XCIV.—GOD GAVE TO HIS CHURCH CHARITY.LACORDAIRE.Father Lacordaire was born in France in 1802, and died in 1861. Of all the great modern French preachers, he was the ablest and most brilliant. His “Conferences” at Notre Dame, Paris, attracted immense crowds of the most distinguished people of the city. They have been translated into English, and published in New York in three octave volumes.
LACORDAIRE.
Father Lacordaire was born in France in 1802, and died in 1861. Of all the great modern French preachers, he was the ablest and most brilliant. His “Conferences” at Notre Dame, Paris, attracted immense crowds of the most distinguished people of the city. They have been translated into English, and published in New York in three octave volumes.
1. Society is impossible if it be not founded upon respect for authority by the people, and for the people by authority. Well, then, the Catholic Church carries the respect of the people for authority to its highest degree; she changes the master into a father, so that if the father errs, the children, like those of the patriarch, cover his faults with the mantle of their respect. At the same time she instills into the hearts of sovereigns that respect so delicate, so precious, in the eyes of their people. In their palaces, and in the midst of their pomp, she causes them to practice that saying of the Gospel, “He who would be greatest among you let him be your servant.”
2. The persuasive force which resulted from these rational advantages was immense. Whether men examinedopinions, history, morality, or society, the Church was without parallel.
3. They were able to deprive her of everything, her patrimony, the help of the civil authority, the liberty common to all; they could cast her ministers into prisons, torture them on scaffolds; but men do not imprison reason, they do not burn accomplished facts, they do not dishonor virtue, they do not assassinate logic.
4. We are strong then, gentlemen, first by the spirit of God which speaks in us, but also in the human mind which, when it comes coolly to examine our history, our dogmas, our morality, is obliged to agree that nothing is more firmly established.
5. Nevertheless, this was not enough. History only addresses itself to those who have studied it; ideas enlighten only those who can compare them, civilization is only appreciable to civilized men.
6. The Church needed a yet more human, that is to say, a more general source of persuasion. God gave to his Church charity. There was no heart into which the Church could not penetrate by charity; for misfortune is the monarch of this lower world, and sooner or later every heart is touched by his scepter. Men may resist grace and reason, but who shall resist charity? Why hate those who do good? why kill those who give their life? Henceforth the Church might advance with confidence to subdue the universe, for there are tears everywhere in the world, and they are so natural to us that, even if there were no cause for them, they would flow without cause, the simple charm of that indefinable sadness of which our soul is the deep and mysterious well.
7. Metaphysics[616]and history are the pillars of truth; but these pillars are hidden in the foundations of the temple, they are only sought for by the light of flambeaux[617]and by distinguished men.
8. A humble priest, a curé of a country village, never enters with the sciences into the cottage of the poor. He goes there with charity. He finds there a heart suffering, and consequently open: and the poor man seeing the priest coming to him full of respect for his misery, and of feeling for his trouble, easily recognizes truth in the garb of love.
[616]Met-a-physˊ-ics, a science which embraces all those inquiries which relate to other than physical objects.[617]Flamˊ-beaux, (flam-bo), lighted torches.
[616]Met-a-physˊ-ics, a science which embraces all those inquiries which relate to other than physical objects.
[616]Met-a-physˊ-ics, a science which embraces all those inquiries which relate to other than physical objects.
[617]Flamˊ-beaux, (flam-bo), lighted torches.
[617]Flamˊ-beaux, (flam-bo), lighted torches.