“Hitherto I had never had courage enough to take a forbidden book in my hands. The excommunication impending over me by the wordsipso facto, was indeed too terrific an object for my inexperienced mind. Delighted with my newly acquired taste for poetry and eloquence, I had never brooded over any religious doubts—or rather, sincerely adhering to the Roman Catholic law, which makes the examination of such doubts as great a crime as the denial of the article of belief they affect, I had always shrunk with terror from every heterodox suggestion. But my now intimate friend and guide had made canon law his profession.Ecclesiastical history, in which he was deeply versed, had, without weakening his Catholic principles, made him a pupil of that school of canonists who, both in Germany and France, having exposed the forgeries, by means of which papal power had made itself paramount to every human authority, were but too visibly disposed to a separation from Rome. My friend denied the existence of any power in the Church to inflict excommunication, without a declaratory sentence in consequence of the trial of the offender. Upon the strength of this doctrine, he made me read the ‘Discourses on Ecclesiastical History,’ by the Abbé Fleury—a work teeming with invective against monks and friars, doubts on modern miracles, and strictures on the virtues of modern saints. Eve’s heart, I confess, when
——her rash hand in evil hourForth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate,
——her rash hand in evil hourForth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate,
——her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate,
could not have beaten more convulsively than mine, as I opened the forbidden book. Vague fears and doubts haunted my conscience for many days. But my friend, besides being a sound Catholic, was a devout man. He had lately taken priest’s orders, and was now not only my literary but my spiritual director. His abilities and his affection to me had obtained a most perfect command over my mind, and it was not long before I could matchhim in mental boldness, on points unconnected with articles of faith.
“This was, indeed, the happiest period of my life. The greatest part of my time, with the exception of that required for my daily attendance at the dull lectures of the divinity professors, was devoted to the French critics, André, Le Bossu, Batteux, Rollin, La Harpe, and many others of less note. The habit of analyzing language and ideas, which I acquired in the perusal of such works, soon led me to some of the French metaphysicians, especially Condillac.
“It was the favourite amusement of myself and those constant associates of my youth that formed the knot of friends, of whom the often mentionedColegial Mayorwas the centre and guide; to examine all our feelings, in order to resolve them into some general law, and trace them to their simple elements. This habit of analysis and generalization extended itself to the customs and habits of the country, and the daily incidents of life, till in the course of time it produced in me the deceitful, though not uncommon notion, that all knowledge is the result of developed principles, and gave me a distaste for every book that was not cast into a regular theory.
“While I was thus amused and deceived by the activity of my mind, without endeavouring to give it the weight and steadiness which depends upon the knowledge of facts; Catholicism, with its tenthousand rules and practices, was mechanically keeping up the ill-contrived structure of devotion, which it had raised more in my fancy than my heart. It had now to contend, however, with an enemy whom nothing but fixed hope can keep within bounds—but religion had left me no hope. Instead of engaging love on her side, she had forced him into an inseparable league with immorality. I will not describe the misery that embittered my youth, and destroyed the peace of my maturer years—the struggles, perhaps the crimes, certainly the remorse, that were in me the consequence of the barbarous laws of my country. They are too intimately blended withself, too intricately entwined with the feelings of others, to be left exposed for ever to the cold indifference of the multitude. Whatever on this point is connected with the general state of Spain, has already been touched upon. Mine, indeed, is the lot of thousands. Often did I recoil at the approach of the moment when I was to bind myself for ever to the clerical profession, and as often my heart failed me at the sight of a mother in tears! It was no worldly interest—it was the eternal welfare of my soul, which she believed to depend on my following the call of Heaven, that made the best of mothers a snare to her dearest child. The persuasions of my confessor, and, above all, the happiness I experienced in restoring cheerfulness to my family, deluded me into the hope of preserving the same feeling through life. A very short time, however, was sufficient to open my eyes. The inexorable law that bound me, was the bitterest foe to my virtue. Yet devotion had not lost her power over my fancy, and I broke loose, more than once, from her thraldom, and was as often reclaimed, before the awful period which was to raise me to the priesthood.
“If mental excitement, attended with the most thrilling and sublime sensations, the effect of deception, could be indulged without injury to our noblest faculties—if life could be made a long dream without the painful startings produced by the din and collision of the world—if the opium of delusion could be largely administered without a complete enervation of our rational energies—the lot of a man of feeling, brought up in the undisturbed belief of the Catholic doctrines, and raised to be a dispenser of its mysteries; would be enviable above all others. No abstract belief, if I am to trust my experience, can either soothe our fears or feed our hopes, independently of the imagination; and I am strongly inclined to assert, that no genuine persuasion exists upon unearthly subjects, without the co-operation of the imaginative faculty. Hence the powerful effects of the splendid and striking system of worship adopted by the Roman church. A foreigner may be inclined to laugh at the strange ceremonies performed in a Spanish cathedral, because these ceremonies are a conventional languageto which he attaches no ideas. But he that from the cradle has been accustomed to kiss the hand of the priest, and receive his blessing—that has associated the name and attributes of the Deity with the consecrated bread—that has observed the awe with which it is handled—how none but annointed hands dare touch it—what clouds of incense, what brilliancy of gems surround it when exposed to the view—with what heartfelt anxiety the glare of lights, the sound of music, and the uninterrupted adoration of the priests in waiting, are made to evince the overpowering feeling of a God dwelling among men—such a man alone can conceive the state of a warm-hearted youth, who, for the first time approaches the altar, not as a mere attendant, but as the sole worker of the greatest of miracles.
“No language can do justice to my own feelings at the ceremony of ordination, the performance of the first mass, and during the interval which elapsed between this fever of enthusiasm and the cold scepticism that soon followed it. For some months previous to the awful ceremony I voluntarily secluded myself from the world, making religious reading and meditation the sole employment of my time. TheExercises of Saint Ignatius, which immediately preceded the day of ordination, filled my heart with what appeared to me a settled distaste for every wordly pleasure. When the consecrating rights had been performed—when myhands had been annointed—the sacred vesture, at first folded on my shoulders, let drop around me by the hands of the bishop—the sublime hymn to the all-creating Spirit uttered in solemn strains, and the power of restoring sinners to innocence, conferred upon me—when, at length, raised to the dignity of a ‘fellow-worker with God,’ the bishop addressed me, in the name of the Saviour: ‘Henceforth I call you not servant ... but I have called you friend;’ I truly felt as if, freed from the material part of my being, I belonged to a higher rank of existence. I had still a heart, it is true—a heart ready to burst at the sight of my parents, on their knees, while impressing the first kiss on my newly-consecrated hands; but it was dead to the charms of beauty. Among the friendly crowd that surrounded me for the same purpose, were those lips which a few months before I would have died to press; yet I could but just mark their superior softness. In vain did I exert myself to check exuberance of feelings at my first mass. My tears bedewed thecorporalson which, with the eyes of faith, I beheld the disguised lover of mankind whom I had drawn from heaven to my hands. These are dreams, indeed,—the illusions of an over-heated fancy; but dreams they are which some of the noblest minds have dreamt through life without waking—dreams which, while passing vividly before the mental eye, must entirely wrap up the soul of every one who is neithermorenorlessthan a man.
“To exercise the privileges of my office for the benefit of my fellow-creatures, was now my exclusive aim and purpose. I daily celebrated mass, with due preparation, preached often, and rejected none that applied to me for confession. The best ascetic writers of the Church of Rome were constantly in my hands. I made a study of the Fathers; but, though I had the Scriptures among my books, it was, according to custom, more for reference than perusal. These feelings, this state of mental abstraction, is by no means uncommon, for a time, among young priests whose hearts have not been withered by a course of premature profligacy. It would be absurd to expect it in such as embrace the clerical state as a trade, or are led to the church by ambition, and least of all among the few that would never bind themselves with the laws of celibacy, had they not previously freed their minds from all religious fears. Yet, among my numerous acquaintance in the Spanish clergy, I have never met with any one, possessed of bold talents, who has not, sooner or later, changed from the most sincere piety to a state of unbelief.[21]Were every individual who has undergone this internal transformation to describe the steps by which it was accomplished, I doubt not but the general outline would prove alike in all. I shall, however, conclude my narrative by faithfully relating the origin and progress of thetotal change that took place in my mind within little more than a year after taking priest’s orders.
“The ideas of consistency and perfection are strongly attached by every sincere Catholic to his system of faith. The church of Rome has played for many centuries a desperate though, till lately, a successful game. Having once proclaimed the necessity of an abstract creed for salvation, and made herself the infallible framer and expounder of that creed, she leaves her votaries no alternative but that of receiving or rejecting the whole of her doctrines. Luckily for her interests, men seldom go beyond a certain link in the chain of thought, or allow themselves to look into the sources of traditionary doctrines. Her theological system on the other hand, having so shaped its gradual growth as to fill up deficiencies as they were perceived, affords an ample range to every mind that, without venturing to examine the foundations, shall be contented with the symmetry, of the structure. I have often heard the question, how could such men as Bossuet and Fenelon adhere to the church of Rome and reject the Protestant faith? The answer appears to me obvious. Because, according to their fixed principles on this matter, they must have been either Catholics or Infidels. Laying it down as an axiom, that Christianity was chiefly intended to reveal a system of doctrines necessary for salvation, they naturally and consistently inferred the existence of an authorizedjudge upon questions of faith, otherwise the inevitable doubts arising from private judgment would defeat the object of revelation. Thus it is that Bossuet thought he had triumphantly confuted the Protestants by merely shewing that they could not agree in their Articles. Like Bossuet, most Catholic divines can see no medium between denying the infallible authority of the Church and rejecting revelation.
“No proposition in Euclid could convey stronger conviction to my mind than that which I found in this dilemma. Let me but prove, said I to myself, that there exists a single flaw in the system, and it will all crumble into dust. Yet, as in a Catholic, ‘once to doubt is once to be resolved,’ I might have eternally closed my eyes, like many others, against the impression of the most glaring falsehoods; for how could I retrieve the rash step of holding my judgment in suspense while I examined? The most hideous crimes fall within the jurisdiction of a confessor; but the mortal taint of heresy cannot be removed except by the Pope’s delegated authority, which, in Spain, he has deposited in the hands of the Inquisition. Should I deliberately indulge my doubts for a moment, what a mountain of crime and misery I should bring upon my head! My office would, probably, lay me under the necessity of celebrating mass the next day, which, to do with a consciousness of unabsolved sin, is sacrilege; while this particular offence would besidesinvolve me in the ecclesiastical sentence ofsuspensionandinterdict. The recurring necessity of officiating at the altar, before I could remove these inabilities, would increase them every day tenfold, and give my life a foretaste of the torturing fire to which I should be doomed by the sentence of my church. These fears are not peculiar to timid or weak characters: they are the legitimate consequences of a consistent and complicated system, and cannot be dispelled but by a decided rejection of the whole.
The involuntary train, however, both of feeling and thought, which was to make me break out into complete rebellion, had long been sapping the foundations of my faith, without my being aware that the whole structure nodded to its ruin. A dull sense of existence, a heaviness that palled my taste for life and its concerns, had succeeded my first ardour of devotion. Conscientiously faithful to my engagements, and secluded from every object that might ruffle the calm of my heart, I looked for happiness in the performance of my duty. But happiness was fled from me; and, though totally exempt from remorse, I could not bear the death-like silence of my soul. An unmeaning and extremely burdensome practice laid by the Church of Rome upon her clergy, contributed not a little to increase the irksomeness of my circumstances. A Catholic clergyman, who employs his whole day in the discharge of his duty to others,must yet repeat to himself the service of the day in an audible voice—a performance which neither constant practice, nor the most rapid utterance can bring within the compass of less than an hour and a half in the four-and-twenty. This exhausting exercise is enjoined under pain of mortal sin, and the restitution of that day’s income on which any portion of the office is omitted.
“Was mine a life of usefulness?—Did not the world, with all its struggles, its miseries, and its vices, hold out nobler and more exalted ends than this tame and deadening system of perfection? How strong must be the probability of future reward, to balance the actual certainty of such prolonged misery? Suppose, however, the reality and magnitude of the recompence—am I not daily, and hourly, in danger of eternal perdition? My heart sinks at the view of the interminable list of offences; every one of which may finally plunge me into the everlasting flames. Everlasting! and why so? Can there be revenge or cruelty in the Almighty? Such were the harassing thoughts with which I wrestled day and night. Prostrate upon my knees I daily prayed for deliverance; but my prayers were not heard. I tried to strengthen my faith by reading Bergier, and some of the French Apologists. But what can they avail a doubting Catholic? His system of faith being indivisible, the evidences of Christianity lead him to the most glaring absurdities. To argue with a doubtingCatholic is to encourage and hasten his desertion. Chateaubriand has perfectly understood the nature of his task, and by engaging the feelings and imagination in defence of his creed, has given it the fairest chance against the dry and tasteless philosophy of his countrymen. His book[22]propped up my faith for a while.
“Almost on the eve of my mental crisis, I had to preach a sermon upon an extraordinary occasion; when, according to a fashion derived from France, a long and elaborate discourse was expected. I made infidelity my subject, with a most sincere desire of convincing myself while I laboured to persuade others. What effect my arguments may have had upon the audience I know not; they were certainly lost upon the orator. Whatever, in this state, could break the habit of awe which I was so tenaciously supporting—whatever could urge me into uttering a doubt on one of the Articles of the Roman Creed, was sure to make my faith vanish like a soap-bubble in the air. I had been too earnest in my devotion, and my Church too pressing and demanding. Like a cold, artful, interested mistress, that Church either exhausts the ardour of her best lovers, or harasses them to destruction. As to myself, a moment’s dalliance with her great rival, Freedom, converted my former love into perfect abhorrence.
One morning, as I was wrapt up in my usualthoughts, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, a gentleman, who had lately been named by the government to an important place in our provincial judicature, joined me in the course of my ramble. We had been acquainted but a short time, and he, though forced into caution by an early danger from the Inquisition, was still friendly and communicative. His talents of forensic eloquence, and the sprightliness and elegance of his conversation, had induced a conviction on my mind, that he belonged to the philosophical party of the university where he had been educated. Urged by an irresistible impulse, I ventured with him upon neutral ground—monks, ecclesiastical encroachments, extravagant devotion—till the stream of thought I had thus allowed to glide over the feeble mound of my fears, swelling every moment, broke forth as a torrent from its long and violent confinement. I was listened to with encouraging kindness, and there was not a doubt in my heart which I did not disclose. Doubts they had, indeed, appeared to me till that moment; but utterance transformed them, at once, into demonstrations. It would be impossible to describe the fear and trepidation that seized me the moment I parted from my good-natured confidant. The prisons of the Inquisition seemed ready to close their studded gates upon me; and the very hell I had just denied, appeared yawning before my eyes. Yet, a few days elapsed, and no evil had overtaken me. I performed mass with a heart inopen rebellion to the Church that enjoined it: but I had now settled with myself to offer it up to my Creator, as I imagine that the enlightened Greeks and Romans must have done their sacrifices. I was like them, forced to express my thankfulness in an absurd language.
“This first taste of mental liberty was more delicious than any feeling I ever experienced; but it was succeeded by a burning thirst for every thing that, by destroying my old mental habits, could strengthen and confirm my unbelief. I gave an exorbitant price for any French irreligious books, which the love of gain induced some Spanish booksellers to import at their peril. The intuitive knowledge of one another, which persecuted principles impart to such as cherish them in common, made me soon acquainted with several members of my own profession, deeply versed in the philosophical school of France. They possessed, and made no difficulty to lend me, all the Antichristian works, which teemed from the French press. Where there is no liberty, there can be no discrimination. The ravenous appetite raised by forced abstinence makes the mind gorge itself with all sorts of food. I suspect I have thus imbibed some false, and many crude notions from my French masters. But my circumstances preclude the calm and dispassionate examination which the subject deserves. Exasperated by the daily necessity of external submission to doctrines and persons I detest and despise, mysoul overflows with bitterness. Though I acknowledge the advantages of moderation, none being used towards me, I practically, and in spite of my better judgment, learn to be a fanatic on my own side.
“Pretending studious retirement, I have fitted up a small room, to which none but my confidential friends find admittance. There lie myprohibited books, in perfect concealment, in a well-contrived nook under a staircase. TheBreviaryalone, in its black-binding, clasps, and gilt leaves, is kept upon the table, to check the suspicions of any chance intruder.”