At eleven o’clock at night, the firing, which was not far off, ceased. The frenzied demagogues without uttered powerless threats against us. We kept a strict guard, and seriously began to hope. At a quarter before three, the firing recommenced toward Père-la-Chaise. Every hour now seemed an age. There was a formidable barricade in the Rue de la Roquette in front of the prison. Attacked on the side of the Bastille, it would have opposed a formidable resistance on account of its steepness, but, owing to the winding and concentric course of the French army, the insurgents, stormed from the heights occupied by our troops, left the barricade in disorder, and a battalion of marines took possession of La Roquette. Our resistance, that at first was only madness, ended miraculously. It was the great festival of Whit-Sunday. After four days of the greatest agony that can be imagined, we were, contrary to all expectation, restored to life and liberty.
While some of the prisoners cried, “Vive l’armee! Vive la France!” the most of them, affected by want of sleep and the mental torture that no human tongue could express, persisted in regarding our liberators as insurgents disguised as marines. Then began a singular negotiation between the prisoners and the marines, inwhich the former, more incredulous thanSt.Thomas, saw nothing but snares, and the latter with immovable patience submitted to requirements that were almost puerile. The arms, flags, books, and papers of the battalion were demanded. The marines consented, but the prisoners, blinded and confused, were still far from being reassured concerning the identity of the marines.
Some of my companions and myself, who could not believe a disguise could be so perfect, were distressed at this prolonged hesitation, far from flattering to our courageous deliverers. We induced our companions to allow us to go out, that they might judge from our reception what course to take themselves. At the sight of the marines who rush toward us, not to massacre us, but to shake our hands and rejoice over our deliverance, the confidence of our companions revived, and they came to receive their share of cordial sympathy.
My surprise was great when I heard General Vinoy’s aide-de-camp eagerly inquire for Mgr. Darboy and M. Deguerry. “Where are they? How do they do?” It was four days since they were massacred by the Commune, and the frightful reality was still unknown at Versailles and Paris. Knowing the profound affection of the brave General Vinoy for the Archbishop of Paris, his aide-de-camp begged me to give him some correct details, which he immediately despatched to the general and to Versailles.
They were still fighting furiously around La Roquette. We were obliged to wait nearly an hour at the office, where we found, in fearful disorder, cartridges, cigars, swords, guns, proscription lists, proclamations, and the decrees of the expiring Commune, never to be issued.
Accompanied by an escort bearingbefore us the French flag, we set out in a body by the heights of the FaubourgSt.Antoine, the Jardin des Plantes, and the quais on the left bank of the river, toward our homes. At each step we had to struggle against the most poignant emotions. Here, in the boulevards, were heaps of men and horses who had been killed, with pools of blood beside piles of cartridges and broken chassepots. There, trees were broken down and houses shattered by shells. The few inhabitants we met seemed confounded and in despair. Further on, we uttered a cry of horror at the sight of the Hôtel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the entrance of the Rue du Bac, the Tuileries, and the palaces of the Conseil d’Etat and of the Légion d’Honneur in flames or in ashes.
In the Rue des Saintes-Pères, a gentleman and lady whom I knew, but whose names I could not recall, stopped to ask if I was one of the Jesuit Fathers, and if I came from La Roquette. They wished news of Père Caubert. I informed them he was shot on Friday with Père Olivaint. At this, the gentleman raised his eyes to heaven, while the lady made an effort to overcome her emotion. “You see before you,” said he, “Père Caubert’s sister!” It was M. Lauras, one of the directors of the Orleans Railway, and Madame Lauras,néeCaubert.
I accompanied the soldiers, who had participated in my captivity, to the Palais Bourbon, and after a fraternal grasp of the hand I turned toward the Madeleine. The Place de la Concorde was upset, and a part of the Rue Royale burned down with petroleum. I found the Madeleine standing, and my residence in the Rue de la Ville-l’Evêque, but both injured by the firing. No one knew of, and what was more strange,no one would believe in, the horrible deaths of Mgr. Darboy and M. Deguerry. My twoconfrèresat the Madeleine expressed the same doubt, the same incredulity. When at vespers I was about to ascend the pulpit to recommend the victims to the prayers of the faithful, they advised me to defer it, hoping the fatal news would not be confirmed.
I had told it to more than one hundred persons, begging them to inform, in their turn, the other parishioners of the Madeleine, but when, in an affecting but cautious and brief manner, I requested the faithful gathered at the foot of the altar to pray for the pastor of the diocese and the curé of the parish, basely shot on the twenty-fourth of May, in the prison of La Roquette, a cry of grief and horror escaped from every soul; the men and the women rose up in confusion, as if to protest against it; the gravest and most reverential for a moment seemed to lose their balance. Among the confused voices around the pulpit, these words were the most distinct: “No, no, such a crime is not possible!”
My moral conclusions will be simple and brief. It would be an insult to the reader to dwell on the great lessons to be drawn from such sorrowful and overwhelming catastrophes.
First Lesson. Divine Providence never chastised and enlightened a nation by severer blows. It behooves us therefore to consider the grave and exceptional malady that is afflicting society, and seek an efficacious and permanent remedy for it. We are all suffering from the evil, and we all should be preoccupied about the means of recovery.
Some days after leaving La Roquette, I wished to revisit the places where I had been imprisoned, in order to retrace, with precision, theevents that took place in the last days of the Commune. I met there one of the most intelligent and most religiousjuges d’instructionon the bench of the Seine. I visited with him the places of the greatest interest, Mgr. Darboy’s cell, and the spot on the circular road where the murder of the six principal hostages took place. The warden took us to Troppmann’s cell. “I supposed, till within a few days,” said I to the magistrate of the Seine, “that criminals like Troppmann were of a rare species that required fifty or sixty years to develop in the lowest grades of society. After the realities I witnessed at La Roquette, I am convinced they are to be found by thousands in Paris.” Thejuge d’instructionreplied that all the magistrates who studied the mysteries of those grades had the same conviction. It would therefore be simply folly not to consider the remedy most suitable to counteract such a disorder.
Second Lesson. In the horrible catastrophe that has just revealed so many material or moral sores, every one is more or less responsible and culpable. Every one should say hismeâ culpâ, and seek to become better. The most guilty are certainly the turbulent working classes, the demagogues, the International, the secret societies, outlaws, and governments without morality, but they alone are not guilty. Literary men who diffuse in their pernicious publications the poison of scepticism and immorality; artists who are wanting in respect and decency; the journals of the rich and influentialbourgeoisie, which defend the principles of material conservation, while by their attacks on the Holy See, the clergy, and the church generally, they sap the very foundations of morality; politicians who brutally proclaim, with a viewto the rewards and the gratification of their cupidity, the primacy of might against right—should disavow and correct their errors. Pious people and the clergy should redouble their solicitude and energy in extending and strengthening their influence, particularly in the most populous districts. There are no other means of safety.
Third Lesson. The reign of the Commune has revealed a frightful number of wicked men in society capable of every excess. They have trampled under foot the very first principles of natural order and social life, which the Reign of Terror would have feared to disregard. The executions at La Roquette, without preparation, without discussion or preliminary trial, were a thousand times more monstrous than the executions of the Revolutionary tribunal. In 1793, the Dantons and Robespierres were imitators, more or less imposing, of the Catilines of ancient Rome: in 1871, we have had Raoul Rigault and Ferré, the Catilines of the gutter. Ferocious beasts are not reasoned with—they are muzzled. Society therefore should have a power of legal repression proportioned to the dangers that threaten it.
But as the material order of things is founded on the moral order, the great principles of reverence for God, a respect for others and for ourselves, should be diffused and practised. It has been wished to establish society with no religious belief, make laws, found institutions, and keep the people in order, without reference to the teachings of the Gospel: this is building the social edifice upon quicksands. How can an economist, a politician, however incredulous, help understanding that while the mass in the great cities, especially at Paris, do not find in the faith, in the observance of religious duties, and in the eternal recompense of a future life, a source of morality, strength and consolation in view of the inequalities of fortune and social position, in view of the enjoyments and leisure of the fortunate ones of this world and of the unforeseen trials and sufferings that too often beset them, there can be neither security nor repose?
Jesus Christ and his Gospel are still the salt of the earth and the light of the world. To withdraw society from this divine and guiding influence would condemn it to sorrow, crime, and shame.
In the dim twilight of an October evening, a rich man prepared to leave the vast treasures accumulated by a fruitless life. Fruitless, I say, for though his increasing millions ranked him a merchant prince of the great metropolis, yet the gold had hardened and crusted and metallized his heart—fusing a subtle poison that destroyed the softer instincts of his nature. Therefore, instead of bearing upward a Godward soul on prayerful incense, those last pulses concentrated in one bitter feeling against the daughter whose faith had won from him the intense hate of his life. The owner of millions each year increased his avarice, bowing him low before the god of the nineteenth century, and inciting the struggle, the sacrifice, the sin, for place and station and gold, literally proving the poet-king’s cry,[82]“Quoniam omnes dii Gentium dæmonia!” So, while the stormy gusts swept up the avenue, and the lowering sky increased the night, the old man gathered his failing strength for the last great effort. “Hold me, William, support me ere it is too late. Quick! give me the pen, I must sign while yet my hand has power.” Then they put the pen in his trembling hand, his stalwart son supporting him, and all the fiercer passions played upon that cold face, and in those cruel eyes, as he wrote the signature disinheriting the child of the wife whose fair face looked in silent reproach from the portrait opposite. And William Stanfield folded the paper and locked itin the escritoire, and old Thomas of the iron heart “slept the last sleep.” But this Stanfield, he of the stern Puritan stock, had not always been thus. First, he married his wife as a mere boy of twenty—a gentle New England girl—who had left William to him; William, so staunch in his loyalty to the heritage left by theMayflowerstock. But Thomas laid his boyish love to rest within the quiet “God’s-acre” of the village church, and then wandered to New York to build his fortune. Fate did not withhold her favors from this sturdy son, who met and conquered her; for he was determined to succeed, and did!
And strange to say that at this time human softness yet lived amid the dross and corruption of the world, for Thomas Stanfield was by no means indifferent to certain influences. So, one bright Christmas morning, he found himself in New Orleans, and, stranger still to relate, his partner, Mons. Crécy, persuaded him to listen to the magnificent service at —— Church. The music was exquisitely appealing, thrilling the nobler attributes of man’s better nature; and so this worldly materialist forgot to speculate or dream of gold for two long hours, and sat rapt, while his soul absorbed its divine inspiration. If there is a season when the hardness of humanity dissolves and merges into its spiritual essence, it is when music gently lifts it to its higher affinities, and brings iten rapportwith God. And thus the man of gold listened to the soft soprano, and far beyond the latticed grating caught a glimpse of darkeyes that haunted him long after the anthem ended. And when Etienne Crécy asked him to dine at the “Grove,” his plantation near the city, he accepted, scarcely realizing what he did till he found himself behind a pair of splendid bays, with New Orleans far in the distance.
The balmy, bright-skied South always brought a pleasant Christmas, for oranges hung golden on the trees that formed the grove leading to the house, and the sweet breath of the blossoms perfumed the air. This to the Northerner, accustomed to ice and snow at this season, was a most enjoyable contrast; and his stroll over the beautiful grounds afforded real pleasure. Then they rested on the broad piazza, or gallery, as it is called in Louisiana, and talked of business details, when suddenly Mons. Crécy discovered that his guest was strangely distrait, for a clear, soft voice was sounding, to an accompanying harp, and Mr. Stanfield recognized the same silver tones that had absorbed him during the morning service. “Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram,” fell earnest and tender on his ear—it was, it must be, the same, and he turned to M. Crécy. “It is my daughter Madelaine,” said the old man; and at dinner he saw the same fawn-eyes that had first glanced from behind the grating in the old church. And those shy, sweet eyes found a place in the heart of the cold New Englander, and in the spring he bore her a bride to his beautiful home in New York.
Three years passed, and only the step-son shared their household. Some trouble attended the marriage, for the parish priest, Father Jean, at first refused to unite her with such an obstinate heretic. But the maiden loved this son of the Puritans, so either her gentle influence or his pertinacious perseverance overcamethe scruples of the good priest, and Thomas Stanfield finally triumphed, giving some vague promise in reference to the children. He fully intended evading the fulfilment of the promise, for soon after his marriage he acknowledged thus much to his wife, who, with tears in her dark eyes, said she would only pray for God’s grace to change him. So, almost as a curse it seemed, for three years no child came to bless the marriage. True, the young wife was very dear to this stern husband, but the element which had strengthened his forefathers still waxed strong within him, and the self-asserting dogmatism heired from John Carver’s band sounded in the stern words that answered his wife when, with quivering lips, she told him of his little daughter’s advent. He kissed the pale young mother tenderly and lovingly, but even in that hour he did not restrain himself from replying, “She belongs to me!” and Madelaine understood too well what those words implied. So she only whispered, as her white face grew whiter, “I will leave her to God.May our Holy Mother care for her!”
Then the gentle soul departed with the cross upon her bosom, and those last words on her lips, and many, many years after Thomas Stanfield heard repeated in his dreams, “God shall help her.”
And a judgment rested on the rich man’s harvest, for this warm-hearted, earnest Southern wife was very dear to him. But the child grew in loveliness, and her impulsive nature felt the need of more than her cold father accorded. Firm as he had been in reference to the child, it seemed strange that he evinced so much indifference to her education, for though she had been baptized in his own church, and sent to Protestant schools, yet very little care was bestowedupon her religious instruction. When she grew old enough, she accompanied her father to church, and through the long sermons her weary little eyes would often close. She went merely from habit, because her father wished her with him, for there was nothing in the cold, formal ritual, if that bare service can be called a ritual, to attract or warm her heart; but it was part of her duty to go; and so she went. Thus her childhood passed, and so her girlhood opened. Children rarely exert the reasoning faculties, accepting with boundless trust what is proposed by their elders. Faith and confidence are largely developed, therefore a grave record is written of those intrusted with these young immortals. But when reason waked and the heart expanded, this warm loving nature asked for more than what was offered, and her soul felt starved, hungry for the food it found not. Thomas Stanfield was now devoted to his business, from nine in the morning, when hiscoupédrove him to his office, to six in the evening, when his key opened the massive door of his palace—his whole soul entered into the fascination, the strife for increasing millions. And at night, as he sat silent in his high carved chair, the closed eyes and set features told that the scheming still continued. Was it strange, then, that the young girl yearned for something more than her home offered? Well, one September evening, soon after their return from the country, the servant handed in a card, bearing the simple inscription, “Kenneth C. Arnaud.” Then Mr. Stanfield, disturbed in the midst of some speculation, testified by a grunt his welcome to a distant relative of his wife. “This is Miss Stanfield, my daughter,” he said, as he seemed to remember that another person occupied the room. Thestranger was a courtly, handsome gentleman, and started as his eyes rested on the young girl. “How like my cousin Madelaine,” he said, “as I remember her in my childhood.” For the first time the old man seemed to realize the resemblance, and turned to examine the fair girl who was his daughter. “Yes,” he faintly assented, and the conversation dragged through a half-hour’s duration, when Mr. Arnaud rose to go. But this was not his last visit, for he passed the winter in the city; and many evenings found him at Mr. Stanfield’s house, where Madelaine sang to him the songs he loved best. Then a new life opened to the young girl, and her heart felt a strange happiness it had never known before.
The Advent season came—a time of joy and gladness in the churches that celebrate this season, but scarcely remembered or noticed in dissenting congregations; and on the first Sunday that Mr. Arnaud formed one of the family party, he proposed that Madelaine should accompany him toSt.——’s church, as the music was always attractive there. Old Mr. Stanfield was half asleep, when the name of this Roman Catholic church startled him. “Only to listen to the music, papa!” she laughingly replied to his frown, and she went. The ritual was new to her, the service a strange mystery, but she patiently watched it all, listening to the exquisite bursts from the choir. Then sounded the “Alma” with its sweet cadence, and the heart of the young girl thrilled within her. She could not explain, but she felt a strange attraction that drew her against her will to this beautiful ritual. Then came the lovely benediction, and the devotion of the kneeling hundreds, the solemn censer’s cloudlike offering, the elevation, and the echoingbell, at which a hush swept like an angel’s presence over the rapt thousands. It was all a lovely dream to this young enthusiast, and, closing her eyes, troops of seraphim and cherubim seemed prolonging the words—
“Tantum ergo SacramentumVeneremur cernui.”
She returned to her home filled with a new life, and for the first time her soul felt its thralls. She was very quiet that night, and even her father remarked the change. Poor child! she had needed all that had been denied to her, and the starved spirit was just tasting of the food immortal. Is it not often thus in life, that a charm, a mere instinct, leads us to the path for which we have been vainly striving? Give me thine heart! was the cry of the Holy Mother to the footsore and weary, to all who sought consolation from that loving breast; and the listening angels caught the echo of that cry, and bore it up to the great Pontiff, who sends the Comforter to spread the white-winged dove on the troubled soul that calls for peace!
The spring came, after the long, cold winter, and Kenneth Arnaud asked the old man for his gentle daughter. But Mr. Stanfield had always regarded Madelaine as a mere child, and seemed shocked and angry at the request. He had forgotten that eighteen years had passed since his soft-eyed wife had whispered, “I leave her to God”—and now a Catholic had asked his child in marriage! He did not answer the young man for several weeks, not till the sweet eyes of his daughter had been dimmed with many tears, and her childish heart had felt, ay, painfully felt, the first great sorrow of her life.
“It seems strange that my faith should prove an objection, Mr. Stanfield, for not very many years have passed since you gave your own example.”
The old man looked him steadily in the eyes, and replied:
“And the great unhappiness of that union was the education of the children that were to come. What say you of this?”
“That, your daughter shall determine.”
“You can speak this with safety, Mr. Arnaud, for my daughter has proved a quick pupil.”
“I can scarcely comprehend you, Mr. Stanfield, and, as a gentleman, will not understand the accusation implied.”
“I do not accuse you of influencing my daughter, but her bias in favor of the Romish Church is a subject that cannot afford me happiness.”
The conversation was serious, and very painful to both, and at last Mr. Stanfield closed the interview with this remark: “As my daughter’s happiness is concerned, I cannot withhold my consent, but I wish you to clearly understand that, when she renounces the church of her forefathers, she also relinquishes all right to her father’s estate.”
A proud smile curled the young man’s lips as he replied, “I feel privileged to claim her, even though the conditions were far more capable of inflicting unhappiness.”
And so they were married, and the old man and his son William bowed before the golden calf, and worshipped it, offering their souls as homage at its shrine.
For the young wife, one brief year of happiness passed, and yet there was unrest even then within her soul, for she craved with hungry longing the new life which she feared to taste,because the ties binding her to her father appealed to her heart, and she dreaded an anger which she knew would never forgive what he considered so fearful an error.
But one cold morning in the winter of ‘61, the telegraph bore to New York tidings of the secession of Louisiana, then the sons of the sunny South rallied to her standard, and for four long years a bloody war desolated that section. She, the young wife, had never given her thoughts to politics, nor did she understand why hate and bitterness waged with such deadly strife between the two portions of a country which she so dearly loved; but her husband decided for her, and, feeling that her life was only a part of his, she followed. And those were years fraught with agony—years that recorded suffering that aged more than time had power to accomplish; for over each battlefield brooded a great host of prayer—prayer born of love intensified, and of partings which would know only the meeting above; and the race schooled by those years grew, developed, lived, more than generations ordinarily experience in a whole lifetime.
Col. Arnaud won a soldier’s reputation, and the autumn of ‘64 found him, with his fine regiment, encamped a few miles below the Confederate capital. Madelaine soon followed him to Richmond, bringing her little family, her boy Kenneth and a baby daughter. The winter was very trying to this delicate woman, for the city was crowded with refugees from all parts of the Confederacy; every square inch was occupied, and therefore comfortable accommodations were impossible to find. Then the depreciated currency rendered the price of necessities almost fabulous, so that barely to live required great sacrifice and control. But the courageouswife and devoted mother gathered her little ones, and contentedly dwelt in one small room, happy to welcome her husband whenever his brief furloughs allowed him to spend a day with her. But the great culmination approached, and the troops that wore the tattered gray were soon to furl the cross of stars that had proudly waved over many a gallant fight; and on one cold wintry morning she heard the newsboys shout “Extra! extra!” and soon Franklin Street was echoing with news of the fierce battle below Richmond. Madelaine had not seen her husband for almost four weeks, and her heart sank as she listened. “I will get a paper,” she said, and, leaving her nurse with the children, she descended to the street to purchase one.
Poor young thing—she little realized how literally she had followed the Scriptures, for she had forsaken all things, and he, her brave husband, was all she had to cling to; and now—but she was too truly a woman for control, and she fainted when she read the cruel words that told of her husband’s fate. A night of horror followed, and the roll of the ambulance in the early gray of the next morning startled her from her troubled sleep. They, those of his brigade, in their faded gray bore him to the small chamber where his young wife waited, and pale and ghastly she saw him laid upon the bed, where he was soon to sleep the long pulseless sleep. All that glory could render to sweeten the pain of dying was offered, for the journals rang with the grand charge he had led, and his deeds of daring were as household words in the crowded Confederate capital. But the great edict had gone forth, and the priest of his church came to offer the last consolations.
“My own true wife,” and he summoned the bowed figure, the frail girl-woman who knelt beside him. The sweet eyes were dim with tears, and the voice was tremulous with passionate grief. His left arm drew her to him, for the right was crushed and powerless. “I am about to ask a brave act from you, my darling; do you think that you can please me?”
“Ask me anything, Kenneth, only stay with me. Oh! do not leave me yet,” and burning tears blinded her.
“‘My ways are not thy ways, nor my thoughts thy thoughts’: do you remember these words, my own wife? And then—only a little while, when we shall meet where the for evermore will indeed be eternal! But not of this did I wish to speak, Elaine, but”—and he hesitated—“if my faith could be taught to my little ones?”
She did not reply at first, but, with one gaze of devoted, earnest love, she turned, and kneeling by his side, with the weak precious hand clasped within her own, she repeated: “And receive, O Lord, thy servant into thy holy church, for which her heart hungers.” And he answered, “Amen!”
But this was no sudden desire influenced by her devotion to her husband; for, six years before, when she had listened to the sweet vesper service, the latent life had wakened, and the slumber had seen sleep no more, but the message, “Wake to thy salvation!” electrified her soul, and her whole nature thrilled its amen there; since then she had been peculiarly situated, and shrank from provoking anger in her father, as she realized how very stern he could be when he felt himself aggrieved. But now her heart told her she must no longer hesitate, the great crisis asked for action, and she felt that all worldly considerations must be forgotten when her husband, and her ownheart also, called for a decision which shaped her life. So she was baptized by the holy father beside the bed where her husband lay dying; and the priest’s voice was very tender as he welcomed this stricken daughter Christ had given to his fold.
Only a few days after, she laid her husband to rest beneath the poplars at “Holleywood,” where many of his comrades were lying; and then came the gloomy, stormy March, and the sad April when the snowy flag was folded, and it was during this season that the widowed mother was received into her husband’s church.
The war had closed, and we all remember the fearful wreck that followed when Madelaine Arnaud found herself battling with the grim wolf whose shadow darkened her door. Her husband’s fortune was all gone, and the delicate, dependent woman felt that she had but little to hope for from her father; still she would not believe that he could entirely forsake her, even though she had become a member of the church his soul abhorred. So she wrote in her extremity and asked for advice. Many anxious days and nights passed, and no letter came; a fortnight intervened, when, one morning, she opened the envelope handed to her by the postman, and read:
“You have chosen your way in life, and, when you forsook your father’s faith, he also separated from one who had joined herself to idols. I enclose all that you may ever claim from me.
“Thomas Stanfield.”
She found enclosed the last note written by her mother, only a few hours before her death, and a silver crucifix, with the name “Madelaine Crécy, La.,” inscribed on the back or flat side of the cross.
She was very young to be left so entirely alone, for she was not yettwenty-five, and two children depended on her for support. What could she do, and how must she act? In her agony, she cried, “Save me, O Father, for without thine aid I am lost!” Then the crucifix fell from her letter, and, clasping it, she drew her boy to her, and, kneeling, prayed: “Lord, thy enemies and mine have risen up against me: I therefore cast myself at thy feet to implore thy succor.”
The soft eyes of the little one gazed into her own, and, nestling closer, he asked:
“What makes mamma so sad?”
There are seasons in life when suffering is too great for expression, when tears refuse relief, and the overcharged heart, paralyzed by pain, seems incapable of pulsation. Then even speech fails; and the poor, desolate woman only pressed her child closer, and appealed to her God for protection.
Thus days passed, and she seemed unable to act, for at the South all was poverty and desolation, while she dared not anticipate what awaited her in New York. But the few dollars were growing less, and her children required food, so she decided to try the great city, and thither with her faithful nurse she journeyed. Her mother’s note gave her strength, and she often re-read the faint tracery on the faded paper.
“For, my darling child” (the note read), “should you ever wander into the dear fold of your mother’s church, feel always that my blessing will rest upon you, and though I may not live to guard you, yet my prayer will be then as it is now for God to be with you.
“Madelaine Crecy Stanfield.”
And though she did feel crushed and desolate on that stormy September evening which found her in the greatcity, still a strength came to her which she had never known, and she felt that God would protect her. Through the crowd at the depot she wended her way, and thence in the midst of a pouring rain to a cheap boarding-house, where she passed the night. The next morning she met an old servant who had known her as a child, and, with tears streaming from the old eyes, she took her to a small but respectable house in the town-part of the city, where she rented two rooms, and commenced her new life. A touching sight it was to see her in her sad mourning dress, she so fair and fragile, yet feeling that three depended upon her exertions, she rose to the emergency, and determined to succeed, or die in the service. She had brought a letter to a priest of her church, and to him she applied. He was very kind, and promised to do all that he could, but at the same time told her that pupils were not easily obtained, and recommended her to watch the newspapers. And she did search the journals, devoting herself to answering advertisements, but, save a few questionable replies, nothing came of this attempt. Meantime she began to feel the pinchings of want, and ventured to try sewing, but how was she to obtain work? “Go yourself, my dear young mistress,” said the good old negress—“go yourself; and may de kind Lord bless you!” And, shrinking and nervous, she applied to a merchant down-town. She could scarcely find words for her request, but her pale face appealed, and she bore away her parcel. Tireless were her continued efforts, and all through snow and ice she persevered in her work. “God will help her!” the dying mother had said, and through the darkness of her life’s storm she tried to comfort herself with this assurance.
It was very hard to realize that her father accumulated useless thousands and lived in princely style at the other end of the city, while, only because she believed in her mother’s faith, she must suffer and toil with her little ones, needing comfort, and often even bread. Then the old man died, and, ere he died, the scene with which this story opens shamed his last hours.
But the exposure of three winters told on this delicate woman, and, when she felt her strength waning, all the horrors of starvation frightened her; for she knew that there were none to help her. She had moved still lower down-town, and into a smaller room, and there, with her faithful nurse, she endured life. But then there came a time when, though the will is strong to do, the physique fails to support, and the brave heart, struggling to conquer, feels despair steeling its vitals, and thus it was with Madelaine. The autumn of 1867 set in early, and November was cold and cruel to the poor. She, weaker than she had been, felt her slight unheeded cough increase, and, when December came, was too ill for any exertion. Bitterly the winter opened, snow covered the city, the wind keen and merciless swept the island, and thus the Christmas week found her with the little ones dependent, and she utterly helpless. The last penny had been expended, and the children were wailing with hunger.
Kenneth had looked into her own tearful eyes, and whispered, “Darling mamma, I will pray to Our Lady, and she will ask God to help you.” She only kissed her brave, trustful child, but had no strength for utterance. So, when the chill night wrapped the city and darkened the gloomy chamber, the child picked up his mother’s rosary, and, throwing itaround his throat, held the crucifix in his infant hands, and, kneeling beside his mother’s low, poor bed, pleaded that the blessed Virgin would be kind to his dear mamma; and then the sweet child went to sleep murmuring Our Lady’s name.
The dawn was fast breaking over the city when the child kissed her, and said, “She has heard my prayer, mamma, for I dreamed that a beautiful angel like the picture in your prayer-book came to me, and said, ‘God will help her!’—and does not that mean you, mamma?”
“I hope that our kind Father will help us, my darling; therefore we must try to deserve his help.”
“Oh! he will help you, mamma, and I will help you, too.”
The day wore away, the last slice had been divided, and there was literally nothing else in the house. Hunger, starvation, was before them, and God, only God, could help them.
The snow fell heavily, the wind blew, and even the elements seemed warring against her, for she had not even fuel to keep off the cold.
Two o’clock chimed from Trinity, and, turning, she missed Kenneth. He was now eight years old, and often went out alone, but, with an instinct plainer than words, her heart rose to warn her of danger.
Three, four, five o’clock came, but still the child did not return. The lamps glared in the dark streets, and the night seemed too cold for human life—when—crash! a shriek, and a pair of horses dashed madly down the streets, throwing the occupants of the coach senseless upon the sidewalk. A crowd soon gathered, and bore the crushed and suffering man into the gloomy room where the sick woman lay. Her room opened on the street, and so they laid him on the small bed where the nurse slept.
“Bring a light,” sounded a gruff voice.
“Don’t you see dat de poor chile has no light for herself? Stonishing de fools dat libs in dese parts!”
A kind voice asked, “Is there no money? Take this and buy a candle.” The speaker was a shabbily-dressed man, but the whole aspect showed that he had known better days. He remained with the injured man, and while they go to find a light I leave them...
The snow was falling in great white feathery flakes, covering the dark alleys and darker tenements with its soft downy covering, and the little ragged, barefooted gamins of the great city were shrieking and screaming with delight; but not to build mimic forts or to join the army of snow-ballers did our little wanderer pause. “Mamma shall have some money,” he said, “and I will begin to work for it, so I will go to the streets where the fine houses are, and there the men will give me work.” Only eight years old was this little soldier in the grand army, but his noble face was radiant with the workings of his soul, which no poverty could injure. His little clothes were patched and scanty, and his poor little frozen toes came through the holes in his worn shoes; but the eyes shone with a light that could not be dimmed, and the firmly-set lips told that he was quite determined to do his best on that afternoon. At first he shrank from the cutting wind that swept from the East River, but, with hands in his pockets and cap pulled down, he ran on till he came to Broadway. Crowded with the happy crowd of the vast metropolis, the great highway was gay with bright faces on this eve of the feast of joy. Windows bright with presents for the favored children of fortune, shops thronged by smiling mothers eagerto gratify their pampered darlings, and child-infant as he was, the little one paused to look at the pretty toys; but tears filled the large blue eyes, and he said, “Oh! I can’t look at these things, for poor mamma is sick and wants food.” At that moment, a gentleman passed, and the child went up and pulled his warm overcoat, “Will you give me some work, sir?” But the creature, a fashionable young fop in tights, shook him off, and passed on. Then came another, this time a respectable gray-haired worthy, and, running in front, the same appealing voice asked the same question. But the successful merchant, hurrying home, was intent upon some new speculation, and, suddenly disturbed, was not very amiable, as he replied, “Be off, you little vagabond!”
This time the policeman came up, and taking him by the arm gruffly ordered him to move on. And thus, on the eve of this blessed festival, when the great city joyed in each household, there was no grain for this wee waif, no crumb for the little estray, who was struggling against the power of the ebb which fate had sent to test his strength for the hereafter. On, on past the Fifth Avenue Hotel, through Madison Square, glancing at the glittering icicles or gleaming snow-drifts, shivering over the frozen pavements, on he travelled, faintly trying for that which seemed for ever denied to him.
“I willfind it for her,” he said, “for the beautiful angel, our Holy Mother, told me that she should be taken care of. I see her now far up in the clouds.” And up in the leaden sky, far beyond the pure, beautiful flakes, he gazed, half-hoping that the Mother of Christ would smile on him again. And did she not even then hover over the young boy-warrior? Did she not pray that he, too, mightbe strengthened in this hard fight which his infant powers essayed?Adjuvabit eam Deus![83]the dying mother had prayed, and his promises would not fail. At last, far up the avenue, when the cold, shadowy twilight stole on the great city, he paused before a stately mansion. Curtains of silk and costly lace draped the windows, and liveried servants were sitting on the box of the handsome coach awaiting the master’s coming. Then the heavy door of massive bronze opened, and the master slowly descended the broad steps.
“Oh! you will help me, won’t you? Please give me some work, for I want to earn money for my mother!”
“Send that little beggar away,” was the irritable rebuff, and the footman flung him aside, not heeding where he fell. The carriage rolled away, and no thought was given to the small human bundle, roughly hurled from the rich man’s path. Then night darkened over the city, and the stars, God’s eternal sentinels, guarded earth as they had done eighteen centuries before when they watched the birth of the incarnate God. And beneath the same shimmering light the boy-warrior lay, all worsted in the strife, as thousands had sunk before, and all unconscious of the cruel hearts that still pulsed on. The torn little cap had fallen off, and the fair golden curls shaded the pale, childish face, turned upward as if in appeal to the Blessed Mother he had seen in his dreams. Was she watching still, and did her kind eyes see the crucifix clutched in the poor cold hands—the crucifix with the dead Christ, whose birth the morrow would celebrate? But the soft feathery flakes fell steadily on, covering the sweet face of the little one. Ah! God ofinfinite love and goodness, will the great army with the ranks of sin, and greed, and lust, prosper and thrive and live, while this young soldier, this infant of purest soul and lion heart, lies all unheeded, dying, the victim of cruelty and selfish forgetfulness?
But see—a policeman tramps near, and he comes with stalwart tread, swinging his burly arms, and clapping his gigantic hands to keep the fingers from freezing, for verily death seems to breathe out in the stealthy, deadening cold. Bravely he glances with searching look up and down the broad avenue, then pauses suddenly by the side of the obstruction just without the pavement.
“God and his holy saints forsake me, if this same bundle ain’t a child! Ugh! but it’s an ugly night for this small specimen to be left here! But come, let’s see, my little man,” and he tried to move him. “St.Patrick save me! if I ain’t afraid that he’ll never feel again!” And he dropped the little arm he held, and the crucifix, falling, lay dark against the glittering snow. The sight of the cross at once touched the stout Irishman, and this sturdy six-footed son of the Green Isle, this huge guardian of the great city, gathered the stray lamb to his bosom tenderly, pityingly, as its own mother, and bore it to the station-house. And, full of the warm impulse of his race, he chafed the poor little hands, and lingered by the pallet on which he lay, till great tears fell from eyes that had not seldom looked unmoved on the misery of the metropolis. He raised the child’s crucifix to his lips, and though he hurriedly summoned a physician, he muttered, “Poor little lamb, if he does come back to life, it will only keep an angel longer from Our Lady’s home!”
The man returned to his duty, and hours passed before he was relieved,but ere he returned to his own home, and the young wife waiting him, he went back to the station-house to look after “the pretty young one” who had died with the cross in his hand; for he fully expected to find him dead on his return.
“We have had hard work to bring him back, Murphy,” said the doctor, as the man walked up to the child. “Only five minutes more, and the cold would have reached the little heart, which was losing all sensation. We have had a time of it, and he has just fallen asleep. These are what we found on him. The card was fastened to his worn jacket, and the crucifix has also a name engraved.” And picking up the card from the table the policeman read, “Kenneth Arnaud, 312 East —— Street.” On the back of the silver cross was the name, “Madelaine Crécy, August 15, 18—.”
“Poor little child! said the policeman. “I’ll take him home, for his house is near my own.”
So he wrapped the sleeping child in an old blanket, and carried him through the storm. A light glimmered on the first-floor front room as he approached the house, and the man stepped in to inquire about his young charge. As he opened the rickety door, the wailing voice of a woman smote him with the agonizing pain it expressed. “The gentleman may remain,” she said, “but for God’s sake find my child. O sir! bring me back my child!” and her sobs and moans were heart-rending. The negress rocked to and fro with the little girl, trying to keep her warm and still her feeble cries for bread, chanting the while in dull monotone, a habit peculiar to her race, and which at this time increased the oppressive gloom of the place, not at all relieved by the flickering tallow-candle, nearly burned out—on thesmall bed in the corner the wounded gentleman lay groaning in agony, and impatiently awaiting a messenger he had summoned—a sad eve truly that announced the blessed festival!
At this time the policeman tapped with his club, but receiving no answer, and not caring to wait in the cold, he once more opened the door. Standing mute on the threshold, for the scene at first deprived him of speech, then walking to the centre of the room, he asked, “Is the mother of Kenneth Arnaud here? For I have found a child of that name, who wore a crucifix on which was engraved ‘Madelaine Crécy.’”
With one wild scream the mother answered, “He is mine!” and, as she clasped him to her heart, the soft eyes unclosed, and the feeble little voice whispered, “Darling mamma, I asked them all for work that I might buy you bread, but—oh! my head hurts, for a wicked man flung me away from a gentleman who rode in his carriage. But, mamma, don’t cry, for she—the one with the angels—will care for us. Oh! I have just seen her, and I waked to find your own eyes where hers had been. Dear mamma, keep me with you, away from the cruel man, and the ice, oh! the cold snow!” And his little frame shivered with the recollection.
“Madelaine Crécy!” the sick man muttered on his couch in the corner. And the policeman approached. “Yes, sir, that was the name on the crucifix, and I thought the little fellow was dead when I picked him up in front of the millionaire’s house on Fifth Avenue.”
“My God! and it was my servant who cast him from me! Will you take a message to that house, my good man? Do not refuse me, for gold shall pay you well. I—I am that millionaire, and an avenging God has crushed me.” With his uninjuredarm, he drew out a card from his pocket, and said, “Take this to my residence, and tell my housekeeper to come to me at once.” Then, placing an eagle, his own valued pocket-piece, in the policeman’s hands, he prayed him to hasten his errand.
But the mother’s weak voice also called the kind Irishman. She had heard nothing of the conversation, for she was absorbed with her darling, who in broken words had told his little story.
“I have nothing to give you, sir,” she said with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “The rosary was my mother’s, and besides this I have not even food for my children. But I will pray for you, and God will bless and reward you, sir; he will grant what I cannot give.”
She clasped his rough hand, which her tears fell upon, and he hurriedly left the room, for his own eyes were very dim.
Many and varied are the phases which the great city presents to these her guardians, but in his fifteen years’ experience none had touched him more than this.
He closed the door after him, and the solitary candle burned to its socket. It was now past midnight, and a long silence ensued, broken only by the snores of the negress, for the starved infant had cried itself to sleep. The bruised stranger forgot his own suffering as he contemplated the surrounding misery, and for some time the stillness was profound. At last he muttered, “Madelaine Crécy! Madelaine Crécy! can it be the same! Then God have mercy on my soul!”
“Who calls my mother’s name?” asked the sick woman.
“I, your father’s son, Madelaine Arnaud. I, your brother, who despoiled you, and sold his life for gold, but,” and his voice trembled withemotion—“but who will devote that life to you now, if you will allow it, to atone for the cold selfishness of the past.”
“I should be no daughter of the church which you despise, William Stanfield, if I bore anger to my father’s son. I teach my little children to pray, ‘Forgive us, as we forgive those who sin against us,’ therefore must my heart refuse all malice against God’s creatures, else would my own prayers avail not.”
He could not answer then, for he, the bigot, the scorner of that church which he had ridiculed, felt now the beauty of her teaching when, even in the midst of her sufferings, this desolate woman could forgive one who knew that he was responsible for so much that might have been alleviated.
“Elaine!”—ay, it was the first time that she had listened to her old name since the night when her brave husband had spoken his farewell, and the sound thrilled her with strange memories—“Elaine, your roof has sheltered me to-night, and saved from destruction one who claims as a proof of your forgiveness acceptance of the home which he will share with yourself and little ones.”
And, ere she answered, the chimes of Trinity heralded the dawn of that thrice-blessed morning when the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will.” And that message of the Incarnation brooded with its holy evangel on the troubled hearts within, as, when the Christmas sun shone over the snow-covered city, the carriage of the rich merchant bore its precious freight to his home, and light, and life, and joy succeeded the gloomy night. And she, when her prayer ascended on that night of shelter and rest, realized the fulfilment of her mother’s benediction: “Adjuvabit eam Deus!”
[82]“For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils.”
[83]“God shall help her.”
The supernatural moment unites created personalities to the infinite. By the moment of substantial creation the first duality is established between the infinite and the finite. This duality is brought into harmony and unity in the Theanthropos, who knits together the finite and the infinite in the oneness of his single personality. But as the hypostatic moment united only created natures to the infinite, another moment was necessary, namely, a medium between the Theanthropos and substantial creation. This is thesupernatural, which, by raising created persons above their natural sphere, enables them to arise, as it were, to the level of the infinite, and establishes a communication and intercourse between them. This we have shown in the preceding article. The question which now remains to be treated of at present is the following:Who or what is to be the medium of communicating the term of the supernatural moment to created personality?
Although God, in acting outside himself, might have effected everything immediately by himself, without allowing any play to second causes, yet, following the law of his wisdom, he exerted immediately by himself as much power as was required to set second causes in action, and then allowed them to develop themselves under his guidance. The law of wisdom is the law of sufficient reason, which implies that no intelligentagent can, in acting, employ more power than is absolutely necessary to attain its object; for acting otherwise would be to let the amount of action not necessary to attain the object go to waste, and be employed without any possible reason. Hence the necessity on the part of the infinite to admit secondary agency in the effectuation of this moment, whenever that was possible, in order to observe the law of wisdom. Applying this theory to the external action, we see that the substantial and the hypostatic moments were effected immediately by God himself, because no secondary agency could be employed therein; but the supernatural moment was effected by God through the agency of the Theanthropos, who merited it by his own acts of infinite value.[84]Hence, as the Theanthropos is the meritorious cause of the supernatural moment, he is pre-eminently its mediator, and therefore the medium of communicating it to created personality. This consequence of Christ being the medium of the communication of grace, in force of his being its meritorious cause, is so evident that we know of none who has ever disputed it. The only question which remains to be solved—a question of the greatest importance—is this: When the Theanthropos was living on earth, he would communicate the term of the supernatural moment in the personal intercourse and intimacy in which he lived withhis followers; but as he has withdrawn his visible presence and intercourse from the earth, how is the term of the supernatural moment to be communicated to human persons in all time and space?
We answer by laying down the following principle:This medium must be such as will preserve the dignity and the prerogatives of the Theanthropos, as will befit the nature of human personality, as will fulfil the object which the supernatural term is intended to attain.
Because, if the medium which is chosen does not fulfil these conditions; if it does not maintain the dignity and prerogatives of the Theanthropos; if it does not befit the nature and constitution of human personality; if it frustrates the ends of the supernatural moment instead of attaining them, it is evident that infinite wisdom could never have chosen it without contradicting itself. The principle is, therefore, evident. Now, what can this medium be in its nature which fulfils all these conditions? It can be nothing else thanthe sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space. In announcing such a principle, the reader is at once aware that we require some kind of presence of the Theanthropos in the cosmos extending to all time and to all space.
But what is meant by sacramental extension, and why should it be so?
To answer this question, let us get first a true metaphysical idea of the sacrament. The term sacrament in theological language is applied as conveying the idea of an instrument of grace. Hence, to get at the idea, we must inquire into the idea of instrument. Now, what is an instrument? It is an organism which contains a force. And what is force? It, being one of the firstelements of our thoughts, can be defined but imperfectly, less by its essence than by its effects. It might be defined to be the energy of a being retaining its existence through the means of an effort of concentration, or diffusing it outwardly by a movement of expansion. Every act of force must be reduced to this two-fold movement: either we shut ourselves, as it were, in ourselves to concentrate our life, and give ourselves the highest possible sensation; or we expand ourselves to communicate our life to others, and according to the degree of this double tension we exhibit the phenomenon of force. The hand contracted or closed is the symbol of the force of concentration; the hand open to give is the image of the force of expansion. The force of concentration in its highest possible act is eternity—the possession of interminable life all at once. He alone possesses it who in an instant—one, indivisible, and absolute—experiences in himself and for ever the plenitude of his being, and says,I am who am; the sublimest idea ever conceived and ever uttered. The force of expansion at its highest possible act is the external action; and he alone possesses it who, absolutely sufficient to himself in the plenitude of his being, can call to life, without losing of his own, whomsoever and whatsoever he lists—bodies, spirits, worlds, and for ever in ages without number, and in space without limits.
Now, God, in giving us being, has given us force, without which a being could not conceive itself, and has given us this force in its double element of concentration and expansion: the one, which enables us to continue its existence, and to develop ourselves; the other, which enables us to propagate ourselves: the one, by which we tend to the act of eternity;the other, by which we tend to the act of creation.
But there is this difference among others between us and the infinite, thathepossesses in himself and by himself the force of concentration and expansion, whereas our force is borrowed and communicated to us by means ofinstruments, which his infinite wisdom has prepared. Life is kept in us by somethingforcingto us theinstrumentsto which God has communicated the power of sustaining and repairing it.
We subsist by the invisible force contained in an organism. The same must be said of the force of expansion. We cannot act outside ourselves, on any being at all capable of resistance, by the simple direct act of our will, but must make use of instruments, among which our body is the first.
Now, the reasons of this are, that, if we possessed the force of concentration and expansion in ourselves and by ourselves, it would follow that, as these two forces constitute the essence of life, we should have life in ourselves and by ourselves, we should be to ourselves the reason of our being and subsistence, and consequently we should be infinite and not finite. Hence, pantheism, which admits the unity of substance independent and self-sufficient, and all else as phenomena of this substance, rejects all idea of instrument in metaphysics, and all idea of sacrament in theology.
Nor would it do to say that God might communicate that double force to us immediately by himself without the aid of any instruments. For two reasons we must reject such a supposition: First, the law of secondary agency, which requires that created substance should act, and it would not for any purpose do so were God to do everything immediately by himself. Second, the law ofcommunion, so necessary to the unity of the cosmos, which is founded exclusively upon the action of one element upon the other, else the communion would be merely imaginary and fictitious.
We conclude: An instrument in its metaphysical idea is an organism containing a force of concentration and expansion. A sacrament, being an instrument, must therefore be an organism containing a force of concentration and expansion; and, as an organism is something outward and sensible, it follows that a sacrament must be also outward and sensible. And as the force which the sacrament is designed to convey is altogether supernatural, it follows that a sacrament must be an instrument of conveying supernatural force. We may, therefore, define a sacrament to be a sensible instrument or organism containing a supernatural force of concentration and of expansion.
But it is evident that no instrument, no organism in nature, is capable of conveying a supernatural force of concentration and of expansion; for that would imply an act superior to its nature, which is a contradiction. It follows, therefore, that this supernatural force must be communicated to the organism by the Theanthropos, otherwise it could never fulfil its destination and office. The Theanthropos, in order to be the means of communicating to all human persons in time and space the supernatural term, which is nothing else but a supernatural force of concentration and expansion, must communicate and unite his infinite energy and action to an external organism, and thus himself convey through that organism the supernatural life. And this union of the infinite energy of the Theanthropos with an outward organism must not be successive or temporary, but permanent and stable;since the object is to convey the supernatural force to all human persons inall timeand inall space.
This is the sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space, the continuation upon earth of the hypostatic union, the filling up, as it were, of his incarnation, a second incarnation; not of the Word with human nature in the unity of his personality, but an incarnation of the Theanthropos, the Word made man, with visible, outward, external instruments, in the unity of one sacramental being, to convey to men in all times and spaces the supernatural life of grace.
This sacramental extension of the Theanthropos must be divided into various moments, owing to the requirements of the object for which it is intended. The object of the supernatural moment is to reproduce the Theanthropos in all human persons by a similitude of his nature, perfections, and attributes, and by a real union with and transformation into his life.
The infinite, from all eternity, under the subsistence of primary, unbegotten activity and principle, begets and conceives intellectually a similitude of himself absolutely perfect under the subsistence of intellectual expression,Logosor Word. This action of thePrinciplebegetting the Word, exhibiting all the essential requisites of generation, constitutes the Principle—Father; and the begotten—Son. In his worksad extra, the infinite, in effecting the mystery of the hypostatic moment, does nothing less than exalt the cosmos, as recapitulated in the human nature of the Word, to the very same dignity which arises in his bosom when in the day of his eternity he begets his eternal Son. For the Theanthropos, or the Word made man, is not the Son of God figuratively, or by adoption,or by any other action than that which begets him from eternity. He as man-God is the Son of God really, naturally, and by the same identical action which eternally engenders him. Hence, the cosmos, as abridged in the human nature of Christ, in force of the hypostatic moment, is really, naturally, and by the same eternal action of the Father, the Son of God Almighty.
The infinite wishes to extend this divineSonshipof the cosmos, as recapitulated in the human nature of Christ, to human persons also. This of course cannot be effected except by an adoption founded upon the following elements:
1. A perfect similitude of the nature, properties, attributes, and virtues of the Theanthropos.
2. A real union with him.
3. A communication of his life.
4. A communication of his beatitude.
In other words, a reproduction of Christ and his nature, his attributes, his life, and his bliss.
To effect this reproduction are required: First, a similitude of the nature of Christ; a similitude of his intellect; a similitude of his will; a sharing in his feelings. Second, a real and substantial participation of his life, in order that this similitude may be sustained, and that, initial and germinal as it is in this world, it may grow and develop itself by communing with its proper object, and thus become perfect and able to attain a participation of his bliss in palingenesia.
Thus the eternal Father, seeing all human persons bearing the image of his Son, having his mind, his will, his feelings, communicating with his life, extends to them the feeling of a father and the inheritance of children.[85]
Hence, the different moments of the sacramental extension of the Theanthropos:
1. A moment of supernatural generation by which the Theanthropos attaches his infinite energy to a visible instrument, permanent in time and space, and through which he confers a similitude of himself and the other divine persons; a similitude in essence, in intellect, in will, in feeling, in aspirations, in an initial and germinal state, and which establishes the incipient and germinal union of human persons with the Trinity.
2. A moment by which the Theanthropos attaches his infinite energy to a visible instrument, and through which he carries that initial and inchoative similitude and union to a definite and determinate growth.
3. A moment by which the Theanthropos attaches his infinite energy to a sensible instrument, in order to communicate to human persons the power to perpetuate his sacramental extension in time and space.
4. A moment by which the Theanthropos communicates his infinite energy to human persons, to exalt their natural force of expansion, and enable them to propagate the human and supernatural species.
5. A moment by which the Theanthropos attaches and unites thereal substantial presence of his person, that is, of humanity and divinity, both subsisting in his single divine person, to a sensible instrument, in order to communicate to human persons his real, substantial, theanthropic life, in order to put all human persons of all time and space in real living communion with each other, by meeting in him and through him as a common centre, and in order to reside continually in the visible cosmos.
The third and fourth moments follow necessarily from the others, both having the like office.
The first of them is intended to perpetuate the sacramental extension of Christ. An organism to be set in motion requires the agency of human persons; consequently, the supernatural organism or the sacramental extension of Christ, in order to be applied to human persons, requires the agency of human persons, appointed and fitted for such office by another visible instrument to which a particular theanthropic energy is attached.
This third moment is demanded also for another object, that is, the transmitting whole and entire, and without any error, by a personal intercourse, of the whole body of doctrines which are the object of the supernatural intelligence bestowed by the first moment. No other possible way can be thought of transmitting whole and entire the whole body of doctrines, the object of the supernatural intelligence, than a personal intercourse, the only safe, natural, philosophical manner of transmitting doctrine. Hence, for this object, also, a moment was required by which the Theanthropos, attaching his infinite energy to a particular instrument, would fit human persons to teach infallibly the whole body of doctrines he came to reveal, and to put in act his sacramental extension.
The fourth moment relates to the natural union of sexes in reference to generation.
Human persons being exalted by the first moment to the supernatural order, their personal acts must necessarily become supernatural; much more the highest possible personal act of expansion, which is the transfusion of their united life into a third. Consequently, it was befitting that the Theanthropos should attach a particular supernatural energy to the union of the sexes with a view to the act of generation, in order to exalt andsanctify it, and thus enable them not only to generate as persons exalted to a supernatural state, but to bring up the offspring in the same supernatural order.[86]
All the moments of the sacramental extension of Christ but the fifth imply a personal action of the Theanthropos, attached to each particular instrument constituting the moment.
The fifth moment alone implies a real substantial presence of the whole person of the Theanthropos under the visible instrument. This requires explanation and proof, since it has been denied with the fierceness and rage of an opposition which did not and could not comprehend the grandeur, the sublimity, the magnificence of the elevation of the cosmos, by the fact of the hypostatic moment. Catholicity holds: 1. That, though the Theanthropos has withdrawn hisvisiblepresence from the cosmos, he remains in it still, not by a spiritual, figurative, phenomenal presence, but by a real, substantial presence of hiswhole person, that is, of his body, blood, soul, and divinity—a presence hidden under the modifications of bread and wine.
2. That the manner according to which this real, substantial presence of the Theanthropos is obtained, is by a change of the substances of bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of the Theanthropos, not still and dead, but as vivified by his soul and divinity; a change effected by the sacramental words impregnated with the infinite power of the Theanthropos, and uttered by the minister over the elements to be changed.
Now the question arises: Is this substantial presence of the Theanthropos necessary? Is it metaphysicallypossible in the manner that the Catholic Church admits it?
As to the first question, we observe that such a presence is not absolutely necessary when considered of itself, independent of, and previous to, the adoption of the present plan of the cosmos by the infinite intelligence of God. But considered in relation to the present plan of the cosmos and as a complement of it, itisnecessary. Infinite intelligence might have selected another plan, but, having once chosen the present plan of the cosmos, the real presence becomes absolutely necessary as a complement bringing it to perfection. This we shall endeavor to prove by the following arguments:
First, the end of the action of the infinite outside himself is the highest possible manifestation of his infinite excellence. To attain this end, an infinite effect would have been necessary. But as an infinite effect was a contradiction in terms, infinite wisdom was to find means whereby to effect the highest possible manifestation of himself, in spite of the ontological finiteness of the cosmos to be effected. This means was to produce a variety of moments; to bring the whole variety of moments to the highest possible unity in the person of the Theanthropos.