  cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple."
  How are these texts fulfilled when a man flees?
  Christ, who is our pattern, did not more than
  pray, "If it be possible, let this chalice pass;"
  we, too, should both stay and pray as He did.                      10
  And it is expressly told us, that "We also ought
  to lay down our lives for the brethren." Again, it
  is said, "Perfect charity casteth out fear;" he
  who flees, fears; he who fears, "is not perfected
  in charity." The Greek proverb is sometimes                        15
  urged, "He who flees, will fight another day;"
  yes, and he may flee another day, also. Again,
  if bishops, priests, and deacons flee, why must
  the laity stay? or must they flee also? "The
  good shepherd," on the contrary, "layeth down                      20
  his life for his sheep;" whereas, the bad shepherd
  "seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep,
  and fleeth." At no time, as Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
  and Zechariah tell us, is the flock in greater
  danger of being scattered than when it loses its                   25
  shepherd. Tertullian ends thus: "This doctrine, my
  brother, perhaps appears to you hard; nay,
  intolerable. But recollect that God has said, 'He
  that can take, let him take it;' that is, he who
  receives it not, let him depart. He who fears to                   30
  suffer cannot belong to Him who has suffered.
  He who does not fear to suffer is perfect in love,
  that is, of God. Many are called, few are chosen.
  Not he who would walk the broad way is sought
  out by God, but he who walks the narrow."
  Thus the ingenious and vehement Tertullian.                         5


  III

  With these remarks for and against flight in
  persecution, we shall be prepared to listen to
  Augustine on the subject; I have said, it was
  brought under his notice by a brother bishop,
  with reference to the impending visitation of the                  10
  barbarians. His answer happily is preserved to
  us, and extracts from it shall now be set before
  the reader.

    "TO HIS HOLY BROTHERS AND FELLOW-BISHOP HONORATUS, AUGUSTINE SENDS
     HEALTH IN THE LORD

  "I thought the copy of my letter to our brother
  Quodvultdeus, which I sent to you, would have been                 15
  sufficient, dear brother, without the task you put on me
  of counseling you on the proper course to pursue under
  our existing dangers. It was certainly a short letter;
  yet I included every question which it was necessary to
  ask and answer, when I said that no persons were                   20
  hindered from retiring to such fortified places as they were
  able and desirous to secure; while, on the other hand, we
  might not break the bonds of our ministry, by which
  the love of Christ has engaged us not to desert the Church,
  where we are bound to serve. The following is what I               25
  laid down in the letter I refer to: 'It remains, then,'
  I say, 'that, though God's people in the place where we
  are be ever so few, yet, if it does stay, we, whose ministration
  is necessary to its staying, must say to the Lord,
  Thou art our strong rock and place of defense.'

  "But you tell me that this view is not sufficient for
  you, from an apprehension lest we should be running
  counter to our Lord's command and example, to flee                  5
  from city to city. Yet is it conceivable that He meant
  that our flocks, whom He bought with His own blood,
  should be deprived of that necessary ministration
  without which they cannot live? Is He a precedent for
  this, who was carried in flight into Egypt by His parents          10
  when but a child, before He had formed Churches which
  we can talk of His leaving? Or, when St. Paul was let
  down in a basket through a window, lest the enemy
  should seize him, and so escaped his hands, was the Church
  of that place bereft of its necessary ministration, seeing         15
  there were other brethren stationed there to fulfill what
  was necessary? Evidently it was their wish that he,
  who was the direct object of the persecutors' search,
  should preserve himself for the sake of the Church.
  Let then, the servants of Christ, the ministers of His             20
  word and sacraments, do in such cases as He enjoined
  or permitted. Let such of them, by all means, flee from
  city to city, as are special objects of persecution; so
  that they who are not thus attacked desert not the
  Church, but give meat to those their fellow-servants,              25
  who they know cannot live without it. But in a case
  when all classes--I mean bishops, clergy, and
  people--are in some common danger, let not those who need the
  aid of others be deserted by those whom they need. Either
  let one and all remove into some fortified place, or, if           30
  any are obliged to remain, let them not be abandoned
  by those who have to supply their ecclesiastical necessity,
  so that they may survive in common, or suffer in common
  what their Father decrees they should undergo."

  Then he makes mention of the argument of a                         35
  certain bishop, that "if our Lord has enjoined
  upon us flight, in persecutions which may ripen
  into martyrdom, much more is it necessary to
  flee from barren sufferings in a barbarian and
  hostile invasion," and he says, "this is true and
  reasonable, in the case of such as have no                          5
  ecclesiastical office to tie them;" but he continues:

  "Why should men make no question about obeying
  the precept of fleeing from city to city, and yet have
  no dread of 'the hireling who seeth the wolf coming, and
  fleeth, because he careth not for the sheep'? Why do               10
  they not try to reconcile (as they assuredly can) these
  two incontrovertible declarations of our Lord, one of
  which suffers and commands flight, the other arraigns
  and condemns it? And what other mode is there of
  reconciling them than that which I have above laid down?           15
  viz., that we, the ministers of Christ, who are under the
  pressure of persecution, are _then_ at liberty to leave our
  posts, when no flock is left for us to serve; or again,
  when, though there be a flock, yet there are others to
  supply our necessary ministry, who have not the same               20
  reason for fleeing,--as in the case of St. Paul; or,
  again, of the holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria,
  who was especially sought after by the emperor
  Constantius, while the Catholic people, who remained
  together in Alexandria, were in no measure deserted by the         25
  other ministers. But when the people remain, and the
  ministers flee, and the ministration is suspended, what
  is that but the guilty flight of hirelings, who care not for
  the sheep? For then the wolf will come,--not man, but
  the devil, who is accustomed to persuade such believers            30
  to apostasy, who are bereft of the daily ministration of
  the Lord's Body; and by your, not knowledge, but
  ignorance of duty, the weak brother will perish, for whom
  Christ died.

  "Let us only consider, when matters come to an                     35
  extremity of danger, and there is no longer any means
  of escape, how persons flock together to the Church, of
  both sexes, and all ages, begging for baptism, or
  reconciliation, or even for works of penance, and one and
  all of them for consolation, and the consecration and               5
  application of the sacraments. Now, if ministers are
  wanting, what ruin awaits those, who depart from this
  life unregenerate or unabsolved! Consider the grief
  of their believing relatives, who will not have them as
  partakers with themselves in the rest of eternal life;             10
  consider the anguish of the whole multitude, nay, the
  cursings of some of them, at the absence of ministration
  and ministers.

  "It may be said, however, that the ministers of God
  ought to avoid such imminent perils, in order to                   15
  preserve themselves for the profit of the Church for more
  tranquil times. I grant it where others are present to
  supply the ecclesiastical ministry, as in the case of
  Athanasius. How necessary it was to the Church, how
  beneficial, that such a man should remain in the flesh, the        20
  Catholic faith bears witness, which was maintained
  against the Arians by his voice and his love. But when
  there is a common danger, and when there is rather
  reason to apprehend lest a man should be thought to
  flee, not from purpose of prudence, but from dread of              25
  dying, and when the example of flight does more harm
  than the service of living does good, it is by no means
  to be done. To be brief, holy David withdrew himself
  from the hazard of war, lest perchance he should 'quench
  the light of Israel,' at the instance of his people, not on        30
  his own motion. Otherwise, he would have occasioned
  many imitators of an inactivity which they had in that
  case ascribed, not to regard for the welfare of others,
  but to cowardice."

  Then he goes on to a further question, what is                     35
  to be done in a case where all ministers are likely
  to perish, unless some of them take to flight? or
  when persecution is set on foot only with the view
  of reaching the ministers of the Church? This
  leads him to exclaim:

  "O, that there may be then a quarrel between God's                  5
  ministers, _who_ are to remain, and _who_ to flee, lest the
  Church should be deserted, whether by all fleeing or all
  dying! Surely there will ever be such a quarrel, where
  each party burns in its own charity, yet indulges the
  charity of the other. In such a difficulty, the lot seems          10
  the fairest decision, in default of others. God judges
  better than man in perplexities of this sort; whether it
  be His will to reward the holier among them with the
  crown of martyrdom, and to spare the weak, or again,
  to strengthen the latter to endure evil, removing those            15
  from life whom the Church of God can spare the better.
  Should it, however, seem inexpedient to cast
  lots,--a measure for which I cannot bring precedent,--at
  least, let no one's flight be the cause of the Church's
  losing those ministrations which, in such dangers, are             20
  so necessary and so imperative. Let no one make
  himself an exception, on the plea of having some particular
  grace, which gives him a claim to life, and therefore to
  flight.

  "It is sometimes supposed that bishops and clergy,                 25
  remaining at their posts in dangers of this kind, mislead
  their flocks into staying, by their example. But it is
  easy for us to remove this objection or imputation, by
  frankly telling them not to be misled by our remaining.
  'We are remaining for your sake,' we must say, 'lest you           30
  should fail to obtain such ministration, as we know to
  be necessary to your salvation in Christ. Make your
  escape, and you will then set us free.' The occasion for
  saying this is when there seems some real advantage in
  retiring to a safer position. Should all or some make              35
  answer, 'We are in His hands from whose anger no one
  can flee anywhere; whose mercy every one may find
  everywhere, though he stir not, whether some necessary
  tie detains him, or the uncertainty of safe escape deters
  him'; most undoubtedly such persons are not to be
  left destitute of Christian ministrations.                          5

  "I have written these lines, dearest brother, in truth,
  as I think, and in sure charity, by way of reply, since you
  have consulted me; but not as dictating, if, perchance,
  you may find some better view to guide you. However,
  better we cannot do in these perils than pray the Lord             10
  our God to have mercy upon us."--_Ep._ 228.


  IV

  The luminous judgment, the calm faith, and
  the single-minded devotion which this letter
  exhibits, were fully maintained in the conduct of
  the far-famed writer, in the events which                          15
  followed. It was written on the first entrance of
  the Vandals into Africa, about two years before
  they laid siege to Hippo; and during this
  interval of dreadful suspense and excitement, as well
  as of actual suffering, amid the desolation of the                 20
  Church around him, with the prospect of his own
  personal trials, we find this unwearied teacher
  carrying on his works of love by pen, and word
  of mouth,--eagerly, as knowing his time was
  short, but tranquilly, as if it were a season of                   25
  prosperity....

  His life had been for many years one of great
  anxiety and discomfort, the life of one dissatisfied
  with himself, and despairing of finding the truth.
  Men of ordinary minds are not so circumstanced                     30
  as to feel the misery of irreligion. That misery
  consists in the perverted and discordant action
  of the various faculties and functions of the soul,
  which have lost their legitimate governing power,
  and are unable to regain it, except at the hands                    5
  of their Maker. Now the run of irreligious men
  do not suffer in any great degree from this
  disorder, and are not miserable; they have neither
  great talents nor strong passions; they have not
  within them the materials of rebellion in such                     10
  measure as to threaten their peace. They follow
  their own wishes, they yield to the bent of the
  moment, they act on inclination, not on principle,
  but their motive powers are neither strong nor
  various enough to be troublesome. Their minds                      15
  are in no sense under rule; but anarchy is not in
  their case a state of confusion, but of deadness;
  not unlike the internal condition as it is reported
  of eastern cities and provinces at present, in
  which, though the government is weak or null,                      20
  the body politic goes on without any great
  embarrassment or collision of its members one with
  another, by the force of inveterate habit. It is
  very different when the moral and intellectual
  principles are vigorous, active, and developed.                    25
  Then, if the governing power be feeble, all the
  subordinates are in the position of rebels in arms;
  and what the state of a mind is under such
  circumstances, the analogy of a civil community will
  suggest to us. Then we have before us the                          30
  melancholy spectacle of high aspirations without
  an aim, a hunger of the soul unsatisfied, and a
  never ending restlessness and inward warfare of
  its various faculties. Gifted minds, if not
  submitted to the rightful authority of religion,
  become the most unhappy and the most mischievous.                   5
  They need both an object to feed upon, and the
  power of self-mastery; and the love of their
  Maker, and nothing but it, supplies both the one
  and the other. We have seen in our own day, in
  the case of a popular poet, an impressive instance                 10
  of a great genius throwing off the fear of God,
  seeking for happiness in the creature, roaming
  unsatisfied from one object to another, breaking
  his soul upon itself, and bitterly confessing and
  imparting his wretchedness to all around him.                      15
  I have no wish at all to compare him to St.
  Augustine; indeed, if we may say it without
  presumption, the very different termination of their trial
  seems to indicate some great difference in their
  respective modes of encountering it. The one                       20
  dies of premature decay, to all appearance, a
  hardened infidel; and if he is still to have a name,
  will live in the mouths of men by writings at once
  blasphemous and immoral: the other is a Saint
  and Doctor of the Church. Each makes                               25
  confessions, the one to the saints, the other to the
  powers of evil. And does not the difference of
  the two discover itself in some measure, even to
  our eyes, in the very history of their wanderings
  and pinings? At least, there is no appearance in                   30
  St. Augustine's case of that dreadful haughtiness,
  sullenness, love of singularity, vanity, irritability,
  and misanthropy, which were too certainly the
  characteristics of our own countryman.
  Augustine was, as his early history shows, a man of
  affectionate and tender feelings, and open and                      5
  amiable temper; and, above all, he sought for some
  excellence external to his own mind, instead of
  concentrating all his contemplations on himself.

  But let us consider what his misery was; it
  was that of a mind imprisoned, solitary, and wild                  10
  with spiritual thirst; and forced to betake itself
  to the strongest excitements, by way of relieving
  itself of the rush and violence of feelings, of which
  the knowledge of the Divine Perfections was the
  true and sole sustenance. He ran into excess,                      15
  not from love of it, but from this fierce fever of
  mind. "I sought what I might love,"[28] he says
  in his Confessions, "in love with loving, and safety
  I hated, and a way without snares. For within
  me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself,                      20
  my God; yet throughout that famine I was not
  hungered, but was without any longing for
  incorruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith,
  but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For
  this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores; it                25
  miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped
  by the touch of objects of sense."--iii. I.

   [28] Most of these translations are from the Oxford edition of 1838.

  "O foolish man that I then was," he says elsewhere,
  "enduring impatiently the lot of man! So I fretted,
  sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor
  counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding
  soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose
  it I found not; not in calm groves, nor in games and
  music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings,           5
  nor in indulgence of the bed and the couch, nor, finally, in
  books or poetry found it repose. All things looked ghastly,
  yea, the very light. In groaning and tears alone found
  I a little refreshment. But when my soul was withdrawn
  from them, a huge load of misery weighed me down.                  10
  To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been raised, for Thee
  to lighten; I knew it, but neither could, nor would;
  the more, since when I thought of Thee, Thou wast not
  to me any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wert not
  Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my God.              15
  If I offered to discharge my load thereon, that it might
  rest, it glided through the void, and came rushing down
  against me; and I had remained to myself a hapless
  spot, where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For
  whither should my heart flee from my heart? whither                20
  should I flee from myself? whither not follow myself?
  And yet I fled out of my country; for so should mine
  eyes look less for _him_, where they were not wont to see
  him."--iv. 12.

  He is speaking in this last sentence of a friend he                25
  had lost, whose death-bed was very remarkable,
  and whose dear familiar name he apparently has
  not courage to mention. "He had grown from a
  child with me," he says, "and we had been both
  schoolfellows and playfellows." Augustine had                      30
  misled him into the heresy which he had adopted
  himself, and when he grew to have more and more
  sympathy in Augustine's pursuits, the latter united
  himself to him in a closer intimacy. Scarcely had
  he thus given him his heart, when God took him.                    35

  "Thou tookest him," he says, "out of this life, when he
  had scarce completed one whole year of my friendship,
  sweet to me above all sweetness in that life of mine.
  A long while, sore sick of a fever, he lay senseless in the
  dews of death, and being given over, he was baptized                5
  unwitting; I, meanwhile little regarding, or presuming
  that his soul would retain rather what it had received
  of me than what was wrought on his unconscious body."

  The Manichees, it should be observed, rejected
  baptism. He proceeds:                                              10

  "But it proved far otherwise; for he was refreshed
  and restored. Forthwith, as soon as I could speak with
  him (and I could as soon as he was able, for I never left
  him, and we hung but too much upon each other), I
  essayed to jest with him, as though he would jest with             15
  me at that baptism, which he had received, when
  utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had now understood
  that he had received. But he shrunk from me, as from
  an enemy; and with a wonderful and sudden freedom
  bade me, if I would continue his friend, forbear such              20
  language to him. I, all astonished and amazed,
  suppressed all my emotions till he should grow well, and his
  health were strong enough for me to deal with him as I
  would. But he was taken away from my madness, that
  with Thee he might be preserved for my comfort: a few              25
  days after, in my absence, he was attacked again by
  fever, and so departed."--iv. 8.


  V

  From distress of mind Augustine left his native
  place, Thagaste, and came to Carthage, where he
  became a teacher in rhetoric. Here he fell in                      30
  with Faustus, an eminent Manichean bishop and
  disputant, in whom, however, he was
  disappointed; and the disappointment abated his
  attachment to his sect, and disposed him to look
  for truth elsewhere. Disgusted with the license
  which prevailed among the students at Carthage,                     5
  he determined to proceed to Rome, and
  disregarding and eluding the entreaties of his mother,
  Monica, who dreaded his removal from his own
  country, he went thither. At Rome he resumed
  his professions; but inconveniences as great,                      10
  though of another kind, encountered him in that
  city; and upon the people of Milan sending for a
  rhetoric reader, he made application for the
  appointment, and obtained it. To Milan then he
  came, the city of St. Ambrose, in the year of our                  15
  Lord 385.

  Ambrose, though weak in voice, had the
  reputation of eloquence; and Augustine, who seems
  to have gone with introductions to him, and was
  won by his kindness of manner, attended his                        20
  sermons with curiosity and interest. "I listened,"
  he says, "not in the frame of mind which became
  me, but in order to see whether his eloquence
  answered what was reported of it: I hung on his
  words attentively, but of the matter I was but an                  25
  unconcerned and contemptuous hearer."--v. 23.
  His impression of his style of preaching is worth
  noticing: "I was delighted with the sweetness
  of his discourse, more full of knowledge, yet in
  manner less pleasurable and soothing, than that                    30
  of Faustus." Augustine was insensibly moved:
  he determined on leaving the Manichees, and
  returning to the state of a catechumen in the
  Catholic Church, into which he had been admitted
  by his parents. He began to eye and muse upon
  the great bishop of Milan more and more, and tried                  5
  in vain to penetrate his secret heart, and to
  ascertain the thoughts and feelings which swayed him.
  He felt he did not understand him. If the
  respect and intimacy of the great could make
  a man happy, these advantages he perceived                         10
  Ambrose to possess; yet he was not satisfied that
  he was a happy man. His celibacy seemed a
  drawback: what constituted his hidden life? or
  was he cold at heart? or was he of a famished
  and restless spirit? He felt his own malady, and                   15
  longed to ask him some questions about it. But
  Ambrose could not easily be spoken with. Though
  accessible to all, yet that very circumstance
  made it difficult for an individual, especially one
  who was not of his flock, to get a private                         20
  interview with him. When he was not taken up with
  the Christian people who surrounded him, he
  was either at his meals or engaged in private
  reading. Augustine used to enter, as all persons
  might, without being announced; but after                          25
  staying awhile, afraid of interrupting him, he
  departed again. However, he heard his expositions
  of Scripture every Sunday, and gradually made
  progress.

  He was now in his thirtieth year, and since he                     30
  was a youth of eighteen had been searching after
  truth; yet he was still "in the same mire, greedy of
  things present," but finding nothing stable.

  "To-morrow," he said to himself, "I shall find it; it
  will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it: lo, Faustus
  the Manichee will come and clear everything! O you                  5
  great men, ye academics, is it true, then, that no
  certainty can be attained for the ordering of life? Nay,
  let us search diligently, and despair not. Lo, things in
  the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which
  sometimes seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken                10
  and in a good sense. I will take my stand where, as a
  child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth be
  found out. But where shall it be sought, or when?
  Ambrose has no leisure; we have no leisure to read;
  where shall we find even the books? where, or when,                15
  procure them? Let set times be appointed, and
  certain hours be ordered for the health of our soul. Great
  hope has dawned; the Catholic faith teaches not what
  we thought; and do we doubt to knock, that the rest
  may be opened? The forenoons, indeed, our scholars                 20
  take up; what do we during the rest of our time? why
  not this? But if so, when pay we court to our great
  friend, whose favors we need? when compose what we
  may sell to scholars? when refresh ourselves, unbending
  our minds from this intenseness of care?                           25

  "Perish everything: dismiss we these empty
  vanities; and betake ourselves to the one search for truth!
  Life is a poor thing, death is uncertain; if it surprises
  us, in what state shall we depart hence? and when shall
  we learn what here we have neglected? and shall we not             30
  rather suffer the punishment of this negligence? What
  if death itself cut off and end all care and feeling?
  Then must this be ascertained. But God forbid this!
  It is no vain and empty thing, that the excellent dignity
  of the Christian faith has overspread the whole world.             35
  Never would such and so great things be wrought for
  us by God, if with the body the soul also came to an
  end. Wherefore delay then to abandon worldly hopes,
  and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the
  blessed life?..."

  Finding Ambrose, though kind and accessible,                        5
  yet reserved, he went to an aged man named
  Simplician, who, as some say, baptized St.
  Ambrose, and eventually succeeded him in his
  see. He opened his mind to him, and
  happening in the course of his communications to                   10
  mention Victorinus's translation of some Platonic
  works, Simplician asked him if he knew that
  person's history. It seems he was a professor of
  rhetoric at Rome, was well versed in literature and
  philosophy, had been tutor to many of the                          15
  senators, and had received the high honor of a statue
  in the Forum. Up to his old age he had
  professed, and defended with his eloquence, the old
  pagan worship. He was led to read the Holy
  Scriptures, and was brought, in consequence, to                    20
  a belief in their divinity. For a while he did not
  feel the necessity of changing his profession; he
  looked upon Christianity as a philosophy, he
  embraced it as such, but did not propose to join
  what he considered the Christian sect, or, as                      25
  Christians would call it, the Catholic Church.
  He let Simplician into his secret; but whenever
  the latter pressed him to take the step, he was
  accustomed to ask, "whether walls made a
  Christian." However, such a state could not                        30
  continue with a man of earnest mind: the leaven
  worked; at length he unexpectedly called upon
  Simplician to lead him to church. He was
  admitted a catechumen, and in due time baptized,
  "Rome wondering, the Church rejoicing." It
  was customary at Rome for the candidates for                        5
  baptism to profess their faith from a raised place
  in the church, in a set form of words. An offer
  was made to Victorinus, which was not unusual
  in the case of bashful and timid persons, to make
  his profession in private. But he preferred to                     10
  make it in the ordinary way. "I was public
  enough," he made answer, "in my profession of
  rhetoric, and ought not to be frightened when
  professing salvation." He continued the school
  which he had before he became a Christian, till                    15
  the edict of Julian forced him to close it. This
  story went to Augustine's heart, but it did not
  melt it. There was still the struggle of two wills,
  the high aspiration and the habitual inertness.
  His conversion took place in the summer of 386.                    20

       *       *       *       *       *

  He gives an account of the termination of the
  conflict he underwent:

  "At length burst forth a mighty storm, bringing
  a mighty flood of tears; and to indulge it to the full
  even unto cries, in solitude, I rose up from Alypius, ...          25
  who perceived from my choked voice how it was with
  me. He remained where we had been sitting, in deep
  astonishment. I threw myself down under a fig tree, I
  know not how, and allowing my tears full vent, offered
  up to Thee the acceptable sacrifice of my streaming eyes.          30

  "And I cried out to this effect: 'And Thou, O Lord,
  how long, how long, Lord, wilt Thou be angry?
  Forever? Remember not our old sins!' for I felt that they
  were my tyrants. I cried out, piteously, 'How long?
  how long? to-morrow and to-morrow? why not _now_?                   5
  why not in this very hour put an end to this my vileness?'
  While I thus spoke, with tears, in the bitter contrition
  of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice, as if from a house
  near me, of a boy or girl chanting forth again and again,
  'TAKE UP AND READ, TAKE UP AND READ!' Changing                     10
  countenance at these words, I began intently to think
  whether boys used them in any game, but could not
  recollect that I had ever heard them. I left weeping and
  rose up, considering it a divine intimation to open the
  Scriptures and read what first presented itself. I had             15
  heard that Antony had come in during the reading of the
  Gospel, and had taken to himself the admonition, 'Go,
  sell all that thou hast,' etc., and had turned to Thee at
  once, in consequence of that oracle. I had left St.
  Paul's volume where Alypius was sitting, when I rose               20
  thence. I returned thither, seized it, opened, and read
  in silence the following passage, which first met my eyes,
  '_Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and
  impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the
  Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in         25
  its concupiscences_.' I had neither desire nor need to
  read farther. As I finished the sentence, as though the
  light of peace had been poured into my heart, all the
  shadows of doubt dispersed. Thus hast Thou converted
  me to Thee, so as no longer to seek either for wife or             30
  other hope of this world, standing fast in that rule of
  faith in which Thou so many years before hadst revealed
  me to my mother."--viii. 26-30.

  The last words of this extract relate to a dream
  which his mother had had some years before,                        35
  concerning his conversion. On his first turning
  Manichee, abhorring his opinions, she would not
  for a while even eat with him, when she had this
  dream, in which she had an intimation that where
  she stood, there Augustine should one day be
  with her. At another time she derived great                         5
  comfort from the casual words of a bishop, who,
  when importuned by her to converse with her
  son, said at length with some impatience, "Go
  thy ways, and God bless thee, for it is not possible
  that the son of these tears should perish!"                        10
  would be out of place, and is perhaps unnecessary,
  to enter here into the affecting and well-known
  history of her tender anxieties and persevering
  prayers for Augustine. Suffice it to say, she saw
  the accomplishment of them; she lived till                         15
  Augustine became a Catholic; and she died on her way
  back to Africa with him. Her last words were,
  "Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it
  in any way distress you; this only I ask, that
  wherever you be, you remember me at the Altar                      20
  of the Lord."

  "May she," says her son, in dutiful remembrance of
  her words, "rest in peace with her husband, before and
  after whom she never had any; whom she obeyed, with
  patience bringing forth fruit unto Thee, that she might            25
  win him also unto Thee. And inspire, O Lord my God,
  inspire Thy servants, my brethren,--Thy sons, my
  masters,--whom, in heart, voice, and writing I serve,
  that so many as read these confessions, may at Thy altar
  remember Monica, Thy handmaid, with Patricius, her                 30
  sometime husband, from whom Thou broughtest me into
  this life; how, I know not. May they with pious affection
  remember those who were my parents in this
  transitory light,--my brethren under Thee, our Father,
  in our Catholic Mother,--my fellow-citizens in the
  eternal Jerusalem, after which Thy pilgrim people sigh
  from their going forth unto their return: that so, her              5
  last request of me may in the prayers of many receive
  a fulfillment, through my confessions, more abundant
  than through my prayers."--ix. 37.

       *       *       *       *       *




  CHRYSOSTOM

  INTRODUCTORY


  I confess to a delight in reading the lives, and
  dwelling on the characters and actions, of the
  Saints of the first ages, such as I receive from none
  besides them; and for this reason, because we
  know so much more about them than about most                        5
  of the Saints who come after them. People are
  variously constituted; what influences one does
  not influence another. There are persons of
  warm imaginations, who can easily picture to
  themselves what they never saw. They can at                        10
  will see Angels and Saints hovering over them
  when they are in church; they see their
  lineaments, their features, their motions, their
  gestures, their smile or their grief. They can go
  home and draw what they have seen, from the                        15
  vivid memory of what, while it lasted, was so
  transporting. I am not one of such; I am touched
  by my five senses, by what my eyes behold and
  my ears hear. I am touched by what I read
  about, not by what I myself create. As faith                       20
  need not lead to practice, so in me mere
  imagination does not lead to devotion. I gain more
  from the life of our Lord in the Gospels than from
  a treatise _de Deo_. I gain more from three verses
  of St. John than from the three points of a
  meditation. I like a Spanish crucifix of painted wood
  more than one from Italy, which is made of gold.
  I am more touched by the Seven Dolors than by
  the Immaculate Conception; I am more devout                         5
  to St. Gabriel than to one of Isaiah's seraphim.
  I love St. Paul more than one of those first
  Carmelites, his contemporaries, whose names and acts
  no one ever heard of; I feel affectionately towards
  the Alexandrian Dionysius, I do homage to St.                      10
  George. I do not say that my way is better than
  another's; but it is my way, and an allowable
  way. And it is the reason why I am so specially
  attached to the Saints of the third and fourth
  century, because we know so much about them.                       15
  This is why I feel a devout affection for St.
  Chrysostom. He and the rest of them have
  written autobiography on a large scale; they
  have given us their own histories, their thoughts,
  words, and actions, in a number of goodly folios,                  20
  productions which are in themselves some of their
  meritorious works....

  The Ancient Saints have left behind them just
  that kind of literature which more than any other
  represents the abundance of the heart, which                       25
  more than any other approaches to conversation;
  I mean correspondence. Why is it that we feel
  an interest in Cicero which we cannot feel in
  Demosthenes or Plato? Plato is the very type
  of soaring philosophy, and Demosthenes of                          30
  forcible eloquence; Cicero is something more than
  an orator and a sage; he is not a mere ideality, he
  is a man and a brother; he is one of ourselves.
  We do not merely believe it, or infer it, but we
  have the enduring and living evidence of
  it--how? In his letters. He can be studied,                         5
  criticised if you will; but still dwelt upon and
  sympathized with also. Now the case of the Ancient
  Saints is parallel to that of Cicero. We have their
  letters in a marvelous profusion. We have
  above 400 letters of St. Basil's; above 200 of                     10
  St. Augustine's. St. Chrysostom has left us
  about 240; St. Gregory Nazianzen the same
  number; Pope St. Gregory as many as 840....

  A Saint's writings are to me his real "Life;"
  and what _is called_ his "Life" is not the outline                 15
  of an individual, but either of the _auto-saint_ or
  of a myth. Perhaps I shall be asked what I
  mean by "Life." I mean a narrative which
  impresses the reader with the idea of moral unity,
  identity, growth, continuity, personality. When                    20
  a Saint converses with me, I am conscious of the
  presence of one active principle of thought, one
  individual character, flowing on and into the
  various matters which he discusses, and the
  different transactions in which he mixes. It is                    25
  what no memorials can reach, however skillfully
  elaborated, however free from effort or study,
  however conscientiously faithful, however
  guaranteed by the veracity of the writers. Why
  cannot art rival the lily or the rose? Because the                 30
  colors of the flower are developed and blended
  by the force of an inward life; while on the other
  hand, the lights and shades of the painter are
  diligently laid on from without. A magnifying
  glass will show the difference. Nor will it
  improve matters, though not one only, but a dozen                   5
  good artists successively take part in the picture;
  even if the outline is unbroken, the coloring is
  muddy. Commonly, what is called "the Life,"
  is little more than a collection of anecdotes brought
  together from a number of independent quarters;                    10
  anecdotes striking, indeed, and edifying, but
  valuable in themselves rather than valuable as parts
  of a biography; valuable whoever was the
  subject of them, not valuable as illustrating a
  particular Saint. It would be difficult to mistake                 15
  for each other a paragraph of St. Ambrose, or of
  St. Jerome, or of St. Augustine; it would be very
  easy to mistake a chapter in the life of one holy
  missionary or nun for a chapter in the life of
  another.                                                           20

  An almsgiving here, an instance of meekness
  there, a severity of penance, a round of religious
  duties,--all these things humble me, instruct
  me, improve me; I cannot desire anything
  better of their kind; but they do not necessarily                  25
  coalesce into the image of a person. From such
  works I do but learn to pay devotion to an
  abstract and typical perfection under a certain
  particular name; I do not know more of the real
  Saint who bore it than before. Saints, as other                    30
  men, differ from each other in this, that the
  multitude of qualities which they have in
  common are differently combined in each of them.
  This forms one great part of their personality.
  One Saint is remarkable for fortitude; not that
  he has not other heroic virtues by _concomitance_,                  5
  as it may be called, but by virtue of that one gift
  in particular he has won his crown. Another is
  remarkable for patient hope, another for
  renunciation of the world. Such a particular virtue
  may be said to give form to all the rest which are                 10
  grouped round it, and are molded and modified
  by means of it. Thus it is that often what is
  right in one would be wrong in another; and, in
  fact, the very same action is allowed or chosen
  by one, and shunned by another, as being                           15
  consistent or inconsistent with their respective
  characters,--pretty much as in the combination of
  colors, each separate tint takes a shade from
  the rest, and is good or bad from its company.
  The whole gives a meaning to the parts; but it                     20
  is difficult to rise from the parts to the whole.
  When I read St. Augustine or St. Basil, I hold
  converse with a beautiful grace-illumined soul,
  looking out into this world of sense, and leavening
  it with itself; when I read a professed life of him,               25
  I am wandering in a labyrinth of which I cannot
  find the center and heart, and am but conducted
  out of doors again when I do my best to penetrate
  within.

  This seems to me, to tell the truth, a sort of                     30
  pantheistic treatment of the Saints. I ask something
  more than to stumble upon the _disjecta
  membra_ of what ought to be a living whole. I
  take but a secondary interest in books which
  chop up a Saint into chapters of faith, hope,
  charity, and the cardinal virtues. They are too                     5
  scientific to be devotional. They have their
  great utility, but it is not the utility which they
  profess. They do not manifest a Saint, they
  mince him into spiritual lessons. They are
  rightly called spiritual reading, that is just what                10
  they are, and they cannot possibly be anything
  better; but they are not anything else. They
  contain a series of points of meditation on
  particular virtues, made easier because those points
  are put under the patronage and the invocation                     15
  of a Saint. With a view to learning real
  devotion to him, I prefer (speaking for myself) to have
  any one action or event of his life drawn out
  minutely, with his own comments upon it, than
  a score of virtues, or of acts of one virtue, strung               20
  together in as many sentences. Now, in the
  ancient writings I have spoken of, certain
  transactions are thoroughly worked out. We know all
  that happened to a Saint on such or such an
  occasion, all that was done by him. We have a view                 25
  of his character, his tastes, his natural infirmities,
  his struggles and victories over them, which in
  no other way can be attained. And therefore it
  is that, without quarreling with the devotion of
  others, I give the preference to my own.                           30

  Here another great subject opens upon us,
  when I ought to be bringing these remarks to
  an end; I mean the endemic perennial fidget
  which possesses us about giving scandal; facts
  are omitted in great histories, or glosses are put
  upon memorable acts, because they are thought                       5
  not edifying, whereas of all scandals such
  omissions, such glosses, are the greatest. But I am
  getting far more argumentative than I thought
  to be when I began; so I lay my pen down, and
  retire into myself.                                                10


  I

  John of Antioch, from his sanctity and his
  eloquence called Chrysostom, was approaching
  sixty years of age, when he had to deliver himself
  up to the imperial officers, and to leave
  Constantinople for a distant exile. He had been the great          15
  preacher of the day now for nearly twenty years;
  first at Antioch, then in the metropolis of the
  East; and his gift of speech, as in the instance of
  the two great classical orators before him, was to
  be his ruin. He had made an Empress his enemy,                     20
  more powerful than Antipater,--as passionate,
  if not so vindictive, as Fulvia. Nor was this all;
  a zealous Christian preacher offends not
  individuals merely, but classes of men, and much more
  so when he is pastor and ruler too, and has to                     25
  punish as well as to denounce. Eudoxia, the
  Empress, might be taken off suddenly,--as
  indeed she was taken off a few weeks after the
  Saint arrived at the place of exile, which she personally,         30
  in spite of his entreaties, had marked out
  for him; but her death did but serve to increase
  the violence of the persecution directed against
  him. She had done her part in it, perhaps she
  might have even changed her mind in his favor;                      5
  probably the agitation of a bad conscience was,
  in her critical condition, the cause of her death.
  She was taken out of the way; but her partisans,
  who had made use of her, went on vigorously
  with the evil work which she had begun. When                       10
  Cucusus would not kill him, they sent him on his
  travels anew, across a far wilder country than he
  had already traversed, to a remote town on the
  eastern coast of the Euxine; and he sank under
  this fresh trial.                                                  15

  The Euxine! that strange mysterious sea,
  which typifies the abyss of outer darkness, as
  the blue Mediterranean basks under the smile of
  heaven in the center of civilization and religion.
  The awful, yet splendid drama of man's history                     20
  has mainly been carried on upon the
  Mediterranean shores; while the Black Sea has ever been
  on the very outskirts of the habitable world,
  and the scene of wild unnatural portents; with
  legends of Prometheus on the savage Caucasus,                      25
  of Medea gathering witch herbs in the moist
  meadows of the Phasis, and of Iphigenia
  sacrificing the shipwrecked stranger in Taurica; and
  then again, with the more historical, yet not more
  grateful visions of barbarous tribes, Goths, Huns,                 30
  Scythians, Tartars, flitting over the steppes and
  wastes which encircle its inhospitable waters.
  To be driven from the bright cities and sunny
  clime of Italy or Greece to such a region, was
  worse than death; and the luxurious Roman
  actually preferred death to exile. The suicide                      5
  of Gallus, under this dread doom, is well known;
  Ovid, too cowardly to be desperate, drained out
  the dregs of a vicious life on the cold marshes
  between the Danube and the sea. I need scarcely
  allude to the heroic Popes who patiently lived on                  10
  in the Crimea, till a martyrdom, in which they
  had not part but the suffering, released them.

  But banishment was an immense evil in itself.
  Cicero, even though he had liberty of person, the
  choice of a home, and the prospect of a return,                    15
  roamed disconsolate through the cities of Greece,
  because he was debarred access to the
  senate-house and forum. Chrysostom had his own
  _rostra_, his own _curia_; it was the Holy Temple,
  where his eloquence gained for him victories not                   20
  less real, and more momentous, than the
  detection and overthrow of Catiline. Great as was
  his gift of oratory, it was not by the fertility of
  his imagination, or the splendor of his diction
  that he gained the surname of "Mouth of Gold."                     25
  We shall be very wrong if we suppose that fine
  expressions, or rounded periods, or figures of
  speech, were the credentials by which he claimed
  to be the first doctor of the East. His oratorical
  power was but the instrument by which he                           30
  readily, gracefully, adequately expressed--expressed
  without effort and with felicity--the
  keen feelings, the living ideas, the earnest
  practical lessons which he had to communicate to his
  hearers. He spoke, because his heart, his head,
  were brimful of things to speak about. His                          5
  elocution corresponded to that strength and
  flexibility of limb, that quickness of eye, hand, and
  foot, by which a man excels in manly games or
  in mechanical skill. It would be a great mistake,
  in speaking of it, to ask whether it was Attic or                  10
  Asiatic, terse or flowing, when its distinctive
  praise was that it was natural. His unrivaled
  charm, as that of every really eloquent man, lies
  in his singleness of purpose, his fixed grasp of his
  aim, his noble earnestness.                                        15

  A bright, cheerful, gentle soul; a sensitive
  heart, a temperament open to emotion and
  impulse; and all this elevated, refined, transformed
  by the touch of heaven,--such was St. John
  Chrysostom; winning followers, riveting                            20
  affections, by his sweetness, frankness, and neglect
  of self. In his labors, in his preaching, he
  thought of others only. "I am always in
  admiration of that thrice-blessed man," says an able
  critic,[29] "because he ever in all his writings puts              25
  before him as his object, to be useful to his
  hearers; and as to all other matters, he either
  simply put them aside, or took the least possible
  notice of them. Nay, as to his seeming ignorant
  of some of the thoughts of Scripture, or careless of               30
  entering into its depths, and similar defects, all
  this he utterly disregarded in comparison of the
  profit of his hearers."

    [29] Photius, p. 387.

  There was as little affectation of sanctity in his
  dress or living as there was effort in his eloquence.               5
  In his youth he had been one of the most austere
  of men; at the age of twenty-one, renouncing
  bright prospects of the world, he had devoted
  himself to prayer and study of the Scriptures.
  He had retired to the mountains near Antioch,                      10
  his native place, and had lived among the monks.
  This had been his home for six years, and he had
  chosen it in order to subdue the daintiness of his
  natural appetite. "Lately," he wrote to a friend
  at the time,--"lately, when I had made up my                       15
  mind to leave the city and betake myself to the
  tabernacle of the monks, I was forever
  inquiring and busying myself how I was to get a
  supply of provisions; whether it would be possible
  to procure fresh bread for my eating, whether                      20
  I should be ordered to use the same oil for my
  lamp and for my food, to undergo the hardship
  of peas and beans, or of severe toil, such as
  digging, carrying wood or water, and the like; in
  a word, I made much account of bodily comfort."[30]                25
  Such was the nervous anxiety and fidget of mind
  with which he had begun: but this rough
  discipline soon effected its object, and at length, even
  by preference, he took upon him mortifications
  which at first were a trouble to him. For the                      30
  last two years of his monastic exercise, he lived
  by himself in a cave; he slept, when he did sleep,
  without lying down; he exposed himself to the
  extremities of cold. At length he found he was
  passing the bounds of discretion, nature would                      5
  bear no more; he fell ill, and returned to the
  city.

    [30] Ad Demetrium, i. 6.

  A course of ascetic practice such as this would
  leave its spiritual effects upon him for life. It
  sank deep into him, though the surface might                       10
  not show it. His duty at Constantinople was to
  mix with the world; and he lived as others,
  except as regards such restraints as his sacred
  office and archiepiscopal station demanded of
  him. He wore shoes, and an under garment;                          15
  but his stomach was ever delicate, and at meals
  he was obliged to have his own dish, such as it
  was, to himself. However, he mixed freely with
  all ranks of men; and he made friends,
  affectionate friends, of young and old, men and women,             20
  rich and poor, by condescending to all of every
  degree. How he was loved at Antioch, is shown
  by the expedient used to transfer him thence to
  Constantinople. Asterius, count of the East, had
  orders to send for him, and ask his company to a                   25
  church without the city. Having got him into
  his carriage, he drove off with him to the first
  station on the highroad to Constantinople, where
  imperial officers were in readiness to convey him
  thither. Thus he was brought upon the scene of                     30
  those trials which have given him a name in history,
  and a place in the catalogue of the Saints.
  At the imperial city he was as much followed, if
  not as popular, as at Antioch. "The people
  flocked to him," says Sozomen, "as often as he
  preached; some of them to hear what would                           5
  profit them, others to make trial of him. He
  carried them away, one and all, and persuaded
  them to think as he did about the Divine Nature.
  They hung upon his words, and could not have
  enough of them; so that, when they thrust and                      10
  jammed themselves together in an alarming way,
  every one making an effort to get nearer to him,
  and to hear him more perfectly, he took his seat
  in the midst of them, and taught from the pulpit
  of the Reader."[31] He was, indeed, a man to make                  15
  both friends and enemies; to inspire affection,
  and to kindle resentment; but his friends loved
  him with a love "stronger" than "death," and
  more burning than "hell;" and it was well to be
  so hated, if he was so beloved.                                    20

    [31] Hist. viii. 5.

  Here he differs, as far as I can judge, from his
  brother saints and doctors of the Greek Church,
  St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen. They were
  scholars, shy perhaps and reserved; and though
  they had not given up the secular state, they were                 25
  essentially monks. There is no evidence, that I
  remember, to show that they attached men to
  their persons. They, as well as John, had a
  multitude of enemies; and were regarded, the
  one with dislike, the other perhaps with contempt;                 30
  but they had not, on the other hand,
  warm, eager, sympathetic, indignant, agonized
  friends. There is another characteristic in
  Chrysostom, which perhaps gained for him this great
  blessing. He had, as it would seem, a vigor,                        5
  elasticity, and, what may be called, sunniness of
  mind, all his own. He was ever sanguine,
  seldom sad. Basil had a life-long malady, involving
  continual gnawing pain and a weight of physical
  dejection. He bore his burden well and                             10
  gracefully, like the great Saint he was, as Job bore his;
  but it was a burden like Job's. He was a calm, mild,
  grave, autumnal day; St. John Chrysostom was
  a day in spring-time, bright and rainy, and
  glittering through its rain. Gregory was the full                  15
  summer, with a long spell of pleasant stillness, its
  monotony relieved by thunder and lightning.
  And St. Athanasius figures to us the stern
  persecuting winter, with its wild winds, its dreary
  wastes, its sleep of the great mother, and the                     20
  bright stars shining overhead. He and
  Chrysostom have no points in common; but Gregory was
  a dethroned Archbishop of Constantinople, like
  Chrysostom, and, again, dethroned by his
  brethren the Bishops. Like Basil, too, Chrysostom was              25
  bowed with infirmities of body; he was often ill;
  he was thin and wizened; cold was a misery to
  him; heat affected his head; he scarcely dare
  touch wine; he was obliged to use the bath;
  obliged to take exercise, or rather to be                          30
  continually on the move. Whether from a nervous or
  febrile complexion, he was warm in temper; or
  at least, at certain times, his emotion struggled
  hard with his reason. But he had that noble
  spirit which complains as little as possible; which
  makes the best of things; which soon recovers                       5
  its equanimity, and hopes on in circumstances
  when others sink down in despair....


  II

  Whence is this devotion to St. John
  Chrysostom, which leads me to dwell upon the thought of
  him, and makes me kindle at his name, when so                      10
  many other great Saints, as the year brings round
  their festivals, command indeed my veneration,
  but exert no personal claim upon my heart?
  Many holy men have died in exile, many holy
  men have been successful preachers; and what                       15
  more can we write upon St. Chrysostom's
  monument than this, that he was eloquent and that he
  suffered persecution? He is not an Athanasius,
  expounding a sacred dogma with a luminousness
  which is almost an inspiration; nor is he                          20
  Athanasius, again, in his romantic life-long adventures,
  in his sublime solitariness, in his ascendency over
  all classes of men, in his series of triumphs over
  material force and civil tyranny. Nor, except
  by the contrast, does he remind us of that                         25
  Ambrose who kept his ground obstinately in an
  imperial city, and fortified himself against the
  heresy of a court by the living rampart of a
  devoted population. Nor is he Gregory or Basil,
  rich in the literature and philosophy of Greece,
  and embellishing the Church with the spoils of
  heathenism. Again, he is not an Augustine,
  devoting long years to one masterpiece of thought,                  5
  and laying, in successive controversies, the
  foundations of theology. Nor is he a Jerome, so dead to
  the world that he can imitate the point and wit
  of its writers without danger to himself or
  scandal to his brethren. He has not trampled upon                  10
  heresy, nor smitten emperors, nor beautified the
  house or the service of God, nor knit together the
  portions of Christendom, nor founded a religious
  order, nor built up the framework of doctrine, nor
  expounded the science of the Saints; yet I love                    15
  him, as I love David or St. Paul.

  How am I to account for it? It has not
  happened to me, as it might happen to many a man,
  that I have devoted time and toil to the study of
  his writings or of his history, and cry up that                    20
  upon which I have made an outlay, or love what
  has become familiar to me. Cases may occur
  when our admiration for an author is only
  admiration of our own comments on him, and when
  our love of an old acquaintance is only our love                   25
  of old times. For me, I have not written the
  life of Chrysostom, nor translated his works, nor
  studied Scripture in his exposition, nor forged
  weapons of controversy out of his sayings or his
  doings. Nor is his eloquence of a kind to carry                    30
  any one away who has ever so little knowledge
  of the oratory of Greece and Rome. It is not
  force of words, nor cogency of argument, nor
  harmony of composition, nor depth or richness of
  thought, which constitute his power,--whence,
  then, has he this influence, so mysterious, yet so                  5
  strong?

  I consider St. Chrysostom's charm to lie in his
  intimate sympathy and compassionateness for
  the whole world, not only in its strength, but in
  its weakness; in the lively regard with which he                   10
  views everything that comes before him, taken
  in the concrete, whether as made after its own
  kind or as gifted with a nature higher than its
  own. Not that any religious man--above all,
  not that any Saint--could possibly contrive to                     15
  abstract the love of the work from the love of
  its Maker, or could feel a tenderness for earth
  which did not spring from devotion to heaven;
  or as if he would not love everything just in that
  degree in which the Creator loves it, and                          20
  according to the measure of gifts which the Creator
  has bestowed upon it, and preeminently for the
  Creator's sake. But this is the characteristic
  of all Saints; and I am speaking, not of what St.
  Chrysostom had in common with others, but what                     25
  he had special to himself; and this specialty, I
  conceive, is the interest which he takes in all
  things, not so far as God has made them alike,
  but as He has made them different from each
  other. I speak of the discriminating                               30
  affectionateness with which he accepts every one for what is
  personal in him and unlike others. I speak of his
  versatile recognition of men, one by one, for the
  sake of that portion of good, be it more or less,
  of a lower order or a higher, which has severally
  been lodged in them; his eager contemplation of                     5
  the many things they do, effect, or produce, of
  all their great works, as nations or as states;
  nay, even as they are corrupted or disguised by
  evil, so far as that evil may in imagination be
  disjoined from their proper nature, or may be                      10
  regarded as a mere material disorder apart from
  its formal character of guilt. I speak of the
  kindly spirit and the genial temper with which
  he looks round at all things which this
  wonderful world contains; of the graphic fidelity with             15
  which he notes them down upon the tablets of
  his mind, and of the promptitude and propriety
  with which he calls them up as arguments or
  illustrations in the course of his teaching as the
  occasion requires. Possessed though he be by                       20
  the fire of Divine charity, he has not lost one
  fiber, he does not miss one vibration, of the
  complicated whole of human sentiment and affection;
  like the miraculous bush in the desert, which, for
  all the flame that wrapt it round, was not thereby                 25
  consumed.

  Such, in a transcendent perfection, was the
  gaze, as we may reverently suppose, with which
  the loving Father of all surveyed in eternity that
  universe even in its minutest details which He                     30
  had decreed to create, such the loving pity with
  which He spoke the word when the due moment
  came, and began to mold the finite, as He
  created it, in His infinite hands; such the watchful
  solicitude with which he now keeps His
  catalogue of the innumerable birds of heaven, and                   5
  counts day by day the very hairs of our head and
  the alternations of our breathing. Such, much
  more, is the awful contemplation with which He
  encompasses incessantly every one of those souls
  on whom He heaps His mercies here, in order                        10
  to make them the intimate associates of His own
  eternity hereafter. And we too, in our measure,
  are bound to imitate Him in our exact and vivid
  apprehension of Himself and of His works. As to
  Himself, we love Him, not simply in His nature,                    15
  but in His triple personality, lest we become mere
  pantheists. And so, again, we choose our patron
  Saints, not for what they have in common with
  each other (else there could be no room for choice
  at all), but for what is peculiar to them severally.               20
  That which is my warrant, therefore, for particular
  devotions at all, becomes itself my reason for
  devotion to St. John Chrysostom. In him I
  recognize a special pattern of that very gift of
  discrimination. He may indeed be said in some sense to             25
  have a devotion of his own for every one who
  comes across him,--for persons, ranks, classes,
  callings, societies, considered as Divine works and
  the subjects of his good offices or good will, and
  therefore I have a devotion for him.                               30

  It is this observant benevolence which gives to
  his exposition of Scripture its chief characteristic.
  He is known in ecclesiastical literature as the
  expounder, above all others, of its literal sense.
  Now in mystical comments the direct object which
  the writer sets before him is the Divine Author                     5
  Himself of the written Word. Such a writer
  sees in Scripture, not so much the works of God,
  as His nature and attributes; the Teacher more
  than the definite teaching, or its human
  instruments, with their drifts and motives, their courses          10
  of thought, their circumstances and personal
  peculiarities. He loses the creature in the glory
  which surrounds the Creator. The problem
  before him is not what the inspired writer directly
  meant, and why, but, out of the myriad of                          15
  meanings present to the Infinite Being who inspired him,
  which it is that is most illustrative of that Great
  Being's all-holy attributes and solemn dispositions.
  Thus, in the Psalter, he will drop David and Israel
  and the Temple together, and will recognize                        20
  nothing there but the shadows of those greater truths
  which remain forever. Accordingly, the
  mystical comment will be of an objective character;
  whereas a writer who delights to ponder human
  nature and human affairs, to analyze the                           25
  workings of the mind, and to contemplate what is
  subjective to it, is naturally drawn to investigate
  the sense of the sacred writer himself, who was the
  organ of the revelation, that is, he will investigate
  the literal sense. Now, in the instance of St.                     30
  Chrysostom, it so happens that literal exposition
  is the historical characteristic of the school in
  which he was brought up; so that if he commented
  on Scripture at all, he anyhow would have
  adopted that method; still, there have been
  many literal expositors, but only one                               5
  Chrysostom. It is St. Chrysostom who is the charm of
  the method, not the method that is the charm
  of St. Chrysostom.

  That charm lies, as I have said, in his habit and
  his power of throwing himself into the minds                       10
  of others, of imagining with exactness and with
  sympathy circumstances or scenes which were
  not before him, and of bringing out what he has
  apprehended in words as direct and vivid as the
  apprehension. His page is like the table of a                      15
  _camera lucida_, which represents to us the living
  action and interaction of all that goes on around
  us. That loving scrutiny, with which he follows
  the Apostles as they reveal themselves to us in
  their writings, he practices in various ways                       20
  towards all men, living and dead, high and low,
  those whom he admires and those whom he weeps
  over. He writes as one who was ever looking
  out with sharp but kind eyes upon the world of
  men and their history; and hence he has always                     25
  something to produce about them, new or old,
  to the purpose of his argument, whether from
  books or from the experience of life. Head and
  heart were full to overflowing with a stream of
  mingled "wine and milk," of rich vigorous thought                  30
  and affectionate feeling. This is why his manner
  of writing is so rare and special; and why, when
  once a student enters into it, he will ever
  recognize him, wherever he meets with extracts from
  him.


  LETTERS OF CHRYSOSTOM, WRITTEN IN EXILE


  "TO OLYMPIAS

  "Why do you bewail me? Why beat your breast,                        5
  and abandon yourself to the tyranny of despondency?
  Why are you grieved because you have failed in
  effecting my removal from Cucusus? Yet, as far as your own
  part is concerned, you have effected it, since you have
  left nothing undone in attempting it. Nor have you any             10
  reason to grieve for your ill success; perhaps it has seemed
  good to God to make my race course longer that my
  crown may be brighter. You ought to leap and dance and
  crown yourself for this, viz., that I should be accounted
  worthy of so great a matter, which far exceeds my merit.           15
  Does my present loneliness distress you? On the
  contrary, what can be more pleasant than my sojourn here?
  I have quiet, calm, much leisure, excellent health. To
  be sure, there is no market in the city, nor anything
  on sale; but this does not affect me; for all things, as if        20
  from some fountains, flow in upon me. Here is my lord,
  the Bishop of the place, and my lord Dioscorus, making
  it their sole business to make me comfortable. That
  excellent person Patricius will tell you in what good
  spirits and lightness of mind, and amid what kind                  25
  attentions, I am passing my time."--_Ep._ 14.

  The same is his report to his friends at Caeesarea,
  and the same are his expressions of gratitude
  and affection towards them. The following is
  addressed to the President of Cappodocia                          30


  TO CARTERIUS

  "Cucusus is a place desolate in the extreme; however,
  it does not annoy me so much by its desolateness as it
  relieves me by its quiet and its leisure. Accordingly, I
  have found a sort of harbor in this desolateness; and
  have set me down to recover breath after the miseries               5
  of the journey, and have availed myself of the quiet to
  dispose of what remained both of my illness and of the
  other troubles which I have undergone. I say this to
  your illustriousness, knowing well the joy you feel in
  this rest of mine. I can never forget what you did for             10
  me in Caesarea, in quelling those furious and senseless
  tumults, and striving to the utmost, as far as your powers
  extended, to place me in security. I give this out
  publicly wherever I go, feeling the liveliest gratitude to you,
  my most worshipful lord, for so great solicitude towards           15
  me."--_Ep._ 236.


  "TO DIOGENES

  "Cucusus is indeed a desolate spot, and moreover
  unsafe to dwell in, from the continual danger to which
  it is exposed of brigands. You, however, though away,
  have turned it for me into a paradise. For, when I                 20
  hear of your abundant zeal and charity in my behalf,
  so genuine and warm (it does not at all escape me, far
  removed as I am from you), I possess a great treasure
  and untold wealth in such affection, and feel myself
  to be dwelling in the safest of cities, by reason of the           25
  great gladness which bears me up, and the high
  consolation which I enjoy."--_Ep._ 144.

  Diogenes was one of the friends who sent him
  supplies, he writes in answer:

  "You know very well yourself that I have ever been                 30
  one of your most warmly attached admirers; therefore
  I beg you will not be hurt at my having returned your
  presents. I have pressed out of them and have quaffed
  the honor which they did me; and if I return the things
  themselves, it has been from no slight or distrust of you,
  but because I was in no need of them. I have done the
  same in the case of many others; for many others too,
  with a generosity like yours, ardent friends of mine, have          5
  made me the same offers; and the same apology has set
  me right with them which I now ask you to receive. If
  I am in want, I will ask these things of you with much
  freedom, as if they were my own property, nay with
  more, as the event will show. Receive them back, then,             10
  and keep them carefully; so that, if there is a call for
  them some time hence, I may reckon on them."--_Ep._ 50.

  As a fellow to the above, I add one of his
  letters:


  "TO CARTERIA

  "What are you saying? that your unintermitting                     15
  ailments have hindered you from visiting me? but you
  _have_ come, you are present with me. From your very
  intention I have gained all this, nor have you any need
  to excuse yourself in this matter. That warm and true
  charity of yours, so vigorous, so constant, suffices to            20
  make me very happy. What I have ever declared in
  my letters, I now declare again, that, wherever I may be,
  though I be transported to a still more desolate place
  than this, you and your matters I never shall forget.
  Such pledges of your warm and true charity have you                25
  stored up for me, pledges which length of time can never
  obliterate nor waste; but, whether I am near you or far
  away, ever do I cherish that same charity, being
  assured of the loyalty and sincerity of your affection for
  me, which has been my comfort hitherto."--_Ep._ 227.               30


  "TO OLYMPIAS

  "It is not a light effort," he says (_Ep._ 2), "but
  it demands an energetic soul and a great mind to
  bear separation from one whom we love in the
  charity of Christ. Every one knows this who
  knows what it is to love sincerely, who knows
  the power of supernatural love. Take the blessed
  Paul: here was a man who had stripped himself                       5
  of the flesh, and who went about the world
  almost with a disembodied soul, who had
  exterminated from his heart every wild impulse, and
  who imitated the passionless sereneness of the
  immaterial intelligences, and who stood on high                    10
  with the Cherubim, and shared with them in their
  mystical music, and bore prisons, chains,
  transportations, scourges, stoning, shipwreck, and every
  form of suffering; yet he, when separated from
  one soul loved by him in Christian charity, was                    15
  so confounded and distracted as all at once to
  rush out of that city, in which he did not find the
  beloved one whom he expected. 'When I was
  come to Troas,' he says, 'for the gospel of Christ,
  and a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had                     20
  no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus
  my brother; but bidding them farewell, I went
  into Macedonia.'

  "Is it Paul who says this?" he continues;
  "Paul who, even when fastened in the stocks,                       25
  when confined in a dungeon, when torn with
  the bloody scourge, did nevertheless convert and
  baptize and offer sacrifice, and was chary even
  of one soul which was seeking salvation? and
  now, when he has arrived at Troas, and sees the                    30
  field cleansed of weeds, and ready for the sowing,
  and the floor full, and ready to his hand,
  suddenly he flings away the profit, though he came
  thither expressly for it. 'So it was,' he answers
  me, 'just so; I was possessed by a predominating
  tyranny of sorrow, for Titus was away; and this                     5
  so wrought upon me as to compel me to this
  course.' Those who have the grace of charity
  are not content to be united in soul only, they
  seek for the personal presence of him they love.

  "Turn once more to this scholar of charity, and                    10
  you will find that so it is. 'We, brethren,' he
  says, 'being bereaved of you for the time of an
  hour, in sight, not in heart, have hastened the
  more abundantly to see your face with great
  desire. For we would have come unto you, I,                        15
  Paul, indeed, once and again, but Satan hath
  hindered us. For which cause, forbearing no
  longer, we thought it good to remain at Athens
  alone, and we sent Timothy.' What force is
  there in each expression! That flame of charity                    20
  living in his soul is manifested with singular
  luminousness. He does not say so much as
  'separated from you,' nor 'torn,' nor 'divided,'
  nor 'abandoned,' but only 'bereaved'; moreover
  not 'for a certain period,' but merely 'for the                    25
  time of an hour'; and separated, 'not in heart,
  but in presence only'; again, 'have hastened
  the more abundantly to see your face.' What!
  it seems charity so captivated you that you
  desiderated their sight, you longed to gaze upon                   30
  their earthly, fleshly countenance? 'Indeed I
  did,' he answers: 'I am not ashamed to say so;
  for in that seeing all the channels of the senses
  meet together. I desire to see your presence;
  for there is the tongue which utters sounds and
  announces the secret feelings; there is the                         5
  hearing which receives words, and there the eyes
  which image the movements of the soul.' But
  this is not all: not content with writing to them
  letters, he actually sends to them Timothy, who
  was with him, and who was more than any letters.                   10
  And, 'We thought it good to remain alone;'
  that is, when he is divided from one brother,
  he says, he is left alone, though he had so many
  others with him."




  II THE TURK




  THE TARTAR AND THE TURK


  You may think, Gentlemen, I have been very
  long in coming to the Turks, and indeed I have
  been longer than I could have wished; but I
  have thought it necessary, in order to your taking
  a just view of them, that you should survey them                    5
  first of all in their original condition. When they
  first appear in history they are Huns or Tartars,
  and nothing else; they are indeed in no
  unimportant respects Tartars even now; but, had they
  never been made something more than Tartars,                       10
  they never would have had much to do with the
  history of the world. In that case, they would
  have had only the fortunes of Attila and Zingis;
  they might have swept over the face of the earth,
  and scourged the human race, powerful to destroy,                  15
  helpless to construct, and in consequence
  ephemeral; but this would have been all. But this has
  not been all, as regards the Turks; for, in spite
  of their intimate resemblance or relationship to
  the Tartar tribes, in spite of their essential                     20
  barbarism to this day, still they, or at least great
  portions of the race, have been put under
  education; they have been submitted to a slow
  course of change, with a long history and a profitable
  discipline and fortunes of a peculiar kind;
  and thus they have gained those qualities of
  mind, which alone enable a nation to wield and
  to consolidate imperial power.

  I have said that, when first they distinctly                        5
  appear on the scene of history, they are
  indistinguishable from Tartars. Mount Altai, the
  high metropolis of Tartary, is surrounded by a
  hilly district, rich not only in the useful, but in
  the precious metals. Gold is said to abound                        10
  there; but it is still more fertile in veins of iron,
  which indeed is said to be the most plentiful in
  the world. There have been iron works there
  from time immemorial, and at the time that the
  Huns descended on the Roman Empire (in the                         15
  fifth century of the Christian era), we find
  the Turks nothing more than a family of slaves,
  employed as workers of the ore and as blacksmiths
  by the dominant tribe. Suddenly in the course
  of fifty years, soon after the fall of the Hunnish                 20
  power in Europe, with the sudden development
  peculiar to Tartars, we find these Turks spread
  from East to West, and lords of a territory so
  extensive, that they were connected, by relations
  of peace or war, at once with the Chinese, the                     25
  Persians, and the Romans. They had reached
  Kamtchatka on the North, the Caspian on the
  West, and perhaps even the mouth of the Indus
  on the South. Here then we have an
  intermediate empire of Tartars, placed between the                 30
  eras of Attila and Zingis; but in this sketch it has
  no place, except as belonging to Turkish history,
  because it was contained within the limits of
  Asia, and, though it lasted for 200 years, it only
  faintly affected the political transactions of
  Europe. However, it was not without some sort                       5
  of influence on Christendom, for the Romans
  interchanged embassies with its sovereign in the
  reign of the then Greek Emperor Justin the
  younger (A.D. 570), with the view of engaging
  him in a warlike alliance against Persia. The                      10
  account of one of these embassies remains, and
  the picture it presents of the Turks is important,
  because it seems clearly to identify them with
  the Tartar race.

  For instance, in the mission to the Tartars                        15
  from the Pope, which I have already spoken of,
  the friars were led between two fires, when they
  approached the Khan, and they at first refused
  to follow, thinking they might be countenancing
  some magical rite. Now we find it recorded of                      20
  this Roman embassy, that, on its arrival, it was
  purified by the Turks with fire and incense. As
  to incense, which seems out of place among such
  barbarians, it is remarkable that it is used in
  the ceremonial of the Turkish court to this day.                   25
  At least Sir Charles Fellows, in his work on the
  Antiquities of Asia Minor, in 1838, speaks of the
  Sultan as going to the festival of Bairam with
  incense-bearers before him. Again, when the
  Romans were presented to the great Khan, they                      30
  found him in his tent, seated on a throne, to which
  wheels were attached and horses attachable, in
  other words, a Tartar wagon. Moreover, they
  were entertained at a banquet which lasted the
  greater part of the day; and an intoxicating
  liquor, not wine, which was sweet and pleasant,                     5
  was freely presented to them; evidently the
  Tartar _koumiss_.[32] The next day they had a
  second entertainment in a still more splendid
  tent; the hangings were of embroidered silk, and
  the throne, the cups, and the vases were of gold.                  10
  On the third day, the pavilion, in which they were
  received, was supported on gilt columns; a couch
  of massive gold was raised on four gold peacocks;
  and before the entrance to the tent was what
  might be called a sideboard, only that it was a                    15
  sort of barricade of wagons, laden with dishes,
  basins, and statues of solid silver. All these
  points in the description--the silk hangings, the
  gold vessels, the successively increasing splendor
  of the entertainments--remind us of the courts                     20
  of Zingis and Timour, 700 and 900 years
  afterwards.

    [32] Univ. Hist. Modern, vol. iii. p. 346.

  This empire, then, of the Turks was of a Tartar
  character; yet it was the first step of their
  passing from barbarism to that degree of civilization              25
  which is their historical badge. And it was their
  first step in civilization, not so much by what
  it did in its day, as (unless it be a paradox to
  say so) by its coming to an end. Indeed it so
  happens, that those Turkish tribes which have                      30
  changed their original character and have a place
  in the history of the world, have obtained their
  _status_ and their qualifications for it, by a process
  very different from that which took place in the
  nations most familiar to us. What this process                      5
  has been I will say presently; first, however, let
  us observe that, fortunately for our purpose, we
  have still specimens existing of those other
  Turkish tribes, which were never submitted to
  this process of education and change, and, in                      10
  looking at them as they now exist, we see at this
  very day the Turkish nationality in something
  very like its original form, and are able to decide
  for ourselves on its close approximation to the
  Tartar. You may recollect I pointed out to                         15
  you, Gentlemen, in the opening of these lectures,
  the course which the pastoral tribes, or nomads
  as they are often called, must necessarily take
  in their emigrations. They were forced along
  in one direction till they emerged from their                      20
  mountain valleys, and descended their high
  plateau at the end of Tartary, and then they had
  the opportunity of turning south. If they did
  not avail themselves of this opening, but went on
  still westward, their next southern pass would                     25
  be the defiles of the Caucasus and Circassia, to
  the west of the Caspian. If they did not use this,
  they would skirt the top of the Black Sea, and
  so reach Europe. Thus in the emigration of the
  Huns from China, you may recollect a tribe of                      30
  them turned to the South as soon as they could,
  and settled themselves between the high Tartar
  land and the sea of Aral, while the main body
  went on to the furthest West by the north of the
  Black Sea. Now with this last passage into
  Europe we are not here concerned, for the Turks                     5
  have never introduced themselves to Europe by
  means of it;[33] but with those two southward
  passages which are Asiatic, viz., that to the east
  of the Aral, and that to the west of the Caspian.
  The Turkish tribes have all descended upon the                     10
  civilized world by one or other of these two roads;
  and I observe, that those which have descended
  along the east of the Aral have changed their
  social habits and gained political power, while
  those which descended to the west of the Caspian                   15
  remain pretty much what they ever were. The
  former of these go among us by the general
  name of Turks; the latter are the Turcomans
  or Turkmans.... At the very date at which
  Heraclius called the Turcomans into Georgia, at                    20
  the very date when their Eastern brethren
  crossed the northern border of Sogdiana, an event
  of most momentous import had occurred in the
  South. A new religion had arisen in Arabia.
  The impostor Mahomet, announcing himself the                       25
  Prophet of God, was writing the pages of that
  book, and molding the faith of that people, which
  was to subdue half the known world. The Turks
  passed the Jaxartes southward in A.D. 626; just
  four years before Mahomet had assumed the royal
  dignity, and just six years after, on his death,
  his followers began the conquest of the Persian
  Empire. In the course of 20 years they effected
  it; Sogdiana was at its very extremity, or its                      5
  borderland; there the last king of Persia took
  refuge from the south, while the Turks were
  pouring into it from the north. There was little to
  choose for the unfortunate prince between the
  Turk and the Saracen; the Turks were his                           10
  hereditary foe; they had been the giants and
  monsters of the popular poetry; but he threw
  himself into their arms. They engaged in his
  service, betrayed him, murdered him, and
  measured themselves with the Saracens in his stead.                15
  Thus the military strength of the north and south
  of Asia, the Saracenic and the Turkish, came into
  memorable conflict in the regions of which I have
  said so much. The struggle was a fierce one, and
  lasted many years; the Turks striving to force                     20
  their way down to the ocean, the Saracens to
  drive them back into their Scythian deserts.
  They first fought this issue in Bactriana or
  Khorasan; the Turks got the worst of the fight,
  and then it was thrown back upon Sogdiana                          25
  itself, and there it ended again in favor of the
  Saracens. At the end of 90 years from the time
  of the first Turkish descent on this fair region,
  they relinquished it to their Mahometan
  opponents. The conquerors found it rich, populous,                 30
  and powerful; its cities, Carisme, Bokhara, and
  Samarcand, were surrounded beyond their
  fortifications by a suburb of fields and gardens, which
  was in turn protected by exterior works; its plains
  were well cultivated, and its commerce extended
  from China to Europe. Its riches were                               5
  proportionally great; the Saracens were able to extort
  a tribute of two million gold pieces from the
  inhabitants; we read, moreover, of the crown
  jewels of one of the Turkish princesses; and of
  the buskin of another, which she dropt in her                      10
  flight from Bokhara, as being worth two
  thousand pieces of gold.[34] Such had been the prosperity
  of the barbarian invaders, such was its end; but
  not _their_ end, for adversity did them service, as
  well as prosperity, as we shall see.                               15

    [33] I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the Turkish
         stock; vid. Gibbon and Pritchard.

    [34] Gibbon.

  It is usual for historians to say, that the
  triumph of the South threw the Turks back again
  upon their northern solitudes; and this might
  easily be the case with some of the many hordes,
  which were ever passing the boundary and                           20
  flocking down; but it is no just account of the
  historical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed
  do the Oriental nations present us with an
  example of versatility of character; the Turks, for
  instance, of this day are substantially what they                  25
  were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive,
  were Turkey overrun by the Russians at the
  present moment, that the fanatical tribes, which
  are pouring into Constantinople from Asia Minor,
  would submit to the foreign yoke, take service                     30
  under their conquerors, become soldiers,
  custom-officers, police, men of business, attaches,
  statesmen, working their way up from the ranks and
  from the masses into influence and power; but,
  whether from skill in the Saracens, or from                         5
  far-reaching sagacity in the Turks (and it is difficult
  to assign it to either cause), so it was, that a
  process of this nature followed close upon the
  Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be
  traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many                   10
  of the Turks probably were made slaves, and the
  service to which they were subjected was no
  matter of choice. Numbers had got attached to
  the soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians,
  White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three                    15
  generations, had simply unlearned the wildness
  of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims to
  the religion of their conquerors, which ultimately,
  as we know, exercised a most remarkable
  influence upon them. Not all at once, but as                       20
  tribe descended after tribe, and generation
  followed generation, they succumbed to the creed
  of Mahomet; and they embraced it with the
  ardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxons
  so gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their                25
  conversion to Christianity.

  Here again was a very powerful instrument
  in modification of their national character. Let
  me illustrate it in one particular. If there is one
  peculiarity above another, proper to the savage                    30
  and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability and
  impetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks,
  on the other hand, are nationally remarkable for
  gravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Now
  there are evidently elements in the Mahometan
  creed, which would tend to change them from                         5
  the one temperament to the other. Its
  sternness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; even
  the truths which it borrowed from Revelation,
  when separated from the truths it rejected, its
  monotheism untempered by mediation, its severe                     10
  view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of a
  sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom
  and also an improvement in the barbarian, not
  very unlike the effect which some forms of
  Protestantism produce among ourselves. But                         15
  whatever was the mode of operation, certainly
  it is to their religion that this peculiarity of the
  Turks is ascribed by competent judges.
  Lieutenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively
  account of a peculiarity of theirs, which he                       20
  unhesitatingly attributes to Islamism. "Nowhere,"
  he says, "is the difference between European and
  Mahometan society more strongly marked than
  in the lower walks of life.... A Kasid, or
  messenger, for example, will come into a public                    25
  department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and
  demean himself throughout the interview with
  so much composure and self-possession, that an
  European can hardly believe that his grade in
  society is so low. After he has delivered his                      30
  letters, he takes his seat among the crowd, and
  answers, calmly and without hesitation, all the
  questions which may be addressed to him, or
  communicates the verbal instructions with which
  he has been intrusted by his employer, and
  which are often of more importance than the                         5
  letters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classes
  possess an innate self-respect, and a natural
  gravity of deportment, which differs as far from
  the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the
  awkward rusticity of an English clown." ... "Even                  10
  children," he continues, "in Mahometan countries
  have an unusual degree of gravity in their
  deportment. The boy, who can but lisp his 'Peace be
  with you,' has imbibed this portion of the national
  character. In passing through a village, these                     15
  little men will place their hands upon their
  breasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequently
  have I seen the children of chiefs approach their
  father's durbar, and stopping short at the
  threshold of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam                   20
  Ali-Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; but
  nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the
  room, and sliding down upon their knees, folded
  their arms and took their seat upon the musnad
  with all the gravity of grown-up persons."                         25

  As Islamism has changed the demeanor of the
  Turks, so doubtless it has in other ways materially
  innovated on their Tartar nature. It has given
  an aim to their military efforts, a political
  principle, and a social bond. It has laid them under               30
  a sense of responsibility, has molded them into
  consistency, and taught them a course of policy
  and perseverance in it. But to treat this part
  of the subject adequately to its importance would
  require, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness of
  discussion unsuitable to the historical sketch                      5
  which I have undertaken. I have said enough
  for my purpose upon this topic; and indeed
  on the general question of the modification of
  national character to which the Turks were at
  this period subjected.                                             10




  THE TURK AND THE SARACEN


  Mere occupation of a rich country is not
  enough for civilization, as I have granted already.
  The Turks came into the pleasant plains and
  valleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into the
  well-wooded mountains and sunny <DW72>s of Asia                     15
  Minor. The Turcomans were brought out of
  their dreary deserts, yet they retained their old
  habits, and they remain barbarians to this day.
  But why? it must be borne in mind, they neither
  subjugated the inhabitants of their new country                    20
  on the one hand, nor were subjugated by them
  on the other. They never had direct or intimate
  relations with it; they were brought into it by
  the Roman Government at Constantinople as its
  auxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves                 25
  there. They were like gypsies in England, except
  that they were mounted freebooters instead of
  pilferers and fortune tellers. It was far otherwise
  with their brethren in Sogdiana; they were
  there first as conquerors, then as conquered.
  First they held it in possession as their prize for
  90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and
  enjoyment of it. Next, their political ascendency                   5
  over it involved, as in the case of the White Huns,
  some sort of moral surrender of themselves to it.
  What was the first consequence of this? that,
  like the White Huns, they intermarried with the
  races they found there. We know the custom                         10
  of the Tartars and Turks; under such
  circumstances they would avail themselves of their
  national practice of polygamy to its full extent
  of license. In the course of twenty years a new
  generation would arise of a mixed race; and                        15
  these in turn would marry into the native
  population, and at the end of ninety or a hundred
  years we should find the great-grandsons or the
  great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who
  first crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their                20
  ancestors in features both of mind and body,
  that they hardly would be recognized as deserving
  the Tartar name. At the end of that period their
  power came to an end, the Saracens became
  masters of them and of their country, but the                      25
  process of emigration southward from the
  Scythian desert, which had never intermitted during
  the years of their domination, continued still,
  though that domination was no more.

  Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the                   30
  nature of that association of the Turkish tribes
  from the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which I
  have given the name of Empire: it was not so
  much of a political as of a national character;
  it was the power, not of a system, but of a race.
  They were not one well-organized state, but a                       5
  number of independent tribes, acting generally
  together, acknowledging one leader or not,
  according to circumstances, combining and
  cooperating from the identity of object which acted
  on them, and often jealous of each other and                       10
  quarreling with each other on account of that
  very identity. Each tribe made its way down to
  the south as it could; one blocked up the way of
  the other for a time; there were stoppages and
  collisions, but there was a continual movement                     15
  and progress. Down they came one after another,
  like wolves after their prey; and as the tribes
  which came first became partially civilized, and
  as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally
  be desirous of keeping back their less polished                    20
  uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do so
  successfully for a while: but cupidity is stronger
  than conservatism; and so, in spite of delay and
  difficulty, down they would keep coming, and
  down they did come, even after and in spite of                     25
  the overthrow of their Empire; crowding down
  as to a new world, to get what they could, as
  adventurers, ready to turn to the right or the
  left, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing to
  be forced forward into countries farther still,                    30
  careless what might turn up, so that they did but
  get down. And this was the process which went
  on (whatever were their fortunes when they
  actually got down, prosperous or adverse) for
  400, nay, I will say for 700 years. The
  storehouse of the north was never exhausted; it                     5
  sustained the never ending run upon its resources.

  I was just now referring to a change in the
  Turks, which I have mentioned before, and
  which had as important a bearing as any other
  of their changes upon their subsequent fortunes.                   10
  It was a change in their physiognomy and shape,
  so striking as to recommend them to their
  masters for the purposes of war or of display.
  Instead of bearing any longer the hideous exterior
  which in the Huns frightened the Romans and                        15
  Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the
  ninth century, when they had been among the
  natives of Sogdiana only two hundred years,
  for the beauty of their persons. An important
  political event was the result: hence the                          20
  introduction of the Turks into the heart of the
  Saracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs had
  removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was
  the imperial province, and into Persia they were
  introduced for the reason I have mentioned,                        25
  sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken
  in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the
  Saracenic armies: at length they were enrolled as
  guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to
  offices in the palace, to the command of the forces,               30
  and to governorships in the provinces. The son
  of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many
  as 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And
  thus slowly and silently they made their way to
  the south, not with the pomp and pretense of
  conquest, but by means of that ordinary                             5
  inter-communion which connected one portion of the
  empire of the Caliphs with another. In this
  manner they were introduced even into Egypt.

  This was their history for a hundred and fifty
  years, and what do we suppose would be the                         10
  result of this importation of barbarians into the
  heart of a nourishing empire? Would they be
  absorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of the
  population, or would they, like mercenaries
  elsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced                   15
  them? The answer is not difficult, considering
  that their very introduction argued a want of
  energy and resource in the rulers whom they
  served. To employ them was a confession of
  weakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not                       20
  very aged, but the Turkish was much younger,
  and more vigorous; then too must be
  considered the difference of national character
  between the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of
  the beginning of the present century[35] compares                  25
  the Turks to the Romans; such parallels are
  generally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we must
  accept it in the present instance, we may
  complete the picture by likening the Saracens and
  Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was                       30
  the result of the collision between Greece and
  Rome. The Persians were poets, the Saracens
  were philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy,
  and botany were especial subjects of the studies of
  the latter. Their observatories were celebrated,                    5
  and they may be considered to have originated
  the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the
  other hand, though they are said to have a
  literature, and though certain of their princes have
  been patrons of letters, have never distinguished                  10
  themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but
  they have had an energy of character, a
  pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in
  a word, they then had the qualities of mind
  necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than                 15
  the people they were serving. The Saracens,
  like the Greeks, carried their arms over the
  surface of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancy
  and an uncheckered success; but their dominion,
  like that of Greece, did not last for more than                    20
  200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through
  many centuries, and its influence lasts to this
  day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties
  and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult
  and complication, for a good 1000 years from                       25
  first to last, till at length it found itself in
  possession of Constantinople, and a terror to the
  whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon
  the throne of Constantine; it began it as the
  slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire,                30
  of Persia and Sogdiana.

    [35] Thornton.

  As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one
  season of power and then in turn of reverse which
  there befell the Turks; and next a more
  remarkable outbreak and its reaction mark their presence
  in Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force,                   5
  consisting of Turks, which formed the guard of
  the Caliphs immediately after the time of Harun
  al Raschid: suddenly they rebelled against
  their master, burst into his apartment at the
  hour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body                     10
  into seven pieces. They got possession of the
  symbols of imperial power, the garment and the
  staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make and
  unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course
  of four years they had elevated, deposed, and                      15
  murdered as many as three. At their wanton
  caprice, they made these successors of the false
  prophet the sport of their insults and their blows.
  They dragged them by the feet, stripped them,
  and exposed them to the burning sun, beat them                     20
  with iron clubs, and left them for days without
  food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad
  were roused in defense of the Caliphate, and the
  Turks for a time were brought under; but they
  remained in the country, or rather, by the                         25
  short-sighted policy of the moment, were dispersed
  throughout it, and thus became in the sequel
  ready-made elements of revolution for the
  purposes of other traitors of their own race, who, at
  a later period, as we shall presently see, descended               30
  on Persia from Turkistan.

  Indeed, events were opening the way slowly,
  but surely, to their ascendency. Throughout the
  whole of the tenth century, which followed, they
  seem to disappear from history; but a silent
  revolution was all along in progress, leading them                  5
  forward to their great destiny. The empire of
  the Caliphate was already dying in its
  extremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first countries
  to be detached from his power. The Turks were
  still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the            10
  army and the offices of the government; but the
  political changes which took place were not at
  first to their visible advantage. What first
  occurred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy,
  who made himself a great kingdom or empire out                     15
  of the provinces around, extending it from the
  Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of
  Sogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, and
  from the confines of Georgia to the mountains
  of Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established                       20
  lasted for four generations and for the space of
  ninety years. Then the successor happened to
  be a boy; and one of his servants, the governor
  of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was
  forced by circumstances to rebellion against him.                  25
  He was successful, and the whole power of this
  great kingdom fell into his hands; now he was a
  Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks
  suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged
  masters of a southern dominion.                                    30

  This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish
  dynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh,
  or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and it
  lasted for two hundred years. We are not
  particularly concerned in it, because it has no direct
  relations with Europe; but it falls into our                        5
  subject, as having been instrumental to the advance
  of the Turks towards the West. Its most
  distinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he
  conquered Hindostan, which became eventually
  the seat of the empire. In Mahmood the                             10
  Gaznevide we have a prince of true Oriental splendor.
  For him the title of Sultan or Soldan was invented,
  which henceforth became the special badge of the
  Turkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of the
  sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the                        15
  sovereign of the Saracens. I have already described
  generally the extent of his dominions: he
  inherited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul;
  but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained the
  title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of                    20
  Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol
  temples. There was no need, however, of religious
  enthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: the
  riches, which he amassed in the course of it, were
  a recompense amply sufficient. His Indian                          25
  expeditions in all amounted to twelve, and they abound
  in battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast....

  We have now arrived at what may literally be
  called the turning point of Turkish history. We
  have seen them gradually descend from the north,                   30
  and in a certain degree become acclimated in the
  countries where they settled. They first appear
  across the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventh
  century; they have now come to the beginning
  of the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabout
  have they been out of their deserts, gaining                        5
  experience and educating themselves in such
  measure as was necessary for playing their part in
  the civilized world. First they came down into
  Sogdiana and Khorasan, and the country below
  it, as conquerors; they continued in it as                         10
  subjects and slaves. They offered their services to
  the race which had subdued them; they made
  their way by means of their new masters down to
  the west and the south; they laid the foundations
  for their future supremacy in Persia, and                          15
  gradually rose upwards through the social fabric to
  which they had been admitted, till they found
  themselves at length at the head of it. The
  sovereign power which they had acquired in the
  line of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan;                  20
  but still fresh tribes of their race poured down
  from the north, and filled up the gap; and while
  one dynasty of Turks was established in the
  peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the former
  seat of their power.                                               25

  Now I call the era at which I have arrived the
  turning point of their fortunes, because, when
  they had descended down to Khorasan and the
  countries below it, they might have turned to the
  East or to the West, as they chose. They were                      30
  at liberty to turn their forces eastward against
  their kindred in Hindostan, whom they had driven
  out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towards
  the west, and make their way thither through the
  Saracens of Persia and its neighboring countries.
  It was an era which determined the history of the                   5
  world....

  But this era was a turning point in their
  history in another and more serious respect. In
  Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become
  converts to the Mahometan faith. You will not                      10
  suppose I am going to praise a religious imposture,
  but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered
  in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism.
  Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no
  supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible                       15
  revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on the
  other hand, the being of one God, the fact of His
  revelation, His faithfulness to His promises, the
  eternity of the moral law, the certainty of future
  retribution, were borrowed by Mahomet from the                     20
  Church, and are steadfastly held by his followers.
  The false prophet taught much which is materially
  true and objectively important, whatever be its
  subjective and formal value and influence in the
  individuals who profess it. He stands in his                       25
  creed between the religion of God and the religion
  of devils, between Christianity and idolatry,
  between the West and the extreme East. And
  so stood the Turks, on adopting his faith, at
  the date I am speaking of; they stood between                      30
  Christ in the West, and Satan in the East, and
  they had to make their choice; and, alas! they
  were led by the circumstances of the time to
  oppose themselves, not to Paganism, but to
  Christianity. A happier lot indeed had befallen
  poor Sultan Mahmood than befell his kindred                         5
  who followed in his wake. Mahmood, a
  Mahometan, went eastward and found a superstition
  worse than his own, and fought against it, and
  smote it; and the sandal doors which he tore
  away from the idol temple and hung up at his                       10
  tomb at Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for him
  through centuries as the soldier and the
  instrument of Heaven. The tribes which followed him,
  Moslem also, faced westward, and found, not
  error but truth, and fought against it as zealously,               15
  and in doing so, were simply tools of the Evil One,
  and preachers of a lie, and enemies, not witnesses
  of God. The one destroyed idol temples, the
  other Christian shrines. The one has been saved
  the woe of persecuting the Bride of the Lamb;                      20
  the other is of all races the veriest brood of the
  serpent which the Church has encountered since
  she was set up. For 800 years did the sandal
  gates remain at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophy
  over idolatry; and for 800 years have Seljuk                       25
  and Othman been our foe.

  The year 1048 of our era is fixed by
  chronologists as the date of the rise of the Turkish power,
  as far as Christendom is interested in its history.[36]
  Sixty-three years before this date, a Turk of high                 30
  rank, of the name of Seljuk, had quarreled with
  his native prince in Turkistan, crossed the
  Jaxartes with his followers, and planted himself in
  the territory of Sogdiana. His father had been
  a chief officer in the prince's court, and was the                  5
  first of his family to embrace Islamism; but
  Seljuk, in spite of his creed, did not obtain permission
  to advance into Sogdiana from the Saracenic
  government, which at that time was in possession of
  the country. After several successful encounters,                  10
  however, he gained admission into the city of
  Bokhara, and there he settled. As time went on, he
  fully recompensed the tardy hospitality which
  the Saracens had shown him; for his feud with
  his own countrymen, whom he had left, took the                     15
  shape of a religious enmity, and he fought against
  them as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, which
  was both an earnest of the devotion of his people
  to the faith of Mahomet, and a training for the
  exercise of it....                                                 20

    [36] Baronius, Pagi.

  For four centuries the Turks are little or hardly
  heard of; then suddenly in the course of as many
  tens of years, and under three Sultans, they make
  the whole world resound with their deeds; and,
  while they have pushed to the East through                         25
  Hindostan, in the West they have hurried down
  to the coasts of the Mediterranean and the
  Archipelago, have taken Jerusalem, and threatened
  Constantinople. In their long period of silence
  they had been sowing the seeds of future                           30
  conquests; in their short period of action they were
  gathering the fruit of past labors and sufferings.
  The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before;
  but, as soon as a Turk showed himself at the head
  of a military force within its territory, he found
  himself surrounded by the armies of his kindred                     5
  which had been so long in its pay; he was joined
  by the tribes of Turcomans, to whom the Romans
  in a former age had shown the passes of the
  Caucasus; and he could rely on the reserve of
  innumerable swarms, ever issuing out of his                        10
  native desert, and following in his track. Such
  was the state of Western Asia in the middle of
  the eleventh century.

  Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of
  Seljuk, is said to signify in Turkish "the                         15
  courageous lion:" and the Caliph gave its possessor the
  Arabic appellation of Azzaddin, or "Protector of
  Religion." It was the distinctive work of his
  short reign to pass from humbling the Caliph to
  attacking the Greek Emperor. Togrul had                            20
  already invaded the Greek provinces of Asia Minor,
  from Cilicia to Armenia, along a line of 600 miles,
  and here it was that he had achieved his
  tremendous massacres of Christians. Alp Arslan
  renewed the war; he penetrated to Caeesarea in                      25
  Cappadocia, attracted by the gold and pearls
  which incrusted the shrine of the great St. Basil.
  He then turned his arms against Armenia and
  Georgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineers
  of the Caucasus, who at present give such trouble                  30
  to the Russians. After this he encountered,
  defeated, and captured the Greek Emperor. He
  began the battle with all the solemnity and
  pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting away
  his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and
  scimeter; he perfumed his body with musk, as                        5
  if for his burial, and dressed himself in white,
  that he might be slain in his winding sheet.
  After his victory, the captive Emperor of New
  Rome was brought before him in a peasant's
  dress; he made him kiss the ground beneath his                     10
  feet, and put his foot upon his neck. Then,
  raising him up, he struck or patted him three times
  with his hand, and gave him his life and, on a
  large ransom, his liberty.

  At this time the Sultan was only forty-four                        15
  years of age, and seemed to have a career of glory
  still before him. Twelve hundred nobles stood
  before his throne; two hundred thousand soldiers
  marched under his banner. As if dissatisfied
  with the South, he turned his arms against his                     20
  own paternal wildernesses, with which his
  family, as I have related, had a feud. New tribes
  of Turks seem to have poured down, and were
  wresting Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, as
  the Seljukians had wrested it from the                             25
  Gaznevides. Alp had not advanced far into the
  country, when he met his death from the hand of a
  captive. A Carismian chief had withstood his
  progress, and, being taken, was condemned to a
  lingering execution. On hearing the sentence, he                   30
  rushed forward upon Alp Arslan; and the Sultan,
  disdaining to let his generals interfere, bent his
  bow, but, missing his aim, received the dagger of
  his prisoner in his breast. His death, which
  followed, brings before us that grave dignity of the
  Turkish character, of which we have already had                     5
  an example in Mahmood. Finding his end
  approaching, he has left on record a sort of dying
  confession: "In my youth," he said, "I was
  advised by a sage to humble myself before God,
  to distrust my own strength, and never to despise                  10
  the most contemptible foe. I have neglected
  these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly
  punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, I
  beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit
  of my armies; the earth seemed to tremble under                    15
  my feet, and I said in my heart, Surely thou art
  the king of the world, the greatest and most
  invincible of warriors. These armies are no
  longer mine; and, in the confidence of my
  personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an                    20
  assassin." On his tomb was engraven an
  inscription, conceived in a similar spirit. "O ye, who
  have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the
  heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it
  buried in the dust."[37] Alp Arslan was adorned                    25
  with great natural qualities both of intellect and
  of soul. He was brave and liberal: just, patient,
  and sincere: constant in his prayers, diligent in
  his alms, and, it is added, witty in his
  conversation; but his gifts availed him not.                       30

    [37] Gibbon.

  It often happens in the history of states and
  races, in which there is found first a rise and then
  a decline, that the greatest glories take place just
  then when the reverse is beginning or begun.
  Thus, for instance, in the history of the                           5
  Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come,
  Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and
  greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it
  as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the
  son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom                    10
  its glories ended, is represented to us in history
  in colors so bright and perfect, that it is difficult
  to believe we are not reading the account of some
  mythical personage. He came to the throne at
  the early age of seventeen; he was well-shaped,                    15
  handsome, polished both in manners and in
  mind; wise and courageous, pious and sincere.
  He engaged himself even more in the
  consolidation of his empire than in its extension. He
  reformed abuses; he reduced the taxes; he                          20
  repaired the highroads, bridges, and canals; he
  built an imperial mosque at Bagdad; he founded
  and nobly endowed a college. He patronized
  learning and poetry, and he reformed the
  calendar. He provided marts for commerce; he                       25
  upheld the pure administration of justice, and
  protected the helpless and the innocent. He
  established wells and cisterns in great numbers
  along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fed
  the pilgrims, and distributed immense sums                         30
  among the poor.

  He was in every respect a great prince; he
  extended his conquests across Sogdiana to the
  very borders of China. He subdued by his
  lieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and took
  Jerusalem. He is said to have traveled round                        5
  his vast dominions twelve times. So potent was
  he, that he actually gave away kingdoms, and
  had for feudatories great princes. He gave to
  his cousin his territories in Asia Minor, and
  planted him over against Constantinople, as an                     10
  earnest of future conquests; and he may be said
  to have finally allotted to the Turcomans the
  fair regions of Western Asia, over which they
  roam to this day.

  All human greatness has its term; the more                         15
  brilliant was this great Sultan's rise, the more
  sudden was his extinction; and the earlier he
  came to his power, the earlier did he lose it. He
  had reigned twenty years, and was but
  thirty-seven years old, when he was lifted up with pride           20
  and came to his end. He disgraced and
  abandoned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the age
  of ninety-three, who for thirty years had been the
  servant and benefactor of the house of Seljuk.
  After obtaining from the Caliph the peculiar                       25
  and almost incommunicable title of "the
  commander of the faithful," unsatisfied still, he
  wished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and to
  deprive his impotent superior of his few
  remaining honors. He demanded the hand of the                      30
  daughter of the Greek Emperor, a Christian, in
  marriage. A few days, and he was no more;
  he had gone out hunting, and returned
  indisposed; a vein was opened, and the blood would
  not flow. A burning fever took him off, only
  eighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and                    5
  less than ten before the day when the Caliph was
  to have been removed from Bagdad.

  Such is human greatness at the best, even were
  it ever so innocent; but as to this poor Sultan,
  there is another aspect even of his glorious deeds.                10
  If I have seemed here or elsewhere in these
  Lectures to speak of him or his with interest or
  admiration, only take me, Gentlemen, as giving
  the external view of the Turkish history, and that
  as introductory to the determination of its true                   15
  significance. Historians and poets may celebrate
  the exploits of Malek; but what were they in the
  sight of Him who has said that whoso shall strike
  against His cornerstone shall be broken; but
  on whomsoever it shall fall, shall be ground to                    20
  powder? Looking at this Sultan's deeds as
  mere exhibitions of human power, they were
  brilliant and marvelous; but there was another
  judgment of them formed in the West, and other
  feelings than admiration roused by them in the                     25
  faith and the chivalry of Christendom.
  Especially was there one, the divinely appointed
  shepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxious
  steward of His Church, who from his high and
  ancient watch tower, in the fullness of apostolic                  30
  charity, surveyed narrowly what was going on at
  thousands of miles from him, and with prophetic
  eye looked into the future age; and scarcely had
  that enemy, who was in the event so heavily to
  smite the Christian world, shown himself, when
  he gave warning of the danger, and prepared                         5
  himself with measures for averting it. Scarcely
  had the Turk touched the shores of the
  Mediterranean and the Archipelago, when the Pope
  detected and denounced him before all Europe.
  The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was                   10
  then upon the throne of the Apostle; and though
  he was engaged in one of the severest conflicts
  which Pope has ever sustained, not only against
  the secular power, but against bad bishops and
  priests, yet at a time when his very life was not                  15
  his own, and present responsibilities so urged
  him, that one would fancy he had time for no
  other thought, Gregory was able to turn his mind
  to the consideration of a contingent danger in the
  almost fabulous East. In a letter written during                   20
  the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea
  of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later
  popes carried out. He assures the Emperor of
  Germany, whom he was addressing, that he had
  50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he                      25
  would fain have led in person. This was in the
  year 1074.

  In truth, the most melancholy accounts were
  brought to Europe of the state of things in the
  Holy Land. A rude Turcoman ruled in                                30
  Jerusalem; his people insulted there the clergy of
  every profession; they dragged the patriarch by
  the hair along the pavement, and cast him into
  a dungeon, in hopes of a ransom; and disturbed
  from time to time the Latin Mass and office in the
  Church of the Resurrection. As to the pilgrims,                     5
  Asia Minor, the country through which they had
  to travel in an age when the sea was not yet safe
  to the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursion
  and internal distraction. They arrived at
  Jerusalem exhausted by their sufferings, and                       10
  sometimes terminated them by death, before they
  were permitted to kiss the Holy Sepulchre.

       *       *       *       *       *

  It is commonly said that the Crusades failed
  in their object; that they were nothing else but
  a lavish expenditure of men and treasure; and                      15
  that the possession of the Holy Places by the
  Turks to this day is a proof of it. Now I will not
  enter here into a very intricate controversy; this
  only will I say, that, if the tribes of the desert,
  under the leadership of the house of Seljuk, turned                20
  their faces to the West in the middle of the
  eleventh century; if in forty years they had
  advanced from Khorasan to Jerusalem and the
  neighborhood of Constantinople; and if in
  consequence they were threatening Europe and                       25
  Christianity; and if, for that reason, it was a
  great object to drive them back or break them
  to pieces; if it were a worthy object of the
  Crusades to rescue Europe from this peril and to
  reassure the anxious minds of Christian
  multitudes; then were the Crusades no failure in
  their issue, for this object was fully accomplished.
  The Seljukian Turks were hurled back upon the
  East, and then broken up, by the hosts of the                       5
  Crusaders. The lieutenant of Malek Shah, who
  had been established as Sultan of Roum (as Asia
  Minor was called by the Turks), was driven to an
  obscure town, where his dynasty lasted, indeed,
  but gradually dwindled away. A similar fate                        10
  attended the house of Seljuk in other parts of
  the Empire, and internal quarrels increased and
  perpetuated its weakness. Sudden as was its
  rise, as sudden was its fall; till the terrible
  Zingis, descending on the Turkish dynasties, like                  15
  an avalanche, cooperated effectually with the
  Crusaders and finished their work; and if
  Jerusalem was not protected from other enemies,
  at least Constantinople was saved, and Europe
  was placed in security, for three hundred years.                   20




  THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE OTTOMANS


  I think it is clear, that, if my account be only
  in the main correct, the Turkish power certainly
  is not a civilized, and is a barbarous power.
  The barbarian lives without principle and
  without aim; he does but reflect the successive                    25
  outward circumstances in which he finds himself,
  and he varies with them. He changes
  suddenly, when their change is sudden, and is as
  unlike what he was just before, as one fortune
  or external condition is unlike another. He
  moves when he is urged by appetite; else, he
  remains in sloth and inactivity. He lives, and
  he dies, and he has done nothing, but leaves the                    5
  world as he found it. And what the individual
  is, such is his whole generation; and as that
  generation, such is the generation before and
  after. No generation can say what it has been
  doing; it has not made the state of things better                  10
  or worse; for retrogression there is hardly room;
  for progress, no sort of material. Now I shall
  show that these characteristics of the barbarian
  are rudimental points, as I may call them, in the
  picture of the Turks, as drawn by those who                        15
  have studied them. I shall principally avail
  myself of the information supplied by Mr.
  Thornton and M. Volney, men of name and ability,
  and for various reasons preferable as authorities
  to writers of the present day.                                     20

  "The Turks," says Mr. Thornton, who, though
  not blind to their shortcomings, is certainly
  favorable to them, "the Turks are of a grave
  and saturnine cast ... patient of hunger and
  privations, capable of enduring the hardships of                   25
  war, but not much inclined to habits of
  industry.... They prefer apathy and indolence to
  active enjoyments; but when moved by a
  powerful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures
  in excess." "The Turk," he says elsewhere,                         30
  "stretched at his ease on the banks of the Bosphorus,
  glides down the stream of existence
  without reflection on the past, and without
  anxiety for the future. His life is one continued
  and unvaried reverie. To his imagination the
  whole universe appears occupied in procuring him                    5
  pleasures.... Every custom invites to repose,
  and every object inspires an indolent
  voluptuousness. Their delight is to recline on soft verdure
  under the shade of trees, and to muse without
  fixing the attention, lulled by the trickling of a                 10
  fountain or the murmuring of a rivulet, and
  inhaling through their pipe a gently inebriating
  vapor. Such pleasures, the highest which the
  rich can enjoy, are equally within the reach of
  the artisan or the peasant."                                       15

  M. Volney corroborates this account of them:
  "Their behavior," he says, "is serious, austere,
  and melancholy; they rarely laugh, and the
  gayety of the French appears to them a fit of
  delirium. When they speak, it is with                              20
  deliberation, without gestures and without passion;
  they listen without interrupting you; they are
  silent for whole days together, and they by no
  means pique themselves on supporting
  conversation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and            25
  on business. They have no idea of our
  troublesome activity, and our walks backwards and
  forwards for amusement. Continually seated,
  they pass whole days smoking, with their legs
  crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost                   30
  without changing their attitude." Englishmen
  present as great a contrast to the Ottoman as the
  French; as a late English traveler brings before
  us, apropos of seeing some Turks in quarantine:
  "Certainly," he says, "Englishmen are the least
  able to wait, and the Turks the most so, of any                     5
  people I have ever seen. To impede an
  Englishman's locomotion on a journey, is equivalent to
  stopping the circulation of his blood; to disturb
  the repose of a Turk on his, is to reawaken him
  to a painful sense of the miseries of life. The                    10
  one nation at rest is as much tormented as
  Prometheus, chained to his rock, with the vulture
  feeding on him; the other in motion is as
  uncomfortable as Ixion tied to his ever-moving wheel."[38]

    [38] Formby's Visit, p. 70.

  However, the barbarian, when roused to action,                     15
  is a very different being from the barbarian
  at rest. "The Turk," says Mr. Thornton, "is
  usually placid, hypochondriac, and
  unimpassioned; but, when the customary sedateness of
  his temper is ruffled, his passions ... are                        20
  furious and uncontrollable. The individual seems
  possessed with all the ungovernable fury of a
  multitude; and all ties, all attachments, all
  natural and moral obligations, are forgotten or
  despised, till his rage subsides." A similar                       25
  remark is made by a writer of the day: "The Turk
  on horseback has no resemblance to the Turk
  reclining on his carpet. He there assumes a
  vigor, and displays a dexterity, which few
  Europeans would be capable of emulating; no                        30
  horsemen surpass the Turks; and, with all the
  indolence of which they are accused, no people
  are more fond of the violent exercise of riding."

  So was it with their ancestors, the Tartars;
  now dosing on their horses or their wagons, now                     5
  galloping over the plains from morning to night.
  However, these successive phases of Turkish
  character, as reported by travelers, have seemed
  to readers as inconsistencies in their reports;
  Thornton accepts the inconsistency. "The                           10
  national character of the Turks," he says, "is a
  composition of contradictory qualities. We find
  them brave and pusillanimous; gentle and
  ferocious; resolute and inconstant; active and
  indolent; fastidiously abstemious, and                             15
  indiscriminately indulgent. The great are alternately
  haughty and humble, arrogant and cringing,
  liberal and sordid."[39] What is this but to say in
  one word that we find them barbarians?

    [39] Bell's Geography.

  According to these distinct moods or phases                        20
  of character, they will leave very various
  impressions of themselves on the minds of successive
  beholders. A traveler finds them in their
  ordinary state in repose and serenity; he is surprised
  and startled to find them so different from what                   25
  he imagined; he admires and extols them, and
  inveighs against the prejudice which has
  slandered them to the European world. He finds them
  mild and patient, tender to the brute creation, as
  becomes the children of a Tartar shepherd, kind                    30
  and hospitable, self-possessed and dignified, the
  lowest classes sociable with each other, and the
  children gamesome. It is true; they are as noble
  as the lion of the desert, and as gentle and as
  playful as the fireside cat. Our traveler observes                  5
  all this;[40] and seems to forget that from the
  humblest to the highest of the feline tribe, from
  the cat to the lion, the most wanton and
  tyrannical cruelty alternates with qualities more
  engaging or more elevated. Other barbarous                         10
  tribes also have their innocent aspects--from
  the Scythians in the classical poets and historians
  down to the Lewchoo islanders in the pages of
  Basil Hall.

    [40] Vid. Sir Charles Fellows' Asia Minor.

  But whatever be the natural excellences of                         15
  the Turks, progressive they are not. This Sir
  Charles Fellows seems to allow: "My intimacy
  with the character of the Turks," he says, "which
  has led me to think so highly of their moral
  excellence, has not given me the same favorable                    20
  impression of the development of their mental
  powers. Their refinement is of manners and
  affections; there is little cultivation or activity
  of mind among them." This admission implies
  a great deal, and brings us to a fresh                             25
  consideration. Observe, they were in the eighth century
  of their political existence when Thornton and
  Volney lived among them, and these authors
  report of them as follows: "Their buildings,"
  says Thornton, "are heavy in their proportions,                    30
  bad in detail, both in taste and execution,
  fantastic in decoration, and destitute of genius.
  Their cities are not decorated with public
  monuments, whose object is to enliven or to embellish."
  Their religion forbids them every sort of                           5
  painting, sculpture, or engraving; thus the fine arts
  cannot exist among them. They have no music
  but vocal; and know of no accompaniment
  except a bass of one note like that of the bagpipe.
  Their singing is in a great measure recitative,                    10
  with little variation of note. They have scarcely
  any notion of medicine or surgery; and they do
  not allow of anatomy. As to science, the
  telescope, the microscope, the electric battery, are
  unknown, except as playthings. The compass                         15
  is not universally employed in their navy, nor
  are its common purposes thoroughly understood.
  Navigation, astronomy, geography, chemistry,
  are either not known, or practiced only on
  antiquated and exploded principles. As to their                    20
  civil and criminal codes of law, these are
  unalterably fixed in the Koran....

  Compare the Rome of Junius Brutus to the
  Rome of Constantine, 800 years afterwards. In
  each of these polities there was a continuous                      25
  progression, and the end was unlike the
  beginning; but the Turks, except that they have gained
  the faculty of political union, are pretty much
  what they were when they crossed the Jaxartes
  and Oxus. Again, at the time of Togrul Beg, the                    30
  Greek schism also took place; now from Michael
  Cerularius, in 1054, to Anthimus, in 1853,
  Patriarchs of Constantinople, eight centuries have
  passed of religious deadness and insensibility: a
  longer time has passed in China of a similar
  political inertness: yet China has preserved at                     5
  least the civilization, and Greece the ecclesiastical
  science, with which they respectively passed into
  their long sleep; but the Turks of this day are
  still in the less than infancy of art, literature,
  philosophy, and general knowledge; and we may                      10
  fairly conclude that, if they have not learned
  the very alphabet of science in eight hundred
  years, they are not likely to set to work on it in
  the nine hundredth.

       *       *       *       *       *

  It is true that in the last quarter of a century                   15
  efforts have been made by the government of
  Constantinople to innovate on the existing
  condition of its people; and it has addressed itself
  in the first instance to certain details of daily
  Turkish life. We must take it for granted that it                  20
  began with such changes as were easiest; if so, its
  failure in these small matters suggests how little
  ground there is for hope of success in other
  advances more important and difficult. Every
  one knows that in the details of dress, carriage,                  25
  and general manners, the Turks are very
  different from Europeans: so different, and so
  consistently different, that the contrariety would
  seem to arise from some difference of essential
  principle. "This dissimilitude," says Mr.
  Thornton, "which pervades the whole of their habits,
  is so general, even in things of apparent
  insignificance, as almost to indicate design rather than
  accident...."                                                       5

  To learn from others, you must entertain a
  respect for them; no one listens to those whom
  he contemns. Christian nations make progress
  in secular matters, because they are aware they
  have many things to learn, and do not mind from                    10
  whom they learn them, so that he be able to teach.
  It is true that Christianity, as well as
  Mahometanism, which imitated it, has its visible polity,
  and its universal rule, and its especial
  prerogatives and powers and lessons, for its disciples.            15
  But, with a Divine wisdom, and contrary to its
  human copyist, it has carefully guarded (if I
  may use the expression) against extending its
  revelations to any point which would blunt the
  keenness of human research or the activity of                      20
  human toil. It has taken those matters for its
  field in which the human mind, left to itself,
  could not profitably exercise itself, or progress,
  if it would; it has confined its revelations to the
  province of theology, only indirectly touching                     25
  on other departments of knowledge, so far as
  theological truth accidentally affects them; and
  it has shown an equally remarkable care in
  preventing the introduction of the spirit of caste
  or race into its constitution or administration.                   30
  Pure nationalism it abhors; its authoritative
  documents pointedly ignore the distinction of
  Jew and Gentile, and warn us that the first often
  becomes the last; while its subsequent history
  has illustrated this great principle, by its awful,
  and absolute, and inscrutable, and irreversible                     5
  passage from country to country, as its territory
  and its home. Such, then, it has been in the
  Divine counsels, and such, too, as realized in fact;
  but man has ways of his own, and, even before
  its introduction into the world, the inspired                      10
  announcements, which preceded it, were distorted
  by the people to whom they were given, to
  minister to views of a very different kind. The
  secularized Jews, relying on the supernatural
  favors locally and temporally bestowed on                          15
  themselves, fell into the error of supposing that a
  conquest of the earth was reserved for some mighty
  warrior of their own race, and that, in
  compensation of the reverses which befell them, they
  were to become an imperial nation.                                 20

  What a contrast is presented to us by these
  different ideas of a universal empire! The
  distinctions of race are indelible; a Jew cannot
  become a Greek, or a Greek a Jew; birth is an
  event of past time; according to the Judaizers,                    25
  their nation, as a nation, was ever to be
  dominant; and all other nations, as such, were
  inferior and subject. What was the necessary
  consequence? There is nothing men more pride
  themselves on than birth, for this very reason,                    30
  that it is irrevocable; it can neither be given to
  those who have it not, nor taken away from
  those who have. The Almighty can do anything
  which admits of doing; He can compensate every
  evil; but a Greek poet says that there is one
  thing impossible to Him--to undo what is                            5
  done. Without throwing the thought into a
  shape which borders on the profane, we may see
  in it the reason why the idea of national power
  was so dear and so dangerous to the Jew. It was
  his consciousness of inalienable superiority that                  10
  led him to regard Roman and Greek, Syrian and
  Egyptian, with ineffable arrogance and scorn.
  Christians, too, are accustomed to think of those
  who are not Christians as their inferiors; but the
  conviction which possesses them, that they have                    15
  what others have not, is obviously not open to
  the temptation which nationalism presents.
  According to their own faith, there is no insuperable
  gulf between themselves and the rest of mankind;
  there is not a being in the whole world but is                     20
  invited by their religion to occupy the same
  position as themselves, and, did he come, would
  stand on their very level, as if he had ever been
  there. Such accessions to their body they
  continually receive, and they are bound under                      25
  obligation of duty to promote them. They never
  can pronounce of any one, now external to them,
  that he will not some day be among them; they
  never can pronounce of themselves that, though
  they are now within, they may not some day                         30
  be found outside, the Divine polity. Such are
  the sentiments inculcated by Christianity, even
  in the contemplation of the very superiority
  which it imparts; even there it is a principle, not
  of repulsion between man and man, but of good
  fellowship; but as to subjects of secular                           5
  knowledge, since here it does not arrogate any
  superiority at all, it has in fact no tendency whatever
  to center its disciple's contemplation on himself,
  or to alienate him from his kind. He readily
  acknowledges and defers to the superiority in                      10
  art or science of those, if so be, who are
  unhappily enemies to Christianity. He admits the
  principle of progress on all matters of knowledge
  and conduct on which the Creator has not decided
  the truth already by revealing it; and he is at                    15
  all times ready to learn, in those merely secular
  matters, from those who can teach him best.
  Thus it is that Christianity, even negatively, and
  without contemplating its positive influences, is
  the religion of civilization.                                      20




  III. UNIVERSITIES




  WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?


  If I were asked to describe as briefly and
  popularly as I could, what a University was, I
  should draw my answer from its ancient
  designation of a _Studium Generale_, or "School of
  Universal Learning." This description implies                       5
  the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one
  spot--_from all parts_; else, how will you find
  professors and students for every department of
  knowledge? and _in one spot_; else, how can there
  be any school at all? Accordingly, in its simple                   10
  and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge
  of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners
  from every quarter. Many things are requisite
  to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this
  description; but such as this a University seems                   15
  to be in its essence, a place for the
  communication and circulation of thought, by means of
  personal intercourse, through a wide extent of
  country.

  Mutual education, in a large sense of the word,                    20
  is one of the great and incessant occupations of
  human society, carried on partly with set
  purpose, and partly not. One generation forms
  another; and the existing generation is ever
  acting and reacting upon itself in the persons of its
  individual members. Now, in this process, books,
  I need scarcely say, that is, the _litera scripta_,
  are one special instrument. It is true; and                         5
  emphatically so in this age. Considering the
  prodigious powers of the press, and how they are
  developed at this time in the never intermitting
  issue of periodicals, tracts, pamphlets, works in
  series, and light literature, we must allow there                  10
  never was a time which promised fairer for
  dispensing with every other means of information
  and instruction. What can we want more, you
  will say, for the intellectual education of the
  whole man, and for every man, than so exuberant                    15
  and diversified and persistent a promulgation
  of all kinds of knowledge? Why, you will ask,
  need we go up to knowledge, when knowledge
  comes down to us? The Sibyl wrote her
  prophecies upon the leaves of the forest, and wasted               20
  them; but here such careless profusion might be
  prudently indulged, for it can be afforded
  without loss, in consequence of the almost fabulous
  fecundity of the instrument which these latter
  ages have invented. We have sermons in stones,                     25
  and books in the running brooks; works larger
  and more comprehensive than those which have
  gained for ancients an immortality, issue forth
  every morning, and are projected onwards to
  the ends of the earth at the rate of hundreds of                   30
  miles a day. Our seats are strewed, our pavements
  are powdered, with swarms of little tracts;
  and the very bricks of our city walls preach
  wisdom, by informing us by their placards where we
  can at once cheaply purchase it.

  I allow all this, and much more; such                               5
  certainly is our popular education, and its effects are
  remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, even in this
  age, whenever men are really serious about
  getting what, in the language of trade, is called "a
  good article," when they aim at something                          10
  precise, something refined, something really
  luminous, something really large, something choice,
  they go to another market; they avail themselves,
  in some shape or other, of the rival method, the
  ancient method, of oral instruction, of present                    15
  communication between man and man, of teachers
  instead of learning, of the personal influence of a
  master, and the humble initiation of a disciple,
  and, in consequence, of great centers of
  pilgrimage and throng, which such a method of                      20
  education necessarily involves.

  If the actions of men may be taken as any test
  of their convictions, then we have reason for
  saying this, viz.: that the province and the
  inestimable benefit of the _litera scripta_ is that of             25
  being a record of truth, and an authority of appeal,
  and an instrument of teaching in the hands of a
  teacher; but that, if we wish to become exact and
  fully furnished in any branch of knowledge which
  is diversified and complicated, we must consult                    30
  the living man and listen to his living voice....
  No book can convey the special spirit and
  delicate peculiarities of its subject with that
  rapidity and certainty which attend on the sympathy
  of mind with mind, through the eyes, the look,
  the accent, and the manner, in casual expressions                   5
  thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied
  turns of familiar conversation. But I am already
  dwelling too long on what is but an incidental
  portion of my main subject. Whatever be the
  cause, the fact is undeniable. The general                         10
  principles of any study you may learn by books at
  home; but the detail, the color, the tone, the
  air, the life which makes it live in us, you must
  catch all these from those in whom it lives
  already. You must imitate the student in French                    15
  or German, who is not content with his
  grammar, but goes to Paris or Dresden: you must
  take example from the young artist, who aspires
  to visit the great Masters in Florence and in
  Rome. Till we have discovered some                                 20
  intellectual daguerreotype, which takes off the course of
  thought, and the form, lineaments, and features
  of truth, as completely and minutely, as the
  optical instrument reproduces the sensible
  object, we must come to the teachers of wisdom                     25
  to learn wisdom, we must repair to the fountain,
  and drink there. Portions of it may go from
  thence to the ends of the earth by means of
  books; but the fullness is in one place alone. It
  is in such assemblages and congregations of                        30
  intellect that books themselves, the masterpieces
  of human genius, are written, or at least
  originated.

  The principle on which I have been insisting
  is so obvious, and instances in point are so ready,
  that I should think it tiresome to proceed with                     5
  the subject, except that one or two illustrations
  may serve to explain my own language about it,
  which may not have done justice to the doctrine
  which it has been intended to enforce.

  For instance, the polished manners and                             10
  high-bred bearing which are so difficult of attainment,
  and so strictly personal when attained,--which
  are so much admired in society, from society
  are acquired. All that goes to constitute a
  gentleman,--the carriage, gait, address, gestures,                 15
  voice; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy,
  the power of conversing, the talent of not
  offending; the lofty principle, the delicacy of thought,
  the happiness of expression, the taste and
  propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the                     20
  candor and consideration, the openness of
  hand--these qualities, some of them come by nature,
  some of them may be found in any rank, some of
  them are a direct precept of Christianity; but
  the full assemblage of them, bound up in the                       25
  unity of an individual character, do we expect
  they can be learned from books? are they not
  necessarily acquired, where they are to be found,
  in high society? The very nature of the case
  leads us to say so; you cannot fence without an                    30
  antagonist, nor challenge all comers in disputation
  before you have supported a thesis; and in
  like manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn
  to converse till you have the world to converse
  with; you cannot unlearn your natural
  bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other                 5
  besetting deformity, till you serve your time in
  some school of manners. Well, and is it not so
  in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court,
  the great houses of the land, are the centers to
  which at stated times the country comes up, as to                  10
  shrines of refinement and good taste; and then
  in due time the country goes back again home,
  enriched with a portion of the social
  accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call out
  and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them.                   15
  We are unable to conceive how the
  "gentleman-like" can otherwise be maintained; and
  maintained in this way it is....

  Religious teaching itself affords us an
  illustration of our subject to a certain point. It                 20
  does not indeed seat itself merely in centers of
  the world; this is impossible from the nature of
  the case. It is intended for the many not the
  few; its subject-matter is truth necessary for us,
  not truth recondite and rare; but it concurs in                    25
  the principle of a University so far as this, that
  its great instrument, or rather organ, has ever
  been that which nature prescribes in all education,
  the personal presence of a teacher, or, in
  theological language, Oral Tradition. It is the living             30
  voice, the breathing form, the expressive countenance,
  which preaches, which catechises. Truth,
  a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into
  the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears,
  through his affections, imagination, and reason;
  it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there                   5
  in perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it,
  by questioning and requestioning, by correcting
  and explaining, by progressing and then recurring
  to first principles, by all those ways which are
  implied in the word "catechising." In the first                    10
  ages, it was a work of long time; months,
  sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task
  of disabusing the mind of the incipient Christian
  of its pagan errors, and of molding it upon the
  Christian faith. The Scriptures indeed were at                     15
  hand for the study of those who could avail
  themselves of them; but St. Irenaeus does not
  hesitate to speak of whole races, who had been
  converted to Christianity, without being able to
  read them. To be unable to read or write was in                    20
  those times no evidence of want of learning: the
  hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the
  word, illiterate; yet the great St. Anthony,
  though he knew not letters, was a match in
  disputation for the learned philosophers who came                  25
  to try him. Didymus again, the great
  Alexandrian theologian, was blind. The ancient
  discipline, called the _Disciplina Arcani_, involved the
  same principle. The more sacred doctrines of
  Revelation were not committed to books but                         30
  passed on by successive tradition. The teaching
  on the Blessed Trinity, and the Eucharist
  appears to have been so handed down for some
  hundred years; and when at length reduced to
  writing, it has filled many folios, yet has not been
  exhausted.                                                          5

  But I have said more than enough in
  illustration; end as I began--a University is a place
  of concourse, whither students come from every
  quarter for every kind of knowledge. You
  cannot have the best of every kind everywhere; you                 10
  must go to some great city or emporium for it.
  There you have all the choicest productions
  of nature and art all together, which you find
  each in its own separate place elsewhere. All
  the riches of the land, and of the earth, are                      15
  carried up thither; there are the best markets, and
  there the best workmen. It is the center of
  trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire
  of rival talents, and the standard of things rare
  and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries                 20
  of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful
  voices and performers of transcendent skill. It
  is the place for great preachers, great orators,
  great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of
  things, greatness and unity go together;                           25
  excellence implies a center. And such, for the third
  or fourth time, is a University; I hope I do not
  weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the
  place to which a thousand schools make
  contributions; in which the intellect may safely                   30
  range and speculate, sure to find its equal in
  some antagonist activity, and its judge in the
  tribunal of truth. It is a place where inquiry
  is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and
  perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and
  error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind,                  5
  and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place
  where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a
  missionary and a preacher, displaying his science
  in its most complete and most winning form,
  pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and                  10
  lighting up his own love of it in the breasts of
  his hearers. It is the place where the catechist
  makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the
  truth day by day into the ready memory, and
  wedging and tightening it into the expanding                       15
  reason. It is a place which wins the admiration
  of the young by its celebrity, kindles the
  affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets
  the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is a
  seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of                20
  the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation.
  It is this and a great deal more, and demands a
  somewhat better head and hand than mine to
  describe it well.




  UNIVERSITY LIFE


  ATHENS


  It has been my desire, were I able, to bring                       25
  before the reader what Athens may have been,
  viewed as what we have since called a University;
  and to do this, not with any purpose of writing
  a panegyric on a heathen city, or of denying
  its many deformities, or of concealing what was
  morally base in what was intellectually great, but
  just the contrary, of representing as they really                   5
  were; so far, that is, as to enable him to see what
  a University is, in the very constitution of society
  and in its own idea, what is its nature and object,
  and what its needs of aid and support external to
  itself to complete that nature and to secure that                  10
  object.

  So now let us fancy our Scythian, or Armenian,
  or African, or Italian, or Gallic student, after
  tossing on the Saronic waves, which would be his
  more ordinary course to Athens, at last casting                    15
  anchor at Piraeus. He is of any condition or rank
  of life you please, and may be made to order,
  from a prince to a peasant. Perhaps he is some
  Cleanthes, who has been a boxer in the public
  games. How did it ever cross his brain to betake                   20
  himself to Athens in search of wisdom? or, if he
  came thither by accident, how did the love of it
  ever touch his heart? But so it was, to Athens he
  came with three drachms in his girdle, and he got
  his livelihood by drawing water, carrying loads,                   25
  and the like servile occupations. He attached
  himself, of all philosophers, to Zeno the
  Stoic,--to Zeno, the most high-minded, the most haughty
  of speculators; and out of his daily earnings the
  poor scholar brought his master the daily sum of                   30
  an obolus, in payment for attending his lectures.
  Such progress did he make, that on Zeno's death
  he actually was his successor in his school; and,
  if my memory does not play me false, he is the
  author of a hymn to the Supreme Being, which is
  one of the noblest effusions of the kind in classical               5
  poetry. Yet, even when he was the head of a
  school, he continued in his illiberal toil as if he
  had been a monk; and, it is said, that once, when
  the wind took his pallium, and blew it aside, he
  was discovered to have no other garment at                         10
  all--something like the German student who came up
  to Heidelberg with nothing upon him but a great
  coat and a pair of pistols.

  Or it is another disciple of the Porch--Stoic
  by nature, earlier than by profession--who is                      15
  entering the city; but in what different fashion
  he comes! It is no other than Marcus, Emperor
  of Rome and philosopher. Professors long since
  were summoned from Athens for his service, when
  he was a youth, and now he comes, after his                        20
  victories in the battlefield, to make his
  acknowledgments at the end of life, to the city of wisdom, and
  to submit himself to an initiation into the
  Eleusinian mysteries.

  Or it is a young man of great promise as an                        25
  orator, were it not for his weakness of chest, which
  renders it necessary that he should acquire the art
  of speaking without over-exertion, and should
  adopt a delivery sufficient for the display of his
  rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet merciful                   30
  to his physical resources on the other. He is
  called Cicero; he will stop but a short time, and
  will pass over to Asia Minor and its cities, before
  he returns to continue a career which will render
  his name immortal; and he will like his short
  sojourn at Athens so well, that he will take good                   5
  care to send his son thither at an earlier age than
  he visited it himself.

  But see where comes from Alexandria (for we
  need not be very solicitous about anachronisms),
  a young man from twenty to twenty-two, who                         10
  has narrowly escaped drowning on his voyage,
  and is to remain at Athens as many as eight or
  ten years, yet in the course of that time will not
  learn a line of Latin, thinking it enough to
  become accomplished in Greek composition, and in                   15
  that he will succeed. He is a grave person, and
  difficult to make out; some say he is a Christian,
  something or other in the Christian line his father
  is for certain. His name is Gregory, he is by
  country a Cappadocian, and will in time become                     20
  preeminently a theologian, and one of the
  principal Doctors of the Greek Church.

  Or it is one Horace, a youth of low stature and
  black hair, whose father has given him an
  education at Rome above his rank in life, and now is               25
  sending him to finish it at Athens; he is said to
  have a turn for poetry: a hero he is not, and it
  were well if he knew it; but he is caught by the
  enthusiasm of the hour, and goes off campaigning
  with Brutus and Cassius, and will leave his shield                 30
  behind him on the field of Philippi.

  Or it is a mere boy of fifteen: his name
  Eunapius; though the voyage was not long, sea
  sickness, or confinement, or bad living on board the
  vessel, threw him into a fever, and, when the
  passengers landed in the evening at Piraeus, he                      5
  could not stand. His countrymen who
  accompanied him, took him up among them and carried
  him to the house of the great teacher of the day,
  Proaeresius, who was a friend of the captain's,
  and whose fame it was which drew the                               10
  enthusiastic youth to Athens. His companions
  understand the sort of place they are in, and, with the
  license of academic students, they break into the
  philosopher's house, though he appears to have
  retired for the night, and proceed to make                         15
  themselves free of it, with an absence of ceremony,
  which is only not impudence, because Proaeresius
  takes it so easily. Strange introduction for our
  stranger to a seat of learning, but not out of
  keeping with Athens; for what could you expect of a                20
  place where there was a mob of youths and not
  even the pretense of control; where the poorer
  lived any how, and got on as they could, and the
  teachers themselves had no protection from the
  humors and caprices of the students who filled                     25
  their lecture halls? However, as to this
  Eunapius, Proaeresius took a fancy to the boy, and told
  him curious stories about Athenian life. He
  himself had come up to the University with one
  Hephaestion, and they were even worse off than                      30
  Cleanthes the Stoic; for they had only one cloak
  between them, and nothing whatever besides,
  except some old bedding; so when Proaeresius
  went abroad, Hephaestion lay in bed, and
  practiced himself in oratory; and then Hephaestion
  put on the cloak, and Proaeresius crept under the                    5
  coverlet. At another time there was so fierce
  a feud between what would be called "town and
  gown" in an English University, that the
  Professors did not dare lecture in public, for fear of
  ill treatment.                                                     10

  But a freshman like Eunapius soon got
  experience for himself of the ways and manners
  prevalent in Athens. Such a one as he had hardly
  entered the city, when he was caught hold of by
  a party of the academic youth, who proceeded to                    15
  practice on his awkwardness and his ignorance.
  At first sight one wonders at their childishness;
  but the like conduct obtained in the mediaeval
  Universities; and not many months have passed
  away since the journals have told us of sober                      20
  Englishmen, given to matter-of-fact calculations,
  and to the anxieties of money making, pelting
  each other with snowballs on their own sacred
  territory, and defying the magistracy, when they
  would interfere with their privileges of                           25
  becoming boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to
  something or other in human nature. Meanwhile,
  there stands the newcomer, surrounded by a circle
  of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to
  frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him,                30
  to the extent of their wit. Some address him with
  mock politeness, others with fierceness; and so
  they conduct him in solemn procession across the
  Agora to the Baths; and as they approach, they
  dance about him like madmen. But this was to
  be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a sort of                 5
  initiation; he thereupon received the pallium, or
  University gown, and was suffered by his
  tormentors to depart in peace. One alone is
  recorded as having been exempted from this
  persecution; it was a youth graver and loftier than                10
  even St. Gregory himself: but it was not from his
  force of character, but at the instance of Gregory,
  that he escaped. Gregory was his bosom friend,
  and was ready in Athens to shelter him when
  he came. It was another Saint and Doctor; the                      15
  great Basil, then, (it would appear,) as Gregory,
  but a catechumen of the Church.

  But to return to our freshman. His troubles
  are not at an end, though he has got his gown
  upon him. Where is he to lodge? whom is he                         20
  to attend? He finds himself seized, before he
  well knows where he is, by another party of men
  or three or four parties at once, like foreign
  porters at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the
  perplexed stranger, and thrust half a dozen cards                  25
  into his unwilling hands. Our youth is plied by
  the hangers-on of professor this, or sophist that,
  each of whom wishes the fame or the profit of
  having a houseful. We will say that he escapes
  from their hands,--but then he will have to                        30
  choose for himself where he will put up; and, to
  tell the truth, with all the praise I have already
  given, and the praise I shall have to give, to
  the city of mind, nevertheless, between ourselves,
  the brick and wood which formed it, the actual
  tenements, where flesh and blood had to lodge                       5
  (always excepting the mansions of great men of
  the place), do not seem to have been much better
  than those of Greek or Turkish towns, which are
  at this moment a topic of interest and ridicule
  in the public prints. A lively picture has lately                  10
  been set before us of Gallipoli. Take, says the
  writer,[41] a multitude of the dilapidated outhouses
  found in farm-yards in England, of the rickety
  old wooden tenements, the cracked, shutterless
  structures of planks and tiles, the sheds and stalls,              15
  which our bye lanes, or fish-markets, or
  river-sides can supply; tumble them down on the
  declivity of a bare bald hill; let the spaces
  between house and house, thus accidentally
  determined, be understood to form streets, winding of              20
  course for no reason, and with no meaning, up and
  down the town; the roadway always narrow, the
  breadth never uniform, the separate houses
  bulging or retiring below, as circumstances may have
  determined, and leaning forward till they meet                     25
  overhead--and you have a good idea of
  Gallipoli. I question whether this picture would
  not nearly correspond to the special seat of the
  Muses in ancient times. Learned writers assure
  us distinctly that the houses of Athens were for                   30
  the most part small and mean; that the streets
  were crooked and narrow; that the upper stories
  projected over the roadway; and that staircases,
  balustrades, and doors that opened outwards
  obstructed it--a remarkable coincidence of                          5
  description. I do not doubt at all, though
  history is silent, that that roadway was jolting to
  carriages, and all but impassable; and that it
  was traversed by drains, as freely as any Turkish
  town now. Athens seems in these respects to                        10
  have been below the average cities of its time.
  "A stranger," says an ancient, "might doubt, on
  the sudden view, if really he saw Athens."

    [41] Mr. Russell's Letters in the _Times_ newspaper (1854).

  I grant all this, and much more, if you will;
  but, recollect, Athens was the home of the                         15
  intellectual and beautiful; not of low mechanical
  contrivances and material organization. Why
  stop within your lodgings counting the rents in
  your wall or the holes in your tiling, when nature
  and art call you away? You must put up with                        20
  such a chamber, and a table, and a stool, and a
  sleeping board, anywhere else in the three
  continents; one place does not differ from another
  indoors; your magalia in Africa, or your grottoes
  in Syria are not perfection. I suppose you did                     25
  not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or to
  grope about a closet: you came to see and to
  hear, what hear and see you could not elsewhere.
  What food for the intellect is it possible to
  procure indoors, that you stay there looking about                 30
  you? do you think to read there? where are your
  books? do you expect to purchase books at
  Athens--you are much out in your calculations.
  True it is, we at this day, who live in the
  nineteenth century, have the books of Greece as a
  perpetual memorial; and copies there have been,                     5
  since the time that they were written; but you
  need not go to Athens to procure them, nor would
  you find them in Athens. Strange to say, strange
  to the nineteenth century, that in the age of Plato
  and Thucydides, there was not, it is said, a                       10
  bookshop in the whole place; nor was the book trade
  in existence till the very time of Augustus.
  Libraries, I suspect, were the bright invention of
  Attalus or the Ptolemies;[42] I doubt whether
  Athens had a library till the reign of Hadrian.                    15
  It was what the student gazed on, what he heard,
  what he caught by the magic of sympathy, not
  what he read, which was the education furnished
  by Athens.

    [42] I do not go into controversy on the subject, for which the
    reader must have recourse to Lipsius, Morhof, Boeckh, Bekker, etc.;
    and this of course applies to whatever historical matter I
    introduce, or shall introduce.

  He leaves his narrow lodging early in the                          20
  morning; and not till night, if even then, will he
  return. It is but a crib or kennel, in which
  he sleeps when the weather is inclement or the
  ground damp; in no respect a home. And he
  goes out of doors, not to read the day's                           25
  newspaper, or to buy the gay shilling volume, but to
  imbibe the invisible atmosphere of genius, and
  to learn by heart the oral traditions of taste.
  Out he goes; and, leaving the tumble-down
  town behind him, he mounts the Acropolis to
  the right, or he turns to the Areopagus on the left.
  He goes to the Parthenon to study the sculptures                    5
  of Phidias; to the temple of the Dioscuri to see
  the paintings of Polygnotus. We indeed take
  our Sophocles or AEschylus out of our coat pocket;
  but, if our sojourner at Athens would understand
  how a tragic poet can write, he must betake                        10
  himself to the theater on the south, and see and
  hear the drama literally in action. Or let him go
  westward to the Agora, and there he will hear
  Lysias or Andocides pleading, or Demosthenes
  haranguing. He goes farther west still, along the                  15
  shade of those noble planes, which Cimon has
  planted there; and he looks around him at the
  statues and porticoes and vestibules, each by
  itself a work of genius and skill, enough to be the
  making of another city. He passes through the                      20
  city gate, and then he is at the famous Ceramicus;
  here are the tombs of the mighty dead; and here,
  we will suppose, is Pericles himself, the most
  elevated, the most thrilling of orators, converting a
  funeral oration over the slain into a philosophical                25
  panegyric of the living.

  Onwards he proceeds still; and now he has
  come to that still more celebrated Academe,
  which has bestowed its own name on Universities
  down to this day; and there he sees a sight which                  30
  will be graven on his memory till he dies. Many
  are the beauties of the place, the groves, and the
  statues, and the temple, and the stream of the
  Cephissus flowing by; many are the lessons
  which will be taught him day after day by teacher
  or by companion; but his eye is just now arrested                   5
  by one object; it is the very presence of Plato.
  He does not hear a word that he says; he does
  not care to hear; he asks neither for discourse
  nor disputation; what he sees is a whole,
  complete in itself, not to be increased by addition, and           10
  greater than anything else. It will be a point in
  the history of his life; a stay for his memory to
  rest on, a burning thought in his heart, a bond of
  union with men of like mind, ever afterwards.
  Such is the spell which the living man exerts on                   15
  his fellows, for good or for evil. How nature
  impels us to lean upon others, making virtue, or
  genius, or name, the qualification for our doing
  so! A Spaniard is said to have traveled to Italy,
  simply to see Livy; he had his fill of gazing, and                 20
  then went back again home. Had our young
  stranger got nothing by his voyage but the sight
  of the breathing and moving Plato, had he
  entered no lecture room to hear, no gymnasium to
  converse, he had got some measure of education,                    25
  and something to tell of to his grandchildren.

  But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight of
  him the only lesson to be learned in this
  wonderful suburb. It is the region and the realm
  of philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of                     30
  many centuries later; and they imply a sort of
  cloistered life, or at least a life of rule, scarcely
  natural to an Athenian. It was the boast of the
  philosophic statesman of Athens, that his
  countrymen achieved by the mere force of nature and
  the love of the noble and the great, what other                     5
  people aimed at by laborious discipline; and all
  who came among them were submitted to the
  same method of education. We have traced our
  student on his wanderings from the Acropolis to
  the Sacred Way; and now he is in the region of                     10
  the schools. No awful arch, no window of
  many- lights marks the seats of learning there
  or elsewhere; philosophy lives out of doors. No
  close atmosphere oppresses the brain or inflames
  the eyelid; no long session stiffens the limbs.                    15
  Epicurus is reclining in his garden; Zeno looks
  like a divinity in his porch; the restless Aristotle,
  on the other side of the city, as if in antagonism
  to Plato, is walking his pupils off their legs in his
  Lyceum by the Ilyssus. Our student has                             20
  determined on entering himself as a disciple of
  Theophrastus, a teacher of marvelous popularity, who
  has brought together two thousand pupils from
  all parts of the world. He himself is of <DW26>s;
  for masters, as well as students, come hither from                 25
  all regions of the earth--as befits a University.
  How could Athens have collected hearers in such
  numbers, unless she had selected teachers of such
  power? it was the range of territory, which the
  notion of a University implies, which furnished                    30
  both the quantity of the one and the quality of
  the other. Anaxagoras was from Ionia, Carneades
  from Africa, Zeno from Cyprus, Protagoras from
  Thrace, and Gorgias from Sicily. Andromachus
  was a Syrian, Proaeresius an Armenian, Hilarius
  a Bithynian, Philiscus a Thessalian, Hadrian a                      5
  Syrian. Rome is celebrated for her liberality in
  civil matters; Athens was as liberal in
  intellectual. There was no narrow jealousy, directed
  against a Professor, because he was not an
  Athenian; genius and talent were the qualifications;               10
  and to bring them to Athens, was to do homage
  to it as a University. There was a brotherhood
  and a citizenship of mind.

  Mind came first, and was the foundation of the
  academical polity; but it soon brought along with                  15
  it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of fortune
  and the prizes of life. As time went on, wisdom
  was not always sentenced to the bare cloak of
  Cleanthes; but, beginning in rags, it ended in
  fine linen. The Professors became honorable                        20
  and rich; and the students ranged themselves
  under their names, and were proud of calling
  themselves their countrymen. The University
  was divided into four great nations, as the
  mediaeval antiquarian would style them; and in the                  25
  middle of the fourth century, Proaeresius was the
  leader or proctor of the Attic, Hephaestion of
  the Oriental, Epiphanius of the Arabic, and
  Diophantus of the Pontic. Thus the Professors
  were both patrons of clients, and hosts and                        30
  _proxeni_ of strangers and visitors, as well as masters
  of the schools: and the Cappadocian, Syrian,
  or Sicilian youth who came to one or other of
  them, would be encouraged to study by his
  protection, and to aspire by his example.

  Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were                         5
  not a hundred years old, was in circumstances
  to enjoy the _otium cum dignitate_. He had a villa
  out at Heraclea; and he left his patrimony to
  his school, in whose hands it remained, not only
  safe, but fructifying, a marvelous phenomenon in                   10
  tumultuous Greece, for the long space of eight
  hundred years. Epicurus too had the property
  of the Gardens where he lectured; and these too
  became the property of his sect. But in Roman
  times the chairs of grammar, rhetoric, politics,                   15
  and the four philosophies were handsomely
  endowed by the State; some of the Professors
  were themselves statesmen or high functionaries,
  and brought to their favorite study senatorial
  rank or Asiatic opulence.                                          20

  Patrons such as these can compensate to the
  freshman, in whom we have interested ourselves,
  for the poorness of his lodging and the turbulence
  of his companions. In everything there is a
  better side and a worse; in every place a                          25
  disreputable set and a respectable, and the one is
  hardly known at all to the other. Men come
  away from the same University at this day, with
  contradictory impressions and contradictory
  statements, according to the society they have found               30
  there; if you believe the one, nothing goes on
  there as it should be: if you believe the other,
  nothing goes on as it should _not_. Virtue,
  however, and decency are at least in the minority
  everywhere, and under some sort of a cloud or
  disadvantage; and this being the case, it is so                     5
  much gain whenever an Herodes Atticus is found,
  to throw the influence of wealth and station on
  the side even of a decorous philosophy. A
  consular man, and the heir of an ample fortune, this
  Herod was content to devote his life to a                          10
  professorship, and his fortune to the patronage of
  literature. He gave the sophist Polemo about
  eight thousand pounds, as the sum is calculated,
  for three declamations. He built at Athens a
  stadium six hundred feet long, entirely of white                   15
  marble, and capable of admitting the whole
  population. His theater, erected to the memory of
  his wife, was made of cedar wood curiously carved.
  He had two villas, one at Marathon, the place of
  his birth, about ten miles from Athens, the other                  20
  at Cephissia, at the distance of six; and thither
  he drew to him the _elite_, and at times the whole
  body of the students. Long arcades, groves of
  trees, clear pools for the bath, delighted and
  recruited the summer visitor. Never was so                         25
  brilliant a lecture room as his evening
  banqueting hall; highly connected students from Rome
  mixed with the sharp-witted provincial of Greece
  or Asia Minor; and the flippant sciolist, and the
  nondescript visitor, half philosopher, half tramp,                 30
  met with a reception, courteous always, but suitable
  to his deserts. Herod was noted for his
  repartees; and we have instances on record of
  his setting down, according to the emergency,
  both the one and the other.

  A higher line, though a rarer one, was that                         5
  allotted to the youthful Basil. He was one of
  those men who seem by a sort of fascination to
  draw others around them even without wishing
  it. One might have deemed that his gravity and
  his reserve would have kept them at a distance;                    10
  but, almost in spite of himself, he was the center
  of a knot of youths, who, pagans as most of them
  were, used Athens honestly for the purpose for
  which they professed to seek it; and, disappointed
  and displeased with the place himself, he seems                    15
  nevertheless to have been the means of their
  profiting by its advantages. One of these was
  Sophronius, who afterwards held a high office in
  the State: Eusebius was another, at that time
  the bosom friend of Sophronius, and afterwards                     20
  a Bishop. Celsus too is named, who afterwards
  was raised to the government of Cilicia by the
  Emperor Julian. Julian himself, in the sequel of
  unhappy memory, was then at Athens, and known
  at least to St. Gregory. Another Julian is also                    25
  mentioned, who was afterwards commissioner of
  the land tax. Here we have a glimpse of the better
  kind of society among the students of Athens; and
  it is to the credit of the parties composing it,
  that such young men as Gregory and Basil, men                      30
  as intimately connected with Christianity, as they
  were well known in the world, should hold so high
  a place in their esteem and love. When the two
  saints were departing, their companions came
  around them with the hope of changing their
  purpose. Basil persevered; but Gregory relented,                    5
  and turned back to Athens for a season.




  SUPPLY AND DEMAND

  THE SCHOOLMEN


  It is most interesting to observe how the
  foundations of the present intellectual greatness
  of Europe were laid, and most wonderful to think
  that they were ever laid at all. Let us consider                   10
  how wide and how high is the platform of our
  knowledge at this day, and what openings in
  every direction are in progress--openings of
  such promise, that, unless some convulsion of
  society takes place, even what we have attained,                   15
  will in future times be nothing better than a poor
  beginning; and then on the other hand, let us
  recollect that, seven centuries ago, putting aside
  revealed truths, Europe had little more than that
  poor knowledge, partial and uncertain, and at                      20
  best only practical, which is conveyed to us by the
  senses. Even our first principles now are beyond
  the most daring conjectures then; and what has
  been said so touchingly of Christian ideas as
  compared with pagan, is true in its way and degree                 25
  of the progress of secular knowledge also in the
  seven centuries I have named.

     "What sages would have died to learn,
      [Is] taught by cottage dames."

  Nor is this the only point in which the
  revelations of science may be compared to the
  supernatural revelations of Christianity. Though                    5
  sacred truth was delivered once for all, and
  scientific discoveries are progressive, yet there is
  a great resemblance in the respective histories of
  Christianity and of Science. We are accustomed
  to point to the rise and spread of Christianity as                 10
  a miraculous fact, and rightly so, on account of
  the weakness of its instruments, and the appalling
  weight and multiplicity of the obstacles which
  confronted it. To clear away those obstacles
  was to move mountains; yet this was done by                        15
  a few poor, obscure, unbefriended men, and
  their poor, obscure, unbefriended followers. No
  social movement can come up to this marvel,
  which is singular and archetypical, certainly;
  it is a Divine work, and we soon cease to admire                   20
  it in order to adore. But there is more in it
  than its own greatness to contemplate; it is so
  great as to be prolific of greatness. Those whom
  it has created, its children who have become such
  by a supernatural power, have imitated, in their                   25
  own acts, the dispensation which made them
  what they were; and, though they have not
  carried out works simply miraculous, yet they have
  done exploits sufficient to bespeak their own
  unearthly origin, and the new powers which had                     30
  come into the world. The revival of letters by
  the energy of Christian ecclesiastics and laymen,
  when everything had to be done, reminds us of
  the birth of Christianity itself, as far as a work of
  man can resemble a work of God.

  Two characteristics, as I have already had                          5
  occasion to say, are generally found to attend the
  history of Science: first, its instruments have
  an innate force, and can dispense with foreign
  assistance in their work; and secondly, these
  instruments must exist and must begin to act,                      10
  before subjects are found who are to profit by
  their action. In plainer language, the teacher is
  strong, not in the patronage of great men, but
  in the intrinsic value and attraction of what he
  has to communicate; and next, he must come                         15
  forward and advertise himself, before he can gain
  hearers. This I have expressed before, in saying
  that a great school of learning lived in demand and
  supply, and that the supply must be before the
  demand. Now, what is this but the very history                     20
  of the preaching of the Gospel? who but the
  Apostles and Evangelists went out to the ends
  of the earth without patron, or friend, or other
  external advantage which could insure their
  success? and again, who among the multitude they                   25
  enlightened would have called for their aid unless
  they had gone to that multitude first, and offered
  to it blessings which up to that moment it had
  not heard of? They had no commission, they
  had no invitation, from man; their strength lay                    30
  neither in their being sent, nor in their being sent
  for; but in the circumstances that they had that
  with them, a Divine message, which they knew
  would at once, when it was uttered, thrill through
  the hearts of those to whom they spoke, and
  make for themselves friends in any place,                           5
  strangers and outcasts as they were when they first
  came. They appealed to the secret wants and
  aspirations of human nature, to its laden
  conscience, its weariness, its desolateness, and its
  sense of the true and the Divine; nor did they                     10
  long wait for listeners and disciples, when they
  announced the remedy of evils which were so real.

  Something like this were the first stages of the
  process by which in mediaeval Christendom the
  structure of our present intellectual elevation                    15
  was carried forward. From Rome as from a
  center, as the Apostles from Jerusalem, went
  forth the missionaries of knowledge, passing to
  and fro all over Europe; and, as Metropolitan
  sees were the record of the presence of Apostles,                  20
  so did Paris, Pavia, and Bologna, and Padua,
  and Ferrara, Pisa and Naples, Vienna, Louvain,
  and Oxford, rise into Universities at the voice of
  the theologian or the philosopher. Moreover, as
  the Apostles went through labors untold, by                        25
  sea and land, in their charity to souls; so, if
  robbers, shipwrecks, bad lodging, and scanty fare
  are trials of zeal, such trials were encountered
  without hesitation by the martyrs and confessors
  of science. And as Evangelists had grounded                        30
  their teaching upon the longing for happiness
  natural to man, so did these securely rest their
  cause on the natural thirst for knowledge: and
  again as the preachers of Gospel peace had often
  to bewail the ruin which persecution or
  dissension had brought upon their nourishing colonies,              5
  so also did the professors of science often find or
  flee the ravages of sword or pestilence in those
  places, which they themselves perhaps in former
  times had made the seats of religious, honorable,
  and useful learning. And lastly, as kings and                      10
  nobles have fortified and advanced the interests
  of the Christian faith without being necessary
  to it, so in like manner we may enumerate with
  honor Charlemagne, Alfred, Henry the First of
  England, Joan of Navarre, and many others, as                      15
  patrons of the schools of learning, without being
  obliged to allow that those schools could not have
  progressed without such countenance.

  These are some of the points of resemblance
  between the propagation of Christian truth and                     20
  the revival of letters; and, to return to the two
  points, to which I have particularly drawn
  attention, the University Professor's confidence in his
  own powers, and his taking the initiative in the
  exercise of them, I find both these distinctly                     25
  recognized by Mr. Hallam in his history of Literature.
  As to the latter point, he says, "The schools of
  Charlemagne were designed to lay the basis of a
  learned education, _for which there was at that time
  no sufficient desire_"--that is, the supply was                    30
  prior to the demand. As to the former: "In
  the twelfth century," he says, "the _impetuosity_
  with which men _rushed_ to that source of what
  they deemed wisdom, the great University of
  Paris, _did not depend upon academical privileges
  or eleemosynary stipends_, though these were                        5
  undoubtedly very effectual in keeping it up. The
  University _created patrons, and was not created
  by them_"--that is, demand and supply were all
  in all....

  Bec, a poor monastery of Normandy, set up in                       10
  the eleventh century by an illiterate soldier, who
  sought the cloister, soon attracted scholars to its
  dreary clime from Italy, and transmitted them
  to England. Lanfranc, afterwards Archbishop of
  Canterbury, was one of these, and he found the                     15
  simple monks so necessitous, that he opened a
  school of logic to all comers, in order, says William
  of Malmesbury, "that he might support his needy
  monastery by the pay of the students." The
  same author adds, that "his reputation went into                   20
  the most remote parts of the Latin world, and
  Bec became a great and famous Academy of
  letters." Here is an instance of a
  commencement without support, without scholars, in order
  to attract scholars, and in them to find support.                  25
  William of Jumieges, too, bears witness to the
  effect, powerful, sudden, wide spreading, and
  various, of Lanfranc's advertisement of himself.
  The fame of Bec and Lanfranc, he says, quickly
  penetrated through the whole world; and "clerks,                   30
  the sons of dukes, the most esteemed masters of
  the Latin schools, powerful laymen, high nobles,
  flocked to him." What words can more strikingly
  attest the enthusiastic character of the movement
  which he began, than to say that it carried away
  with it all classes; rich as well as poor, laymen as                5
  well as ecclesiastics, those who were in that day
  in the habit of despising letters, as well as those
  who might wish to live by them?...




  THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES

  ABELARD


  We can have few more apposite illustrations
  of at once the strength and weakness of what                       10
  may be called the University principle, of what
  it can do and what it cannot, of its power to
  collect students, and its impotence to preserve and
  edify them, than the history of the celebrated
  Abelard. His name is closely associated with                       15
  the commencement of the University of Paris;
  and in his popularity and in his reverses, in the
  criticisms of John of Salisbury on his method,
  and the protest of St. Bernard against his
  teaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a                20
  University professes in its essence, and what it
  needs for its "integrity." It is not to be supposed,
  that I am prepared to show this here, as fully as
  it might be shown; but it is a subject so
  pertinent to the general object of these Essays, that it           25
  may be useful to devote even a few pages to it.

  The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on,
  do but repeat the one message from above which
  they have ever uttered, since the tongues of fire
  attested the coming of the Paraclete; still, as
  time goes on, they utter it with greater force and                  5
  precision, under diverse forms, with fuller
  luminousness, and a richer ministration of thought
  statement, and argument. They meet the
  varying wants, and encounter the special resistance
  of each successive age; and, though prescient of                   10
  coming errors and their remedy long before, they
  cautiously reserve their new enunciation of the
  old Truth, till it is imperatively demanded. And,
  as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmises
  arise, and rumors spread, of what is said in                       15
  council, and is in course of preparation, and secrets
  perhaps get wind, true in substance or in direction,
  though distorted in detail; so too, before the
  Church speaks, one or other of her forward
  children speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate             20
  to a certain point what she is about to say or
  enjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it error
  instead of truth, and risks his own faith in the
  process. Indeed, this is actually one source, or
  rather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of                     25
  some misshapen, huge, and grotesque foreshadow
  of true statements which are to come. Speaking
  under correction, I would apply this remark to
  the heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may
  be considered a reaction from existing errors, and                 30
  an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuccessful,
  to meet them with those divinely
  appointed correctives which the Church alone can
  apply, and which she will actually apply, when
  the proper moment comes. The Gnostics boasted
  of their intellectual proficiency before the time                   5
  of St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, and St.
  Augustine; yet, when these doctors made their
  appearance, I suppose they were examples of that
  knowledge, true and deep, which the Gnostics
  professed. Apollinaris anticipated the work of                     10
  St. Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and became
  a heresiarch in consequence; and, to come down
  to the present times, we may conceive that
  writers, who have impatiently fallen away from
  the Church, because she would not adopt their                      15
  views, would have found, had they but trusted
  her, and waited, that she knew how to profit by
  them, though she never could have need to
  borrow her enunciations from them; for their
  writings contained, so to speak, truth _in the ore_, truth         20
  which they themselves had not the gift to
  disengage from its foreign concomitants, and safely
  use, which she alone could use, which she would
  use in her destined hour, and which became their
  stone of stumbling simply because she did not                      25
  use it faster. Now, applying this principle to
  the subject before us, I observe, that, supposing
  Abelard to be the first master of scholastic
  philosophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have still
  no difficulty in condemning the author, while we                   30
  honor the work. To him is only the glory of
  spoiling by his own self-will what would have
  been done well and surely under the teaching
  and guidance of Infallible Authority.

  Nothing is more certain than that some ideas
  are consistent with one another, and others                         5
  inconsistent; and, again, that every truth must be
  consistent with every other truth--hence, that
  all truths of whatever kind form into one large
  body of Truth, by virtue of the consistency
  between one truth and another, which is a                          10
  connecting link running through them all. The science
  which discovers this connection is logic; and,
  as it discovers the connection when the truths are
  given, so, having one truth given and the
  connecting principle, it is able to go on to ascertain             15
  the other. Though all this is obvious, it was
  realized and acted on in the middle age with
  a distinctness unknown before; all subjects of
  knowledge were viewed as parts of one vast
  system, each with its own place in it, and from                    20
  knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeed
  always rightly inferred, because the art might
  be less perfect than the science, the instrument
  than the theory and aim; but I am speaking of
  the principle of the scholastic method, of which                   25
  Saints and Doctors were the teachers--such
  I conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fated
  logician who had a principal share in bringing it
  into operation.

  Others will consider the great St. Anselm and                      30
  the school of Bec, as the proper source of Scholasticism;
  I am not going to discuss the question;
  anyhow, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was the
  Professor at the University of Paris, and it is
  of Universities that I am speaking; anyhow,
  Abelard illustrates the strength and the                            5
  weakness of the principle of advertising and
  communicating knowledge for its own sake, which I have
  called the University principle, whether he is,
  or is not, the first of scholastic philosophers or
  scholastic theologians. And, though I could not                    10
  speak of him at all without mentioning the
  subject of his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him and
  of his teaching itself, that I am going to speak,
  whatever that might be which he actually taught.

  Since Charlemagne's time the schools of Paris                      15
  had continued, with various fortunes, faithful, as
  far as the age admitted, to the old learning, as
  other schools elsewhere, when, in the eleventh
  century, the famous school of Bec began to
  develop the powers of logic in forming a new                       20
  philosophy. As the inductive method rose in
  Bacon, so did the logical in the mediaeval
  schoolmen; and Aristotle, the most comprehensive
  intellect of Antiquity, as the one who had
  conceived the sublime idea of mapping the whole                    25
  field of knowledge, and subjecting all things to
  one profound analysis, became the presiding
  master in their lecture halls. It was at the end
  of the eleventh century that William of
  Champeaux founded the celebrated Abbey of St.                      30
  Victor under the shadow of St. Genevieve, and by
  the dialectic methods which he introduced into his
  teaching, has a claim to have commenced the
  work of forming the University out of the Schools
  of Paris. For one at least, out of the two
  characteristics of a University, he prepared the way;               5
  for, though the schools were not public till after
  his day, so as to admit laymen as well as clerks,
  and foreigners as well as natives of the place, yet
  the logical principle of constructing all sciences
  into one system, implied of course a recognition                   10
  of all the sciences that are comprehended in it.
  Of this William of Champeaux, or de Campellis,
  Abelard was the pupil; he had studied the
  dialectic art elsewhere, before he offered himself for
  his instructions; and, in the course of two years,                 15
  when as yet he had only reached the age of
  twenty-two, he made such progress, as to be
  capable of quarreling with his master, and
  setting up a school for himself.

  This school of Abelard was first situated in                       20
  the royal castle of Melun; then at Corbeil, which
  was nearer to Paris, and where he attracted to
  himself a considerable number of hearers. His
  labors had an injurious effect upon his health;
  and at length he withdrew for two years to his                     25
  native Britanny. Whether other causes cooperated
  in this withdrawal, I think, is not known;
  but, at the end of the two years, we find him
  returning to Paris, and renewing his attendance
  on the lectures of William, who was by this time                   30
  a monk. Rhetoric was the subject of the lectures
  he now heard; and after a while the pupil
  repeated with greater force and success his
  former treatment of his teacher. He held a
  public disputation with him, got the victory,
  and reduced him to silence. The school of                           5
  William was deserted, and its master himself became
  an instance of the vicissitudes incident to that
  gladiatorial wisdom (as I may style it) which was
  then eclipsing the old Benedictine method of the
  Seven Arts. After a time, Abelard found his                        10
  reputation sufficient to warrant him in setting
  up a school himself on Mount St. Genevieve;
  whence he waged incessant war against the
  unwearied logician, who by this time had rallied
  his forces to repel the young and ungrateful                       15
  adventurer who had raised his hand against him.

  Great things are done by devotion to one idea;
  there is one class of geniuses, who would never
  be what they are, could they grasp a second.
  The calm philosophical mind, which                                 20
  contemplates parts without denying the whole, and the
  whole without confusing the parts, is notoriously
  indisposed to action; whereas single and simple
  views arrest the mind, and hurry it on to carry
  them out. Thus, men of one idea and nothing                        25
  more, whatever their merit, must be to a certain
  extent narrow-minded; and it is not wonderful
  that Abelard's devotion to the new philosophy
  made him undervalue the Seven Arts out of which
  it had grown. He felt it impossible so to honor                    30
  what was now to be added, as not to dishonor
  what existed before. He would not suffer the
  Arts to have their own use, since he had found a
  new instrument for a new purpose. So he
  opposed the reading of the Classics. The monks
  had opposed them before him; but this is little                     5
  to our present purpose; it was the duty of men,
  who abjured the gifts of this world on the
  principle of mortification, to deny themselves
  literature just as they would deny themselves
  particular friendships or figured music. The doctrine              10
  which Abelard introduced and represents was
  founded on a different basis. He did not
  recognize in the poets of antiquity any other merit
  than that of furnishing an assemblage of elegant
  phrases and figures; and accordingly he asks                       15
  why they should not be banished from the city
  of God, since Plato banished them from his own
  commonwealth. The _animus_ of this language is
  clear, when we turn to the pages of John of
  Salisbury and Peter of Blois, who were champions of                20
  the ancient learning. We find them complaining
  that the careful "getting up," as we now call it,
  "of books," was growing out of fashion. Youths
  once studied critically the text of poets or
  philosophers; they got them by heart; they analyzed                25
  their arguments; they noted down their fallacies;
  they were closely examined in the matters which
  had been brought before them in lecture; they
  composed. But now, another teaching was
  coming in; students were promised truth in a                       30
  nutshell; they intended to get possession of the sum-total
  of philosophy in less than two or three
  years; and facts were apprehended, not in their
  substance and details, by means of living and,
  as it were, personal documents, but in dead
  abstracts and tables. Such were the                                 5
  reclamations to which the new Logic gave occasion.

  These, however, are lesser matters; we have
  a graver quarrel with Abelard than that of his
  undervaluing the Classics. As I have said, my
  main object here is not what he taught, but why                    10
  and how, and how he lived. Now it is certain
  his activity was stimulated by nothing very high,
  but something very earthly and sordid. I grant
  there is nothing morally wrong in the mere desire
  to rise in the world, though Ambition and it are                   15
  twin sisters. I should not blame Abelard merely
  for wishing to distinguish himself at the
  University; but when he makes the ecclesiastical
  state the instrument of his ambition, mixes up
  spiritual matters with temporal, and aims at a                     20
  bishopric through the medium of his logic, he
  joins together things incompatible, and cannot
  complain of being censured. It is he himself,
  who tells us, unless my memory plays me false,
  that the circumstance of William of Champeaux                      25
  being promoted to the see of Chalons, was an
  incentive to him to pursue the same path with an
  eye to the same reward. Accordingly, we next
  hear of his attending the theological lectures of
  a certain master of William's, named Anselm, an                    30
  old man, whose school was situated at Laon. This
  person had a great reputation in his day; John
  of Salisbury, speaking of him in the next
  generation, calls him the doctor of doctors; he had been
  attended by students from Italy and Germany;
  but the age had advanced since he was in his                        5
  prime, and Abelard was disappointed in a teacher,
  who had been good enough for William. He left
  Anselm, and began to lecture on the prophet
  Ezekiel on his own resources.

  Now came the time of his great popularity,                         10
  which was more than his head could bear; which
  dizzied him, took him off his legs, and whirled
  him to his destruction. I spoke in my foregoing
  Chapter of those three qualities of true wisdom,
  which a University, absolutely and nakedly                         15
  considered, apart from the safeguards which
  constitute its integrity, is sure to compromise.
  Wisdom, says the inspired writer, is _desursum_, is
  _pudica_, is _pacifica_, "from above, chaste,
  peaceable." We have already seen enough of Abelard's               20
  career to understand that his wisdom, instead of
  being "pacifica," was ambitious and contentious.
  An Apostle speaks of the tongue both as a blessing
  and as a curse. It may be the beginning of a fire,
  he says, a "Universitas iniquitatis;" and alas!                    25
  such did it become in the mouth of the gifted
  Abelard. His eloquence was wonderful; he
  dazzled his contemporaries, says Fulco, "by the
  brilliancy of his genius, the sweetness of his
  eloquence, the ready flow of his language, and the                 30
  subtlety of his knowledge." People came to
  him from all quarters--from Rome, in spite of
  mountains and robbers; from England, in spite
  of the sea; from Flanders and Germany; from
  Normandy, and the remote districts of France;
  from Angers and Poitiers; from Navarre by the                       5
  Pyrenees, and from Spain, besides the students
  of Paris itself; and among those, who sought his
  instructions now or afterwards, were the great
  luminaries of the schools in the next generation.
  Such were Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, John                   10
  of Salisbury, Arnold of Brescia, Ivo, and Geoffrey
  of Auxerre. It was too much for a weak head
  and heart, weak in spite of intellectual power;
  for vanity will possess the head, and worldliness
  the heart, of the man, however gifted, whose                       15
  wisdom is not an effluence of the Eternal Light.

  True wisdom is not only "pacifica," it is
  "pudica;" chaste as well as peaceable. Alas for
  Abelard! a second disgrace, deeper than
  ambition, is his portion now. The strong man--the                  20
  Samson of the schools in the wildness of his course,
  the Solomon in the fascination of his
  genius--shivers and falls before the temptation which
  overcame that mighty pair, the most excelling
  in body and in mind.                                               25

  In a time when Colleges were unknown, and the
  young scholar was commonly thrown upon the
  dubious hospitality of a great city, Abelard might
  even be thought careful of his honor, that he
  went to lodge with an old ecclesiastic, had not                    30
  his host's niece Eloisa lived with him. A more
  subtle snare was laid for him than beset the
  heroic champion or the all-accomplished monarch of
  Israel; for sensuality came upon him under the
  guise of intellect, and it was the high mental
  endowments of Eloisa, who became his pupil,                         5
  speaking in her eyes, and thrilling on her tongue,
  which were the intoxication and the delirium of
  Abelard....

  He is judged, he is punished; but he is not
  reclaimed. True wisdom is not only "pacifica,"                     10
  not only "pudica;" it is "desursum" too. It is
  a revelation from above; it knows heresy as
  little as it knows strife or license. But Abelard,
  who had run the career of earthly wisdom in two
  of its phases, now is destined to represent its                    15
  third.

  It is at the famous Abbey of St. Denis that we
  find him languidly rising from his dream of sin,
  and the suffering that followed. The bad dream
  is cleared away; clerks come to him, and the                       20
  Abbot begging him to lecture still, for love
  now, as for gain before. Once more his school is
  thronged by the curious and the studious; but
  at length a rumor spreads, that Abelard is
  exploring the way to some novel view on the                        25
  subject of the Most Holy Trinity. Wherefore is
  hardly clear, but about the same time the monks
  drive him away from the place of refuge he had
  gained. He betakes himself to a cell, and thither
  his pupils follow him. "I betook myself to a                       30
  certain cell," he says, "wishing to give myself to
  the schools, as was my custom. Thither so great
  a multitude of scholars flocked, that there was
  neither room to house them, nor fruits of the
  earth to feed them," such was the enthusiasm of
  the student, such the attraction of the teacher,                    5
  when knowledge was advertised freely, and its
  market opened.

  Next he is in Champagne, in a delightful
  solitude near Nogent in the diocese of Troyes. Here
  the same phenomenon presents itself, which is                      10
  so frequent in his history. "When the scholars
  knew it," he says, "they began to crowd thither
  from all parts; and, leaving other cities and
  strongholds, they were content to dwell in the
  wilderness. For spacious houses they framed for                    15
  themselves small tabernacles, and for delicate food they
  put up with wild herbs. Secretly did they
  whisper among themselves: 'Behold, the whole
  world is gone out after him!' When, however,
  my Oratory could not hold even a moderate                          20
  portion of them, then they were forced to enlarge
  it, and to build it up with wood and stone."
  He called the place his Paraclete, because it had
  been his consolation.

  I do not know why I need follow his life further.                  25
  I have said enough to illustrate the course of one,
  who may be called the founder, or at least the first
  great name, of the Parisian Schools. After the
  events I have mentioned he is found in Lower
  Britanny; then, being about forty-eight years of                   30
  age, in the Abbey of St. Gildas; then with St.
  Genevieve again. He had to sustain the fiery
  eloquence of a Saint, directed against his novelties;
  he had to present himself before two Councils;
  he had to burn the book which had given offense
  to pious ears. His last two years were spent at                     5
  Clugni on his way to Rome. The home of the
  weary, the hospital of the sick, the school of the
  erring, the tribunal of the penitent, is the city
  of St. Peter. He did not reach it; but he is
  said to have retracted what had given scandal in                   10
  his writings, and to have made an edifying end.
  He died at the age of sixty-two, in the year of
  grace 1142.

  In reviewing his career, the career of so great
  an intellect so miserably thrown away, we are                      15
  reminded of the famous words of the dying
  scholar and jurist, which are a lesson to us all,
  "Heu, vitam perdidi, operose nihil agendo." A
  happier lot be ours!




  IV. MISCELLANEOUS




  POETRY, WITH REFERENCE TO ARISTOTLE'S POETICS


  Poetry, according to Aristotle, is a
  representation of the ideal. Biography and history
  represent individual characters and actual facts;
  poetry, on the contrary, generalizing from the
  phenomenon of nature and life, supplies us with                     5
  pictures drawn, not after an existing pattern,
  but after a creation of the mind. Fidelity is the
  primary merit of biography and history; the
  essence of poetry is fiction. "Poesis nihil aliud
  est," says Bacon, "quam historiae imitatio ad                       10
  placitum." It delineates that perfection which
  the imagination suggests, and to which as a
  limit the present system of Divine Providence
  actually tends. Moreover, by confining the attention
  to one series of events and scene of action, it                    15
  bounds and finishes off the confused luxuriance
  of real nature; while, by a skillful adjustment of
  circumstances, it brings into sight the connection
  of cause and effect, completes the dependence of
  the parts one on another, and harmonizes the                       20
  proportions of the whole. It is then but the type
  and model of history or biography, if we may be
  allowed the comparison, bearing some resemblance
  to the abstract mathematical formulae of physics,
  before they are modified by the contingencies of
  atmosphere and friction. Hence, while it recreates
  the imagination by the superhuman loveliness of
  its views, it provides a solace for the mind broken                 5
  by the disappointments and sufferings of actual
  life; and becomes, moreover, the utterance of
  the inward emotions of a right moral feeling,
  seeking a purity and a truth which this world
  will not give.                                                     10

  It follows that the poetical mind is one full of
  the eternal forms of beauty and perfection; these
  are its material of thought, its instrument and
  medium of observation; these color each
  object to which it directs its view. It is called                  15
  imaginative, or creative, from the originality and
  independence of its modes of thinking, compared
  with the commonplace and matter-of-fact
  conceptions of ordinary minds which are fettered
  down to the particular and individual. At the                      20
  same time it feels a natural sympathy with
  everything great and splendid in the physical and
  moral world; and selecting such from the mass
  of common phenomena, incorporates them, as it
  were, into the substance of its own creations.                     25
  From living thus in a world of its own, it speaks
  the language of dignity, emotion, and refinement.
  Figure is its necessary medium of communication
  with man; for in the feebleness of ordinary words
  to express its ideas, and in the absence of terms of               30
  abstract perfection, the adoption of metaphorical
  language is the only poor means allowed it for
  imparting to others its intense feelings. A metrical
  garb has, in all languages, been appropriated to
  poetry--it is but the outward development of
  the music and harmony within. The verse, far                        5
  from being a restraint on the true poet, is the
  suitable index of his sense, and is adopted by his
  free and deliberate choice. We shall presently
  show the applicability of our doctrine to the
  various departments of poetical composition;                       10
  first, however, it will be right to volunteer an
  explanation which may save it from much
  misconception and objection. Let not our notion
  be thought arbitrarily to limit the number of
  poets, generally considered such. It will be                       15
  found to lower particular works, or parts of
  works, rather than the authors themselves;
  sometimes to disparage only the vehicle in which
  the poetry is conveyed. There is an ambiguity
  in the word "poetry," which is taken to signify                    20
  both the gift itself, and the written composition
  which is the result of it. Thus there is an
  apparent, but no real, contradiction in saying a poem
  may be but partially poetical; in some passages
  more so than in others; and sometimes not                          25
  poetical at all. We only maintain, not that the
  writers forfeit the name of poet who fail at times
  to answer to our requisitions, but that they are
  poets only so far forth, and inasmuch as they do
  answer to them. We may grant, for instance,                        30
  that the vulgarities of old Phoenix in the ninth
  _Iliad_, or of the nurse of Orestes in the _Choephorae_,
  are in themselves unworthy of their respective
  authors, and refer them to the wantonness of
  exuberant genius; and yet maintain that the
  scenes in question contain much incidental poetry.                  5
  Now and then the luster of the true metal catches
  the eye, redeeming whatever is unseemly and
  worthless in the rude ore; still the ore is not the
  metal. Nay, sometimes, and not unfrequently in
  Shakspeare, the introduction of unpoetical                         10
  matter may be necessary for the sake of relief, or as
  a vivid expression of recondite conceptions, and,
  as it were, to make friends with the reader's
  imagination. This necessity, however, cannot
  make the additions in themselves beautiful and                     15
  pleasing. Sometimes, on the other hand, while
  we do not deny the incidental beauty of a poem,
  we are ashamed and indignant on witnessing the
  unworthy substance in which that beauty is
  embedded. This remark applies strongly to the                      20
  immoral compositions to which Lord Byron
  devoted his last years.

  Now to proceed with our proposed investigation.

  1. We will notice _descriptive poetry_ first.                 25
  Empedocles wrote his physics in verse, and
  Oppian his history of animals. Neither were
  poets--the one was an historian of nature, the
  other a sort of biographer of brutes. Yet a poet
  may make natural history or philosophy the                         30
  material of his composition. But under his hands
  they are no longer a bare collection of facts or
  principles, but are painted with a meaning,
  beauty, and harmonious order not their own.
  Thomson has sometimes been commended for
  the novelty and minuteness of his remarks upon                      5
  nature. This is not the praise of a poet, whose
  office rather is to represent known phenomena in
  a new connection or medium. In _L'Allegro_ and
  _Il Penseroso_ the poetical magician invests the
  commonest scenes of a country life with the hues,                  10
  first of a cheerful, then of a pensive imagination.
  It is the charm of the descriptive poetry of a
  religious mind, that nature is viewed in a moral
  connection. Ordinary writers, for instance,
  compare aged men to trees in autumn--a gifted                      15
  poet will in the fading trees discern the fading
  men.[43] Pastoral poetry is a description of
  rustics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off and
  corrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil,
  and much more Pope and others, have run into                       20
  the fault of coloring too highly; instead of
  drawing generalized and ideal forms of shepherds, they
  have given us pictures of gentlemen and beaux.

  Their composition may be poetry, but it is not
  pastoral poetry.                                                   25

    [43] Thus:--

      "How quiet shows the woodland scene!
      Each flower and tree, its duty done,
      Reposing in decay serene,
      Like weary men when age is won," etc.

  2. The difference between poetical and
  historical _narrative_ may be illustrated by the Tales
  Founded on Facts, generally of a religious
  character, so common in the present day, which we
  must not be thought to approve, because we use
  them for our purpose. The author finds in the
  circumstances of the case many particulars too                      5
  trivial for public notice, or irrelevant to the main
  story, or partaking perhaps too much of the
  peculiarity of individual minds: these he omits.
  He finds connected events separated from each
  other by time or place, or a course of action                      10
  distributed among a multitude of agents; he limits
  the scene or duration of the tale, and dispenses
  with his host of characters by condensing the
  mass of incident and action in the history of a
  few. He compresses long controversies into a                       15
  concise argument, and exhibits characters by
  dialogue, and (if such be his object) brings
  prominently forward the course of Divine
  Providence by a fit disposition of his materials. Thus
  he selects, combines, refines, colors--in fact,                    20
  poetizes. His facts are no longer actual, but
  ideal; a tale founded on facts is a tale generalized
  from facts. The authors of _Peveril of the Peak_,
  and of _Brambletye House_, have given us their
  respective descriptions of the profligate times of                 25
  Charles II. Both accounts are interesting, but
  for different reasons. That of the latter writer
  has the fidelity of history; Walter Scott's
  picture is the hideous reality, unintentionally softened
  and decorated by the poetry of his own mind.                       30
  Miss Edgeworth sometimes apologizes for certain
  incident in her tales by stating they took place
  "by one of those strange chances which occur in
  life, but seem incredible when found in writing."
  Such an excuse evinces a misconception of the
  principle of fiction, which, being the perfection of                5
  the actual, prohibits the introduction of any such
  anomalies of experience. It is by a similar
  impropriety that painters sometimes introduce
  unusual sunsets, or other singular phenomena of
  lights and forms. Yet some of Miss Edgeworth's                     10
  works contain much poetry of narrative.
  Maneuvering is perfect in its way,--the plot and
  characters are natural, without being too real to be
  pleasing.

  3. _Character_ is made poetical by a like process.                 15
  The writer draws indeed from experience; but
  unnatural peculiarities are laid aside, and harsh
  contrasts reconciled. If it be said the fidelity
  of the imitation is often its greatest merit, we
  have only to reply, that in such cases the pleasure                20
  is not poetical, but consists in the mere
  recognition. All novels and tales which introduce real
  characters are in the same degree unpoetical.
  Portrait painting, to be poetical, should furnish
  an abstract representation of an individual; the                   25
  abstraction being more rigid, inasmuch as the
  painting is confined to one point of time. The
  artist should draw independently of the accidents
  of attitude, dress, occasional feeling, and transient
  action. He should depict the general spirit of                     30
  his subject--as if he were copying from memory,
  not from a few particular sittings. An ordinary
  painter will delineate with rigid fidelity, and will
  make a caricature; but the learned artist
  contrives so to temper his composition, as to sink all
  offensive peculiarities and hardnesses of                           5
  individuality, without diminishing the striking effect of
  the likeness, or acquainting the casual spectator
  with the secret of his art. Miss Edgeworth's
  representations of the Irish character are actual, and
  not poetical--nor were they intended to be so.                     10
  They are interesting, because they are faithful.
  If there is poetry about them, it exists in the
  personages themselves, not in her representation
  of them. She is only the accurate reporter in
  word of what was poetical in fact. Hence,                          15
  moreover, when a deed or incident is striking in itself,
  a judicious writer is led to describe it in the most
  simple and colorless terms, his own being
  unnecessary; for instance, if the greatness of the action
  itself excites the imagination, or the depth of the                20
  suffering interests the feelings. In the usual
  phrase, the circumstances are left "to speak for
  themselves."

  Let it not be said that our doctrine is adverse
  to that individuality in the delineation of                        25
  character, which is a principal charm of fiction. It is
  not necessary for the ideality of a composition to
  avoid those minuter shades of difference between
  man and man, which give to poetry its
  plausibility and life; but merely such violation of                30
  general nature, such improbabilities, wanderings, or
  coarseness, as interfere with the refined and
  delicate enjoyment of the imagination; which would
  have the elements of beauty extracted out of
  the confused multitude of ordinary actions and
  habits, and combined with consistency and ease.                     5
  Nor does it exclude the introduction of imperfect
  or odious characters. The original conception of
  a weak or guilty mind may have its intrinsic
  beauty; and much more so, when it is connected
  with a tale which finally adjusts whatever is                      10
  reprehensible in the personages themselves.
  Richard and Iago are subservient to the plot.
  Moral excellence in some characters may become
  even a fault. The Clytemnestra of Euripides is
  so interesting, that the Divine vengeance, which                   15
  is the main subject of the drama, seems almost
  unjust. Lady Macbeth, on the contrary, is the
  conception of one deeply learned in the poetical
  art. She is polluted with the most heinous crimes,
  and meets the fate she deserves. Yet there is                      20
  nothing in the picture to offend the taste, and
  much to feed the imagination. Romeo and
  Juliet are too good for the termination to which
  the plot leads; so are Ophelia and the Bride of
  Lammermoor. In these cases there is something                      25
  inconsistent with correct beauty, and therefore
  unpoetical. We do not say the fault could be
  avoided without sacrificing more than would be
  gained; still it is a fault. It is scarcely possible
  for a poet satisfactorily to connect innocence with                30
  ultimate unhappiness, when the notion of a future
  life is excluded. Honors paid to the memory of
  the dead are some alleviation of the harshness.
  In his use of the doctrine of a future life, Southey
  is admirable. Other writers are content to
  conduct their heroes to temporal happiness;                         5
  Southey refuses present comfort to his Ladurlad,
  Thalaba, and Roderick, but carries them on
  through suffering to another world. The death
  of his hero is the termination of the action; yet
  so little in two of them, at least, does this                      10
  catastrophe excite sorrowful feelings, that some
  readers may be startled to be reminded of the
  fact. If a melancholy is thrown over the
  conclusion of the _Roderick_, it is from the peculiarities
  of the hero's previous history.                                    15

  4. Opinions, feelings, manners, and customs
  are made poetical by the delicacy or splendor
  with which they are expressed. This is seen in
  the _ode_, _elegy_, _sonnet_, and _ballad_, in which a
  single idea, perhaps, or familiar occurrence, is                   20
  invested by the poet with pathos or dignity. The
  ballad of _Old Robin Gray_ will serve for an instance
  out of a multitude; again, Lord Byron's _Hebrew
  Melody_, beginning, "Were my bosom as false,"
  etc.; or Cowper's _Lines on his Mother's Picture_;                 25
  or Milman's _Funeral Hymn_ in the Martyr of
  Antioch; or Milton's _Sonnet on his Blindness_; or
  Bernard Barton's _Dream_. As picturesque
  specimens, we may name Campbell's _Battle of the
  Baltic_; or Joanna Baillie's _Chough and Crow_;                    30
  and for the more exalted and splendid style,
  Gray's _Bard_; or Milton's _Hymn on the Nativity_;
  in which facts, with which every one is familiar,
  are made new by the coloring of a poetical
  imagination. It must all along be observed, that
  we are not adducing instances for their own sake;                   5
  but in order to illustrate our general doctrine, and
  to show its applicability to those compositions
  which are, by universal consent, acknowledged to
  be poetical.

  The department of poetry we are now speaking                       10
  of is of much wider extent than might at first
  sight appear. It will include such moralizing and
  philosophical poems as Young's _Night Thoughts_,
  and Byron's _Childe Harold_. There is much bad
  taste, at present, in the judgment passed on                       15
  compositions of this kind. It is the fault of the day
  to mistake mere eloquence for poetry; whereas,
  in direct opposition to the conciseness and
  simplicity of the poet, the talent of the orator consists
  in making much of a single idea. "Sic dicet ille ut                20
  verset saepe multis modis eandem et unam rem,
  ut haereat in eadem commoreturque sententia."
  This is the great art of Cicero himself, who,
  whether he is engaged in statement, argument, or
  raillery, never ceases till he has exhausted the                   25
  subject; going round about it, and placing it in every
  different light, yet without repetition to offend or
  weary the reader. This faculty seems to consist
  in the power of throwing off harmonious verses,
  which, while they have a respectable portion of                    30
  meaning, yet are especially intended to charm the
  ear. In popular poems, common ideas are
  unfolded with copiousness, and set off in polished
  verse--and this is called poetry. Such is the
  character of Campbell's _Pleasures of Hope_; it is
  in his minor poems that the author's poetical                       5
  genius rises to its natural elevation. In _Childe
  Harold_, too, the writer is carried through his
  Spenserian stanza with the unweariness and
  equable fullness of accomplished eloquence;
  opening, illustrating, and heightening one idea, before            10
  he passes on to another. His composition is an
  extended funeral sermon over buried joys and
  pleasures. His laments over Greece, Rome, and
  the fallen in various engagements, have quite the
  character of panegyrical orations; while by the                    15
  very attempt to describe the celebrated buildings
  and sculptures of antiquity, he seems to confess
  that _they_ are the poetical text, his the rhetorical
  comment. Still it is a work of splendid talent,
  though, as a whole, not of the highest poetical                    20
  excellence. Juvenal is perhaps the only ancient
  author who habitually substitutes declamation for
  poetry.

  5. The _philosophy of mind_ may equally be made
  subservient to poetry, as the philosophy of nature.                25
  It is a common fault to mistake a mere knowledge
  of the heart for poetical talent. Our greatest
  masters have known better--they have
  subjected metaphysics to their art. In Hamlet,
  Macbeth, Richard, and Othello, the philosophy of                   30
  mind is but the material of the poet. These personages
  are ideal; they are effects of the contact
  of a given internal character with given outward
  circumstances, the results of combined conditions
  determining (so to say) a moral curve of original
  and inimitable properties. Philosophy is                            5
  exhibited in the same subserviency to poetry in
  many parts of Crabbe's _Tales of the Hall_. In the
  writings of this author there is much to offend a
  refined taste; but, at least in the work in question,
  there is much of a highly poetical cast. It is a                   10
  representation of the action and reaction of two
  minds upon each other and upon the world around
  them. Two brothers of different characters and
  fortunes, and strangers to each other, meet. Their
  habits of mind, the formation of those habits by                   15
  external circumstances, their respective media of
  judgment, their points of mutual attraction and
  repulsion, the mental position of each in relation
  to a variety of trifling phenomena of everyday
  nature and life, are beautifully developed in a                    20
  series of tales molded into a connected narrative.
  We are tempted to single out the fourth book,
  which gives an account of the childhood and
  education of the younger brother, and which for
  variety of thought as well as fidelity of                          25
  description is in our judgment beyond praise. The
  Waverley Novels would afford us specimens of a
  similar excellence. One striking peculiarity of
  these tales is the author's practice of describing
  a group of characters bearing the same general                     30
  features of mind, and placed in the same general
  circumstances; yet so contrasted with each other
  in minute differences of mental constitution, that
  each diverges from the common starting point into
  a path peculiar to himself. The brotherhood of
  villains in _Kenilworth_, of knights in _Ivanhoe_,                  5
  and of enthusiasts in _Old Mortality_ are instances
  of this. This bearing of character and plot on
  each other is not often found in Byron's poems.
  The Corsair is intended for a remarkable
  personage. We pass by the inconsistencies of his                   10
  character, considered by itself. The grand fault is,
  that whether it be natural or not, we are obliged
  to accept the author's word for the fidelity of his
  portrait. We are told, not shown, what the hero
  was. There is nothing in the plot which results                    15
  from his peculiar formation of mind. An
  everyday bravo might equally well have satisfied the
  requirements of the action. Childe Harold, again,
  if he is anything, is a being professedly isolated
  from the world, and uninfluenced by it. One                        20
  might as well draw Tityrus's stags grazing in the
  air, as a character of this kind; which yet, with
  more or less alteration, passes through successive
  editions in his other poems. Byron had very
  little versatility or elasticity of genius; he did not             25
  know how to make poetry out of existing materials.
  He declaims in his own way, and has the
  upper-hand as long as he is allowed to go on; but, if
  interrogated on principles of nature and good
  sense, he is at once put out and brought to a                      30
  stand.

  Yet his conception of Sardanapalus and Myrrha
  is fine and ideal, and in the style of excellence
  which we have just been admiring in Shakspeare
  and Scott.

  These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may                     5
  suffice.

  Now let us proceed to a fresh position; which,
  as before, shall first be broadly stated, then
  modified and explained. How does originality
  differ from the poetical talent? Without                           10
  affecting the accuracy of a definition, we may call the
  latter the originality of right moral feeling.

  Originality may perhaps be defined the power
  of abstracting for one's self, and is in thought
  what strength of mind is in action. Our opinions                   15
  are commonly derived from education and society.
  Common minds transmit as they receive, good and
  bad, true and false; minds of original talent feel a
  continual propensity to investigate subjects, and
  strike out views for themselves, so that even old                  20
  and established truths do not escape
  modification and accidental change when subjected to this
  process of mental digestion. Even the style of
  original writers is stamped with the peculiarities
  of their minds. When originality is found apart                    25
  from good sense, which more or less is frequently
  the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness
  of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct.
  Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated
  from its good sense, or taste, as it is called, which              30
  is one of its elements. It is originality energizing
  in the world of beauty; the originality of grace,
  purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not
  hesitate to say, that poetry is ultimately founded
  on correct moral perception; that where there is
  no sound principle in exercise there will be no                     5
  poetry; and that on the whole (originality being
  granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer's
  moral character will his compositions vary in
  poetical excellence. This position, however,
  requires some explanation.                                         10

  Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that
  a poet must necessarily display virtuous and
  religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual
  material of poetry, but of its sources. A right
  moral state of heart is the formal and scientific                  15
  condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow
  from our position that every poet must in fact be
  a man of consistent and practical principle;
  except so far as good feeling commonly produces or
  results from good practice. Burns was a man of                     20
  inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really
  sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged
  poetical talent is in no wise inconsistent with
  the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the
  beauty which exists in his compositions to the                     25
  remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within
  him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds
  good, even though it be shown that a depraved
  man may write a poem. As motives short of the
  purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames               30
  of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial
  and limited poetry. But even where this is
  instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be
  inconsistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry
  as the traces and shadows of holy truth still
  remain upon it. On the other hand, a right moral                    5
  feeling places the mind in the very center of that
  circle from which all the rays have their origin
  and range; whereas minds otherwise placed
  command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry.
  Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of                  10
  opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth,
  and Southey may be considered, as far as their
  writings go, to approximate to this moral center.
  The following are added as further illustrations of
  our meaning. Walter Scott's center is chivalrous                   15
  honor; Shakspeare exhibits the characteristics of
  an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the
  religion of nature and conscience, at times debased
  by polytheism. All these poets are religious. The
  occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful                20
  to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy.
  Dryden's _Alexander's Feast_ is a magnificent
  composition, and has high poetical beauties; but to a
  refined judgment there is something intrinsically
  unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the                  25
  praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to
  a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue
  foundation--the one is a fallacy, the other is out
  of taste. Lord Byron's _Manfred_ is in parts
  intensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally                30
  shrinks from the spirit which here and there reveals
  itself, and the basis on which the drama is
  built. From a perusal of it we should infer,
  according to the above theory, that there was right
  and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the
  central and consistent character was wanting.                       5
  From the history of his life we know this to be
  the fact. The connection between want of the
  religious principle and want of poetical feeling is
  seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who
  had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, it                       10
  may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine.
  Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his
  work evinces that his miserable philosophy was
  rather the result of a bewildered judgment than
  a corrupt heart.                                                   15

  According to the above theory, Revealed
  Religion should be especially poetical--and it is so
  in fact. While its disclosures have an originality
  in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty
  to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with                   20
  those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical
  mind delights, and with which all grace and
  harmony are associated. It brings us into a new
  world--a world of overpowering interest, of the
  sublimest views, and the tenderest and purest                      25
  feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New
  Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect
  produced upon the hearts of those who have
  imbibed their spirit. At present we are not
  concerned with the practical, but the poetical nature              30
  of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical
  view of things is a duty--we are bid to color all
  things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning
  in every event, and a superhuman tendency. Even
  our friends around are invested with unearthly
  brightness--no longer imperfect men, but beings                     5
  taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal,
  and in training for future happiness. It may be
  added, that the virtues peculiarly Christian are
  especially poetical--meekness, gentleness,
  compassion, contentment, modesty, not to mention                   10
  the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and
  more ordinary feelings are the instruments of
  rhetoric more justly than of poetry--anger,
  indignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of
  independence.                                                      15




  THE INFINITUDE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES


  The attributes of God, though intelligible to us
  on their surface,--for from our own sense of
  mercy and holiness and patience and consistency,
  we have general notions of the All-merciful and
  All-holy and All-patient, and of all that is proper                20
  to His Essence,--yet, for the very reason that
  they are infinite, transcend our comprehension,
  when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed
  out, and can only be received by faith. They are
  dimly shadowed out, in this very respect, by the                   25
  great agents which He has created in the material
  world. What is so ordinary and familiar to us
  as the elements, what so simple and level to us
  as their presence and operation? yet how their
  character changes, and how they overmaster us,
  and triumph over us, when they come upon us in
  their fullness! The invisible air, how gentle is it,
  and intimately ours! we breathe it momentarily,                     5
  nor could we live without it; it fans our cheek,
  and flows around us, and we move through it
  without effort, while it obediently recedes at every
  step we take, and obsequiously pursues us as we
  go forward. Yet let it come in its power, and                      10
  that same silent fluid, which was just now the
  servant of our necessity or caprice, takes us up
  on its wings with the invisible power of an Angel,
  and carries us forth into the regions of space, and
  flings us down headlong upon the earth. Or go                      15
  to the spring, and draw thence at your pleasure,
  for your cup or your pitcher, in supply of your
  wants; you have a ready servant, a domestic ever
  at hand, in large quantity or in small, to satisfy
  your thirst, or to purify you from the dust and                    20
  mire of the world. But go from home, reach the
  coast; and you will see that same humble element
  transformed before your eyes. You were equal to
  it in its condescension, but who shall gaze
  without astonishment at its vast expanse in the bosom              25
  of the ocean? who shall hear without awe the
  dashing of its mighty billows along the beach?
  who shall without terror feel it heaving under him,
  and swelling and mounting up, and yawning wide,
  till he, its very sport and mockery, is thrown to                  30
  and fro, hither and thither, at the mere mercy of
  a power which was just now his companion and
  almost his slave? Or, again, approach the flame:
  it warms you, and it enlightens you; yet approach
  not too near, presume not, or it will change its
  nature. That very element which is so beautiful                     5
  to look at, so brilliant in its character, so graceful
  in its figure, so soft and lambent in its motion,
  will be found in its essence to be of a keen,
  resistless nature; it tortures, it consumes, it reduces to
  ashes that of which it was just before the                         10
  illumination and the life. So it is with the attributes
  of God; our knowledge of them serves us for our
  daily welfare; they give us light and warmth and
  food and guidance and succor; but go forth with
  Moses upon the mount and let the Lord pass by,                     15
  or with Elias stand in the desert amid the wind,
  the earthquake, and the fire, and all is mystery
  and darkness; all is but a whirling of the reason,
  and a dazzling of the imagination, and an
  overwhelming of the feelings, reminding us that we                 20
  are but mortal men and He is God, and that the
  outlines which Nature draws for us are not His
  perfect image, nor to be pronounced inconsistent
  with those further lights and depths with which it
  is invested by Revelation.                                         25

  Say not, my brethren, that these thoughts are
  too austere for this season, when we contemplate
  the self-sacrificing, self-consuming charity
  wherewith God our Saviour has visited us. It is for that
  very reason that I dwell on them; the higher He                    30
  is, and the more mysterious, so much the more
  glorious and the more subduing is the history of
  His humiliation. I own it, my brethren, I love
  to dwell on Him as the Only-begotten Word; nor
  is it any forgetfulness of His sacred humanity to
  contemplate His Eternal Person. It is the very                      5
  idea, that He is God, which gives a meaning to
  His sufferings; what is to me a man, and nothing
  more, in agony, or scourged, or crucified? there
  are many holy martyrs, and their torments were
  terrible. But here I see One dropping blood,                       10
  gashed by the thong, and stretched upon the
  Cross, and He is God. It is no tale of human woe
  which I am reading here; it is the record of the
  passion of the great Creator. The Word and
  Wisdom of the Father, who dwelt in His bosom                       15
  in bliss ineffable from all eternity, whose very
  smile has shed radiance and grace over the whole
  creation, whose traces I see in the starry heavens
  and on the green earth, this glorious living God,
  it is He who looks at me so piteously, so tenderly                 20
  from the Cross. He seems to say,--I cannot
  move, though I am omnipotent, for sin has bound
  Me here. I had had it in mind to come on earth
  among innocent creatures, more fair and lovely
  than them all, with a face more radiant than the                   25
  Seraphim, and a form as royal as that of
  Archangels, to be their equal yet their God, to fill
  them with My grace, to receive their worship, to
  enjoy their company, and to prepare them for the
  heaven to which I destined them; but, before I                     30
  carried My purpose into effect, they sinned, and
  lost their inheritance; and so I come indeed, but
  come, not in that brightness in which I went forth
  to create the morning stars and to fill the sons of
  God with melody, but in deformity and in shame,
  in sighs and tears, with blood upon My cheek, and                   5
  with My limbs laid bare and rent. Gaze on Me,
  O My children, if you will, for I am helpless; gaze
  on your Maker, whether in contempt, or in faith
  and love. Here I wait, upon the Cross, the
  appointed time, the time of grace and mercy; here                  10
  I wait till the end of the world, silent and
  motionless, for the conversion of the sinful and the
  consolation of the just; here I remain in weakness
  and shame, though I am so great in heaven, till
  the end, patiently expecting My full catalogue of                  15
  souls, who, when time is at length over, shall be
  the reward of My passion and the triumph of My
  grace to all eternity.




  CHRIST UPON THE WATERS


  The earth is full of the marvels of Divine power;
  "Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night                    20
  showeth knowledge." The tokens of
  Omnipotence are all around us, in the world of matter,
  and the world of man; in the dispensation of
  nature, and in the dispensation of grace. To do
  impossibilities, I may say, is the prerogative of                  25
  Him who made all things out of nothing, who
  foresees all events before they occur, and controls
  all wills without compelling them. In emblem of
  this His glorious attribute, He came to His
  disciples in the passage I have read to you, walking
  upon the sea,--the emblem or hieroglyphic
  among the ancients of the impossible, to show
  them that what is impossible with man is                            5
  possible with God. He who could walk the waters,
  could also ride triumphantly upon what is still
  more fickle, unstable, tumultuous,
  treacherous--the billows of human wills, human purposes,
  human hearts. The bark of Peter was struggling                     10
  with the waves, and made no progress; Christ
  came to him walking upon them; He entered the
  boat, and by entering it He sustained it. He did
  not abandon Himself to it, but He brought it
  near to Himself; He did not merely take refuge                     15
  in it, but He made Himself the strength of it,
  and the pledge and cause of a successful passage.
  "Presently," another gospel says, "the ship was
  at the land, whither they were going."

  Such was the power of the Son of God, the                          20
  Saviour of man, manifested by visible tokens in
  the material world, when He came upon earth;
  and such, too, it has ever since signally shown
  itself to be, in the history of that mystical ark
  which He then formed to float upon the ocean of                    25
  human opinion. He told His chosen servants to
  form an ark for the salvation of souls: He gave
  them directions how to construct it,--the length,
  breadth, and height, its cabins and its windows;
  and the world, as it gazed upon it, forthwith                      30
  began to criticise. It pronounced it framed quite
  contrary to the scientific rules of shipbuilding; it
  prophesied, as it still prophesies, that such a craft
  was not sea-worthy; that it was not water-tight;
  that it would not float; that it would go to pieces
  and founder. And why it does not, who can say,                      5
  except that the Lord is in it? Who can say why
  so old a framework, put together nineteen
  hundred years ago, should have lasted, against all
  human calculation, even to this day; always
  going, and never gone; ever failing, yet ever                      10
  managing to explore new seas and foreign
  coasts--except that He, who once said to the rowers,
  "It is I, be not afraid," and to the waters,
  "Peace," is still in His own ark which He has
  made, to direct and to prosper her course?                         15

  Time was, my brethren, when the forefathers of
  our race were a savage tribe, inhabiting a wild
  district beyond the limits of this quarter of the
  earth. Whatever brought them thither, they had
  no local attachments there or political settlement;                20
  they were a restless people, and whether urged
  forward by enemies or by desire of plunder, they
  left their place, and passing through the defiles of
  the mountains on the frontiers of Asia, they
  invaded Europe, setting out on a journey towards                   25
  the farther west. Generation after generation
  passed away; and still this fierce and haughty
  race moved forward. On, on they went; but
  travel availed them not; the change of place
  could bring them no truth, or peace, or hope, or                   30
  stability of heart; they could not flee from themselves.
  They carried with them their superstitions
  and their sins, their gods of iron and of clay,
  their savage sacrifices, their lawless witchcrafts,
  their hatred of their kind, and their ignorance
  of their destiny. At length they buried themselves                  5
  in the deep forests of Germany, and gave
  themselves up to indolent repose; but they had not
  found their rest; they were still heathens, making
  the fair trees, the primeval work of God, and the
  innocent beasts of the chase, the objects and the                  10
  instruments of their idolatrous worship. And,
  last of all, they crossed over the strait and made
  themselves masters of this island, and gave their
  very name to it; so that, whereas it had hitherto
  been called Britain, the southern part, which was                  15
  their main seat, obtained the name of England.
  And now they had proceeded forward nearly as
  far as they could go, unless they were prepared
  to look across the great ocean, and anticipate the
  discovery of the world which lies beyond it.                       20

  What, then, was to happen to this restless race,
  which had sought for happiness and peace across
  the globe, and had not found it? Was it to grow
  old in its place, and dwindle away, and consume
  in the fever of its own heart, which admitted                      25
  no remedy? or was it to become great by being
  overcome, and to enjoy the only real life of man,
  and rise to his only true dignity, by being
  subjected to a Master's yoke? Did its Maker and
  Lord see any good thing in it, of which, under                     30
  His Divine nurture, profit might come to His elect,
  and glory to His name? He looked upon it, and
  He saw nothing there to claim any visitation of
  His grace, or to merit any relaxation of the awful
  penalty which its lawlessness and impiety had
  incurred. It was a proud race, which feared                         5
  neither God nor man--a race ambitious,
  self-willed, obstinate, and hard of belief, which would
  dare everything, even the eternal pit, if it was
  challenged to do so. I say, there was nothing
  there of a nature to reverse the destiny which                     10
  His righteous decrees have assigned to those who
  sin wilfully and despise Him. But the Almighty
  Lover of souls looked once again; and He saw in
  that poor, forlorn, and ruined nature, which He
  had in the beginning filled with grace and light,                  15
  He saw in it, not what merited His favor, not
  what would adequately respond to His influences,
  not what was a necessary instrument of His
  purposes, but what would illustrate and preach abroad
  His grace, if He took pity on it. He saw in it,                    20
  a natural nobleness, a simplicity, a frankness of
  character, a love of truth, a zeal for justice, an
  indignation at wrong, an admiration of purity, a
  reverence for law, a keen appreciation of the
  beautifulness and majesty of order, nay, further,                  25
  a tenderness and an affectionateness of heart,
  which He knew would become the glorious
  instruments of His high will when illuminated and
  vivified by His supernatural gifts. And so He
  who, did it so please Him, could raise up children                 30
  to Abraham out of the very stones of the earth,
  nevertheless determined in this instance in His
  free mercy to unite what was beautiful in nature
  with what was radiant in grace; and, as if those
  poor Anglo-Saxons had been too fair to be heathen,
  therefore did He rescue them from the devil's                       5
  service and the devil's doom, and bring them
  into the house of His holiness and the mountain
  of His rest.

  It is an old story and a familiar, and I need not
  go through it. I need not tell you, my Brethren,                   10
  how suddenly the word of truth came to our
  ancestors in this island and subdued them to its
  gentle rule; how the grace of God fell on them,
  and, without compulsion, as the historian tells us,
  the multitude became Christian; how, when all                      15
  was tempestuous, and hopeless, and dark, Christ
  like a vision of glory came walking to them on
  the waves of the sea. Then suddenly there was
  a great calm; a change came over the pagan
  people in that quarter of the country where the                    20
  gospel was first preached to them; and from
  thence the blessed influence went forth, it was
  poured out over the whole land, till one and all,
  the Anglo-Saxon people, were converted by it. In
  a hundred years the work was done; the idols,                      25
  the sacrifices, the mummeries of paganism flitted
  away and were not, and the pure doctrine and
  heavenly worship of the Cross were found in their
  stead. The fair form of Christianity rose up and
  grew and expanded like a beautiful pageant from                    30
  north to south; it was majestic, it was solemn, it
  was bright, it was beautiful and pleasant, it was
  soothing to the griefs, it was indulgent to the
  hopes of man; it was at once a teaching and a
  worship; it had a dogma, a mystery, a ritual of
  its own; it had an hierarchical form. A brotherhood                 5
  of holy pastors, with miter and crosier and
  uplifted hand, walked forth and blessed and ruled
  a joyful people. The crucifix headed the
  procession, and simple monks were there with hearts in
  prayer, and sweet chants resounded, and the holy                   10
  Latin tongue was heard, and boys came forth in
  white, swinging censers, and the fragrant cloud
  arose, and mass was sung, and the Saints were
  invoked; and day after day, and in the still night,
  and over the woody hills and in the quiet plains,                  15
  as constantly as sun and moon and stars go forth
  in heaven, so regular and solemn was the stately
  march of blessed services on earth, high festival,
  and gorgeous procession, and soothing dirge, and
  passing bell, and the familiar evening call to                     20
  prayer; till he who recollected the old pagan
  time, would think it all unreal that he beheld and
  heard, and would conclude he did but see a vision,
  so marvelously was heaven let down upon earth,
  so triumphantly were chased away the fiends of                     25
  darkness to their prison below.




  THE SECOND SPRING

  CANT., _c._ ii. _v._ 10-12


  Surge, propera, amica mea, columba mea, formosa
  mea, et veni. Jam enim hiems transiit, imber abiit et
  recessit. Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra.

  Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful
  one, and come. For the winter is now past, the rain is
  over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land.

  We have familiar experience of the order, the
  constancy, the perpetual renovation of the material
  world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory
  as is every part of it, restless and migratory as
  are its elements, never ceasing as are its changes,                 5
  still it abides. It is bound together by a law of
  permanence, it is set up in unity; and, though it
  is ever dying, it is ever coming to life again.
  Dissolution does but give birth to fresh modes of
  organization, and one death is the parent of a                     10
  thousand lives. Each hour, as it comes, is but
  a testimony, how fleeting, yet how secure, how
  certain, is the great whole. It is like an image
  on the waters, which is ever the same, though
  the waters ever flow. Change upon                                  15
  change--yet one change cries out to another, like the
  alternate Seraphim, in praise and in glory
  of their Maker. The sun sinks to rise again;
  the day is swallowed up in the gloom of the
  night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it                     20
  had never been quenched. Spring passes into
  summer, and through summer and autumn into
  winter, only the more surely, by its own ultimate
  return, to triumph over that grave, towards which
  it resolutely hastened from its first hour. We
  mourn over the blossoms of May, because they                        5
  are to wither; but we know, withal, that May is
  one day to have its revenge upon November, by
  the revolution of that solemn circle which never
  stops--which teaches us in our height of hope,
  ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation,                  10
  never to despair.

  And forcibly as this comes home to every one
  of us, not less forcible is the contrast which exists
  between this material world, so vigorous, so
  reproductive, amid all its changes, and the moral                  15
  world, so feeble, so downward, so resourceless,
  amid all its aspirations. That which ought to
  come to naught, endures; that which promises a
  future, disappoints and is no more. The same
  sun shines in heaven from first to last, and the                   20
  blue firmament, the everlasting mountains,
  reflect his rays; but where is there upon earth
  the champion, the hero, the law giver, the body
  politic, the sovereign race, which was great three
  hundred years ago, and is great now? Moralists                     25
  and poets, often do they descant upon this innate
  vitality of matter, this innate perishableness of
  mind. Man rises to fall: he tends to dissolution
  from the moment he begins to be; he lives on,
  indeed, in his children, he lives on in his name,                  30
  he lives not on in his own person. He is, as regards
  the manifestations of his nature here below,
  as a bubble that breaks, and as water poured out
  upon the earth. He was young, he is old, he is
  never young again. This is the lament over him,
  poured forth in verse and in prose, by Christians                   5
  and by heathen. The greatest work of God's
  hands under the sun, he, in all the manifestations
  of his complex being, is born only to die.

  His bodily frame first begins to feel the power
  of this constraining law, though it is the last to                 10
  succumb to it. We look at the gloom of youth
  with interest, yet with pity; and the more
  graceful and sweet it is, with pity so much the more;
  for, whatever be its excellence and its glory, soon
  it begins to be deformed and dishonored by the                     15
  very force of its living on. It grows into
  exhaustion and collapse, till at length it crumbles
  into that dust out of which it was originally
  taken.

  So is it, too, with our moral being, a far higher                  20
  and diviner portion of our natural constitution;
  it begins with life, it ends with what is worse
  than the mere loss of life, with a living death.
  How beautiful is the human heart, when it puts
  forth its first leaves, and opens and rejoices in                  25
  its spring-tide! Fair as may be the bodily form,
  fairer far, in its green foliage and bright blossoms,
  is natural virtue. It blooms in the young, like
  some rich flower, so delicate, so fragrant, and so
  dazzling. Generosity and lightness of heart and                    30
  amiableness, the confiding spirit, the gentle temper,
  the elastic cheerfulness, the open hand, the
  pure affection, the noble aspiration, the heroic
  resolve, the romantic pursuit, the love in which
  self has no part,--are not these beautiful? and
  are they not dressed up and set forth for                           5
  admiration in their best shapes, in tales and in poems?
  and ah! what a prospect of good is there! who
  could believe that it is to fade! and yet, as night
  follows upon day, as decrepitude follows upon
  health, so surely are failure, and overthrow, and                  10
  annihilation, the issue of this natural virtue, if
  time only be allowed to it to run its course.
  There are those who are cut off in the first
  opening of this excellence, and then, if we may trust
  their epitaphs, they have lived like angels; but                   15
  wait awhile, let them live on, let the course of
  life proceed, let the bright soul go through the
  fire and water of the world's temptations and
  seductions and corruptions and transformations;
  and, alas for the insufficiency of nature! alas for                20
  its powerlessness to persevere, its waywardness
  in disappointing its own promise! Wait till
  youth has become age; and not more different
  is the miniature which we have of him when a
  boy, when every feature spoke of hope, put side                    25
  by side of the large portrait painted to his honor,
  when he is old, when his limbs are shrunk, his
  eye dim, his brow furrowed, and his hair gray,
  than differs the moral grace of that boyhood from
  the forbidding and repulsive aspect of his soul,                   30
  now that he has lived to the age of man. For
  moroseness, and misanthropy, and selfishness, is
  the ordinary winter of that spring.

  Such is man in his own nature, and such, too,
  is he in his works. The noblest efforts of his
  genius, the conquests he has made, the doctrines                    5
  he has originated, the nations he has civilized,
  the states he has created, they outlive himself,
  they outlive him by many centuries, but they
  tend to an end, and that end is dissolution.
  Powers of the world, sovereignties, dynasties,                     10
  sooner or later come to nought; they have their
  fatal hour. The Roman conqueror shed tears
  over Carthage, for in the destruction of the rival
  city he discerned too truly an augury of the fall
  of Rome; and at length, with the weight and the                    15
  responsibilities, the crimes and the glories, of
  centuries upon centuries, the Imperial City fell.

  Thus man and all his works are mortal; they
  die, and they have no power of renovation.

  But what is it, my Fathers, my Brothers, what                      20
  is it that has happened in England just at this
  time? Something strange is passing over this
  land, by the very surprise, by the very commotion,
  which it excites. Were we not near enough the
  scene of action to be able to say what is going                    25
  on,--were we the inhabitants of some sister planet
  possessed of a more perfect mechanism than this
  earth has discovered for surveying the
  transactions of another globe,--and did we turn our
  eyes thence towards England just at this season,                   30
  we should be arrested by a political phenomenon
  as wonderful as any which the astronomer notes
  down from his physical field of view. It would
  be the occurrence of a national commotion, almost
  without parallel, more violent than has happened
  here for centuries--at least in the judgments                       5
  and intentions of men, if not in act and deed.
  We should note it down, that soon after St.
  Michael's day, 1850, a storm arose in the moral
  world, so furious as to demand some great
  explanation, and to rouse in us an intense desire to               10
  gain it. We should observe it increasing from
  day to day, and spreading from place to place,
  without remission, almost without lull, up to this
  very hour, when perhaps it threatens worse still,
  or at least gives no sure prospect of alleviation.                 15
  Every party in the body politic undergoes its
  influence,--from the Queen upon her throne,
  down to the little ones in the infant or day school.
  The ten thousands of the constituency, the
  sum-total of Protestant sects, the aggregate of                    20
  religious societies and associations, the great body
  of established clergy in town and country, the bar,
  even the medical profession, nay, even literary
  and scientific circles, every class, every
  interest, every fireside, gives tokens of this                     25
  ubiquitous storm. This would be our report of it, seeing
  it from the distance, and we should speculate
  on the cause. What is it all about? against what
  is it directed? what wonder has happened upon
  earth? what prodigious, what preternatural event                   30
  is adequate to the burden of so vast an effect?

  We should judge rightly in our curiosity about
  a phenomenon like this; it must be a portentous
  event, and it is. It is an innovation, a miracle,
  I may say, in the course of human events. The
  physical world revolves year by year, and begins                    5
  again; but the political order of things does not
  renew itself, does not return; it continues, but it
  proceeds; there is no retrogression. This is so
  well understood by men of the day, that with
  them progress is idolized as another name for                      10
  good. The past never returns--it is never good;
  if we are to escape existing ills, it must be by
  going forward. The past is out of date; the past
  is dead. As well may the dead live to us, as well
  may the dead profit us, as the past return. _This_,                15
  then, is the cause of this national transport, this
  national cry, which encompasses us. The past _has_
  returned, the dead lives. Thrones are overturned,
  and are never restored; States live and die, and
  then are matter only for history. Babylon was                      20
  great, and Tyre, and Egypt, and Nineveh, and
  shall never be great again. The English Church
  was, and the English Church was not, and the
  English Church is once again. This is the
  portent, worthy of a cry. It is the coming in of a                 25
  Second Spring; it is a restoration in the moral
  world, such as that which yearly takes place in
  the physical.

  Three centuries ago, and the Catholic Church,
  that great creation of God's power, stood in this                  30
  land in pride of place. It had the honors of near
  a thousand years upon it; it was enthroned on
  some twenty sees up and down the broad country;
  it was based in the will of a faithful people;
  it energized through ten thousand instruments of
  power and influence; and it was ennobled by a                       5
  host of Saints and Martyrs. The churches, one
  by one, recounted and rejoiced in the line of
  glorified intercessors, who were the respective
  objects of their grateful homage. Canterbury
  alone numbered perhaps some sixteen, from St.                      10
  Augustine to St. Dunstan and St. Elphege, from
  St. Anselm and St. Thomas down to St. Edmund.
  York had its St. Paulinus, St. John, St. Wilfrid,
  and St. William; London, its St. Erconwald;
  Durham, its St. Cuthbert; Winton, its St.                          15
  Swithun. Then there were St. Aidan of
  Lindisfarne, and St. Hugh of Lincoln, and St.
  Chad of Lichfield, and St. Thomas of
  Hereford, and St. Oswald and St. Wulstan of
  Worcester, and St. Osmund of Salisbury, and                        20
  St. Birinus of Dorchester, and St. Richard of
  Chichester. And then, too, its religious orders,
  its monastic establishments, its universities,
  its wide relations all over Europe, its high
  prerogatives in the temporal state, its wealth, its                25
  dependencies, its popular honors,--where was
  there in the whole of Christendom a more
  glorious hierarchy? Mixed up with the civil
  institutions, with kings and nobles, with the people,
  found in every village and in every town,--it                      30
  seemed destined to stand, so long as England
  stood, and to outlast, it might be, England's
  greatness.

  But it was the high decree of heaven, that the
  majesty of that presence should be blotted out.
  It is a long story, my Fathers and                                  5
  Brothers--you know it well. I need not go through it. The
  vivifying principle of truth, the shadow of St.
  Peter, the grace of the Redeemer, left it. That
  old Church in its day became a corpse (a
  marvelous, an awful change!); and then it did but                  10
  corrupt the air which once it refreshed, and
  cumber the ground which once it beautified. So all
  seemed to be lost; and there was a struggle for
  a time, and then its priests were cast out or
  martyred. There were sacrileges innumerable.                       15
  Its temples were profaned or destroyed; its
  revenues seized by covetous nobles, or squandered
  upon the ministers of a new faith. The presence
  of Catholicism was at length simply
  removed,--its grace disowned,--its power despised,--its            20
  name, except as a matter of history, at length
  almost unknown. It took a long time to do this
  thoroughly; much time, much thought, much
  labor, much expense; but at last it was done.
  Oh, that miserable day, centuries before we were                   25
  born! What a martyrdom to live in it and see
  the fair form of Truth, moral and material,
  hacked piecemeal, and every limb and organ
  carried off, and burned in the fire, or cast into
  the deep! But at last the work was done. Truth                     30
  was disposed of, and shoveled away, and there
  was a calm, a silence, a sort of peace--and such
  was about the state of things when we were born
  into this weary world.

  My Fathers and Brothers, _you_ have seen it on
  one side, and some of us on another; but one and                    5
  all of us can bear witness to the fact of the utter
  contempt into which Catholicism had fallen by
  the time that we were born. You, alas, know it
  far better than I can know it; but it may not be
  out of place, if by one or two tokens, as by the                   10
  strokes of a pencil, I bear witness to you from
  without, of what you can witness so much more
  truly from within. No longer the Catholic
  Church in the country; nay, no longer, I may
  say, a Catholic community; but a few                               15
  adherents of the Old Religion, moving silently
  and sorrowfully about, as memorials of what had
  been. The "Roman Catholics,"--not a sect,
  not even an interest, as men conceived of
  it,--not a body, however small, representative of the              20
  Great Communion abroad,--but a mere handful
  of individuals, who might be counted, like the
  pebbles and _detritus_ of the great deluge, and
  who, forsooth, merely happened to retain a creed
  which, in its day indeed, was the profession of a                  25
  Church. Here a set of poor Irishmen, coming and
  going at harvest time, or a colony of them lodged
  in a miserable quarter of the vast metropolis.
  There, perhaps an elderly person, seen walking
  in the streets, grave and solitary, and strange,                   30
  though noble in bearing, and said to be of good
  family, and a "Roman Catholic." An
  old-fashioned house of gloomy appearance, closed in
  with high walls, with an iron gate, and yews, and
  the report attaching to it that "Roman Catholics"
  lived there; but who they were, or what they did,                   5
  or what was meant by calling them Roman
  Catholics, no one could tell--though it had an
  unpleasant sound, and told of form and
  superstition. And then, perhaps, as we went to and fro,
  looking with a boy's curious eyes through the                      10
  great city, we might come to-day upon some
  Moravian chapel, or Quaker's meeting-house, and
  to-morrow on a chapel of the "Roman Catholics;"
  but nothing was to be gathered from it, except
  that there were lights burning there, and some                     15
  boys in white, swinging censers; and what it all
  meant could only be learned from books, from
  Protestant Histories and Sermons; and they did
  not report well of the "Roman Catholics," but,
  on the contrary, deposed that they had once had                    20
  power and had abused it. And then, again, we
  might on one occasion hear it pointedly put out
  by some literary man, as the result of his careful
  investigation, and as a recondite point of
  information, which few knew, that there was this                   25
  difference between the Roman Catholics of England
  and the Roman Catholics of Ireland, that the
  latter had bishops, and the former were governed
  by four officials, called Vicars-Apostolic.

  Such was about the sort of knowledge possessed                     30
  of Christianity by the heathen of old time, who
  persecuted its adherents from the face of the
  earth, and then called them a _gens lucifuga_, a
  people who shunned the light of day. Such were
  Catholics in England, found in corners, and alleys,
  and cellars, and the housetops, or in the recesses                  5
  of the country; cut off from the populous world
  around them, and dimly seen, as if through a
  mist or in twilight, as ghosts flitting to and fro,
  by the high Protestants, the lords of the earth.
  At length so feeble did they become, so utterly                    10
  contemptible, that contempt gave birth to pity;
  and the more generous of their tyrants actually
  began to wish to bestow on them some favor,
  under the notion that their opinions were simply
  too absurd ever to spread again, and that they                     15
  themselves, were they but raised in civil
  importance, would soon unlearn and be ashamed of
  them. And thus, out of mere kindness to us,
  they began to vilify our doctrines to the Protestant
  world, that so our very idiotcy or our secret                      20
  unbelief might be our plea for mercy.

  A _great_ change, an _awful_ contrast, between the
  time-honored Church of St. Augustine and St.
  Thomas, and the poor remnant of their children
  in the beginning of the nineteenth century! It                     25
  was a miracle, I might say, to have pulled down
  that lordly power; but there was a greater and a
  truer one in store. No one could have prophesied
  its fall, but still less would any one have ventured
  to prophesy its rise again. The fall was                           30
  wonderful; still after all it was in the order of nature;
  all things come to naught: its rise again would
  be a different sort of wonder, for it is in the order
  of grace,--and who can hope for miracles, and
  such a miracle as this? Has the whole course of
  history a like to show? I must speak cautiously                     5
  and according to my knowledge, but I recollect
  no parallel to it. Augustine, indeed, came to
  the same island to which the early missionaries
  had come already; but they came to Britons, and
  he to Saxons. The Arian Goths and Lombards,                        10
  too, cast off their heresy in St. Augustine's age,
  and joined the Church; but they had never fallen
  away from her. The inspired word seems to imply
  the almost impossibility of such a grace as the
  renovation of those who have crucified to                          15
  themselves again, and trodden under foot, the Son of
  God. Who then could have dared to hope that,
  out of so sacrilegious a nation as this is, a people
  would have been formed again unto their Saviour?
  What signs did it show that it was to be singled                   20
  out from among the nations? Had it been
  prophesied some fifty years ago, would not the
  very notion have seemed preposterous and wild?

  My Fathers, there was one of your own order,
  then in the maturity of his powers and his                         25
  reputation. His name is the property of this diocese;
  yet is too great, too venerable, too dear to all
  Catholics, to be confined to any part of England,
  when it is rather a household word in the mouths
  of all of us. What would have been the feelings                    30
  of that venerable man, the champion of God's ark
  in an evil time, could _he_ have lived to see this
  day? It is almost presumptuous for one who
  knew him not, to draw pictures about him, and
  his thoughts, and his friends, some of whom are
  even here present; yet am I wrong in fancying                       5
  that a day such as this, in which we stand, would
  have seemed to him a dream, or, if he prophesied
  of it, to his hearers nothing but a mockery? Say
  that one time, rapt in spirit, he had reached
  forward to the future, and that his mortal eye had                 10
  wandered from that lowly chapel in the valley
  which had been for centuries in the possession of
  Catholics, to the neighboring height, then waste
  and solitary. And let him say to those about
  him: "I see a bleak mount, looking upon an open                    15
  country, over against that huge town, to whose
  inhabitants Catholicism is of so little account.
  I see the ground marked out, and an ample
  inclosure made; and plantations are rising there,
  clothing and circling in the space.                                20

  "And there on that high spot, far from the
  haunts of men, yet in the very center of the island,
  a large edifice, or rather pile of edifices, appears
  with many fronts, and courts, and long cloisters
  and corridors, and story upon story. And there                     25
  it rises, under the invocation of the same sweet
  and powerful name which has been our strength
  and consolation in the Valley. I look more
  attentively at that building, and I see it is fashioned
  upon that ancient style of art which brings back                   30
  the past, which had seemed to be perishing from
  off the face of the earth, or to be preserved only
  as a curiosity, or to be imitated only as a fancy.
  I listen, and I hear the sound of voices, grave
  and musical, renewing the old chant, with which
  Augustine greeted Ethelbert in the free air upon                    5
  the Kentish strand. It comes from a long
  procession, and it winds along the cloisters. Priests
  and Religious, theologians from the schools, and
  canons from the Cathedral, walk in due precedence.
  And then there comes a vision of well-nigh                         10
  twelve mitered heads; and last I see a Prince of
  the Church, in the royal dye of empire and of
  martyrdom, a pledge to us from Rome of Rome's
  unwearied love, a token that that goodly
  company is firm in Apostolic faith and hope. And                   15
  the shadow of the Saints is there; St. Benedict
  is there, speaking to us by the voice of bishop
  and of priest, and counting over the long ages
  through which he has prayed, and studied, and
  labored; there, too, is St. Dominic's white wool,                  20
  which no blemish can impair, no stain can dim:
  and if St. Bernard be not there, it is only that
  his absence may make him be remembered more.
  And the princely patriarch, St. Ignatius, too, the
  St. George of the modern world, with his chivalrous                25
  lance run through his writhing foe, he, too, sheds
  his blessing upon that train. And others, also,
  his equals or his juniors in history, whose pictures
  are above our altars, or soon shall be, the surest
  proof that the Lord's arm has not waxen short,                     30
  nor His mercy failed,--they, too, are looking
  down from their thrones on high upon the throng.
  And so that high company moves on into the holy
  place; and there, with august rite and awful
  sacrifice, inaugurates the great act which brings
  it thither." What is that act? it is the first                      5
  synod of a new Hierarchy; it is the resurrection
  of the Church.

  O my Fathers, my Brothers, had that revered
  Bishop so spoken then, who that had heard him
  but would have said that he spoke what could                       10
  not be? What! those few scattered worshipers,
  _the_ Roman Catholics, to form a Church! Shall
  the past be rolled back? Shall the grave open?
  Shall the Saxons live again to God? Shall the
  shepherds, watching their poor flocks by night,                    15
  be visited by a multitude of the heavenly army,
  and hear how their Lord has been new-born in
  their own city? Yes; for grace can, where
  nature cannot. The world grows old, but the
  Church is ever young. She can, in any time, at                     20
  her Lord's will, "inherit the Gentiles, and inhabit
  the desolate cities." "Arise, Jerusalem, for thy
  light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen
  upon thee. Behold, darkness shall cover the
  earth, and a mist the people; but the Lord shall                   25
  arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon
  thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see;
  all these are gathered together, they come to
  thee; thy sons shall come from afar, and thy
  daughters shall rise up at thy side." "Arise,                      30
  make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one,
  and come. For the winter is now past, and the
  rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared
  in our land ... the fig tree hath put forth her
  green figs; the vines in flower yield their sweet
  smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and                        5
  come." It is the time for thy Visitation. Arise,
  Mary, and go forth in thy strength into that north
  country, which once was thine own, and take
  possession of a land which knows thee not. Arise,
  Mother of God, and with thy thrilling voice speak                  10
  to those who labor with child, and are in pain,
  till the babe of grace leaps within them! Shine
  on us, dear Lady, with thy bright countenance,
  like the sun in his strength, _O stella matutina_, O
  harbinger of peace, till our year is one perpetual                 15
  May. From thy sweet eyes, from thy pure smile,
  from thy majestic brow, let ten thousand
  influences rain down, not to confound or
  overwhelm, but to persuade, to win over thine enemies.
  O Mary, my hope, O Mother undefiled, fulfill to                    20
  us the promise of this Spring. A second temple
  rises on the ruins of the old. Canterbury has
  gone its way, and York is gone, and Durham is
  gone, and Winchester is gone. It was sore to
  part with them. We clung to the vision of past                     25
  greatness, and would not believe it could come
  to naught; but the Church in England has died,
  and the Church lives again. Westminster and
  Nottingham, Beverley and Hexham, Northampton
  and Shrewsbury, if the world lasts, shall be                       30
  names as musical to the ear, as stirring to the
  heart, as the glories we have lost; and Saints
  shall rise out of them, if God so will, and
  Doctors once again shall give the law to Israel,
  and Preachers call to penance and to justice, as
  at the beginning.                                                   5

  Yes, my Fathers and Brothers, and if it be
  God's blessed will, not Saints alone, not Doctors
  only, not Preachers only, shall be ours--but
  Martyrs, too, shall re-consecrate the soil to God.
  We know not what is before us, ere we win our                      10
  own; we are engaged in a great, a joyful work,
  but in proportion to God's grace is the fury of
  His enemies. They have welcomed us as the
  lion greets his prey. Perhaps they may be
  familiarized in time with our appearance, but                      15
  perhaps they may be irritated the more. To set
  up the Church again in England is too great an
  act to be done in a corner. We have had reason
  to expect that such a boon would not be given
  to us without a cross. It is not God's way that                    20
  great blessings should descend without the sacrifice
  first of great sufferings. If the truth is to be
  spread to any wide extent among this people, how
  can we dream, how can we hope, that trial and
  trouble shall not accompany its going forth? And                   25
  we have already, if it may be said without
  presumption, to commence our work withal, a large
  store of merits. We have no slight outfit for our
  opening warfare. Can we religiously suppose that
  the blood of our martyrs, three centuries ago and                  30
  since, shall never receive its recompense? Those
  priests, secular and regular, did they suffer for
  no end? or rather, for an end which is not yet
  accomplished? The long imprisonment, the fetid
  dungeon, the weary suspense, the tyrannous trial,
  the barbarous sentence, the savage execution, the                   5
  rack, the gibbet, the knife, the caldron, the
  numberless tortures of those holy victims, O my God,
  are they to have no reward? Are Thy martyrs
  to cry from under Thine altar for their loving
  vengeance on this guilty people, and to cry in                     10
  vain? Shall they lose life, and not gain a
  better life for the children of those who persecuted
  them? Is this Thy way, O my God, righteous
  and true? Is it according to Thy promise, O
  King of Saints, if I may dare talk to Thee of                      15
  justice? Did not Thou Thyself pray for Thine
  enemies upon the cross, and convert them? Did
  not Thy first Martyr win Thy great Apostle, then
  a persecutor, by his loving prayer? And in that
  day of trial and desolation for England, when                      20
  hearts were pierced through and through with
  Mary's woe, at the crucifixion of Thy body
  mystical, was not every tear that flowed, and
  every drop of blood that was shed, the seeds of a
  future harvest, when they who sowed in sorrow                      25
  were to reap in joy?

  And as that suffering of the Martyrs is not yet
  recompensed, so, perchance, it is not yet
  exhausted. Something, for what we know, remains
  to be undergone, to complete the necessary                         30
  sacrifice. May God forbid it, for this poor nation's
  sake! But still could we be surprised, my Fathers
  and my Brothers, if the winter even now should
  not yet be quite over? Have we any right to
  take it strange, if, in this English land, the
  spring-time of the Church should turn out to be an                  5
  English spring, an uncertain, anxious time of hope
  and fear, of joy and suffering,--of bright promise
  and budding hopes, yet withal, of keen blasts, and
  cold showers, and sudden storms?

  One thing alone I know,--that according to                         10
  our need, so will be our strength. One thing I
  am sure of, that the more the enemy rages against
  us, so much the more will the Saints in Heaven
  plead for us; the more fearful are our trials from
  the world, the more present to us will be our                      15
  Mother Mary, and our good Patrons and Angel
  Guardians; the more malicious are the devices of
  men against us, the louder cry of supplication will
  ascend from the bosom of the whole Church to
  God for us. We shall not be left orphans; we                       20
  shall have within us the strength of the Paraclete,
  promised to the Church and to every member of
  it. My Fathers, my Brothers in the priesthood,
  I speak from my heart when I declare my
  conviction, that there is no one among you here                    25
  present but, if God so willed, would readily
  become a martyr for His sake. I do not say you
  would wish it; I do not say that the natural will
  would not pray that that chalice might pass
  away; I do not speak of what you can do by any                     30
  strength of yours; but in the strength of God,
  in the grace of the Spirit, in the armor of justice,
  by the consolations and peace of the Church, by
  the blessing of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and
  in the name of Christ, you would do what nature
  cannot do. By the intercession of the Saints on                     5
  high, by the penances and good works and the
  prayers of the people of God on earth, you would
  be forcibly borne up as upon the waves of the
  mighty deep, and carried on out of yourselves by
  the fullness of grace, whether nature wished it or                 10
  no. I do not mean violently, or with unseemly
  struggle, but calmly, gracefully, sweetly, joyously,
  you would mount up and ride forth to the battle,
  as on the rush of Angels' wings, as your fathers
  did before you, and gained the prize. You, who                     15
  day by day offer up the Immaculate Lamb of
  God, you who hold in your hands the Incarnate
  Word under the visible tokens which He has
  ordained, you who again and again drain the
  chalice of the Great Victim; who is to make you                    20
  fear? what is to startle you? what to seduce
  you? who is to stop you, whether you are to
  suffer or to do, whether to lay the foundations of
  the Church in tears, or to put the crown upon the
  work in jubilation?                                                25

  My Fathers, my Brothers, one word more. It
  may seem as if I were going out of my way in
  thus addressing you; but I have some sort of
  plea to urge in extenuation. When the English
  College at Rome was set up by the solicitude of a                  30
  great Pontiff in the beginning of England's sorrows,
  and missionaries were trained there for
  confessorship and martyrdom here, who was it that
  saluted the fair Saxon youths as they passed by
  him in the streets of the great city, with the
  salutation, "Salvete flores martyrum"? And when                     5
  the time came for each in turn to leave that
  peaceful home, and to go forth to the conflict, to whom
  did they betake themselves before leaving Rome,
  to receive a blessing which might nerve them for
  their work? They went for a Saint's blessing;                      10
  they went to a calm old man, who had never
  seen blood, except in penance; who had longed
  indeed to die for Christ, what time the great St.
  Francis opened the way to the far East, but who
  had been fixed as if a sentinel in the holy city,                  15
  and walked up and down for fifty years on one
  beat, while his brethren were in the battle. Oh!
  the fire of that heart, too great for its frail
  tenement, which tormented him to be kept at home
  when the whole Church was at war! and                              20
  therefore came those bright-haired strangers to him,
  ere they set out for the scene of their passion,
  that the full zeal and love pent up in that burning
  breast might find a vent, and flow over, from him
  who was kept at home, upon those who were to                       25
  face the foe. Therefore one by one, each in his
  turn, those youthful soldiers came to the old man;
  and one by one they persevered and gained the
  crown and the palm,--all but one, who had not
  gone, and would not go, for the salutary blessing.                 30

  My Fathers, my Brothers, that old man was
  my own St. Philip. Bear with me for his sake.
  If I have spoken too seriously, his sweet smile
  shall temper it. As he was with you three
  centuries ago in Rome, when our Temple fell, so
  now surely when it is rising, it is a pleasant token                5
  that he should have even set out on his travels to
  you; and that, as if remembering how he
  interceded for you at home, and recognizing the
  relations he then formed with you, he should now be
  wishing to have a name among you, and to be                        10
  loved by you, and perchance to do you a service,
  here in your own land.




  ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT

  EP. II. S. PAUL AD COR., _c._ xii. _v._ 9

     Libenter igitur gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis, ut inhabitet
     in me virtus Christi.

     Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power
     of Christ may dwell in me.

  All the Saints, from the beginning of history
  to the end, resemble each other in this, that their
  excellence is supernatural, their deeds heroic, their              15
  merits extraordinary and prevailing. They all
  are choice patterns of the theological virtues;
  they all are blessed with a rare and special union
  with their Maker and Lord; they all lead lives of
  penance; and when they leave this world, they                      20
  are spared that torment, which the multitude of
  holy souls are allotted, between earth and heaven,
  death and eternal glory. But, with all these
  various tokens of their belonging to one and the
  same celestial family, they may still be divided,
  in their external aspect, into two classes.

  There are those, on the one hand, who are so                        5
  absorbed in the Divine life, that they seem, even
  while they are in the flesh, to have no part in
  earth or in human nature; but to think, speak,
  and act under views, affections, and motives
  simply supernatural. If they love others, it is                    10
  simply because they love God, and because man
  is the object either of His compassion, or of His
  praise. If they rejoice, it is in what is unseen; if
  they feel interest, it is in what is unearthly; if
  they speak, it is almost with the voice of Angels;                 15
  if they eat or drink, it is almost of Angels' food
  alone--for it is recorded in their histories, that
  for weeks they have fed on nothing else but that
  Heavenly Bread which is the proper sustenance
  of the soul. Such we may suppose to have been                      20
  St. John; such St. Mary Magdalen; such the
  hermits of the desert; such many of the holy
  Virgins whose lives belong to the science of
  mystical theology.

  On the other hand, there are those, and of the                     25
  highest order of sanctity too, as far as our eyes
  can see, in whom the supernatural combines with
  nature, instead of superseding it,--invigorating
  it, elevating it, ennobling it; and who are not
  the less men, because they are saints. They do                     30
  not put away their natural endowments, but use
  them to the glory of the Giver; they do not act
  beside them, but through them; they do not
  eclipse them by the brightness of Divine grace,
  but only transfigure them. They are versed in
  human knowledge; they are busy in human                             5
  society; they understand the human heart; they
  can throw themselves into the minds of other
  men; and all this in consequence of natural gifts
  and secular education. While they themselves
  stand secure in the blessedness of purity and                      10
  peace, they can follow in imagination the ten
  thousand aberrations of pride, passion, and
  remorse. The world is to them a book, to which
  they are drawn for its own sake, which they read
  fluently, which interests them                                     15
  naturally,--though, by the reason of the grace which dwells
  within them, they study it and hold converse
  with it for the glory of God and the salvation
  of souls. Thus they have the thoughts, feelings,
  frames of mind, attractions, sympathies,                           20
  antipathies of other men, so far as these are not
  sinful, only they have these properties of human
  nature purified, sanctified, and exalted; and they
  are only made more eloquent, more poetical, more
  profound, more intellectual, by reason of their                    25
  being more holy. In this latter class I may
  perhaps without presumption place many of the early
  Fathers, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen,
  St. Athanasius, and above all, the great Saint of
  this day, St. Paul the Apostle.                                    30

  I think it a happy circumstance that, in this
  Church, placed, as it is, under the patronage of
  the great names of St. Peter and St. Paul, the
  special feast days of these two Apostles (for such
  we may account the 29th of June as regards St.
  Peter, and to-day as regards St. Paul) should, in                   5
  the first year of our assembling here, each have
  fallen on a Sunday. And now that we have
  arrived, through God's protecting Providence, at
  the latter of these two days, the Conversion of
  St. Paul, I do not like to forego the opportunity,                 10
  with whatever misgivings as to my ability, of
  offering to you, my brethren, at least a few
  remarks upon the wonderful work of God's creative
  grace mercifully presented to our inspection in
  the person of this great Apostle. Most unworthy                    15
  of him, I know, is the best that I can say; and even
  that best I cannot duly exhibit in the space of
  time allowed me on an occasion such as this;
  but what is said out of devotion to him, and for
  the Divine glory, will, I trust, have its use,                     20
  defective though it be, and be a plea for his favorable
  notice of those who say it, and be graciously
  accepted by his and our Lord and Master.

  Now, since I have begun by contrasting St.
  Paul with St. John, and by implying that St.                       25
  John lived a life more simply supernatural than
  St. Paul, I may seem to you, my brethren, to be
  speaking to St. Paul's disparagement; and you
  may therefore ask me whether it is possible for
  any Saint on earth to have a more intimate                         30
  communion with the Divine Majesty than was granted
  to St. Paul. You may remind me of his own
  words, "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in
  me; and, that I now live in the flesh, I live in the
  faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and
  delivered Himself for me." And you may refer to                     5
  his most astonishing ecstasies and visions; as
  when he was rapt even to the third heaven, and
  heard sacred words, which it "is not granted to
  man to utter." You may say, he "no way came
  short" of St. John in his awful initiation into the                10
  mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Certainly
  you may say so; nor am I imagining anything
  contrary to you. We indeed cannot compare
  Saints; but I agree with you, that St. Paul was
  visited by favors, equal, in our apprehensions, to                 15
  those which were granted to St. John. But then,
  on the other hand, neither was St. John behind
  St. Paul in these tokens of Divine love. In truth,
  these tokens are some of those very things which,
  in a greater or less degree, belong to all Saints                  20
  whatever, as I said when I began; whereas my
  question just now is, not what are those points in
  which St. Paul agrees with all other Saints, but
  what is his distinguished mark, how we recognize
  him from others, what there is special in him;                     25
  and I think his characteristic is this,--that, as I
  have said, in him the fullness of Divine gifts does
  not tend to destroy what is human in him, but to
  spiritualize and perfect it. According to his own
  words, used on another subject, but laying down,                   30
  as it were, the principle on which his own character
  was formed,--"We would not be
  _un_-clothed," he says, but "clothed _upon_, that what
  is mortal may be swallowed up by life." In him,
  his human nature, his human affections, his
  human gifts, were possessed and glorified by a new                  5
  and heavenly life; they remained; he speaks of
  them in the text, and in his humility he calls
  them his infirmity. He was not stripped of
  nature, but clothed with grace and the power of
  Christ, and therefore he _glories_ in his infirmity.               10
  This is the subject on which I wish to enlarge.

  A heathen poet has said, <DW25> sum, humani
  nihil a me alienum puto. "I am a man; nothing
  human is without interest to me," and the
  sentiment has been widely and deservedly praised.                  15
  Now this, in a fullness of meaning which a heathen
  could not understand, is, I conceive, the
  characteristic of this great Apostle. He is ever
  speaking, to use his own words, "human things," and
  "as a man," and "according to man," and                            20
  "foolishly;" that is, human nature, the
  common nature of the whole race of Adam, spoke in
  him, acted in him, with an energetical presence,
  with a sort of bodily fullness, always under the
  sovereign command of Divine grace, but losing                      25
  none of its real freedom and power because of
  its subordination. And the consequence is, that,
  having the nature of man so strong within him,
  he is able to enter into human nature, and to
  sympathize with it, with a gift peculiarly his own.                30

  Now the most startling instance of this is this,
  --that, though his life prior to his conversion
  seems to have been so conscientious and so pure,
  nevertheless he does not hesitate to associate
  himself with the outcast heathen, and to speak
  as if he were one of them. St. Philip Neri, before                  5
  he communicated, used to say, "Lord, I protest
  before Thee that I am good for nothing but to
  do evil." At confession he used to say, "I have
  never done one good action." He often said, "I
  am past hope." To a penitent he said, "Be sure                     10
  of this, I am a man like my neighbors, and
  nothing more." Well, I mean, that somewhat in this
  way, St. Paul felt all his neighbors, all the whole
  race of Adam, to be existing in himself. He
  knew himself to be possessed of a nature, he was                   15
  conscious of possessing a nature, which was
  capable of running into all the multiplicity of
  emotions, of devices, of purposes, and of sins,
  into which it had actually run in the wide world
  and in the multitude of men; and in that sense                     20
  he bore the sins of all men, and associated
  himself with them, and spoke of them and himself
  as one. He, I say, a strict Pharisee (as he
  describes himself), blameless according to legal
  justice, conversing with all good conscience                       25
  before God, serving God from his forefathers with a
  pure conscience, he nevertheless elsewhere speaks
  of himself as a profligate heathen outcast before
  the grace of God called him. He not only counts
  himself, as his birth made him, in the number of                   30
  "children of wrath," but he classes himself with
  the heathen as "conversing in the desires of the
  flesh," "and fulfilling the will of the flesh." And
  in another Epistle, he speaks of himself, at the
  time he writes, as if "carnal, sold under sin;"
  he speaks of "sin dwelling in him," and of his                      5
  "serving with the flesh the law of sin;" this, I
  say, when he was an Apostle confirmed in grace.
  And in like manner he speaks of concupiscence as
  if it were sin; all because he vividly apprehended,
  in that nature of his which grace had sanctified,                  10
  what it was in its tendencies and results when
  deprived of grace.

  And thus I account for St. Paul's liking for
  heathen writers, or what we now call the classics,
  which is very remarkable. He, the Apostle of the                   15
  Gentiles, was learned in Greek letters, as Moses,
  the lawgiver of the Jews, his counterpart, was
  learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he
  did not give up that learning when he had
  "learned Christ." I do not think I am                              20
  exaggerating in saying so, since he goes out of his way three
  times to quote passages from them; once,
  speaking to the heathen Athenians; another time, to
  his converts at Corinth; and a third time, in a
  private Apostolic exhortation to his disciple St.                  25
  Titus. And it is the more remarkable, that one
  of the writers whom he quotes seems to be a
  writer of comedies, which had no claim to be read
  for any high morality which they contain. Now
  how shall we account for this? Did St. Paul                        30
  delight in what was licentious? God forbid; but
  he had the feeling of a guardian-angel who sees
  every sin of the rebellious being committed to
  him, who gazes at him and weeps. With this
  difference, that he had a sympathy with sinners,
  which an Angel (be it reverently said) cannot                       5
  have. He was a true lover of souls. He loved
  poor human nature with a passionate love, and
  the literature of the Greeks was only its
  expression; and he hung over it tenderly and
  mournfully, wishing for its regeneration and salvation.            10

  This is how I account for his familiar
  knowledge of the heathen poets. Some of the ancient
  Fathers consider that the Greeks were under a
  special dispensation of Providence, preparatory
  to the Gospel, though not directly from heaven                     15
  as the Jewish was. Now St. Paul seems, if I may
  say it, to partake of this feeling; distinctly as he
  teaches that the heathen are in darkness, and in
  sin, and under the power of the Evil One, he will
  not allow that they are beyond the eye of Divine                   20
  Mercy. On the contrary, he speaks of God as
  "determining their times and the limits of their
  habitation," that is, going along with the
  revolutions of history and the migrations of races, "in
  order that they should seek Him, if haply they                     25
  may feel after Him and find Him," since, he
  continues, "He is not far from every one of us."
  Again, when the Lycaonians would have
  worshiped him, he at once places himself on their
  level and reckons himself among them, and at                       30
  the same time speaks of God's love of them,
  heathens though they were. "Ye men," he cries,
  "why do ye these things? We also are mortals,
  men like unto you;" and he adds that God in
  times past, though suffering all nations to walk
  in their own ways, "nevertheless left not Himself                   5
  without testimony, doing good from heaven,
  giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts
  with food and gladness." You see, he says, "_our_
  hearts," not "your," as if he were one of those
  Gentiles; and he dwells in a kindly human way                      10
  over the food, and the gladness which food causes,
  which the poor heathen were granted. Hence it
  is that he is the Apostle who especially insists on
  our all coming from one father, Adam; for he
  had pleasure in thinking that all men were                         15
  brethren. "God hath made," he says, "all
  mankind of one;" "as in Adam all die, so in Christ
  all shall be made alive." I will cite but one
  more passage from the great Apostle on the same
  subject, one in which he tenderly contemplates                     20
  the captivity, and the anguish, and the longing,
  and the deliverance of poor human nature. "The
  expectation of the creature," he says, that is, of
  human nature, "waiteth for the manifestation
  of the sons of God. For the creature was made                      25
  subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of
  Him that made it subject, in hope; because it
  shall be delivered from the servitude of
  corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children
  of God. For we know that every creature                            30
  groaneth and travaileth in pain until now."

  These are specimens of the tender affection
  which the great heart of the Apostle had for all
  his kind, the sons of Adam: but if he felt so much
  for all races spread over the earth, what did he
  feel for his own nation! O what a special                           5
  mixture, bitter and sweet, of generous pride (if I may
  so speak), but of piercing, overwhelming anguish,
  did the thought of the race of Israel inflict upon
  him! the highest of nations and the lowest, his
  own dear people, whose glories were before his                     10
  imagination and in his affection from his
  childhood, who had the birthright and the promise,
  yet who, instead of making use of them, had
  madly thrown them away! Alas, alas, and he
  himself had once been a partner in their madness,                  15
  and was only saved from his infatuation by the
  miraculous power of God! O dearest ones, O
  glorious race, O miserably fallen! so great and so
  abject! This is his tone in speaking of the Jews,
  at once a Jeremias and a David; David in his                       20
  patriotic care for them, and Jeremias in his
  plaintive and resigned denunciations.

  Consider his words: "I speak the truth in
  Christ," he says; "I lie not, my conscience
  bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost; that I have                  25
  great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart."
  In spite of visions and ecstasies, in spite of his
  wonderful election, in spite of his manifold gifts,
  in spite of the cares of his Apostolate and "the
  solicitude for all the churches"--you would                        30
  think he had had enough otherwise both to grieve
  him and to gladden him--but no, this special
  contemplation remains ever before his mind and in
  his heart. I mean, the state of his own poor
  people, who were in mad enmity against the
  promised Saviour, who had for centuries after                       5
  centuries looked forward for the Hope of Israel,
  prepared the way for it, heralded it, suffered for
  it, cherished and protected it, yet, when it came,
  rejected it, and lost the fruit of their long patience.
  "Who are Israelites," he says, mournfully                          10
  lingering over their past glories, "who are Israelites, to
  whom belongeth the adoption of children, and
  the glory, and the testament, and the giving of
  wealth, and the service of God, and the promises:
  whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ                       15
  according to the flesh, who is over all things, God
  blessed forever. Amen."

  What a hard thing it was for him to give them
  up! He pleaded for them, while they were
  persecuting his Lord and himself. He reminded his                  20
  Lord that he himself had also been that Lord's
  persecutor, and why not try them a little longer?
  "Lord," he said, "they know that I cast into
  prison, and beat in every synagogue, them that
  believed in Thee. And, when the blood of                           25
  Stephen, Thy witness, was shed, I stood by and
  consented, and kept the garments of them that
  killed him." You see, his old frame of mind, the
  feelings and notions under which he persecuted
  his Lord, were ever distinctly before him, and he                  30
  realized them as if they were still his own. "I
  bear them witness," he says, "that they have a
  zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."
  O blind! blind! he seems to say; O that there
  should be so much of good in them, so much zeal,
  so much of religious purpose, so much of                            5
  steadfastness, such resolve like Josias, Mathathias, or
  Machabaeus, to keep the whole law, and honor
  Moses and the Prophets, but all spoiled, all
  undone, by one fatal sin! And what is he prompted
  to do? Moses, on one occasion, desired to suffer                   10
  instead of his rebellious people: "Either forgive
  them this trespass," he said, "or if Thou do not,
  strike me out of the book." And now, when the
  New Law was in course of promulgation, and the
  chosen race was committing the same sin, its                       15
  great Apostle desired the same: "I wished
  myself," he says, speaking of the agony he had
  passed through, "I wished myself to be an
  anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are
  my kinsmen according to the flesh." And then,                      20
  when all was in vain, when they remained
  obdurate, and the high decree of God took effect, still
  he would not, out of very affection for them, he
  would not allow after all that they were
  reprobate. He comforted himself with the thought of                25
  how many were the exceptions to so dismal a
  sentence. "Hath God cast away His people?"
  he asks; "God forbid. For I also am an Israelite,
  of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."
  "All are not Israelites that are of Israel." And                   30
  he dwells upon his confident anticipation of their
  recovery in time to come. "They are enemies,"
  he says, writing to the Romans, "for your sakes;"
  that is, you have gained by their loss; "but they
  are most dear for the sake of the fathers; for the
  gifts and the calling of God are without                            5
  repentance." "Blindness in part has happened to
  Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should
  come in; and so all Israel should be saved."

  My Brethren, I have now explained to a
  certain extent what I meant when I spoke of St.                    10
  Paul's characteristic gift, as being a special
  apprehension of human nature as a fact, and an
  intimate familiarity with it as an object of
  continual contemplation and affection. He made it
  his own to the very full, instead of annihilating                  15
  it; he sympathized with it, while he mortified it
  by penance, while he sanctified it by the grace
  given him. Though he had never been a heathen,
  though he was no longer a Jew, yet he was a
  heathen in capability, as I may say, and a Jew                     20
  in the history of the past. His vivid imagination
  enabled him to throw himself into the state of
  heathenism, with all those tendencies which lay
  dormant in his human nature carried out, and
  its infirmities developed into sin. His wakeful                    25
  memory enabled him to recall those past
  feelings and ideas of a Jew, which in the case of
  others a miraculous conversion might have
  obliterated; and thus, while he was a Saint inferior
  to none, he was emphatically still a man, and to                   30
  his own apprehension still a sinner.

  And this being so, do you not see, my brethren,
  how well fitted he was for the office of an
  Ecumenical Doctor, and an Apostle, not of the Jews
  only, but of the Gentiles? The Almighty
  sometimes works by miracle, but commonly He                         5
  prepares His instruments by methods of this world;
  and, as He draws souls to Him, "by the cords of
  Adam," so does He select them for His use
  according to their natural powers. St. John, who lay
  upon His breast, whose book was the sacred heart                   10
  of Jesus, and whose special philosophy was the
  "scientia sanctorum," _he_ was not chosen to be
  the Doctor of the Nations. St. Peter, taught in
  the mysteries of the Creed, the Arbiter of doctrine
  and the Ruler of the faithful, he too was passed                   15
  over in this work. To him specially was it given
  to preach to the world, who knew the world; he
  subdued the heart, who understood the heart. It
  was his sympathy that was his means of influence;
  it was his affectionateness which was his title and                20
  instrument of empire. "I became to the Jews a
  Jew," he says, "that I might gain the Jews; to
  them that are under the Law, as if I were under
  the Law, that I might gain them that were under
  the Law. To those that were without the Law,                       25
  as if I were without the Law, that I might gain
  them that were without the Law. To the weak
  I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I
  became all things to all men, that I might save
  all."                                                              30

  And now, my brethren, my time is out, before
  I have well begun my subject. For how can I
  be said yet to have entered upon the great
  Apostle, when I have not yet touched upon his
  Christian affections, and his bearing towards the
  children of God? As yet I have chiefly spoken                       5
  of his sympathy with human nature unassisted
  and unregenerate; not of that yearning of his
  heart, as it showed itself in action under the
  grace of the Redeemer. But perhaps it is most
  suitable on the feast of his Conversion, to stop                   10
  at that point at which the day leaves him; and
  perhaps too it will be permitted to me on a future
  occasion to attempt, if it be not presumption, to
  speak of him again.

  Meanwhile, may this glorious Apostle, this                         15
  sweetest of inspired writers, this most touching
  and winning of teachers, may he do me some
  good turn, who have ever felt a special devotion
  towards him! May this great Saint, this man of
  large mind, of various sympathies, of affectionate                 20
  heart, have a kind thought for every one of us
  here according to our respective needs! He has
  carried his human thoughts and feelings with
  him to his throne above; and, though he sees
  the Infinite and Eternal Essence, he still                         25
  remembers well that troublous, restless ocean below, of
  hopes and fears, of impulses and aspirations, of
  efforts and failures, which is now what it was
  when he was here. Let us beg him to intercede
  for us with the Majesty on high, that we too may                   30
  have some portion of that tenderness, compassion,
  mutual affection, love of brotherhood, abhorrence
  of strife and division, in which he excelled. Let
  us beg him especially, as we are bound, to bless
  the most reverend Prelate, under whose
  jurisdiction we here live, and whose feast day this is;             5
  that the great name of Paul may be to him a
  tower of strength and fount of consolation now,
  and in death, and in the day of account.




  NOTES


  SAUL

=Introductory Note.= The sketches of Saul and David are contained in the
third volume of _Parochial and Plain Sermons_. These discourses were
delivered at Oxford before Newman's conversion to the Catholic Church.

=Saul.= The first king of Israel reigned from 1091 to 1051 B.C. He ruled
conjointly with Samuel the prophet eighteen years, and alone, twenty-two
years. Samuel had been judge of Israel twelve years when the
discontented Jews demanded a king, and Saul was elected by lot.

=13=: 7. =Manna.= Miraculous food supplied to the Jews, wandering in the
desert of Sin, after their exodus from Egypt. The taste of manna was
that of flour mixed with honey.

=13=: 10. =Moses.= Deliverer, lawgiver, ruler, and prophet of Israel,
1447 B.C. The author of the _Pentateuch_ is probably the greatest figure
of the Old Law and the most perfect type of Christ.

=14=: 3. =Gadara.= Noted for the miracle of casting out demons, wrought
there by our Lord. The inhabitants in fear besought Him to leave their
coasts. Mark v. 17.

=16=: 24. =David.= The prophet and king famous as the royal psalmist.
From his line sprang the Messias.

=17=: 4. =The asses.= Saul, searching for his father's asses, was met by
Samuel and anointed king.

=17=: 14. =The Ammonites and Moabites.= Warlike heathen tribes probably
descended from Lot. They dwelt near the Dead Sea; were very hostile to
the Jews.

=17=: 15. =The Jordan.= Largest river of Palestine, especially
consecrated by the baptism of Christ in its waters; is called the river
of judgment. An air line from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea is
sixty miles, but so tortuous is the Jordan, its length is two hundred
miles.

=18=: 12. =Philistines= (strangers). Gentiles beyond the Western Sea,
frequently at war with the Hebrews. Samson, Saul, and David were famous
for their victories over these powerful enemies.

=19=: 29. =God's vicegerent.= Representative as king. Before Saul the
Jewish government was theocratic, _i.e._ directly from God.

=20=: 15. =Solomon.= Son and successor of David, called the wisest of
men: built the temple; became exalted with pride; was punished for his
sins; died probably unrepentant. A striking example of the vanity of
human success unblessed by God.

=20=: 16. =Religious principle.= A fundamental truth upon which conduct
is consistently built. A conviction of the intellect and hence
distinguished from instinct, disposition, feeling, often the spring of
men's actions.

=21=: 18. =Shekel.= A silver coin worth about fifty-seven cents.

=22=: 23. =Sacrifice offered by Saul.= Sacrilegious in Saul, as the
right was limited to the priesthood of Aaron.

=23=: 11. =Ark of God.= A figure of the Christian Tabernacle; divinely
ordained for the Mosaic worship; contained the covenant of God with His
chosen people.

=24=: 13. =Religion a utility.= Inversion of Christ's command,--"Seek ye
therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice and all these things
shall be added unto you." Matthew vi. 33.

=25=: 8. =Joshua.= Successor of Moses and leader of the Jews into the
Promised Land.

=27=: 8. =The uncircumcised.= Term applied to all outside the Hebrew
people. Circumcision, a figure of baptism, was the sign of covenant
given by God to Abraham and his descendants.


  EARLY YEARS OF DAVID

=28=: 6. =The Psalms.= One hundred and fifty inspired hymns of praise,
joy, thanksgiving, and repentance, composed chiefly by David. Humanly
speaking, they form the most exquisite lyric poetry extant, and in their
strong, majestic beauty are most suitable to the Divine Offices of the
Church.

=29=: 3. =Balaam.= An Oriental prophet of Mesopotamia, 1500 B.C. Sent
for by the Moabite king to curse the Israelites.

=29=: 11. (_a_) =Judah.= (_b_) =Shiloh.= (_a_) The fourth son of Jacob
and Leah. (_b_) The Messias.

=30=: 14. =Anointing of David.= To signify that the kingship, like the
priesthood, is a sacred office, _all_ power coming from God.

=31=: 6. =Sacred songs.= The inspired music of David was the means of
restoring grace to the troubled spirit of Saul. Browning's _Saul_ paints
strikingly the character of the shepherd boy and of the distracted old
king.

=32=: 1. =Goliath of Gath.= A type of the giant, Sin; also of Lucifer,
overcome by the meek Christ, who is prefigured by David.

=34=: 6. =The Apostle.= St. Paul, who recounts to the Hebrews his
sufferings for Christ.

=36=: 5. =Joseph.= Son of Jacob; governor of Egypt under Pharaoh.

=36=: 16. =From Moses.= A fine distinction between the theocratic and
the royal government of Israel.

=38=: 24. =The king's son-in-law.= Saul in envy married his daughter
Michol to David "that she might prove a stumbling-block to him."

=39=: 4. =David and Joseph.= Note the consistent and forcible parallel.

=43= and =44=. =The patriarchs.= This passage illustrates the exquisite
choice of words, the perfect finish of sentence, and the wonderful
beauty of thought characteristic of Newman.


  BASIL AND GREGORY

=Introductory Note.= These Essays on the Fathers are to be found in
_Historical Sketches_, Vol. III. They were written to illustrate the
tone and mode of thought, the habits and manners of the early times of
the Church.

=Athens.= Most of those who sought Attic wisdom were natures without
control. "Basil and Gregory were spoiled for subtle, beautiful,
luxurious Athens. They walked their straight and loving road to God,
with the simplicity which alone could issue out of the intense purpose
of their lives--the love and service of Christ their Lord."

=45=: 15. =Hildebrand.= St. Gregory VII, one of the greatest among the
great Roman pontiffs. He combated the evils of the eleventh century,
within and without the Church, and effected incalculable good,
especially in the war of Investitures waged against Henry IV of Germany.

=45=: 17. =City of God.= The Church.

=45=: 18. =Ambrose.= Archbishop of Milan, noted for zeal in spreading
the faith; remembered for his fearless rebuke of the Emperor
Theodosius.

=46=: 30. =Pontus.= Part of Cappadocia in Asia Minor; founded by
Alexander the Great.

=47=: 28. =The contention.= See Acts of the Apostles xv. 39.

=49=: 16. =Armenian creed.= Similar to that of the Greek Church.

=55=: 17. =The Thesbite.= Elias, who dwelt on Carmel, as did St. John
the Baptist, in most rigorous penance.

=55=: 18. =Carmel.= A mountain on the coast of Palestine, noted in
sacred history.


  AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS

=56=: 7. =Heretical creed.= The Arians were followers of Arius of
Alexandria, who boldly denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The heresy
was condemned by the Council of Nice, 325 A.D., but its baneful effects
were widely felt for centuries.

=56=: 15. =Apocalypse.= Wonderful revelations made to St. John at Patmos
concerning the Church, the final judgment, the future life.

=57=: 21. =The Vandals.= A barbarian race of Southern Germany, who in
the fifth century ravaged Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Northern Africa.

=59=: 13. =Montanists.= A sect of the second century that believed in
Montanus as a prophet, and in the near advent of Christ to judge the
world.

=60=: 31. (_a_) =The prophet.= (_b_) =Jeroboam.= (_a_) Ahias. (_b_) The
first king of Israel after the separation of the tribes; a man perverse
and irreverent in his relations with God and subject.

=59= to =70=. =The argument.= The apology for flight in times of
religious persecution, made by Athanasius, the great bishop of
Alexandria, fourth century, and the cogent argument against it of
Tertullian, a celebrated writer of the second century, show how
circumstances, above all, Divine inspiration, justify opposite lines of
action. St. Augustine's letter, written in his strong and luminous
style, reconciles the two points of view.

=71= to =74=. =The misery of irreligion.= A profound analysis of the two
classes of men without religion,--the one distorted, brutalized, and
deadened; the other confused, wild, and hungering after what is to them
indefinable, yet alone satisfying. Compare in its source, tenor, and
effect the unhappiness of the "popular poet" Byron and that of
Augustine.

=76=: 8. =St. Monica.= One of the greatest women of all times; a model
of faith, constancy, and maternal love.

=79=: 23. =Christianity a philosophy.= Such it is accounted by many
modern thinkers who, in spite of clear, full evidences of its divinity,
affect to doubt or deny altogether the supernatural. These reduce the
Gospels to a code of ethics, and regard Christ as merely a teacher of
morality; the earnestness of Augustine would lead them by a short road
to recognize and worship God in Jesus Christ.


  CHRYSOSTOM

=84= to =90=. =The Introduction.= The personal touch of these pages
gives an insight into the tender, sensitive nature of Cardinal Newman.
He was a man not only of intense and powerful intellect, but of delicate
and affectionate heart. It is his gracious, winning appeal that renders
him irresistible in influence.

=90=: 12. =Chrysostom.= "Golden mouth," from his eloquence. He is
counted among the great Patristic writers.

=90=: 21. =Antipater.= Son of Herod the Great; called by Josephus "a
monster of iniquity." He was put to death, 1 B.C.

=90=: 22. =Fulvia.= Wife of Marc Antony; noted for her cruelty and
ambition.

=92=: 6. (_a_) =Gallus.= (_b_) =Ovid.= (_a_) Governor of Egypt under
Augustus; accused of crime and oppression, and banished. (_b_) A
celebrated Roman poet, author of _Metamorphoses_; exiled by Augustus for
some grave offense never revealed.

=97=: 12. =The seasons.= This apt and ingenious analogy is regarded as
one of Newman's more beautiful passages.

=100=: 30. =Chrysostom's discriminating affectionateness.= The reason,
probably, why he has so great a hold upon the heart of posterity--love
begets love.

=105=: 8. =Cucusus.= In Caucasus, east of the Black Sea and north of
Persia.

=108=: 19. =Troas.= In Northwest Asia Minor. Troad contains ancient
Troy.

=105= to =110=. =The letters of Chrysostom.= The charm of his genius,
the sweetness of his temper under suffering, and the unselfishness of
his lofty soul appear in these simple lines written on the road or in
the desert of his banishment.


  THE TARTAR AND THE TURK

=Introductory Note.= These sketches of Turkish history form the
substance of lectures delivered in Liverpool, 1853. Special interest
attached to them at the time, as England was about to undertake the
defense of the Turks against Russia in the Crimean War. Selections from
only three are here possible.

=111=: 7. =The Tartars.= Fierce, restless tribes originally inhabiting
Manchuria and Mongolia.

=112=: 31. (_a_) =Attila.= (_b_) =Zingis.= (_a_) Leader of the Huns, who
overran Southern Europe in the fifth century. He was defeated by Aetius
at Chalons, 451, and miraculously turned from Rome by Pope Leo the
Great. (_b_) Zenghis Khan, a powerful Mongol chief whose hordes
descended upon Eastern Europe in the thirteenth century.

=114=: 21. =Timour.= Known as Tamerlane, founder of a Mongol empire in
Central Asia; victor over Bajazet at Angora, 1402 A.D.

=116=: 20. =Heraclius.= Emperor of Greece in the seventh century; noted
for his rescue of the true Cross from the Persians, with whom he waged
long wars.

=116=: 26. =That book.= The Koran or bible of the Mahometans. It is a
mixture of Judaism, Nestorianism, and Mahomet's own so-called
"revelations."

=120=: 10. =Monotheism ... mediation.= Belief in one God, but denial of
the Redemption of fallen man by Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

=120=: 26. =Durbar.= A levee held by a dignitary in British India; also
the room of reception.


  THE TURK AND THE SARACEN

=Saracens.= Eastern Mahometans that crossed into Turkey, Northern
Africa, and Spain. The Moors are a type.

=122=: 14. =Sogdiana.= Northeast of the river Oxus; included in modern
Bokhara.

=123=: 6. =White Huns.= Ancient people living near the Oxus; called
_white_ from their greater degree of civilization.

=125=: 23. =Damascus.= In Asiatic Turkey; thought to be the oldest city
in the world.

=126=: 1. =Harun al Raschid.= Caliph of Bagdad; contemporaneous with
Charlemagne in the eighth century.

=127=: 28. =Ended its career.= The power of the European Turks,
virtually broken at Lepanto, 1571, has continued to decline, so that
were it not for the jealousy of the Powers, Turkey would long since have
been dismembered.

=129=: 24. =Khorasan.= North central province of Persia.

=133=: 25. (_a_) =Seljuk.= (_b_) =Othman.= (_a_) Grandfather of Togrul
Beg, who founded a powerful dynasty in Central Asia. (_b_) Third
successor of Mahomet; caliph in 644; noted for his extensive conquests
and for having given his name to the Ottomans.

=135=: 20. =Greek Emperor.= Romanus Diogenes, defeated in 1071 A.D.


  THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE OTTOMANS

=144=: 17. (_a_) =Thornton.= (_b_) =Volney.= (_a_) An English writer on
political economy, belonging to the nineteenth century. (_b_) A
distinguished French author. His _Travels in Egypt and Syria_ is a work
of high reputation.

=148=: 12. =Scythians.= In ancient times the inhabitants of all North
and Northeastern Europe and Asia.

=149=: 31. =The Greek schism.= Separation of the Greek Church from Rome.
The schism was begun by the crafty, ambitious Photius in the ninth
century, and consummated by Michael Cerularius in 1054.

=154. Principle of superiority.= A forcible proof that Christianity
must be and is the religion of civilization. See Balmes on the
_Civilization of Europe_.


  WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?

=Introductory Note.= Newman's purpose in these Essays is to set forth by
description and statement the nature, the work, and the peculiarities of
a University; the aims with which it is established, the wants it may
supply, the methods it adopts, its relation to other institutions, and
its general history.

The illustrations of his idea of a University first appeared in the
_Dublin University Gazette_; later, in one volume, _Office and Work of
Universities_. In the present form the author has exchanged the title to
_Historical Sketches_, but has retained the pleasantly conversational
tone of the original, lest, as he says, he might become more exact and
solid at the price of becoming less readable, in the judgment of a day
which considers that "a great book is a great evil."

=159=: 14. =A gentleman.= Dr. Newman is unconsciously painting his own
portrait in this passage.

=161=: 17. =St. Irenaeus.= A Christian martyr of the second century. He
was a Greek by birth, a pupil of St. Polycarp, and an eminent theologian
of his day.

=163=: 19. =Its associations.= Universities are both the cause and the
effect of great men; and these cherish their Alma with unlimited
devotion. Read Gray's _Eton_, Lowell's _Commemoration Ode_, etc., as
illustrations of this point.


  UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS

=164=: 14. (_a_) =Saronic waves.= (_b_) =Piraeus.= (_a_) The Gulf
of AEgina. (_b_) Commercial port of Athens.

=164=: 31. =Obolus.= A Greek coin worth about three cents. Paid by
spirits to Charon for ferriage over the Styx, according to legend.

=165=: 23. =Eleusinian mysteries.= Secret rites of the goddess Ceres,
celebrated at Eleusis.

=166=: 31. =Philippi.= Battle in which Antony defeated the conspirators
that had slain Caesar.

=167=: 9. =Proaeresius.= Student of Athens, a native of Armenia, famous
for his gigantic stature as well as for an astounding memory, displayed
in the field of rhetoric.

=170=: 11. =Gallipoli.= In Turkey, at the entrance to the Dardanelles.
It was the first conquest of the Turks in Europe, 1354 A.D.

=173=: 3. (_a_) =Acropolis.= (_b_) =Areopagus.= (_a_) The citadel of
Athens, ornamented by groups of statuary immortal in beauty. (_b_) The
chief tribunal, held on a hill named for Ares or Mars.

=173=: 5. =Parthenon.= The official temple of Pallas, protectress of
Athens; it is the work of Phidias, under Pericles.

=173=: 7. =Polygnotus.= A Greek painter, contemporaneous with Phidias.
His work is in statuesque style, few colors, form and outline exquisite.

=173=: 13. =Agora.= The commercial and political market place, located
near the Acropolis. It was designed by Cimon.

=173=: 14. =Demosthenes.= The most famous orator of Greece, if not of
all times. He learned philosophy of Plato, oratory of Isocrates. His
_Philippics_ are of world-wide note.

=174=: 6. =Plato.= The Divine, on whose infant lips the bees are said to
have dropped their honey. He was the pupil of Socrates and the master of
Aristotle; he founded the Academy, or the Platonic School of Philosophy,
and wrote the _Republic_. Plato was a man of vast intellect, high
ideals, and exceptionally pure life.

=175=: 17. =Aristotle.= Called the Stagyrite from Stagerius, his
birthplace. He was preceptor to Alexander the Great and founder of the
Peripatetic School, _i.e._ of scholasticism. Aristotle undoubtedly
possessed the most comprehensive, keen, and logical intellect of
antiquity, and his influence on the philosophical thought of all
succeeding ages is incalculable. His work in the field of physical
science was also profound and extensive.

=176=: 26. =The fourth century.= The Golden Age of Athenian art,
letters, civil and military prestige; it was the age that crowned Athens
Queen of Mind.

=177=: 12. =Epicurus.= Founder of a school of materialism whose maxim
was, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." The Epicurean
said, "indulge the passions," the Stoic, "crush them," the
Peripatetic,--like the Christian of later times,--"control them."
Imperial Athens, no less than other powers, fell when her sons ceased to
follow the counsel of her wisest philosophers.--"Play the immortal."


  SUPPLY AND DEMAND: THE SCHOOLMEN

=183=: 21. =Paris=, etc. The great Universities reached the zenith of
excellence in the thirteenth century, the age of Pope Innocent III, St.
Thomas, and Dante.

=185=: 10. =Bec.= Famous monastery founded by a poor Norman knight,
Herluin. Bec drew the great Lanfranc and others to its school. Many are
accustomed to regard the Renaissance as the fountain whence have issued
all streams of art, literature, and science. It is only necessary to
turn to any of the teeming university or monastic centers of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries to dispel this so common illusion.


  THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF
  UNIVERSITIES: ABELARD

=186=: 15. =Abelard.= Born in Brittany, 1079. He was a contentious,
arrogant, but brilliant and fascinating rationalist. He triumphed over
William of Champeaux, but was defeated in a theological contest by St.
Bernard.

=187=: 29. =Heresy of= (_a_) =Tertullian=, (_b_) =Sabellius=. (_a_)
Modified Montanism; belief in rigid asceticism, the Montanists being,
according to their doctrine, "Pneumatics," the Catholics, "Psychics,"
_i.e._ men of heaven, men of earth. (_b_) A heresy which attempted to
_explain_ the Trinity, and which denied the Personality of Jesus Christ.

=188=:28. =Scholastic philosophy.= A constructive system founded by
Aristotle, Christianized by Boethius, amplified by St. Anselm, Albert
the Great, and others, perfected as a school, in its being harmonized
with theology, by St. Thomas of Aquin. Love of subtilizing and of
display, and barbarity of terminology, caused its decline after the
thirteenth century. Political and religious strife also accelerated
decadence, until the Council of Trent restored philosophy to its true
position as queen of human sciences and handmaid of Religion. The chief
feature of Christian scholastic philosophy is the harmonizing of natural
and supernatural truth, _i.e._ the unifying of philosophy and theology,
or the perfect conciliation of reason with faith--_distinction_ without
_opposition_.

=192=: 10. =The Seven Arts.= The Trivium and Quadrivium: Grammar, Logic,
Rhetoric; Music, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Geometry,--these seven
comprising the Liberal Arts.

=193=: 19. =John of Salisbury.= Noted English scholar of the twelfth
century. In disfavor with Henry II, because of his defense of St. Thomas
a Becket.

=195=: 17. St. James iii. 17.

=195=: 23. St. James iii. 6.

=196=: 21. =Samson and Solomon.= Type of bodily and of spiritual
strength--strength forfeited by folly. One of Newman's striking
comparisons.

=199=: 18. =Heu, vitam....= Alas, I have wasted my life by doing nothing
thoroughly.


  POETRY ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE

=Introductory Note.= This instructive Essay on poetry forms one of the
series titled _Critical and Historical Essays_. Cardinal Newman's own
gifts and tastes for music and poetry render his appreciation of these
arts keen, delicate, and true.

=200= to =203=. =Nature and office of poetry.= A profound and beautiful
definition of poetry and of the poetical mind.

=203=: 1. (_a_) =Iliad.= (_c_) =Choephorae.= (_a_) Epic of the _Fall of
Troy_ by Homer. (_b_) A tragedy by AEschylus, so named from the chorus
that bear offerings to the tomb of Agamemnon.

=203=: 26. (_a_) =Empedocles.= (_b_) =Oppian.= (_a_) A Sicilian;
haughty, passionate; proclaimed himself a god; plunged into the crater
of Mt. Etna. (_b_) A Greek poet of Cilicia; lived in the second century.

=208=: 15. =The Divine vengeance.= Does not the same criticism apply to
Milton's Satan, a majestic spirit, punished beyond his due, and
therefore worthy our admiration and pity? Compare Dante and Milton in
their conception of Lucifer.

=210=: 17. =Eloquence mistaken for poetry.= A finely distinguished
truth, which explains why much rhetoric, even declamation, passes in our
day for poetry.

=215=: 16. =Conditions of the poetical mind.= Mark the line drawn
between the sources of true poetry and the actual practices of the poet.
Compare with the theory of Wordsworth, to find likenesses on this point.


  THE INFINITUDE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

=Introductory Note.= This and other typical addresses are comprised in
_Discourses to Mixed Congregations_. The unerring taste of Newman
employs the grave, dignified style suited to the subject-matter, which,
however, never loses the simplicity and charm we expect in him.

=218=: 28. =The elements.= Earth, air, fire, and water were believed
primal elements by the ancients.

=220=: 27. =This season.= Lent, which commemorates the Sacred Passion of
Christ.

=221=: 21. =He seems to say=: to the end. An illustration of Newman's
sweet, impassioned eloquence. His sentences roll on like music of
indefinable tenderness and beauty. What wonder if men "who came to scoff
remained to pray," when the tones of that voice Matthew Arnold could not
describe--for its singular sweetness--fell upon their listening souls?


  CHRIST UPON THE WATERS

=Introductory Note.= This discourse was written from notes of a sermon
preached at Birmingham, on occasion of the installation of Dr.
Ullathorne as first bishop of the see. Again it says to us, "I believe,
therefore I have spoken."

=222=: 20. "=Day to day.=" See Psalm xviii. 2.

=222=: 25. =Impossibilities.= Extrinsic impossibilities, that is, those
things whose elements are not metaphysically opposed, one to another.

=223=: 1. =He came.= See St. Matthew xiv. 24, 27.

=223=: 24. =That mystical ark.= The Church, called the ark because
prefigured by the Ark of Noe,--the House of Salvation.

=224=: 14. =Christ in His ark.= "Behold I am with you all days, even to
the consummation of the world." St. Matthew xxviii. 20.

=224=: 17. =A savage tribe.= The Anglo-Saxons of Teutonic stock and
sprung from the Aryan branch of the human family.

=226= to =228=. =It was a proud race ... hierarchical form.= A passage
of inimitable grace and simplicity. Note the sentence-structure, the
repetition of "it" in the last sentence, and other features of the
consummate master.

=227=: 4. =Too fair to be heathen.= On seeing some Angles in Rome, Pope
Gregory exclaimed, "They should rather be called Angels than Angles."

=228=: 5. =A brotherhood ... below.= Where in the range of English prose
is to be found form wedded to sense in a more surpassingly beautiful
way? Neither music, nor painting, nor poetry, can have anything more
exquisite to yield, it would seem.

Other numbers of this volume equally admirable are _The Second Spring_,
_The Tree beside the Waters_, and _Intellect the Instrument of Religious
Training_.


  THE SECOND SPRING

=Introductory Note.= This discourse was given in St. Mary's, Oscott, on
the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy to England. It furnishes an
excellent specimen of the simplicity and grace of Newman's style. The
climax is reached in the glory of the last pages.

=229=: 17. =Alternate Seraphim.= The angelic choirs whom St. John in
vision heard crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." Apocalypse
iv. 8.

=231=: 24. =How beautiful....= A strong presentation of the weakness of
human nature left to itself. "Without me you can do nothing," says
Christ. John xv. 5.

=233=: 12. =Roman conqueror.= Scipio Africanus, victor of the
Carthaginians in the Third Punic War.

=235=: 22. =The English Church.= The Catholic Church in England was
virtually destroyed by Henry VIII, restored by Mary I, and officially
re-destroyed by Elizabeth, who attempted, through Matthew Parker, to
create new orders. The Second Spring is the resuscitation of the Church
in England, 1850.

=237=: 11. =Cumber the ground.= "Why doth it (the barren fig tree)
cumber the ground?" Newman's writings, like St. Augustine's, are
saturated with Scripture.

=240=: 23. (_a_) =St. Augustine.= (_b_) =St. Thomas.= (_a_) Called St.
Austin, sent by Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-Saxons, 597 A.D.
(_b_) Martyred at Canterbury by the nobles of Henry II because of his
fearless defense of the rights of the Church. The Pilgrims in Chaucer's
_Canterbury Tales_ are on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas a
Becket.

=241=: 10. =Arian Goths and Lombards.= Barbarians that successively
conquered and occupied Italy; from the fifth to the eighth century their
power was felt. They embraced the heresy of Arius instead of true
Christianity.

=242=: 29. =That building.= Cathedral of Westminster, built in Gothic
style.

=243=: 11. =Prince of the Church.= Cardinal Archbishop Wiseman, clad in
purple as bishop; in red, as cardinal. In his person the hierarchy was
restored to England.

=243=: 16. =St. Benedict.= Founder of monasticism in the West. Europe
owes much of its progress in early centuries to the zeal and
intelligence of the Benedictine monks,--builders of churches and
schools, makers of laws, tillers of lands.

=244=: 15. =The shepherds.= They who heard from angels the tidings of
Christ's birth in Bethlehem.

=244=: 22. =Arise, Jerusalem....= Quotations from _Isaias_ and the
_Canticle of Canticles_.

=245=: 6. =Thy visitation.= Allusion to Mary's going over the hill
country to visit her cousin Elisabeth. At the presence of Mary, the
unborn child of Elisabeth, John the Baptist, leaped for joy and was
sanctified by the grace of Christ.

=247=: 1. =Regular and secular priests.= The first are those bound by
vows to observe a religious rule, as the Dominicans; the second are
those under obedience to their bishop, and bound only by the vow of
celibacy.

=247=: 18. =Thy first Martyr.= St. Stephen, whose death won the
conversion of St. Paul. Note the beauty of the apostrophe.

=248=: 20. =Orphans.= "I will not leave you orphans." John xiv. 18.

=249=: 15. =You ... victim.= Reference to the august Sacrifice of the
Mass.

=249=: 31. =A great Pontiff.= Gregory XIII, 1572-1585, established
colleges for the spread of the Faith; his work was continued by Gregory
XV in the Propaganda; but it was left for Pope Urban VIII to create the
great missionary colleges for the six nations.

=250=: 13. =St. Francis.= Xavier, the illustrious Jesuit, who converted
millions to Christ in India and Japan; he died on his way to China, in
the latter part of the sixteenth century.

=251=: 1. =St. Philip.= 1515-1595. An Italian saint, contemporaneous
with St. Ignatius of Loyola, who established the Society of Jesus. St.
Philip Neri founded the Oratorians, a body devoted to preaching and to
education.

=The Second Spring.= This sermon is very characteristic of Newman in its
appeal to the _whole man_ listening; he not only rivets the
intelligence, but stirs the will and moves the heart by the intensity,
the Vigor, and the tenderness that breathe in every word.


  ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT

=Introductory Note.= This discourse on St. Paul, delivered in Dublin,
1857, forms one of the _Sermons on Various Occasions_. Paul--that
godlike man who longed to be anathema from Christ if thereby he could
serve the brethren--was Newman's saint by predilection; and allusions to
his character and mission are frequent in the Cardinal's writings.

As these selections for study began with Saul, they may well finish with
a sketch of the greater Saul--the Apostle of the Gentiles.

=251=: 17. =Theological virtues.= Faith, hope, and charity; so-called
because God is their direct object and motive.

=252=: 19. =Heavenly Bread.= The Holy Eucharist. "I am the living bread
which came down from heaven." St. John vi. 51. "And the bread that I
will give is my flesh for the life of the world." St. John vi. 52.

=254=: 9. =Conversion of St. Paul.= Commemorated January 25.

=256=: 12. =Heathen poet.= Terence. There is much philanthropy in these
latter times,--even to altruism,--but less of charity, which loves the
neighbor for God's sake.

=257=: 5. =St. Philip Neri.= Lived in the sixteenth century. Founder of
the Oratorians, a congregation devoted to preaching and works of
charity. Newman introduced the Oratorians into England.

=259=: 28. =Lycaonians.= People of south central part of Asia Minor;
evangelized by St. Paul.

=262=: 26. =Stephen.= The first Christian martyr; stoned to death by the
Jews, outside the walls of Jerusalem.

=263=: 6. (_a_) =Josias.= (_b_) =Mathathias.= (_c_) =Machabeus.= (_a_)
King of Juda, seventh century B.C. A great warrior and defender of the
Jewish religion. (_b_) "Gift of God." Lived in the second century B.C.
and fought bravely in defense of Juda during the bloody persecutions of
Antiochus. He appointed Judas Machabeus, the most famous of his five
sons, to succeed him in the struggle, (_c_) "The Hammer." Judas gained
glorious victories over the Idumeans, Ammonites, and other heathen
tribes, and the Bible immortalizes his character as that of one of the
greatest of the sons of Juda. "He made Jacob glad with his works and his
memory is blessed forever."

The books of the Machabees are the history of the final struggles of the
Jews against their Syrian and Persian foes.

=265=: 2. =Ecumenical Doctor.= A teacher of the universal Church.

=265=: 31. =And now my time is out.= This conclusion exhibits once more
the felicity of diction, the delicate rhythm of structure, the simple
grace, the direct force--above all, the unconsciousness, almost disdain
of producing literary effect, that everywhere characterize Newman's
writings, whatever be the subject.

=267=: 4. =Reverend Prelate.= Paul Cardinal Cullen, primate of Ireland
in 1850.




Transcriber's Note. There were a few minor printers' errors which have
been amended. For example, ascendency is now ascendancy, rebrobate is
now reprobate and offically is now officially.

In the original book the line numbers ran from 1 to 30 on each page. In
the Notes, the first figure represents the page number and the second
number represents the line number. For example, in the third note:

    =13=: 7. =Manna.= Miraculous food supplied to the Jews,
    wandering in the desert of Sin, after their exodus from Egypt.
    The taste of manna was that of flour mixed with honey.

the 13 refers to the page number and the 7 refers to the line number on
that page.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Selections from the Prose Writings of
John Henry Cardinal Newman, by John Henry Newman

*** 