Moreover, it is not requisite that all the witnesses should have been present during the whole transaction in question; the deposition of a single one is admissible, though it is necessary that there be more than two, and even three form but a sort of half-proof. All interrogatories, skilfully directed to extort the truth from the defendant or the witnesses by surprise, are strictly forbidden, as are also any suggestions of the answer desired, and every effort is made that the truth may flow naturally from the lips of the witness and without the influence of fear. In order to avoid hatred and terrorism, the names of the witnesses are not made known to the accused, but their motives of hostility to him are examined with the greatest care. False witnesses are punished with the utmost severity, and, when it becomes necessary, the accused and accusers are confronted with each other.
If from poverty, or any other reason, the accused is found without an advocate or proctor, one is furnished for him.
Finally, the appeal is a matter of right. It is taken directly to Rome, before the Congregation of the Holy Office, without passing through any intermediate metropolitan tribunal, and, during its pendency there, execution is usually stayed. Judgment is never rendered against any one upon mere presumptions; but only after full and unmistakable proof.
We come now to notice the written regulations which may be called the skeleton of procedure. Save some variations in detail, they differ little from those of all contested cases before the different congregations. But in order fully to understand their advantages and disadvantages, the reader should understand not only the text of the law but the usages of its practices. For everywhere, at Rome as at Paris, unwritten traditions and judicial customs modify and temper the law, complete its deficiencies, and cause the inconveniences which, at first sight, it would seem to occasion, wholly to disappear. It is also impossible to base a serious comparison between the procedure of two countries upon a mere reading of their rules. Not only ought the two methods to vary according to the manners of the parties, the character of the tribunals, and the nature of their causes, but even two modes which are identical will often, under different circumstances, produce entirely different results. They accommodate themselves to the hand that wields them, and their value can be really appreciated only after long usage of them; so that the skilled practitioner alone is able to speak authoritatively of their value, of their endurance, and of the guarantees which they offer for the discovery of truth.
By these remarks we desire to show that the procedure of the Roman congregations, without sacrificing any of the essential safeguards of justice, is generally simple, brief, economical, informal to a degree beyond that of any civil procedure; and, far from needing to learn any thing from them, it is able in many points to become their instructor.
There is, however, one great difference upon which we especially insist, because it has formed the pretext for unjust attacks from narrow minds, who are unable to comprehend that any thing can be well done that isdone in a way different from their own, or that any difference between their customs and those of others is not a signal mark of the inferiority of the latter. The Roman congregations admit of no oral pleadings.[36]All discussion is in writing, though it is necessarily completed by the verbal explanations which the advocates give to the judges; but there is no public and passionate debate, such as is common in all civil jurisdictions. We do not believe that the absence of this is any evil. The Roman legislative body has always endeavored to shun surprises in its hearings. Pleading, as it is practised among us, is nothing but the conflict of two opposing debaters, often unequally matched, and of whom the more powerful is seldom on the side of the oppressed. We believe, indeed, that the doors of the influential advocate, whose name and authority are themselves a powerful argument, are rarely closed against the poor who seek to enter them; but the poor do not always dare to stop and knock, and so content themselves with men of more ordinary abilities. If, then, one of these contesting advocates is more skilful than the other; if he knows how to win favor for his client by an insinuating speech and to cast ridicule upon his adversary; if he has the faculty of grouping figures, of coloring facts, of flattering his auditors during the progress of the controversy; if he is passionate and violent, his emotion will affect the judge, whose heart beats under his robe and is not, perhaps, to any extraordinary degree unimpressible; all these circumstances, extrinsic to the real merits of the cause, will exercise great influence upon its determination, and may be able to wring from the tribunal a decision which, in moments of reflection and coolness, it would never render.
Oral pleading resembles, to some extent, those ancient judicial combats upon which the issue of causes was sometimes made to depend. It is a duel of words, in which justice does not always have the advantage. Our imagination represents an advocate as one whose work it is to wrest the innocent from the clutches of powerful and cruel persecutors; who summons eloquence to aid him in resisting the fierce passions which menace the welfare of his client. This was well enough for those primitive ages when a legal process was the outburst of violent wrath, which dragged the alleged offender before a single judge, or perhaps before a mob erected into a tribunal and swayed by passion. But this conception is not correct for our day, even in criminal matters, where the public prosecutor, as far as possible, excludes mere feeling and makes his appeal to calm and solid reason alone; and it is especially false in civil causes, in which the advocate interprets the text of the law, discusses contracts, examines and compares evidence, all of which labors are difficult, and demand, above all things, reflection, good sense, and coolness.
For attaining, therefore, the ends of justice, a mode of written procedure is particularly adapted. It assures to the contending parties all the time necessary for a careful reply to the reasonings on either side, and establishes an equality between the talents of their respective advocates; it also removes the decision of the cause from the bias of personal influences, and leaves it to be determined by argument only. Moreover, the judgeis able to reflect at his ease upon the merits of the case, and is secure against the seductions of artful declamation. Even before those supreme civil tribunals where written and oral pleadings are both permitted, the latter are usually regarded in the solution of the question, and this is what gives to the advocates of those illustrious courts their influence and renown. The Roman congregations are also supreme tribunals; but there passion has no echo and needs no interpreter; there causes stand upon their own merits, stripped of all attendant circumstances; there the gravest questions of dogma, of morals, and of right are decided by reason alone, but by reason illuminated both by science and by faith.
The procedure of the Roman congregations is much less expensive than that before ordinary civil jurisdictions. Originally it was entirely gratuitous, and many of the congregations—as, for instance, those of the Propaganda, the Index, and the Holy Office—still retain this rule in reference to all the causes which are submitted to them. But the great increase of expense, consequent upon the increase of causes, has necessitated the establishment, by other congregations, of certain light taxes, although even these bear small proportion to the actual disbursements. Thus, all the proceedings are upon ordinary paper, which, not being liable to stamp-duty, makes one important saving in expense. Again, while civil proceedings are registered upon payment of a certain fee, which is another notable method of taxation, those at Rome are registered without charge; and, while masters of rolls elsewhere enjoy incomes sometimes reaching the sum of many thousands, those at Rome are paid by the treasurer, and are forbidden to receive any emolument, although perfectly gratuitous, from any party, even for the most extraordinary labors—an obligation imposed on them by oath upon their admission to office.
They are also obliged to exhibit, without charge, to any person the various documents of their several bureaus, and are allowed but a moderate recompense for the copies and exemplifications which they may prepare. Even the expense of printing is borne, at least in part, by the congregation. The congregations do not sell justice; they give it. The pontifical treasury does not look to them as a source of revenue. On the contrary, the taxes they collect are far less than their expenses, and, in fact, so much so that their services may be considered as gratuitous. For example, a matrimonial cause submitted to the Congregation of the Council, and requiring minute examinations, consultations, researches, and a large collection of documents, will cost the winning party several crowns, the precise amount depending upon the number of questions to be resolved. The same case tried in civil courts would cost two or three thousand francs.
The fees of advocates and attorneys correspond to the expenses. Among us they continue constantly to increase. At Rome they are very meagre. They are legally fixed at a uniform rate, according to the importance of the cause and the result of the investigation. Even these the advocates cannot demand as a right, and receive them only as a spontaneous gift.
The French magistracy with good reason congratulates itself on the establishment of an association designed to secure to the poor the gratuitous defence of their just rights. Rome has long since possessed a similar institution. This is the Society of Advocates, which assembles on fête daysto receive and reply to the inquiries of the indigent. Among the obligations of the consistorial advocates is that of defending the causes of the poor before their respective tribunals. In criminal cases there are especial advocates for the poor. Among the proctors there are certain ones appointed for the poor, one by the pope, the others by the different societies. Finally, the Society of St. Ives is particularly charged with the protection of the indigent; and such are the customs among the members of the Roman bar that none ever refuses his services to the unfortunate who seeks them.
The Roman congregations are not mere tribunals instituted by the holy see with a delegation of powers, which leaves the supreme authority still in the hands of the sovereign pontiff, and allows a right of appeal from their judgment to his. They are the holy see itself, rendering its decisions by the mouths of its cardinals. Canon law recognizes their jurisdiction as ordinary and not delegated. Delegated jurisdiction is a mandate which confers upon the mandatary certain special favors distinct from and inferior to the powers of the mandator. Ordinary jurisdiction is an actual communication, which unites the mandator and mandatary in one single tribunal, and makes the one the simple organ of the other. Numerous passages of canon law justify this conception of these congregations and render it incontestable as a legal conclusion.
The nature of the decisions which they render makes the point still more certain. They issue general decrees promulgated by order of the sovereign pontiff, which consequently obtain the force of law in all places in the same manner as the pontifical constitutions, from which they do not essentially differ. Such are the decrees of the Holy Office, of the Index, and certain of those of the Congregation of Rites, of that of the Council, and of that of Bishops and Regulars. They also render interpretations of existing laws, and these enjoy a supreme and universal authority, as if they emanated directly from the sovereign pontiff, since they are both submitted to and approved by him. In fine, the sentences which they render in private controversies are, equally with the rest, submitted to the pope; though without this sanction, and from the ordinary powers of the congregations, they would be obligatory upon all, and would become the rule of other tribunals, since for this purpose especially were these congregations instituted as courts of final judicature.
The decisions rendered by these different congregations, and preserved in their archives from the very day of their institution to the present, form the most magnificent body of jurisprudence which has ever existed. One canonist of eminence reckons that upward of sixty thousand decisions have been delivered by the Congregation of the Council alone; a living, practical commentary on the Council of Trent. The Congregation of Bishops and Regulars publishes nearly three volumes of decrees every year, and the volumes which contain its judgments are over eight hundred in number. When we remember that nearly all these decisions are upon questions of law, disengaged from mere accessories of fact, we are amazed at the treasures of science, erudition, and reasoning which are thus accumulating from age to age in these archives, and forming an inexhaustible reservoir, in which tradition stores itself and whence justice and truth flow out upon the world.
This most golden of all the bright October days, why are we not, as we fain would be, on a brown hill-side, yielding care to whispered persuasions of the wind, or afloat on waters that reflected our sky, when—if it was not always without clouds—its clouds were tinged with glory, or lying upon a shore where we built sand castles in play—alas! for castles we built in earnest, to hold treasures of hope—and laughed to see them dissolve in the laughing waves.
We have no wish to pluck the hill-side flowers; we shall never build castles again, never chase back the encroaching waves, which, while they seemed to recede, rose till they buried our castles and swept away our treasures.
But it will be something to share the repose of nature; to lie on her lap lulled by the requiem of the past, chanted by the voice that sang the anthem of the future. For we—her deluded children—are weary, and only ask of her a foretaste of the rest we hope to find by and by in her bosom.
How weary we are! Of strivings from which we have no power to cease! Of reachings, from which we cannot withhold our hands, toward objects that elude us or turn worthless in our grasp! Weary of our own and others' weakness and meanness! Of lying lives; of suspicions, envyings, and covetings! How tired of homely work; oppressed by narrow rooms, vexed by noises of neighbors separated from us only by the legal number of inches in brick and mortar—a loud-talking, stamping family on one side, and on the other the household of Widow Smith, who keeps boarders and a piano!
By sounds that come up through the open window, I know that the widow is in her kitchen helping to get the dinner. I seem to see her, hot and worried. She is always worried. Her face would be a sad one if she had time to let it settle into its proper expression. As she never has time, it is anxious and fretful, and older than her years. In the parlor, so near that the jangling of untuned wires sets my whole being on edge, her daughter is playing the piano as she sings,I dreamt that I dwelt in Marble Halls. Poor child! Yet dream on. Who could undeceive thee, knowing that there is woven into thy dream the pious resolve to win out of that discordant instrument money wherewith to buy thy mother ease? Heaven help thee and bring to naught the spite of the bachelor boarder in the room above, who, instead of employing his grizzly brain with the plan gossips have devised, by which he might brighten her life and thine, and his own most of all, paces up and down, cursing the noise, and consigning "that old tin pan" to a place his imagination keeps in a blaze with fuel of whatsoever offends him. He hates "that eternal thrumming," hates "genteel daughters of working mothers. Teach music! Better dismiss Nora and make Miss Julia help in the kitchen!"
It might be as well, but it is no affair of his.
Moreover, the mother has her dream. In it she sees her daughter less hard-worked than she has been,and higher in the social scale than she ever hopes to rise; except, perhaps, when that daughter shall have exchanged Smith for Smythe.
But of all the vexations of our life here, the most persistent is the row of houses across the way. Beset by so many things that offend the other senses, we think it hard that our sight should be so meanly thwarted. I grow angry whenever I look out, and wish that I could push those houses down. I pine to see beyond them the curve of a bay bounded by hills, a stretch of river with steamboats and sails, and of shore with a village and farms on its slope, distant mountains blending with sky, or outlined against piled thunder-caps. Or a harbor with ships; some at anchor, some bound outward, and some coming in from strange countries.
I keep fancying that the houses hide these sights, though I know there is nothing behind them but row on row, more brown, stony, and dull. These are low, and shut out less of the sky. The veneering, which is of plaster instead of stone, is falling off, here and there, to save it from monotony. The uniform dwellings, with their line of connecting porches, remind one of the inside of a fort, and of careless, gossiping, uncertain sojourn in quarters.
Widow Smith does not mind the wall that offends us. She told me her story the other day; all she had gone through. What grieves her most, as nearly as I could make it out, is living in a house that is not high. "For," said she, as with a little tearful burst of eloquence she ended her tale, "I hev lived in a three-story and basement, all to ourselves, and always kept a girl, and the folks next door didn't let out ther floors. Though," (wiping her eyes,) "I've nothin' aginst them Browns. They behave themselves as well as some" (Mrs. Green, over the way, who keeps two servants, and does not visit Mrs. Smith and me) "thet's hed more advantages."
I answered, "These houses might do while rents are so high, if the partitions were thicker, and if that row opposite did not hide the view;" meaning the view in my mind. Mrs. Smith could not have seen it; for she replied that "We mustn't be notional; real troubles come fast enough without borrowin'. Since Smith died," she had "hed her share, the Lord knew." If she "let sech things" make her "mis'rable," she should think that she was "goin' contrary to Scripter, wich speaks aginst the sight of the eyes." Then, "of all things, a place not built up was the forlornist." Besides, she liked "neighbors." Good soul! so she does; loves them, too. I have known her to do "them Browns" more than one kind turn; and to us, when we came, poor, discouraged, and unused to city ways, she was guide, philosopher, and guardian angel, in the guise of a lugubrious little woman in a rusty mourning gown and yarn hood. She taught us to market, urged upon us the importance of asking the price before buying, and of counting our change afterward; encouraged us to resist the aggressions of "the girl," enlightening us at the same time as to the amount of service we might require of that personage; stood up for us with the milk-man, ice-man, and man that peddles every thing, and made them give us weight and measure.
But notwithstanding that Mrs. Smith is so sympathizing, it would not have been worth while to return her confidence by telling her of our former affairs—pleasant places where our lot was cast; the old house beautiful we were born in; the hills, and and the river that bathes their feet;purple ridges that lie eastward, blue mountains that hide the west—scenes so changeless in form that memory does not err in always showing them the same; so changeful in aspect that they never wearied even our accustomed eyes.
We cannot talk of these things to one whose world is the city. Yet there are in that world many who will understand us—living in high houses and low ones; on floors, in garrets and dens; walking in rich attire, shrinking in garments worn and unseemly; mingling with others in the mart, lying on sick-beds, shut up in prisons—men for whom fame blows glorious bubbles, but hollow and frail, as none know better than themselves.
Devotees of science whose Eurekas sound more faintly at every step as they mount her endless ladders; not because they fall from such altitudes, but because they become discouraged as the conviction dawns on them that all they have gained amounts to little.
The trader whose vessels dot the seas, who is not so elate with fortune that he never sends a sigh after earlier ventures—ships of bark with freight of sand, on waters the width of a boy's stride.
The gambler in the bread of the poor, not so callous that he never feels a twinge of the old wound, the stab conscience gave the first time he played "pitch and toss" on the blind side of the school-house and won foolish Richard's penny. He remembers that Richard went crying to his father for redress, and his mother came and told the master, who would not believe foolish Richard's story against "the smartest boy and the best at cypherin' in his school." He escaped, but Richard was whipped by his father for losing his money and telling a lie. He distrusts conscience. Why smite so then, why touch so lightly now, if she can find the difference between that childish sin and this wringing hard-earned pence from thousands of simple ones?
And the Father to whom the wretches clamor so does not seem to be a credulous father to them. Perhaps, after all, he does not hear; or is, like the master, on the side of those who can help themselves. At any rate, his mills grind so slowly that it would hardly pay to compute the time one's turn would take to come. It may be that the wheels stand still, waiting for all his floods to gather.
The politician, not so lost in tortuous ways that the man depicted in his first piece to speak, (it was chosen by his good mother, and often said over to her for fear of "missing" on the momentous Friday,)
"The man whose utmost skill was simple truth;Whose life was free from servile bandsOf hope to rise or fear to fall,"
"The man whose utmost skill was simple truth;Whose life was free from servile bandsOf hope to rise or fear to fall,"
does not still stand on the old pedestal in his secret heart.
Absent-eyed women, automatic figures in collections of cabinet-work, upholstery, pictures, and marbles, to which no memories of theirs have grown, lending attention to formal visitors while their thoughts stray to the play-house under a tree, where they used to receive little friends in calico sun-bonnets. The house of which they themselves laid the moss carpet and chose and placed the ornaments, deserted bird's-nests filled with speckled Solomon's Seal, curiosities from the wood, and pretty stones from the brook. For paintings, they had green vistas and glimpses of village, water, and sky. The service, of acorn cups and bits of colored glass and "chaney," was daily polished and set out by their own hands on the flat rock they "made believe" was a table.
Women shawled with fabric ofCashmere, borne above the envious street, but heeding neither its shifting crowd nor its shows. They are thinking of chances enjoyed the more for their unexpectedness, and paid in "kerchies" and "thank'ee, sirs" they used to "catch," when they went to the district school wrapped in homespun shoulder blankets that took caressing softness from fingers—cold alas! now—that pinned them on. Of balmy, luxurious rides on the heaped hay-rigging. Slow, never to be forgotten cart rides in back-woods, where wintergreen and princess-pine send up aromatic odors from beneath the oxen's feet; with wheels now sinking in moss, now craunching the pebbles of the stream, now swept by ferns, and anon pressing down saplings that, released, spring back with a jerk and an impatient protest of leaves. Onward, through sun-glorified arcades, listening to comments of birds that are all about, though each one seems solitary, startled by the beat of a partridge, or catching a sight of her nest. Bending low to escape unbending arms of patriarchs of the wood that fend the way. Peering anxiously into the gathering night; coming out upon the clearing, where skeletons of forest trees, martyrs to progress, that perished by her axe or her flames, lie dimly outlined amid shadows, or stand gaunt against the sky, with charred arms outstretched in motionless appeal.
Or of rides in the lumber-wagon, when grandfather—whom we cannot describe from lack of words sufficiently expressive of venerableness and benignity—held the "lines," and "Tom and Jerry," in sympathy with childish impatience and delight, sped up hill and down, till, amid clatter and rattle, and excited barkings, and joyful exclamations, and a peremptory "whoa!" and "stand there, you Jerry!" (Jerry never would stand there, nor anywhere, he was such a horse to go,) followed by a volley of juvenile "whoas!" and "stand, Jerrys," the wagon drew up before the house, and a young aunt ran to lift the children out, while grandmother stood in the door beaming on them a smile whereof the warmth has passed down through the folds of years, and glows still on hearts from which time has shut out the light of ardent fires.
Did I say that crowd and shows were unheeded? That elegant leader and lawgiver of society, Mrs. Augustus Jonesnob, who glides along in an emblazed carriage, behind those splendid ponies, would not pass, if she knew that she and her "turnout" elicited only a vague, half pitying recollection of a "they say" that gives her the keeper of a junk-shop for grandfather, making it likely that she has no heirloom of tapestry, in fadeless azure, and green, and gold, wherewith to hang the halls she always dreamed of, without dreaming how bare she would find them.
Young Augustus—"Point-Lace Jonesnob," the girls call him—rides beside his mother's carriage, well-dressed, well-mounted, smiling complacently, for he knows that he looks about the thing; and the day being neither too cold nor too warm, nor muddy, dusty, windy, nor too early in the season, he thinks it will do to show himself. Does any one suppose his smile to be the emanation from some reminiscence of "taking the horses to water" in boyhood? The riding-master's hand, and not the proud father's, held him on the first time he was mounted. He has no breezy remembrances of free gallops whither he would; no pensive memories of solemn rides across lonesome barrens,where heavenward-pointing pines worship God with ceaseless harmonies and unfailing incense.
Men whose life, sold for a salary, is the property of others; who spend the hours they ought to have for recreation in street-cars, while ill-used brutes drag them from and to homes in comfortless suburbs, where faded wives, worn with housework that never ends, busy over piles of mending that never diminish, wait, uncheerfully ruminating devices and economies by which they are for ever trying to make ends approach that are fated never to meet.
Broken-spirited gentlemen in threadbare black, worn and brushed till the seams, notwithstanding the times they have been inked, are gray, walking, walking, in search of employment; asking it deprecatingly, for they are honorable, and are beginning to realize—others have long seen it—their incapacity. Returning faint—the bite at the baker's counter is beyond their means—to pale wives, who meet them with smiles that are more sad than tears, and talk, while their hearts belie their tongues, of better luck to-morrow. Perhaps children, too, with eyes that ask—they are too well trained by their mother to demand with their lips.
Women that have seen better days, paying their last dollar—it will bring no return—for the ambiguous announcement that makes known their willingness to accept any position not menial.
Elderly women, delicately bred, once sheltered and inclosed by refined prejudices and conventionalisms, obliged, who knows by what stress, to step out of the sacred (to them; they are old-fashioned ladies) retirement of home. If we must refuse to buy the petty stationery, print, or book they so courteously proffer, let it be seen that we do it with pain; let us not shut the door against these timid sparrows till they have flitted from the steps. They are not of those to whom compassionate hesitation suggests importunity.
Women narrow-chested and grim-visaged, in whom there is no beauty or charm left—pupils of virtue, to whom she gives neither holiday nor reward—toiling up steep flights with bundles of shop-work.
Bedraggled women, that lug heavy baskets down wet area steps into sunless abodes, where they wash all day, while the babes they have not time to fondle want care and comforting, and must want these or bread.
Sinful women, at whom, since Christ is dead in the souls of men, all may cast stones. For them there is but little help or hope in a righteous world.
Those who, by hallowed memories of purer scenes, have been kept from evil.
Those who, though fallen and fouled, still guard, fair and apart, pictures that fill their eyes with tears and their hearts with yearnings—visions of morning stepping down the cliffs into valleys where they dwelt; of sunsets in mountain countries; tropical lands planted with palms that incline exile-ward; snowy regions where blazing hearths and true hearts keep the place of the wanderer warm.
Home dwells pictured in their soul. It is an unpainted road-side house. Sweet-pinks, marigolds, and holly-hocks grow in the front-yard; morning-glories creep up the clap-boards, festoon the windows, and peep into the wren's nest under the eve-trough. In the maple by the doorstep a pair of robins have made their habitation, and amid the green of the elm that roofs the spring and wash-block—the stump of a former mighty tree—is seen the glint of a fire-bird's wing.
Or a farm-house, with gardens and rows of hives, and barns with their swallows, fields of corn and stubble, and upland pasture where cattle are feeding. In "the new piece," between the pasture and higher woodland, buckwheat blossoms for the bees, as it climbs perseveringly up the ridge to overtake the poke, that, bending to its weight of berries, mingles dawning crimson with changing hues of blackberry-vines which hide the rocks. Along stone fences, golden-rod and wild-aster still mingle their blooms untouched, though autumn has reached stained fingers forth to trifle with the leaves of his favorite sumach. In the swamp below, the scarlet lobelia burns amid clumps of green and brown sedge. Beyond the swamp and meadow, and wind-whitened willows by the creek, hills rise and bound the view.
Or it is a homestead, with venerable trees shading a lawn that slopes to a lake in which house and trees lie mirrored. They are playing with their brothers on the lawn, while their mother watches them from her window; or gliding on the lake with companions and loves of youth, steering their boat for a distant headland.
These are living pictures. Their woods sing Eolian measures; their brooks talk of childhood and innocence; their clouds and seasons are always changing; their swallows ever flying homeward, whither the trees beckon. Miraculous pictures! their sun always shines on our brides; their skies rain constant tears on our dead. Yea, in them the dead are risen, and eyes long sealed look down on us with love.
But beyond the headland the lake has its outlet into a stream that winds and tarries, all the while widening, till it empties into the harbor, where ships, laden with costly merchandise, are spreading sails for havens of uncertain promise. They fade along the fading coast; glide across the dim belt that separates land's end from sky; like phantoms disappear. And watchers turn, with a foreboding chill, from windy piers, to confront dirty waterside stores, and pick their way amid trucks and bales that obstruct broken side-walks, between tall warehouses that glower at each other across lanes, to meet odors of fish and oils, and spices and drugs, and countless other fœtid smells; to enter dull, ledger-lined offices, or seek, through jostling ways, ticketed dwellings that are as alike as prison-cells.
Along the track that divides the farm, and cuts the hill in two, shrieks a train, grudging its passengers the glimpse of beautiful places of the rich; slackening its pace to prolong the dreariness of the ugly outskirts, and, lo! dead rows of houses; long thoroughfares; mean streets, with vile shops and squalid swarms; the clash of vehicles; confusion of cries; rush of multitudes—the city.
From the small house the by-road leads to a turnpike that speeds dustily on to a cobble-paved town by the river. The river flows down to the city; where all night long, hungrily lapping slimy piers, with dark hints of oblivion, with winks and gleams that the wretched interpret, with noiseless, snaky undulations, and the fascinating glitter of its thousand eyes, it charms the lost to loathsome death.
Would we, if cares did not bind us, go back to the scenes of those pictures? If our mother's face had not gone from the window? If the farm had not been sold? If alien hands had not cut down the maple and the elm, and strange faces and the burr of unknown voices had not scared the wrens from their nest? If we had money or time for the journey?If we did not feel too much ashamed or disgraced—we have been so unsuccessful, or false to early promises—to meet the pitying or contemptuous looks of our acquaintance? For did they not know how it would be? Did not they too, in youth, scent from afar the battle they knew better than to enter without the certainty of winning?
If we have, or seem to have won it, is there not something in ourselves that holds us back? We have now no desire for sports of childhood. We are not sorry that our mother faded from her window before we got hurts that her kisses could not make well. The halo that surrounds venerated figures would pale in the broad light of mid-life. We are not so forbearing with the old who are with us that we could trust ourselves to have the departed back.
Do we recognize the boys and girls who lived in the small house by the road, who used to get up early and run laughing to the spring to take turns washing in the tin basin that hung against the elm? And the faces mirrors now show us—are they the same that rose radiant from that bath? Could we sleep soundly in a garret, and wake delighted to see snow sifting through the roof? Or relish the food we thought it neither shame nor labor to carry when, bare-footed in summer and shod in calf-skin in winter, we walked a mile to the red school-house down by the 'pike? Would we feel honored if the madam were now to visit us in the modest dress that we once thought the perfection of taste?
When it was our week to conduct her home, we neither hunted bird's-nests, nor swung upon low branches of the "mill-pines," nor dipped our feet in mud-puddles to get "wedding-shoes" on, nor sought berries along the fences, unless it was to string them on timothy-rods and present them shyly for her acceptance.
Have we strength or inclination for harvest work? Then to leaden hearts and sluggish blood what pleasure in moonlight sail, or midnight sleigh-ride, or mad gallop over lift and level!
Let us guard our sacred pictures. To their scenes we will not return. For if, instead of patches of sky, the circle of the firmament were ours, with changing glory of dawn, and noon, and sundown, and deeps gleaming with stars, yet our spirits would not soar with their swallows. Their mountains would not draw our feet as they did when we believed that every summit reached was a height gained, knew not that the peaks which pierced the clouds hid higher ranges, yet no nearer the heaven of hope than those which limited our sight.
Is there no spot, dear friend, that you and I would revisit?
Behold a worn foot-path in which we may walk and gather immortelles! It leads to a city whereof the houses are low and hide none of the sky; narrower than these, but straitness does not inconvenience dwellers who have no call to go to and fro; not uniform—the occupants' names are cut into fronts of marble and granite and mossy red sand-stone. Some are marked by columns, others by crosses. Around many plants are set. But here are others. The tenants were poor or friendless folk, or strangers; they have only clay walls and roofs of sod, upon which every blade, green or sere, all day long and all night, bending lightly to airs of summer or swept low by winter winds, keeps sighing, "May he rest in peace."
Old neighbors are here; but nolooks of theirs question us as to what we have done in the world, or in what failed.
Did the sight of these at last turn inward? and did lips that were so ready with the Pharisee's prayer close with the cry of the publican?
Old friends! But their hands are cold and will never clasp ours again. Enemies! Between them and us may judgment be the offspring of Christian kindness!
And here, hedged with arbor-vitæ, is the place of our kin. Those of them who passed hither before our time we could never realize. Others are dim remembrances; like the baby sister that came one wild winter night, to our great wonder, and, to our equal sorrow, left us in spring for this small habitation.
These were not long separated. Dear old folks! one roof and one tablet for two who had but one mind and one heart. Here lies the little cousin we quarrelled with at evening, to shed over her in the morning our first remorseful tears. Look through the break in the hedge, on that square slab—
Evelyn Grant.Aged 35.
Our first school-mistress. We hated her with the impotent bitterness of childish hearts outraged. For did she not show partiality to the dullest scholar she had?—because his father was rich, the big boys said; and thus we repeated it to our fond if not judicious friend, old Diana, when we complained to her of Miss Evelyn's injustice in sending Alf Whitfield up head every Monday.
"He is the oldest," she would say. "As if oldness is any reason why a great fellow like that should have a better chance than the rest," we would think. If we had understood how much of Miss Evelyn's support depended upon the favor of rich Squire Whitfield, we might have felt differently. They say that Alf's mother used to beg of the mistress to encourage and make much of the bashful half-wit, who often wept because he could not learn like the others.
We will pull the old weeds from her grave. They shall not choke flowers planted by the orphan nephews she worked so hard to bring up respectably—worked without a complaint long after the cough we mocked behind our primers had hacked into her vitals.
Let us follow this road, beyond the pines—a little higher—here. The spot we have thought and dreamed about but never before seen.
If any one should ask why we came, hardly pausing, by so many mounds of soldiers who died in the same cause, as may be read on their tablets, we would answer that, with the soul of this one, all glory for us passed out of our marvellous sunsets, warmth from the color of our autumns, charm from our ice-bound winters, sweetness from the breath of our springs.
Down there, bordering this field consecrated to Catholic dead, is the "colored folks' ground."
How tidy it looks. Formerly it was a huddle of neglected hillocks; many of them sunken as if they who, deprecating scorn, had crept through the world in the shadow of the wall, shrank even here from obtruding.
How many of us Catholics, of the thousands that crowd that church of which we see the cross above the hill-top, or lie here with hands crossed to God, ever offered a prayer for those neglected souls, living or dead?
Before that church was built there came from the West Indies, following the fortunes of an exiled family, a gray-haired negro. He did not persevere in hearing Mass because thechildren insulted him on the street—waited for him with stones in their hands at the corners of the church. He died, and, to fulfil his last wish, some of his people planted a cross upon his unsodded grave.
I used to know every mound, from that Egyptian-faced vault,
"Against whose portal I had thrown,In childhood, many an echoing stone;And shrank to think, poor heart of sin,It was the dead that groaned within;"
"Against whose portal I had thrown,In childhood, many an echoing stone;And shrank to think, poor heart of sin,It was the dead that groaned within;"
to the cheerful nook where the nurseryman's children sleep under their coverlet of flowers. From the hero's pillar by the highway, with the record,
"He lived as mothers wish their sons to live,He died as fathers wish their sons to die,"
"He lived as mothers wish their sons to live,He died as fathers wish their sons to die,"
to the monument of the beloved woman whose husband and daughters came every year from distant homes to add a tribute of plants and garlands to the granite offering they had raised to her memory.
Here, broken and half buried, is the old slab with death's-head and bones, and the verse exhorting all Christians to pray for the soul of Peter Curran.
Under this willow—she that planted it, in the belief that it would shade her rest, lies far away—our patriarch is buried: a father to orphans; to the poor a brother. That memorial in the stranger's ground—the only one—he caused to be placed above the remains of the decayed gentleman he entertained so many years and laid to rest at his own cost. Another, to whom he gave shelter, lies beside "the chevalier." The droll Swede, the whaleman, is buried behind them both. In our village foreigners were not looked upon with favor in those ante-emigration times; and this one was so blundering that no one would give him work after his honesty was proved. They were going to send him to jail as a vagrant, when Uncle Allan made up his mind that he needed just such a man for odd jobs. Bastian never learned enough English to thank him, but the tears that wet his parchment cheeks the day they brought his benefactor here were expressive.
Figures homely yet gracious, how they rise in memory!
Some fell asleep in hope; others drew back in doubt, or struggled with doom. Some, having done their best, lay down, offering it and that wherein they had failed to God, beside others who had nothing to offer but remorse.
All these yet speak to us, with more significance on this October afternoon in the October of our life than they did in past autumns; while to every one, according to his need, they teach a lesson.
They say to the covetous, "Not one of your things shall pass through the gate of this city."
To the envious, "Behold the state of him you wished to change places with yesterday."
They promise those who are kept awake by care "a blessed sleep."
They speak of rest to the world-weary; to the good, of beatitude; to the bad, of judgment; to all, of the end that is hastening on swift wings.
This Free Religious Association appears to be composed of men and women who, some thirty years ago, were, or would have been, calledcome-outersin Boston and its vicinity, but who are now generally called radicals, a name which they seem quite willing to accept. They are universal agitators, and see or imagine grievances everywhere, and make it a point wherever they see or can invent a grievance, to hit it; at least, to strike at it. They were conspicuous in the late abolition movement, are strenuous advocates for negro equality—or, rather, negro superiority—stanch women's rights men, in a word, reformers in general. They claim to have a pure and universal religion; and though some of them are downright atheists, they profess to be more Christian than Christianity itself, and their aim would seem to be to get rid of all special religion, so as to have only religion in general. They say, in the first article of their constitution:
"This association shall be called the Free Religious Association—its objects being to promote the interests of pure religion, to encourage the scientific study of theology, and to increase fellowship in the spirit; and to this end all persons interested in these objects are cordially invited to its membership."
"This association shall be called the Free Religious Association—its objects being to promote the interests of pure religion, to encourage the scientific study of theology, and to increase fellowship in the spirit; and to this end all persons interested in these objects are cordially invited to its membership."
Nothing can be fairer or broader, so far as words go. Ordinary mortals, however, may be puzzled to make out what this religion in general, and no religion in particular, really is; and also to understand how there can be pure religion and scientific theology without God. Our radical friends are not puzzled at all. They have only to call man God, and the scientific study of the physiological and psychological laws of human nature the scientific study of theology, and every difficulty vanishes. Whoever believes in himself believes in God, and whoever can stand poised on himself has in himself the very essence of religion. According to them, the great error of the past has been in supposing that religion consists in the recognition, the love, and the service of a superior power; but the merit of free religion is, that it emancipates mankind from this mother error, discards the notion that they owe obedience to any power above humanity, and teaches that man is subject only to himself. Hence the Emersonian maxim, Obey thyself, which, translated into plain English, is, Live as thou listest.
The aim of the association, the president—whom we remember as a handsome, fair-complexioned, bright-eyed school-boy—tells us in his opening address is Unity. He says:
"Our aim, let it be understood, isunity; not division, discord, conflict—but unity. We are not controversialists. We carry no sword in our hands. We wear no weapons concealed about our person. Our one word is peace—the word which is always most heartily responded to by earnest men. Religion means unity; the very definition of it signifies the power that binds men together; that binds all souls to the divine. The communion of saints—that is the religious phrase; and yet you will pardon me if I say that religion at present is the one word that means division. As interpreted by the religious world, it means war and discord. Subjects are debated on other platforms—social questions, political questions; they are debated and dismissed. In the religious world the discussion goes on morepersistently, more bitterly than on any other field; but the issues are always the same, the venue is never changed, conclusions are never reached, and we lack the benefit that comes from the reconciliation of perpetual discussion."Religion as organized is organized division. The communion is a communion-table, the Christ is a symbol of the sects, the unity is a unity made up of separate departments and families. The ancient religions of the world still hold their own. Buddhism, Brahminism, the religion of Zoroaster, the religion of Confucius, Judaism, fetichism, Sabaism—all stand where they did. All gather in their population; all have their organized activities, as they ever had. No one of them has materially changed its front; not one of them has been disorganized; not one of them has retreated from the ground that from time immemorial it has occupied. They have stormed at each other, they have been mortal enemies; but still they stand where they stood. There is no superstition, however degrading, that does not exist to-day; and Christian missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, have gone out with hearts of flame and tongues of fire, and souls that were all one solid single piece of consecration, and have dashed themselves in hosts with the utmost heroism against those ancient lines of faith; and their weapons have dropped harmless at the foot. Here and there a few hundred, or a few thousand, or a few tens or hundreds of thousands, may have shifted from one faith to the other; but the solid substance of these great religions still endures. The vast aggregates of millions and tens of millions are unaffected. Christianity holds its own, and no more. Buddhism and Brahminism hold their own, and as much. What shall we say to this? Does religion mean unity? The world cannot be all of one form of religion. Religion is deeper than all its several forms. One religion cannot dislodge another; one faith cannot supplant another faith. Put Christianity in the place of Brahminism and Buddhism, and people would not be Christians. They might change their name—they would not change their nature. The inhabitants of countries that have been under the sway of those great faiths do not become Christian men by becoming Christian peoples. The Turks in European Turkey are better men than the Greek Christians in European Turkey. The religions, as such, must hold their places essentially undisturbed. Harmony is not possible at present on that ground—on any sectarian ground."Christianity itself is a bundle of religions. There is the vast Greek Church, with its patriarchs; there is the enormous Catholic Church, with its pope; here are all the families of the Protestant Church, with their clergy. They hold the same relative position. Protestantism does not subdue Romanism; Romanism will never subdue Protestantism. The Protestant Church and Roman Church have stood face to face for centuries; and thus they will continue to stand, as long as the populations have the genius that God gave them. What is Christendom but an army divided against itself? What is Protestantism but a mingling of warring sects?—each sect falling in pieces the moment it becomes organized for work. Unitarianism does not gain on Orthodoxy; Orthodoxy does not gain on Unitarianism. Each sect takes up the little portion that belongs to it, and must rest contented; and all the power of propagandism, of sectarian zeal, of fire and earnestness, does but cause the little flame to burn up more brightly for an instant on the local altar; and, when it dies down, the ashes remain on that altar still."Our word, then, is Unity. But how shall we get it? Not by becoming Catholics; not by making another order of Protestants; not by instituting another sect; but by going down below all the sects—going down to faith. For faith, hope, aspiration, charity, love, worship, we believe, are inherent, profound, indestructible elements of human nature." (Pp. 7-9.)
"Our aim, let it be understood, isunity; not division, discord, conflict—but unity. We are not controversialists. We carry no sword in our hands. We wear no weapons concealed about our person. Our one word is peace—the word which is always most heartily responded to by earnest men. Religion means unity; the very definition of it signifies the power that binds men together; that binds all souls to the divine. The communion of saints—that is the religious phrase; and yet you will pardon me if I say that religion at present is the one word that means division. As interpreted by the religious world, it means war and discord. Subjects are debated on other platforms—social questions, political questions; they are debated and dismissed. In the religious world the discussion goes on morepersistently, more bitterly than on any other field; but the issues are always the same, the venue is never changed, conclusions are never reached, and we lack the benefit that comes from the reconciliation of perpetual discussion.
"Religion as organized is organized division. The communion is a communion-table, the Christ is a symbol of the sects, the unity is a unity made up of separate departments and families. The ancient religions of the world still hold their own. Buddhism, Brahminism, the religion of Zoroaster, the religion of Confucius, Judaism, fetichism, Sabaism—all stand where they did. All gather in their population; all have their organized activities, as they ever had. No one of them has materially changed its front; not one of them has been disorganized; not one of them has retreated from the ground that from time immemorial it has occupied. They have stormed at each other, they have been mortal enemies; but still they stand where they stood. There is no superstition, however degrading, that does not exist to-day; and Christian missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, have gone out with hearts of flame and tongues of fire, and souls that were all one solid single piece of consecration, and have dashed themselves in hosts with the utmost heroism against those ancient lines of faith; and their weapons have dropped harmless at the foot. Here and there a few hundred, or a few thousand, or a few tens or hundreds of thousands, may have shifted from one faith to the other; but the solid substance of these great religions still endures. The vast aggregates of millions and tens of millions are unaffected. Christianity holds its own, and no more. Buddhism and Brahminism hold their own, and as much. What shall we say to this? Does religion mean unity? The world cannot be all of one form of religion. Religion is deeper than all its several forms. One religion cannot dislodge another; one faith cannot supplant another faith. Put Christianity in the place of Brahminism and Buddhism, and people would not be Christians. They might change their name—they would not change their nature. The inhabitants of countries that have been under the sway of those great faiths do not become Christian men by becoming Christian peoples. The Turks in European Turkey are better men than the Greek Christians in European Turkey. The religions, as such, must hold their places essentially undisturbed. Harmony is not possible at present on that ground—on any sectarian ground.
"Christianity itself is a bundle of religions. There is the vast Greek Church, with its patriarchs; there is the enormous Catholic Church, with its pope; here are all the families of the Protestant Church, with their clergy. They hold the same relative position. Protestantism does not subdue Romanism; Romanism will never subdue Protestantism. The Protestant Church and Roman Church have stood face to face for centuries; and thus they will continue to stand, as long as the populations have the genius that God gave them. What is Christendom but an army divided against itself? What is Protestantism but a mingling of warring sects?—each sect falling in pieces the moment it becomes organized for work. Unitarianism does not gain on Orthodoxy; Orthodoxy does not gain on Unitarianism. Each sect takes up the little portion that belongs to it, and must rest contented; and all the power of propagandism, of sectarian zeal, of fire and earnestness, does but cause the little flame to burn up more brightly for an instant on the local altar; and, when it dies down, the ashes remain on that altar still.
"Our word, then, is Unity. But how shall we get it? Not by becoming Catholics; not by making another order of Protestants; not by instituting another sect; but by going down below all the sects—going down to faith. For faith, hope, aspiration, charity, love, worship, we believe, are inherent, profound, indestructible elements of human nature." (Pp. 7-9.)
The rhetoric is not bad; but in what does the unity aimed at consist, and how is it to be obtained? Religion, by the speakers who addressed the association, is assumed to be a sentiment, and faith and hope and charity are, we are told, indestructible elements of human nature; then since human nature is one, what unity can the free religionists aspire to that they and all men have not already, or have not always had? Pass over this; whence and by what means is the unity, whatever it consists in, to be obtained? The answer to this question is not very definite, but it would seem the association expect it from below, not from above; for the president says, we are to obtain it only by "going down belowall sects—going down to faith." A Catholic would have said, We attain to unity only by rising above all sects, to a faith which is one and universal, and which the sects rend and divide among themselves. But the radicals have outgrown Catholicity, outgrown Christianity, and very properly look for faith and unity from below. But when they get down, down to the lowest deep, will they find them? What faith or unity will they find in the lowest depths of humanity in addition to what all men have always had? If, notwithstanding the unity of nature, sects and divisions prevail, and always have prevailed, how, with nothing above nature or in addition to it, do you expect to get rid of them, and establish practical unity, or to obtain the charity that springs from unity?
The radicals deny that they are destructives, that they have only negations, or that they make war on any existing church, religion, sect, or denomination; they will pardon us, then, if we are unable to conceive what they mean by unity, or what unity, except the physical unity of nature, there is or can be among those who divide on every subject in which they feel any interest. Does the association propose to get rid of diversity by indifference, and of divisions simply by bringing all men to agree to differ? We certainly find only unity in denying among the individuals associated, who agree in nothing except that each one holds himself or herself alone responsible for his or her own personal views and utterances. Some of them would retain the Christian name, and others would reject it. Mr. Francis Ellingwood Abbott argues that it is not honest to hold on to the name after having rejected the thing. By professing to be a Christian a man binds himself to accept Christianity; and whoso accepts Christianity, binds himself to accept the Catholic Church, which embodies and expresses it. We make an extract from his address:
"As I look abroad in the community, I see two extreme types of religious faith. One is represented in the Roman Church, the great principle of authority. That church has been, and, I think, will always be, the grandest and the greatest embodiment of Christianity in social life. It is worthy of profound respect; and I, for one, yield it profound respect. It took an infidel, Auguste Comte, to portray fairly the service done to the world by the Christian Church—the great Catholic Church—of the middle ages; and we radicals are false to our principles, if we do not do homage to every thing that is great and good and serviceable in its season, even although we think its day of usefulness may have passed. The fundamental principle of the Roman Church is authority, pure and simple. The theology of Rome carries that principle out to the extremest degree. Its hierarchy embodies it in an institution; and, from beginning to end, from centre to periphery, the Roman Catholic Church is consistent with itself in the development of that one idea in spiritual and social and ecclesiastical life."At the other pole of human thought and experience, I see a very few persons—indeed, so few that I might, perhaps, almost count them on the fingers of one hand—who plant themselves on the principle of liberty alone; who want nothing else; who stand without dogma, without creed, without priesthood, without Bible, without Christ, without any thing but the Almighty God working in their hearts. These two principles of authority and freedom have thus worked out for themselves, at last, consistent expression. Here are the two extremes—Romish Christianity and free religion; and between these two extremes we see a compromise, Protestant Christianity—the compromise between Catholicism and free religion. Every compromise is weak, because it contains conflicting elements. Protestant Christianity is like the image with head of gold and feet of clay. It cannot stand for ever. Either Christianity, as embodied in the Roman Church, is right, or else free religion is right. Have we not learned yet to give up these combinations of opposites, contraries, and incompatibles? Has the war taught us nothing? Are we still trying to make some chimerical mixture, some impossible union of freedomand slavery? I trust not. For my own part, I stand pledged to liberty, pure and simple; and I have come to view all compromises alike, and to cast them utterly away, whether they clothe themselves in the garments of Geneva, or in the last expression of Dr. Bellows and the Unitarian Church." (Pp. 32-33.)
"As I look abroad in the community, I see two extreme types of religious faith. One is represented in the Roman Church, the great principle of authority. That church has been, and, I think, will always be, the grandest and the greatest embodiment of Christianity in social life. It is worthy of profound respect; and I, for one, yield it profound respect. It took an infidel, Auguste Comte, to portray fairly the service done to the world by the Christian Church—the great Catholic Church—of the middle ages; and we radicals are false to our principles, if we do not do homage to every thing that is great and good and serviceable in its season, even although we think its day of usefulness may have passed. The fundamental principle of the Roman Church is authority, pure and simple. The theology of Rome carries that principle out to the extremest degree. Its hierarchy embodies it in an institution; and, from beginning to end, from centre to periphery, the Roman Catholic Church is consistent with itself in the development of that one idea in spiritual and social and ecclesiastical life.
"At the other pole of human thought and experience, I see a very few persons—indeed, so few that I might, perhaps, almost count them on the fingers of one hand—who plant themselves on the principle of liberty alone; who want nothing else; who stand without dogma, without creed, without priesthood, without Bible, without Christ, without any thing but the Almighty God working in their hearts. These two principles of authority and freedom have thus worked out for themselves, at last, consistent expression. Here are the two extremes—Romish Christianity and free religion; and between these two extremes we see a compromise, Protestant Christianity—the compromise between Catholicism and free religion. Every compromise is weak, because it contains conflicting elements. Protestant Christianity is like the image with head of gold and feet of clay. It cannot stand for ever. Either Christianity, as embodied in the Roman Church, is right, or else free religion is right. Have we not learned yet to give up these combinations of opposites, contraries, and incompatibles? Has the war taught us nothing? Are we still trying to make some chimerical mixture, some impossible union of freedomand slavery? I trust not. For my own part, I stand pledged to liberty, pure and simple; and I have come to view all compromises alike, and to cast them utterly away, whether they clothe themselves in the garments of Geneva, or in the last expression of Dr. Bellows and the Unitarian Church." (Pp. 32-33.)
Mr. Abbott is not quite exact in his phraseology, and does not state the Catholic principle correctly. The principle on which the church rests, and out of which grow all her doctrines and precepts, is not authority, but the mystery of the Incarnation, or the assumption of human nature by the Word. Nor is he himself quite honest according to his own test of honesty. To be consistent with himself, he must reject not only the termChristian, but also the termreligion, and put the alternative, Either Catholicity or no religion. The word religion—fromreligare—means either intensively to bind more firmly, or iteratively, to bind again, to bind man morally to God as his last end, in addition to his being physically bound to God as his first cause.Free religionis a contradiction in terms, as much so as free bondage. Religion is always a bond, a law that binds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson differs from Mr. Abbott, and would retain the name Christian, though without the reality. We quote a long passage from his not very remarkable speech, out of deference to his rank as one of the originators of the movement:
"We have had, not long since, presented to us by Max Müller a valuable paragraph from St. Augustine, not at all extraordinary in itself, but only as coming from that eminent father in the church, and at that age in which St. Augustine writes: 'That which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist from the planting of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already subsisted, began to be called Christianity.' I believe that not only Christianity is as old as the creation—not only every sentiment and precept of Christianity can be paralleled in other religious writings—but more, that a man of religious susceptibility, and one at the same time conversant with many men—say a much travelled man—can find the same idea in numberless conversations. The religious find religion wherever they associate. When I find in people narrow religion, I find also in them narrow reading."I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous dispensation—certainly not to the doctrine of Christianity. This claim impairs, to my mind, the soundness of him who makes it, and indisposes us to his communion. This comes the wrong way; it comes from without, not within. This positive, historical, authoritative scheme is not consistent with our experience or our expectations. It is something not in nature, it is contrary to that law of nature which all wise men recognized, namely, never to require a larger cause than is necessary to the effect. George Fox, the Quaker, said that, though he read of Christ and God, he knew them only from the like spirit in his own soul. We want all the aids to our moral training. We cannot spare the vision nor the virtue of the saints; but let it be by pure sympathy, not with any personal or official claim. If you are childish and exhibit your saint as a worker of wonders, a thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim takes his teachings out of logic and out of nature, and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on the teachings. It is the praise of our New Testament that its teachings go to the honor and benefit of humanity—that no better lesson has been taught or incarnated. Let it stand, beautiful and wholesome, with whatever is most like it in the teaching and practice of men; but do not attempt to elevate it out of humanity by saying, 'This was not a man,' for then you confound it with the fables of every popular religion; and my distrust of the story makes me distrust the doctrine as soon as it differs from my own belief. Whoever thinks a story gains by the prodigious, by adding something out of nature, robs it more than he adds. It is no longer an example, a model; no longer a heart-stirring hero, but an exhibition, a wonder, an anomaly, removed out of the range of influence with thoughtful men." (Pp. 42-44.)
"We have had, not long since, presented to us by Max Müller a valuable paragraph from St. Augustine, not at all extraordinary in itself, but only as coming from that eminent father in the church, and at that age in which St. Augustine writes: 'That which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist from the planting of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already subsisted, began to be called Christianity.' I believe that not only Christianity is as old as the creation—not only every sentiment and precept of Christianity can be paralleled in other religious writings—but more, that a man of religious susceptibility, and one at the same time conversant with many men—say a much travelled man—can find the same idea in numberless conversations. The religious find religion wherever they associate. When I find in people narrow religion, I find also in them narrow reading.
"I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous dispensation—certainly not to the doctrine of Christianity. This claim impairs, to my mind, the soundness of him who makes it, and indisposes us to his communion. This comes the wrong way; it comes from without, not within. This positive, historical, authoritative scheme is not consistent with our experience or our expectations. It is something not in nature, it is contrary to that law of nature which all wise men recognized, namely, never to require a larger cause than is necessary to the effect. George Fox, the Quaker, said that, though he read of Christ and God, he knew them only from the like spirit in his own soul. We want all the aids to our moral training. We cannot spare the vision nor the virtue of the saints; but let it be by pure sympathy, not with any personal or official claim. If you are childish and exhibit your saint as a worker of wonders, a thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim takes his teachings out of logic and out of nature, and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on the teachings. It is the praise of our New Testament that its teachings go to the honor and benefit of humanity—that no better lesson has been taught or incarnated. Let it stand, beautiful and wholesome, with whatever is most like it in the teaching and practice of men; but do not attempt to elevate it out of humanity by saying, 'This was not a man,' for then you confound it with the fables of every popular religion; and my distrust of the story makes me distrust the doctrine as soon as it differs from my own belief. Whoever thinks a story gains by the prodigious, by adding something out of nature, robs it more than he adds. It is no longer an example, a model; no longer a heart-stirring hero, but an exhibition, a wonder, an anomaly, removed out of the range of influence with thoughtful men." (Pp. 42-44.)
Mr. Emerson cannot be very deeply read in patristic literature, if heis obliged to go to Max Müller for a quotation from St. Augustine, and he proves by his deductions from the language of this great doctor and father that he knows little of the Catholic Church. St. Augustine was a Catholic, and taught that, though times vary, faith does not vary, and that as believed the patriarchs so believe we, only they believed in the Christ who was to come, and we in the Christ who has come; and the church teaches through her doctors that there has been only one revelation, that this was made, in substance, to our first parents in the garden. She teaches us that Christianity is not only as old, but even older than creation; for creation with all it contains was created in reference to Christ the Incarnate Word, and consequently Christianity, founded in the Incarnation, is really the supreme law according to which the universe was created and exists. It precedes all other religions, and the various heathen or pagan religions and mythologies are only traditions, corruptions, perversions, or travesties of it. To the question, "How is the church catholic?" the very child's catechism answers, "Because she subsists in all ages, teaches all nations, and maintains all truth." How otherwise could she be Catholic?
That "every sentiment [doctrine?] and precept of Christianity can be paralleled in other religious writings" (religions, for Christianity is not a writing) may be true in part, if taken separately and in an unchristian sense; but certainly not as a connected and self-consistent system, in its unity and integrity. But suppose it, what then? It would only prove that all religions have retained more or less of the primitive revelation, which all men held in common before the Gentile apostasy and the dispersion of the race consequent on the attempt to build the Tower of Babel; not that all religions have had a common origin in human nature. What we actually find in pagan religions and mythologies that is like Christianity, is no more than we should expect on the supposition of a primitive revelation held out of unity, and interpreted by pride, folly, and ignorance, the characteristics of every pagan people. But Mr. Emerson is true to the old doctrine which he chanted years ago inThe Dial: