PASTORAL LETTER OF THE SECOND PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. The Archbishops and Bishops of the United States, in Plenary Council Assembled, to the Clergy and Laity of their charge. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 8vo pamphlet. For sale by L. Kehoe, New York.
This is the first official utterance of the Archbishops and Bishops of the United States in Plenary Council assembled, to the clergy and laity of their charge. As such it will be listened to with an attention due to the importance of the subjects on which it speaks, and to the character and motives of the august assembly from which it proceeds. It is the warning voice of the shepherds of the people, raised after long and matured deliberation to remind the flock of its duties, pointing out the dangers which threaten, the quarters from which they spring, and the means by which they are to be avoided. It is the herald of that full legislation which in a few months will be promulgated for the Catholics of the United States. The outlines of that{426}legislation are traced with rapid pen in this document; the details, which have been already filled in, will, after having received the approval of Rome, be presented to the public stamped with the seal of the Fisherman. The great object of this Pastoral Address is to impress upon the minds and hearts of Catholics those cardinal principles and duties of cheerful obedience to the divinely constituted authority of the "bishops placed to rule the Church of God;" in order that when the decrees of the Council are published, all—bishops, priests, and the laity—may co-operate in heart and hand in giving them practical effect.Allare members of the same mystical body of Christ, the Church; and thereforeallshould in their respective positions and functions unite in harmonious action for the well-being of the whole, according to the order established by the divine head and founder. "For there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh in all; and hath set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him" (Cor. xii. 1).
Such being the object of the Pastoral Letter, it very naturally commences (Sec. I.) with the "Authority of Plenary Councils;" and (Sec. II.) with "Ecclesiastical Authority" in its general relations, and with the correlative obedience thereto binding on the Christian conscience. As human policy and human action have, even in secular matters, their religious as well as their civil aspects, the principles are laid down which mark out the boundary line between the civil and ecclesiastical powers (Sec III.); a boundary line which notwithstanding the experience and lessons of past centuries, is often obliterated or lost sight of. After having, in brief and emphatic language, called attention to these general truths relating to authority and consequent obedience founded on the natural and divine laws, the episcopal legislators devote several sections to the more prominent questions and wants which affect the Catholic Church in the United States. Sec. IV. calls attention to the afflicted condition of the Pope and to the obligation incumbent on his spiritual subjects, for whom he daily prays and works, of relieving him. Sec. V. to the "Sacrament of Matrimony," that great and sacred link by which society is in its nearest and dearest associations held together, but which is so much exposed to be severed, if not wholly destroyed, in our days. Sec VI. to the press, that giant engine for good or for evil, wielded, alas! with such fatal efficacy against the faith and morals of the "little ones and the weak ones" of the fold, and yet which, properly directed might be made the instrument most powerful for truth and for good. Sec. VII. deals with the "education" of youth, on which indeed the future of society and religion depends. Sec. VIII. with the subject of '"Catholic Protectories and Industrial Schools." Sec IX. with the necessity of cultivating "vocations" in the ministry. Secs. X. and XI. are addressed, respectively, to the "Laity" and the "Clergy." Sec XII. points to the condition of the emancipated slaves, and to the means to be used by the Church in ameliorating it. Sec XIII. glances at those most favored spots in the bosom of the Church, where the sun shines most brightly, and the fairest lilies spring to be woven as a garland in her triumphant crown—to "Religious Communities." The "conclusion" epitomizes the whole by saying:
"We have taken advantage of the opportunity of the assembling of so large a number of bishops from every part of our vast country, to enact such decrees as will tend to promote uniformity of discipline and practice among us, and to do away with such imperfect observance of the rites and approved ceremonies of the church as may have been made necessary by the circumstances of past times, but which no length of prescription can ever consecrate, and thus to give the services of our religion that beauty and dignity which belong to them, and for which we should all be so zealous."For the furtherance of these important objects, we have caused to be drawn up a clear and compendious series of statements upon the most essential points of faith and morals, with which we have embodied the decrees of the seven Provincial Councils of Baltimore, and of the first Plenary Council, together with the decrees enacted by us in the present Council, which, when they have been examined and approved of by the Holy See, will form a compendium of ecclesiastical law for the guidance of our clergy in the exercise of their holy ministry."The result of our labors, when thus returned to us, will be promulgated more fully in our Provincial Councils and Diocesan Synods and we will then take advantage of the opportunity to bring more fully under the notice of the clergy, and the people committed to our pastoral charge, the details of what we have done, and the exact nature of the means{427}by which we hope to give increased efficiency to the whole practical system of the church in this country."We have also recommended to the Holy See the erection of several additional episcopal sees and vicariates apostolic, which are made necessary by our rapidly increasing Catholic population and the great territorial extent of many of our present dioceses."
It does not become us to review, but only two direct attention to this most remarkable and important document. Abstracting from the authority of those from whom it emanates, and viewed merely as the pronouncement of so many men distinguished for learning, experience, and piety, it will be read with respectful consideration by the educated portion of our community, whether Catholic or Protestant. On the former, however, it has a higher and holier claim—as the legislative exponent of those appointed to keep garrison on the watch-towers of Israel, to give timely warning of danger, from whatever part of the horizon it approaches, to lead and guide them in their journey through this earthly desert to the promised land of heaven. In some of the plenary councils (for instance, of Africa about the time of St. Cyprian or of St. Augustine, or of Asia before that of St. John Chrysostom) a greater number of bishops were assembled. In plenary councils, too, weightier matters may have come under consideration; as, for example, doctrinal questions at the Council of Orange, not, however, to be finally settled without the after-sanction all the Infallible Church. But never, we may venture to say, has any provincial council in other parts of the church been called to legislate for so vast a territory, more on questions of discipline and practice affecting the present and future prospects of a population so widespread and so varied in its origin, its habits, and its pursuits. Some of the bishops traveled by sea and land over thousands of miles, and were heard to facetiously say that "as they had come so far it were a little thing to step across and see the Pope at Rome." They were all, as we said, picked men, "chosen among hundreds" of learned and pious priests; actuated solely by the motive of doing the best their collective prudence suggested for their people. Hence their opinions on questions with which they were all practically acquainted in their respective dioceses, merit to be heard by all classes with the deepest respect. Doctrinal matters were not discussed at Baltimore; these are reserved for the supreme authority of general councils and of the Holy See. But practical remedies are suggested for social and moral evils in a quiet, calm, and steady tone, which sounds upon the ears of Catholics like the voice of the Holy Spirit, and wakens in the hearts of the well-minded children of the church an echo such as we may imagine the gentle voice of the divine Master to have awakened in those who listened to his sermon on the mount. The council does not confine itself to the enunciation of general principles, but enters into minute, practical details on each subject. Had we space we would wish to quote much; but we confine ourselves to what it says on the section on the press:
"We cheerfully acknowledge the services the Catholic press has rendered to religion, as also the disinterestedness with which, in most instances, it has been conducted, although yielding to publishers and editors a very insufficient return for their labors. We exhort the Catholic community to extend to these publications a more liberal support, in order that they may be enabled to become more worthy the great cause they advocate."We remind them that the power of the press is one of the most striking features of modern society; and that it is our duty to avail ourselves of this mode of making known the truths of our religion, and removing the misapprehensions which so generally prevail in regard to them."In connection with this matter we earnestly recommend to the faithful of our charge the Catholic Publication Society, lately established in the city of New York by a zealous and devoted clergyman. Besides the issuing of short tracts, with which this society has begun, and which may be so usefully employed to arrest the attention of many whom neither inclination nor leisure will allow to read larger works, this society contemplates the publication of Catholic books, according as circumstances may permit and the interests of religion appear to require. From the judgment and good taste evinced in the composition and selection of such tracts and books as have already been issued by this society, we are encouraged to hope that it will be eminently effective in making known the truths of our holy religion, and dispelling the prejudices which are mainly owing to want of information on the part of so many of our fellow-citizens. For this it is necessary that a generous co-operation be given, both by clergy and laity, to the undertakings which is second to none in importance among the{428}subsidiary aids which the inventions of modern times supply to our ministry for the diffusion of Catholic truth."
CURIOUS QUESTIONS. By Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 272. Newark, N. J.: J. J. O'Connor & Co., 59 and 61 New street. 1866.
This attractive-looking, well-printed volume reflects great credit on the enterprise and taste of the publishers, who, we hope, will be rewarded and encouraged by an extensive sale. We may remark, by the way, that some of our publishers would do well to imitate the Messrs. O'Connor in their style of binding and lettering, which is neat and tasteful but perfectly plain. The flashy style of late adopted in some cases is in most wretched taste, especially when the book treats of grave and serious topics; and it is especially displeasing to all scholars. The only fault in the mechanical execution of the book before us is, that the margin of the page is somewhat too large.
The book itself treats of much more weighty and important topics than the title would suggest. It is an analysis and resume of some of the principal topics treated of in our philosophical text-books. The author has studied attentively and with understanding, and has presented us with an abstract of his studies, expressed in a clear, terse, and methodical style. There are, nevertheless, occasional infelicities of diction, which could easily be corrected, and which are pardonable in a young and unpractised author. The use of the word "conscience" for consciousness appears to us decidedly objectionable, and likely to mislead the English reader not familiar with the Latin word "conscientia," of which it is too verbal a translation. Such an expression as "secundum quid beings" is awkward and quite unnecessary. The same word sometimes recurs too frequently for euphony, and some sentences are carelessly constructed or unfinished. These faults are, however, comparatively slight and infrequent, and do not enter into the texture of the style and diction itself, which is of good and serviceable fabric.
The author follows the school of Plato, St. Augustine, Gerdil, Leibnitz, Gioberti, and the modern ontologists, taking the Abbé Branchereau as his more immediate guide. The general principles and drift of the system of philosophy contained in the prelections of the last-named author we regard as sounds, and we are therefore well pleased to see this system in part reproduced by one who has mastered it, and has also illustrated it from his studies in other authors. There is a certain confusion and incompleteness, however, in the statements and explanations of M. Branchereau upon one or two important points, and the same reappears in the work before us. One of these points relates to the activity of the intellect in its intuition of being. M. Branchereau does not speak distinctly upon the point, but Dr. Brann expresses the opinion that the intellect is active, in contradiction to Gioberti. If by this is meant that the intellect has an active power to originate the intuition of infinite, eternal, necessary being, we apprehend that consequences might be deduced from this statement not in accordance with the Catholic doctrine. Another point relates to the universals, or genera and species. On this point the language both of M. Branchereau and of our author seems not to be sufficiently precise and accurate to guard against the appearance of maintaining the untenable proposition that genera and species are contained in God.
There is one more point of very great importance, where our author has either misapprehended the doctrine of the great writers of whose system he is the expositor, or has intentionally deviated from it, and, as we think, without due consideration. He maintains (p. 255) that material substance is radically spiritual and intelligent. Leibnitz, who is followed by a great number of the ablest philosophers of our day, taught that the ultimate components of matter are simple and indivisible, and so far similar in essence to spiritual substances. Branchereau has very ably sustained this doctrine in his philosophy, and we regard this portion of his treatise as one of the most valuable of his contributions to science. He draws the line, however, in common with all other Catholic writers with whom we are acquainted, sharply and distinctly between material and spiritual substances, as, we think, sound philosophy requires. The theory of our author opens the way to the Darwinian theory of the evolution of all the{429}entities of the universe from identical ultimate elements. We think he would have shown more judgment by abstaining from the expression of an immature speculation of his own on such an extremely difficult and abstruse question. A little less of positive assertion, and a little more diffidence of manner, and deference toward others, throughout the whole volume, would be more graceful in an author just at the outset of his career; especially as he is treating of those profound and momentous questions which task and often baffle the mightiest and most veteran leaders in the intellectual warfare.
Having finished the ungracious part of our critical task, we take pleasure in giving our judgment, that the design of the author in the work before us is one that is praiseworthy, and the manner of its execution such as to make it really valuable to the class of readers he has in view. It is worthy of their attentive perusal, and could not fail to benefit them if they would read and consider it with care. It is an exposition of principles and doctrines in philosophy far deeper, sounder, and more satisfactory to the intellect than is usually found in the English language; and makes accessible to those who are unacquainted with our best Catholic authors a portion of that treasure of thought which is locked up in them out of the reach of the majority of even educated men. We should like to have this book read by our students and literary men generally, and even by our professors of metaphysics in the colleges of the United States. It presents the outlines of a system far superior to that jejune psychologism of the Scottish school which is usually talked, and ought to be welcome to those who are in search of something more solid. It will also be valuable to students of philosophy in our own colleges as a companion to their text-books, as well as to English readers generally who have taste and capacity for relishing on philosophical subjects. We wish it success and a large circulation, and we trust the author will continue his contributions to literature and science.
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE By Nathaniel Holmes. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 601. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
Mr. Holmes attempts, in this finely printed volume from the Riverside Press, to prove that the works of Shakespeare are not Shakespeare's, but Francis Bacon's. His argument is: Shakespeare did not write them because he could not; Francis Bacon, my lord Verulam, did write them because he could. To which it may be replied: Shakespeare could write them, because he did; Bacon did not, because he could not. That Bacon could not, is evident from the character of the man and what we know of his acknowledged writings; that Shakespeare did is the uniform tradition from their first appearance down to the present, and must be presumed until the contrary appears.
Mr. Holmes has proved, what all competent judges have always held, that the author of the works received as Shakespeare's must have had more learning and greater scientific and linguistic attainments than his biographers supposed Shakespeare to have had, but has not proved that he must have had more than Shakespeare might have had. Few persons capable of appreciating the wonderful productions attributed to Shakespeare can doubt that he was up to the scientific lore of his age; knew enough of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and perhaps Spanish, to read and understand works written in those languages; had some general knowledge of medicine; was familiar with many of the technicalities of English law; was a profound philosopher, with more than an ordinary knowledge of Christian theology and morals. But who can say that Shakespeare might not have had all the learning and science here supposed?
We in reality know next to nothing of the facts of Shakespeare's life. We know the place and date of his birth and death, the age at which he was withdrawn from the grammar-school, and of his marriage; we know that he was in London about the age of thirty, where he chiefly resided till within two or three years of his death, as an actor, play-wright, manager, and a large stockholder in a London theatre. These, and some few business transactions and his retirement, after having accumulated a handsome property, to his native place, where his family appear to have resided, constitute nearly all that we know of William Shakespeare outside of his works; and in these facts there is nothing that proves it impossible or even difficult,{430}with the genius, ability, and quickness the author of Shakespeare's works must have had, for him to acquire all the learning and science those works indicate in their author.
Ben Jonson says Shakespeare had "little Latin and less Greek," but Jonson was a pedant, and his assertion meant simply no more than that he was not profoundly or critically learned either as a Greek or Latin scholar; and there is no necessity of supposing that he was. Latin and Greek were taught in the grammar-schools of his time, and as it is said he was fourteen when called home from school, it is no violent supposition to suppose that he learned enough while at school to read and understand Latin and Greek books, at least sufficiently for his purposes as a poet. We know not how or where he spent the sixteen years between leaving school, or the twelve years between his marriage and his appearance in London, but he might, for aught we know, have easily acquired during those years all the learning and knowledge of modern languages indicated by his earliest plays. It could not take a man of his genius and ability many weeks' study to master as much of law and medicine as his works indicate; and as to his theology and metaphysics, we must remember that he lived before Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke had enfeebled theology and philosophy in the English mind, and obliterated from the memory of Englishmen all traces of Catholic tradition. Shakespeare, if not a Catholic himself, had been trained to a greater or less extent in Catholic principles, and he rarely, if ever, deviates in his philosophy, his theology, or theoretic morals from Catholic tradition, still in his time retained to a great extent in spite of Protestantism by the main body of the English people.
Bearing in mind that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the stage, to be acted, and that he used without scruple any materials from whatever quarter gathered that he could lay his hands on, there is nothing wonderful in their production, except the unrivalled genius of their author. There are many self-educated men, even in our own country, who in the learning and science acquired from the study of books equal Shakespeare, but in that which comes from within no one self-educated or university-educated has ever equalled him; and not unlikely the fact that his genius had never been cramped by the pedantic rules of the university, nor his time frittered away in learning minutiae that never come into play in practical life, and which the student forgets as soon as he goes forth into the world, was in his case are great advantage—at least no disadvantage.
But we cannot forgive the author for his sacrilegious attempt to transfer of the glory of Shakespeare to Francis Bacon, a different and altogether an inferior man. Shakespeare was infinitely superior to Bacon. Even if Bacon had been great enough to write Shakespeare's plays—of which there is no evidence—he was not philosopher enough to do it. Shakespeare is always in accord with the best philosophical tradition which comes down from the ancients through the fathers and doctors of the church, as well as with the dictates of experience and common sense; Bacon begins a rupture with tradition, and places philosophy on the declivity to sensism and materialism, whose logical terminus is universal nullity. Shakespeare's philosophy is Catholic, Bacon's is Protestant, and has produced the same anarchy in science that Protestantism has in religion and morals. There is nothing like in the spirit and tone of the two men. Theirmoraleis quite different; neither may have been blameless in life, but Shakespeare, if he sinned, did so from high spirits, joviality, heedlessness; while Bacon sinned, we we know, from sordidness, and left his name stamped with the infamy that belongs to a judge that takes bribes. Bacon, intentionally or not, has favored modern doubt and unbelief, while Shakespeare crushes the incipient doubt of his age in Hamlet and in several other of his place, and he could never have said with Bacon, atheism is better, socially and politically, than superstition. But enough. Mr. Holmes deserves no thanks for what he has done, and we do not think that he has proved his theory is not a "crazy theory."
FAMILIAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. By Sir John Herschel. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.
This volume contains, among others, essays on the Sun, Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Comets, Celestial Measurement, Light, Force, and Atoms. The author, although upward of seventy years of{431}age, still writes with the enthusiasm, vigor and sprightliness of a young votary of science, and of course with the profundity, range of thought, weight of judgment, and vastness of learning belonging only to one who has grown gray scientific studies. The topics he discusses are among the most important and interesting in science. To their absorbing intrinsic interest is added the charm of Sir John Herschel's method and style of exposition. In literary merit and beauty of style this series of lectures exceeds any of the productions of the professors of physical science with which we are acquainted, and is equal to our best English classics. There is a pleasant playfulness also about the ancient astronomer, which must have made his lectures, as he delivered them, most delightful to listen to. The religious and moral tone of the lectures is elevated and wholesome. Without any set and formal attempts at moralizing or preaching, the illustrious author naturally and forcibly presents, on fitting occasions, the irresistible evidence afforded by the stupendous order of the universe of the infinite wisdom and goodness of God. Some few disparaging remarks about Catholic superstition occur in his pages; but not so many as we frequently meet with in similar works by English Protestants, who seem to be incapable of abstaining for a very long time from their favorite amusement—one which has as much popularity with the English public as the national game of "Aunt Sally."
Notwithstanding these little specimens of religious squibbery, which can do no harm to any intelligent Catholic, whether child or adult, we recommend this book most cordially to all our readers. It is a great advantage and pleasure to those intelligent and educated readers who have not had time or opportunity to study scientific text-books, to have the grand results of science placed before them in an intelligible and readable form. We cannot think of anything more desirable for the interests of general education, than a complete series of lectures, like those of the volume before us, on all the principal topics of the several grand divisions of physical science. The field of knowledge is now so vast, and includes so many distinct, richly cultivated enclosures, that even students must confine themselves to the thorough study of a few specialties. Yet, education ought to include a general survey of the universal domain of knowledge. Therefore, it becomes important to have generalizations, compendiums, the condensed cream of science, prepared by the hands of masters in the several branches of knowledge. We are grateful to Sir John Herschel for devoting his old age to the task of making the sublime discoveries of astronomical science intelligible to ordinary readers. His charming volume should be in every library, and read by every one who takes pleasure in solid knowledge communicated in the clearest and most agreeable manner.
THE RISE AND THE FALL; OR, THE ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. In three parts. Part I. The Suggestion of Reason. II. The Disclosure of Revelation. III. The Confirmation of Theology. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
A very thoughtful, sensible, calmly written book, pervaded by a high tone of moral and religious sentiment. The modest, anonymous author may be called an orthodox Protestant semi-rationalist. He takes Scripture as furnishing certain revealed data on which the individual reason must construct a rational theorem of religion. Revelation, as apprehended by the individual reason, being a variable quantity, of course dogmas are reduced to mere hypothesis more or less probable, according to the force of the argument which sustains them. We have, accordingly, about as ingenious and plausible an hypothesis of original sin as any one can well make who does not begin with the true conception as given him by the Catholic dogma. The author's hypothesis is, that Adam, having been created in the intellectual, but not in the moral order, was elevated to the moral order through his own act, thereby contracting a liability to sin as incidental to moral liberty, which he transmitted together with the moral nature to his posterity. In this way sin entered into the world through Adam, not by an imputation or infusion of his sin into his descendants, but as an incidental consequence of the transfer of human nature into the sphere of moral obligation. The transgression of Adam and Eve the author considers not to have been a sin at all, but an act{432}without any moral character, like that of a young child climbing to the roof of a house; a bold experiment which the inexperience of infant man led him to hazard without regard to the unknown consequences.
We consider the effort to determine the questions discussed by the author, from the data admitted by him, to be as impossible a task as to calculate the distance of a fixed star which makes no parallax. The oscillation of the ground, of the building, and of the instrument used by the astronomer, and the apparent or proper motions of the stars, may deceive him by an apparent parallax, from which he will make a plausible but illusory calculation. The application suggests itself. We have already discussed the same questions, from the data furnished by revealed Catholic dogmas, and are now engaged in discussing them in the series of articles entitled "Problems of the Age;" and it is, therefore, superfluous to enter here into a new discussion of the same topics.
We are glad to see these questions discussed, and always read with interest what is written by a candid, earnest, well-informed, and able writer like the author of this book. With many of his views we cordially agree, and recognize the justice, force, and beauty of many of his observations. We like him particularly for his clear views of the goodness and justice of God, the freedom of man, the negative character of evil, the worth and excellence of moral virtue; and for his denial of physical depravity, of a dark, inevitable doom preceding all personal existence or accountability, and similar fatalistic doctrines of the old Protestant theological systems. While, however, the moderate rationalism of the author avails so far as to refute certain systems or doctrines which are contrary to reason, and to furnish certain fragmentary portions of a better system, it is not sufficient to make a complete synthesis between reason and revelation. Catholic philosophy alone is competent to achieve this mighty and, indeed, superhuman task.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED,comprising some remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and on Mr. J. S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy. By H. L. Mansel, B.D., Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy in the University of Oxford. London and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1886
The philosophy of Sir William Hamilton has been the subject of an animated controversy for some time in England and Scotland. It has been attacked from two opposite sides—some of the principal critics upon it having been themselves pupils of the distinguished Scottish baronet, whose system they have undertaken to combat. On the one side, Mr. Calderwood has assailed it, as deficient in affirming the principle of certitude respecting ideal truth, and on the other, Mr. Mill, as affirming too dogmatically the same principle. These assaults have called out other champions in defense of their great master, among whom Mr. Mansel is one of the most conspicuous. Those who desire to know what can be said in favor of the Hamilton system will find this volume worthy of their perusal. The author brings learning, no mean ability, and very good temper to his task. We are no admirers of the system he undertakes to defendant, but still less of that of his antagonist. The first we regard as inadequate to the need which exists of a true Christian philosophy, the second as subverting the very basis of all philosophy and all religion. In this controversy our sympathy and respect are given to the Oxford professor, as one who is striving to uphold the belief in God and the Christian revelation, albeit with insufficient weapons. We find, also, very much that is admirable in particular portions of his essay.
It is needless to say anything in praise of Mr. Strahan's publications, so far as the beauty of their mechanical execution is concerned. The volume before us is a perfect specimen of British typographical art, just such a book as delights the eye of the literary amateur.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From the Author: "The Life of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Colombia and Peru, Father and Founder of Bolivia: carefully written from authentic and unpublished documents." By Doctor Felipe Larrazabal. Vol. 1, 8vo., pp. 410.
Anniversary Address and Poem, delivered before the society of the Alumni of the Detroit High School, August 30th. 1886. Address by H. E. Bust; Poem by Miss M. F. Buchanan.
From the American News Company: "Utterly Wrecked." A Novel, by Henry Morford; paper.
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A carol of joy, a carol of joy,For the glorious Christmas time;While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad.Let the merry bells sweetly chime.Let us seek the crib where our Saviour lies—See, the shepherds are kneeling there;Let us offer, with Mary and Joseph,Our worship of love and prayer.A carol of praise, a carol of praise,With the angels let us sing;Let us welcome with notes of rapturous joyOur Saviour, our God and King.Oh! would we could offer him worthy gifts,Oh! would that our hearts could love,With some equal return, the Holy Child,Who for us left his throne above!A carol of joy, a carol of joy,Let the whole earth gladly shout;She has waited long for this promised day.Let the glorious song flow out.A carol of praise, a carol of joy.Let us sing for the Christmas time.While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad,And the merry bells sweetly chime.
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There is no denying that our age, in its dormant tendency, places philanthropy above charity, and holds it higher praise to call a man philanthropic than to call him charitable. In its eyes charity is to philanthropy as a part to the whole, and consists, chiefly, in giving the beggar a penny or sending him to the poor-house, and in treating error and sin with even more consideration than truth and virtue. Could anything better indicate the distance it has fallen below the Christian thought, or its failure to grasp the principle of Christian morals?
Philanthropy, according to the etymology of the word, is simply the love of man; charity, according to Christian theology, is the love of God, and of man in God. Philanthropy is simply a natural human sentiment; charity is a virtue, a supernatural virtue, not possible without the assistance of grace—the highest virtue, the sum and perfection of all the virtues, the fulfilment of the whole law, the bond of perfectness which likens and unites us to God; for God is charity,Deus est caritas. It does not exclude but includes the love of man, our neighbor or our brother; "for if any man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For if he loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?" Whoever loves God must necessarily love his brother, for his brother is included in God, as the effect in the cause, and he who loveth not his brother proves clearly thereby that he doth not love God. But charity, though it includes philanthropy, is as much superior to it as God is to man.
The natural sentiments are all good in their origin and design, as much so since as before the fall; and man would be worthless without them; would be a monster, not a man. But in themselves they are blind. Each one tends, when left to itself, to become exclusive and excessive, and hence comes that internal disorder, anarchy, or war of conflicting sentiments of which we are all more or less conscious, and in which originate all life's tragedies. Even when developed, restrained, and directed by the understanding, as they all need to be, they are not even then moral virtues, meriting praise. Moral virtue is a rational act, an act of free will, done for the sake of the end prescribed by the law of God; but in the sentiments there is no free will, except in restraining and directing them, and man acts in them only as the sun shines, the rain falls, the winds blow, or the lightnings flash. There may the beauty and goodness in them, as in the objects of nature, but there is no virtue, because the spring of all sentimental action is the indulgence or gratification of the sentiment itself, not the will to do our duty, or to obey the law by which we are morally bound.
Indeed, what most offends this age—perhaps all ages—and for which it has the greatest horror, is duty or obedience; for duty implies that we are not our own, and, therefore, are not free to dispose of ourselves as we please; and obedience implies a superior, a lord and master, who has the right to order us. It, therefore, sets its wits to work and racks its brains to invent a morality that excludes duty, and exacts no such hateful same as obedience. It has found all that it is far nobler to act from love than from duty, and to do a thing because we are prompted to do it by our hearts, then because God, in his law, commands it.{435}In other words, it is nobler, more moral, to act to please ourselves, than it is to act to please God. This passes for excellent philosophy, and you may hear it in conversation of many young misses just from boarding-school, read it in most popular novels and magazines, and be edified by it from the pulpit of more than one professedly Christian denomination.
This philosophy sets the so-called heart above the head, that is, it distinguishes the heart from the understanding and will, and places it, as so distinguished, above them. Hence we find the tendency is to treat faith, considered as an intellectual act, and consequently the Christian dogmas, with great indifference; and to say, if the heart is right, it is no matter what one believes, and, it may be added, no matter what one does. What one does is of little consequence, if one only has fine sentiments, warm and gushing feelings. Jack Scapegrace is hard drinking a gambler, a liar, a rake, and seldom goes near a church; but for all that he is a right down good fellow—has a warm heart. He gives liberally to the missionary society, and makes large purchases at charity fairs. Hence a good heart, which at best means only quick sensibilities, and which is perfectly compatible with the grossest self-indulgence, and the most degrading and ruinous vices, constitutes the sum and substance of religion and morality, atones for the violation of every precept of the Decalogue, and supplies the absence of faith and Christian virtue.
All errors are half truths. Certainly, love is the fulfilling of the law, and the heart is all that God requires. "My son, give me thy heart." But the "heart" in the scriptural sense is reason, the intellect, and the will; and the love that fulfils the law is not a sentiment, but a free act of the rational soul, and, therefore, a love which it is within our power to give or withhold. It is a free, voluntary love, yielded by intelligence and will. In this sense, love cannot be contrasted with duty; for it is duty, or its fulfilment, and indistinguishable from it; the heart cannot be contrasted with the head, in the scriptural or Christian sense of the word; for in that sense it includes the head, and stands for the whole rational soul—the mistress of her own acts. To act from the promptings of one's own heart, in this sense, is all right, for it is to act from a sense of duty, from reason and will, or intelligence and free volition. In souls well constituted and trained, or long exercised in the practice of virtue, no long process of reasoning or deliberation ever takes place, and the decision and execution are simultaneous, and apparently instantaneous, but the act is none the less an act of deliberate reason or free will.
Plato speaks of a love which is not an affection of the sensibility, and which is one of the wings of the soul on which she soars to the Empyreum; but I can understand no love that contrasts with duty, except it be an affection of the sensitive nature, what the Scriptures call "the flesh," which is averted by the fall from God, and, as the Council of Trent defines, "inclines to sin"—"the carnal mind," which, St. Paul tells us, is at enmity with God, is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Christianity recognizes an antagonism between the flesh and the spirit, between the law in our members and the Law of the mind, but none between the love she approves and the duty she enjoins, or between the heart which God demands and the head or the understanding. Love by the Christian law is demanded as a duty, as that which is due from us to God. We are required to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. This is our duty, and therefore the love must be an act of free will—a love which we are free to yield or to withhold, for our duty can never exceed our liberty. The Christian loves duty, loves self-denial and sacrifice, loves the law, and delights in it after{436}the inner man; but in loving the law he acts freely from his own reason and will, and he obeys it not for the sake of the delight he takes in it, but because it is God's law; otherwise he would act to please himself, not to please God, and his act would be simply an act of self-indulgence.
The age, in its efforts to construct a morality which excludes duty and obedience, tends to resolve the love which Christianity demands into an affection of the sensibility, and thence very logically opposes love to duty, and holds it nobler to act from inclination than from duty, to follow the law in our members than the law of the mind. It may then substitute, with perfect consistency, the transcendentalist maxim, Obey thyself, for the Christian maxim. Deny thyself!
But this is not all. The age, or what is usually called the age, not only resolves virtue, which old-fashioned ethics held to be an act of free will done in obedience to the Divine law, into a sentiment, or interior affection, of the sensibility, but it goes further and resolves God into man, and maintains that the real sense of the mystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, is that man is the only actual and living God, and that beyond humanity there is only infinite possibility, which humanity in its infinite progress and evolution and absorption of individual life is continually actualizing, or filling up. So virtually teaches Hegel, inconsiderately followed by Cousin, in teaching thatdas reine Seyn, or simply possible being, arrives at self-consciousness first in man. So teach the Saint Simonians, Enfantin, Bazard, Carnot, and Pierre Leroux; and so hold the school or sect of the Positivists, followers of Auguste Comte, who have actually institutedun culteor service in honor of humanity. The Positivists are too modest to claim to be themselves each individually God, but they make no bones of calling humanity, or the great collective man, God, and offering him, as such, a suitable worship. This is taught and done in France, the most lettered nation in Europe; and the principle that justifies it pervades not a little of the popular literature of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.
If man or humanity is God, of course the highest virtue is and must be philanthropy, the love of all men in general, and of no one in particular. Resolve now God into man, and philanthropy or the love of man into an affection of the sensibility or sensitive nature, and you have in a nutshell the theology, religion, and morality to which the age tens, which the bulk of our popular literature favors, which our sons and daughters inhale with the very atmosphere they breathe, and which explains the effeminacy and sentimentalism of modern society. It is but a logical sequence that the age, since women are ordinarily narily more sentimental than men, places woman at the head of the race, and holds woman—if young, beautiful amiable, sentimental, and rich—to be the most perfect and adorable embodiment of the divinity. The highest form of philanthropy is the love of woman. I would say, philogyny, only that might be taken to imply that the highest virtue is the love of one's wife, or wifehood, which is to old-fashioned, unless by wife is meant the wife of one's neighbor. But, my dear young lady, be not too vain of the homage you receive; it will be withheld with the first appearance of the first wrinkle or the first gray hair. It is better to be honored as a true woman than to be worshipped as a goddess or even as an angel.
The sentimental worship of humanity, or the reduction of the virtue of charity to the sentiment of philanthropy, necessarily weaken and debases the character; and whatever we may say under various aspects and praise of our age, and however strong our confidence that God in his providence will turn even its evil tendencies to good, we cannot deny its moral weakness; and it is doubtful if{437}the debasement of individual character was greater, even in the Lower Empire, or that men were more dishonest or fraudulent, more sordid or venal. Other ages have been marked, perhaps, by less refinement of manners, more violent crimes, and great criminals, but few are found less capable either of great virtues or great expiations. This need not surprise us, for it is only the natural effect of substituting sentiment for virtue, and sentimental for moral culture, which we are constantly doing.
Many, perhaps, will be disposed to deny that we have substituted sentimental for moral culture, and it must be concluded that the didactic lessons given in our schools throughout Christendom, for the most part, remain very much as they have been ever since there was a Christendom, and in general accord with pure Christian ethics. There are few, if any, schools for children and youth, in which the sentimental and humanitarian morality, or rather immorality, is formally taught. But we should remember that the didactic lessons of the school-room do very little toward forming the character of our youth, and that the culture that really forms it is given by the home circle, associations, the spirit and tone of the community in which they are brought up. There is a subtle influence, what the Germans callder Welt-Geist, which pervades the whole community, and affects the faith, the morals, and character of all who grow up in that community without any formal instruction or conscious effort of any one. So far as formal lessons and words go, the culture of our children and youth is, for the most part, Christian; but these lessons and words receive a practical interpretation byder Welt-Geist, what I call s spirit of the age, and should, "the prince of this world," which deprives them of their Christian sense, takes from them all meaning, or gives them an anti-Christian meaning. It is one of the striking peculiarities of the age that it inculcates the baldest infidelity, the grossest immorality in the language of Christian faith and virtue. It is this fact which deceives so many, and that makes the assertion of sentimental for moral culture appear to be a total misstatement, or, at least, a gross exaggeration of the fact.
It will, no doubt, also be said that a decided reaction in our popular literature against sentimentalism has already commenced. The realism of Dickens and the Trollopes is opposed to it, Bulwer Lytton, in his late novels at least, is decidedly hostile to it, and Thackeray unmercifully ridicules it. These and other popular writers have undoubtedly reacted against one form of sentimentalism, the dark and suicidal form placed in vogue by Goethe in his Sorrows of Werter, and now nearly forgotten; but they have not ridiculed or reacted against the form of sentimentalism which substitutes the sentiment of philanthropy for the virtue of charity. They encourage humanitarianism, and make the love of man for woman or woman for man the great agent in developing, enlarging, and strengthening the intellect, the spring of the purest and sublimest morality. The hero of popular literature is now rarely an avowed unbeliever or open scoffer, and in all well-bred novels the heroine says her prayers night and morning, and the author decidedly patronizes Christianity, and says many beautiful and even true things in its favor; but, after all, his religion is based on humanity, is only a charming sentimentalism, embraced for its loveliness, not as duty or the law which it would be sin to neglect; or it is introduced as a foreign and incongruous element, never as the soul or informing spirit of the novel.
The fact is undeniable, whether people are generally conscious of it or not, and we see its malign influence not only on individual character, but on domestic and social life. It has nearly broken up and rendered impossible the Christian family in the easy and educated classes.{438}Marriage is, it is said, where and only where there is mutual love, and hence the marriage is in the mutual love, is lawful between any parties who mutually love, unlawful between any who do not. Love is an interior affection of the sensibility, a feeling, and like all the feelings independent of reason and will. All popular literature makes love fatal, something undergone, not given. We love where we must; not where we would nor where we should, but where we are fated to love. It needs not here to speak of infidelity to the marriage vows, which this doctrine justifies to any extent, for those vows are broken when broken from unreasoning passion or lust, not from a theory which justifies it. I speak rather of the misery which it carries into married life, the destruction of domestic peace and happiness it causes. Trained in the sentimentalism of the age, and to regard love as a feeling dependent on causes beyond our control, our young people marry, expecting from marriage what it has not, and cannot give. They expect the feeling which they call love, and which gives a roseate hue to everything they look upon, will continue as fresh, as vivid, and as charming after marriage as before it; but the honeymoon is hardly over, and they begin to settle down in the regular routine of life, before they discover their mistake, the roseate hue has gone, their feelings have undergone a notable change, and they are disappointed in each other, and feel that the happiness they counted on is no longer to be expected. The stronger and more intense the mutual feeling the greater the disappointment, and hence the common saying: Love matches are seldom happy matches. Each party is disappointed in the other, frets against the chain that binds them together, and wishes it broken.
This is only what might have been expected. Nothing is more variable or transitory than our feelings, and nothing that depends on them can be unchanging or lasting. When the feelings of the married couple change toward each other, the marriage bond becomes a galling chain, and is felt to be a serious evil, and divorce is desired and resorted to as a remedy. It is usually no remedy at all, or a remedy worse even than the disease; but it is the only remedy practicable where feeling is substituted for rational affection. Hence, in nearly all modern states, the legislature, in direct conflict with the Christian law, which makes marriage a sacrament and indissoluble, permits divorce, and in some states for causes as frivolous as incompatibility of temper. It is easy to censure the legislature but it must follow and express the morals, manners, sentiments, and demands of the people, and when these are repugnant to the divine law, it cannot in its enactments conform to that law; and if did, it's enactments would be resisted as tyrannical and oppressive, or remained on the statute book a dead letter, as did so much wise and just legislation inspired by the church in the middle ages. The evil lies further back, in the humanitarianism of the age, which reverses the real order, puts the flesh in the place of the spirit, philanthropy in the place of charity, and man in the place of God, and which promotes an excessive culture of the sentiments, at the expense of rational conviction and affection. There is no remedy but in returning to the order we have reversed, to the higher culture of reason and free will, not possible without faith in God and the Christian mysteries.
But passing over the effects of sentimental morality on individual character, the private virtues, and domestic happiness, we find it no less hostile to social ameliorations and reforms in the state. The age is philanthropic, and wages war with every form of vice, poverty, and suffering, and is greatly shocked at the evils it finds past ages tolerated without ever making an effort to remove them, hardly even to mitigate them.{439}This is well as far as it goes; but in an age when the sensitive nature is chiefly cultivated, when physical pain is counted the chief evil, and sensible pleasures held to be the chief good, practically, if not theoretically, many things will be regarded as evils which, in a more robust and manly age, were unheeded, or not counted as evils at all. Many things in our day need changing, simply because other things having been changed, they have become anomalous and are out of place. What in one state of society is simple poverty, is really distress in another; and poverty, which in itself is no evil, becomes a great evil in a community where wealth is regarded as the supreme good, and the poor have wants, habits, and tastes which only wealth an satisfy. The poorer classes of today in civilized nations would suffer intensely if thrown back into the condition they were in under the feudal régime, but it may be doubted if they do not really suffer as much now as they did then. Perhaps such wants as they then had were more readily met and supplied than are those which they now have. In point of fact, Christian charity did infinitely more for the poor and to solace suffering in all its forms, even in the feudal ages, than philanthopy does now; and we find the greatest amount of squalid wretchedness now precisely in those nations in which philanthopy has been most successful in supplanting charity.
Philanthropy effects nothing except in so far as it copies or imitates Christian Charity, and its attempted imitations are rarely successful. It has for years been very active and hard at work in imitation of charity; but what has it effected? what suffering has it solaced? what crime has it diminished? what vice has it corrected? what social evil has it removed? It has tried its hand against licentiousness, and licentiousness is more rife and shameless than ever. It has made repeated onslaughts on the ruinous vice of intemperance, and yet drunkenness increases instead of diminishing, and has become the disgrace of the country-. It has professed great regard for the poor, but does more to remove them out of sight than to relieve them. It treats poverty as a vice or a crime, looks on it as a disgrace, a thing to be fled from with all speed possible, and makes the poor feel that wealth is virtue, honor, nobility, the greatest good, and thus destroys their self respect, aggravates their discontent, and indirectly provokes the crimes against property become so general and so appalling. What a moral New York reads us in the fact that she makes her commissioners of "Public Charities" also commissioners of "Public Corrections!" Philanthropy rarely fails to aggravate the evil she attempts to cure, or to cure one evil by introducing another and a greater evil. Her remedies are usually worse than the disease.
Owen, Fourier, Cabet, and other philanthropists have made serious efforts to reorganize society so as to remove the inequalities or the evils of the inequalities of wealth and social position; but have all failed, because they needed, in order to succeed, the habits, character, and virtues which, on their own theories, can be obtained only from success. As a rule, philanthropy must succeed in order to be able to succeed.
Philanthropy—humanitarianism—has been shocked at slavery, and in our country as well as in some others it formed associations for its abolition. In the West India Islands, belonging to Great Britain, it succeeded in abolishing it, to the ruin of the planters and very little benefit to the slave. In this country, if slavery is abolished, it has not been done by philanthropy, which served only to set the North and the South by the ears, but by the military authority as a war measure, necessary, or judged to be necessary, to save the Union and to guard against future attempts to dissolve it. Philanthropy is hard at work to make abolition a blessing to the freedmen. It talks, sputters,{440}clamors, legislates, but it can effect nothing; and unless Christian charity takes the matter in hand, it is very evident that, however much emancipation may benefit the white race, it can prove of little benefit to the emancipated, who will be emancipated in name, but not in reality.
The great difficulty with philanthropy is, that she acts from feeling and not reason, and uses reason only as the slave or instrument of feeling. Wherever she sees an evil she rushes headlong to its removal, blind to the injury she may do to rights, principles, and institutions essential to liberty and the very existence of society. Hence she usually in going to her end tramples down more good by the way than she can obtain in gaining it. She has no respect for vested rights, regards no geographical lines, and laughs at the constitutions of states, if they stand in her way. Liberty with us was more interested in maintaining inviolate the constitution of the Union and the local rights of the several states, than it was even in abolishing negro slavery, and hence many wise and good men, who had no interest in retaining slavery, and who detested it as an outrage upon humanity, did not and could not act or sympathize with the abolitionists. They yield in nothing to them in the earnest desire to abolish slavery, but they would abolish it by legal and peaceful means—means that would not weaken the hold of the constitution and civil law on conscience, and destroy the safeguards of liberty. The abolitionists did not err in being opposed to slavery, but in the principles on which they sought its abolition. Adam did not sin in aspiring to be God; for that, in a certain sense, he was destined, through the incarnation, one day to become. His sin was in aspiring to be God without the incarnation, in his own personal right and might, and in violation of the divine command, or by other means than those prescribed by his Creator and Lawgiver, the only possible means of attaining the end sought.
Philanthropy commits the same error whatever the good work she attempts, and especially in all her attempts at political reforms. She finds herself "cabined, cribbed, confined" by old political institutions, and cries out, Down with them. She demands for the people a liberty which she sees they have not and cannot have under the existing political order, and so proceeds at once to conspire against it, to revolutionize the state, deluges the land in blood, and gets anarchy, the Reign of Terror, or military despotism for its pains. Never were there more sincere or earnest philanthropists than the authors of the old French Revolution. The violent revolutions attempted in modern Europe in the name of humanity, have done more harm to society by unsettling the bases of society and effacing in men's minds and hearts the traditional respect for law and order, than any good they could have done by sweeping away the social and political abuses they warred against. The French are not politically or individually freer to-day than they were under Louis Quatorze.
There are, no doubt, times when an old political order, as in Rome after Marius and Sulla, has become effete, and can no longer fulfil the duties or discharge the offices of a government, in which a revolution, like that effected under the lead of Julius an Augustus Caesar, may be desirable and advantageous, for it establishes a practicable and a real government in the place of a government that can no longer discharge the functions of government, and is virtually no government at all. The empire was a great advance on the republic, which was incapable of being restored. But revolutions properly so-called, undertaken for the subversion of an existing order and the introduction of another held to be theoretically more perfect, have never, so far as history records, been productive of good. No doubt England is to-day in advance of what she was under the Stuarts, but who dares say that she is in advance of{441}what she would have been had she not expelled them, or that she has become greater under the Whig nobility than she might have been under the Tory squirarchy?
There has been, I readily concede, a real progress in modern society, at least dating from the fifth century of our era; but, as I read history, the progress has been interrupted or retarded by modern socialistic or political revolutions, and has in no case been accelerated by philanthropy as distinguished from Christian charity. Moreover, in no state of Christendom has charity ever been wholly wanting. Nations have cast off the authority of the church, and have greatly suffered in consequence; but in none has divine charity been totally wanting, and the influence of Christianity on civilization, even in heretical and schismatic nations, is not to be counted as nothing. I am far from believing that the nations that broke away from the church are not better than they would have been if they had not had the benefit of the habits formed under her teaching and discipline. I know thatextra ecclesiam nulla sit salus; but I know also that the church is as a city set on a hill, and that rays from the light within her may and do extend beyond her walls, and relieve in some degree the darkness of those who are outside of them. How much the church continues to influence nations once within her communion, but now severed from it, nobody is competent to determine, nor can any one but God himself say how many, in all these nations, though not formally united to the body of the church, are yet not wholly severed from her soul. The Russian Church retains the Orthodox faith and the sacraments, and is officially under no sentence of excommunication from the body of Christ, and only those who are individually and voluntarily schismatic, are guilty of the sin of schism; and in other communions, though undoubtedly heretical, there may be large numbers of baptized persons who do really act on Christian principles, and from purely Christian motives. All I mean to deny is, that society or humanity ever gains anything from violent or sentimental revolutions.
The impotence of philanthropy without charity, or pure humanism, is demonstrableà priori, and should have been foreseen. It is opposed to the nature of things, and implies the absurdity that nothing is something, and that what is not can act. It is an attempt to found religion, morals, society, and the state without God; when without God there is and can be nothing, and consequently nothing for them to stand on. It assumes that man is an independent being, and suffices for himself; which, whether we mean by man the individual or humanity, "the universal man," "the one man" of the Transcendentalists, or "the grand collective Being" of the Positivists, we all feel and know to be not the fact. Man in either sense is a creature, and depends absolutely on the creative act of God for his existence; and let God suspend that act, and he sinks into the nothing he was before he was created. Therefore it is in Godmediantehis creative act he lives and moves and has his being. Hence it is, whether we know it or not, that we assert the existence of God as our creator in every act we perform, every thought we think, every resolution we take, every sentiment we experience, and every breath we draw, for no human operation—physical, intellectual, or moral—is possible without the divine creative act and concurrence.
Philanthropy, or the love of man, separated from charity, or the love of God and of man in God, is therefore simply nothing, a mere negation, for it supposes man separated from God is something, and separated from God he is nothing. Hence St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, says: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have{442}all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." This is so not by virtue of any arbitrary decree or appointment of the Almighty, even if such decree or appointment is possible, but in the very, nature of things, and God himself cannot make it otherwise. God is free to create or not to create, and free to create such existences as he pleases; but he cannot create an independent self-sufficing being, for he cannot create anything between which and himself there should not be the relation of creator and creature. The creature depends wholly, in all respects whatever, on the creator, and without him is and can be nothing. The creature depends absolutely on the creator in relation to all his acts, thoughts, and affections, as well as for mere existence itself. God could not, even if it were possible that he would, dispense with charity and count the love of man as independent of God, as something, because he is truth, and it is impossible for him to lie, and lie he would were he to count such supposed love something, for independent of him there is no man to love or to be loved. Man can love or be loved only where he exists; and as he exists in God, so only in God can we possibly love him, that is, we can love our neighbor only in loving God. The humanitarian love or morality is, therefore, a pure negation, simply nothing.
Man is, indeed, a free moral agent, and he would not be capable of virtue or amoralaction, if he were not; but he can act, notwithstanding his moral freedom, only according to the conditions of his existence. He exists and can exist only by virtue of a supernatural principle, medium, and end. He exists only by the direct, immediate creative act of God, and God in himself and in his direct immediate acts, always and everywhere, is supernatural, above nature, because its creator, and, as its creator, its proprietor. The maker has a sovereign right to the thing made. The creature can no more be its own end than its own principle or cause. Man cannot take himself self as his own end, because he is not his own, but is his creator's, and because independent of God who he is nothing. So God is both his principle and end. But the end is not possible without a medium that places it in relation with the principle, as theologians demonstrate in their dissertations on the mystery of the ever blessed Trinity, and as common sense itself teaches. As the principle and end are supernatural, so the medium must be supernatural, for the medium must be on the plane of the principle and end between which is the medium. The medium, in the moral or spiritual order, the gospel teaches us, is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which infused by the Holy Ghost into the soul elevates her to the plane of her supernatural destiny, and strengthens her to gain or fulfil it. Hence, as says the apostle,Ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia—things are from him, and by him, and to or in him. These are the essential conditions of all life, alike in the natural or physical order, and in the moral or spiritual. In all orders God is the principle, medium, and end of all existence, of all action.
In the moral or spiritual order, not in the natural or physical order, man is a free agent, and acts from free will, as Pope sings: