Part 1 — TRUE GREATNESS.

There is a singular power in that pithy summons of the exordium to the preface of the Mass—“Sursum Corda.” It stirs the deepest feelings of the human heart. Human nature is keenly sensitive to every appeal addressed to her true instincts. Man needs not to be told that he possesses the power of fixing his thoughts on things superhuman, educing from them principles of action, and shaping thereby his manifold relations with society. It is in stimulating this latent energy, and lovingly decoying it up to its most congenial atmosphere, that we experience the tender force of “Sursum Corda” as a touching address to our innermost self.

Axioms are beyond demonstration. But man, no less than science, has his own living first principles, and their evidence is of such a clearness as to be but obscured by ratiocination. For instance, it is always agreeable to our better nature to give praise where praise is due. Heathen wisdom has beautifully witnessed to this homely truth: “Palmam qui meruit ferat.”[121] The inspired son of Sirach makes it an imperative duty: “Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation.... Let the people show forth their wisdom, and the church declare their praise.”[122] If we should be asked to expound the philosophy of this noble instinct, we should be obliged, we apprehend, either to mystify what is self-evident, or super-illustrate it by the equally undemonstrable fact that greatness of character challenges universal admiration. It is like the golden sunset of Italy, or the many-tinted beauty of the rainbow. We feel, one and all, impelled to do it unsolicited homage.

Further, we secretly covet and thirst after it. For, by a cardinal law of our being, we fain would appropriate and monopolize whatsoever we deem worthy of admiration. Concerning the particular qualities of which true greatness is made up, there may be some difference of opinion. What is indisputable is that its attainment is the result of sustained effort; that that effort is itself a fertile source of pleasure; and that in proportion as we loiter in listless indolence, and shrink from making it, our life is retrogressive and self-condemned.

Artists, in aiming at eminence copy the great masters. They seek to touch their lips to the primal fount of inspiration. Now, it is rather matter of history than abstract speculation or ascetic predilection, that the very best models of greatness of character have been the saints. With their deep piety, lengthened vigils, and extraordinary ecstasies, we are not now concerned. It is as simple men and women we view them. We are dealing rather with effects than with causes. Aside from the supernatural aims whereupon they ever bent and concentrated all their energies, and whereby they daily renewed their youth, and whereat they ceaselessly imbibed fresh draughts of vitalizing nectar, they are the highest types on record of individual excellence. Those fine traits of character which men are agreed in admiring shine out more conspicuously in the saints than in any other class of men. On the other hand, human frailties, social incongruities, personal imperfections, find little or no place in their history.

Only true men love solitude. Not that anybody positively hates it, but that most people prefer, instead of soaring alone with the eagle, to fly low with the herd of the feathered tribe. Hence they hold, with Aristotle, that he who loves solitude must be either a wild beast or a god. It is indeed a godlike love, but it was the cherished heritage of the saints. They were “never less alone than when alone.”

Independence wins the respect of all. Not that reckless thrusting of ourselves against all established usages which borders on silliness, nor yet that waspish spirit of antagonism by which littleness would, in distinguishing and gainsaying anything, fain assume the garb of greatness. Christian independence, which is ever both manly and modest, lies between rashness and sycophancy, but partakes of the nature of neither. The harebrained truant is but little further removed from the saint than the fawning parasite. The kingly prophet of Israel makes frequent and beautiful allusions to independence, as: “Dominus illuminatis mea et salus mea: quem timebo?” And again: “Expecta Dominum, viriliter age, confortetur cor tuum, et sustine Dominum.”[123] If a moral chemist were to analyze independence, he would most likely discover that its seed and stem is love of principle. Men have at all times been found who smiled upon the frowns of fortune, and cheerfully welcomed adversity, simply because principle still survived in unimpaired integrity, though all else had perished. There was yet one rich germ of abiding felicity. Of such it has been well said that “they need not flatter the vain, nor be tried with the impertinent, nor stand to the courtesy of knavery and folly. They need not dance after the caprice of a humorist, nor take part in the extravagance of another.” Perhaps no one sentence in the writings of the illustrious Archbishop Hughes furnishes a true key-note to his character better than this: “I have never had a patron in church or state.” Few are able to pen such words, and, in doing so, defy any impeachment of their veracity. A wholesome disregard for the opinions of others or indifference to human respect is the synonym of independence. It is, indeed, under the latter name we find independence mentioned in hagiology and ascetic theology; and it is one of the insidious poisons which the saints seem most to have feared. They considered the world so whimsical that, do what they might, they never could satisfy it. They everywhere saw good reason for pondering the old argument: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and you say: He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come both eating and drinking, and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine.”[124] There is a remarkable instance of independence in the life of St. Thomas à Becket, and it shows how utterly irreconcilable are human respect and love of principle. It was clear to the chancellor that one of two things needs must come to pass. Either he should be allowed to remain chancellor, and continue in kindly relations with Henry, or he should be constrained to accept the archbishopric, and, by denouncing Henry’s conduct, cease to be the friend of the king. The latter would have saints for friends at the cost of principle; he would have precedence given to the crown over conscience; he would have a courtier prelate with elastic convictions; he would have reconciled anomalies and “harmonized impossibilities.” But the independence of conscience is inflexible; and hence the memorable collision between a powerful monarch, whose fraudulence time has unveiled, and a prelate of unsullied integrity, whose glorious martyrdom is one of the great triumphs of the church. A beautiful writer[125] lays down a simple rule whereby men of vacillating character, in matters of conscience and duty, may meet those who would shake their independence with a sort of argumentum ad hominem: “Since worldlings look upon us as foolish, let us regard them in the same light.”

Closely akin to independence is steadfastness, or firmness of resolve. Not a mulish obstinacy which spurns counsel, and, by magnifying ourselves above all others, teaches us only to unlearn ourselves. Such a spirit betrays utter want of self-knowledge; for few suffice for themselves, and fewer still see themselves as they are seen by others. Whoever would attain to greatness should avoid the fickle and the inconstant. “He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.” And as instability in the convictions of the mind and affections of the heart extends to men’s relations and occupations in life, branding them in all things as volatile, supercilious, and untrustworthy, so we should study to be immovably firm in retaining and acting upon principles which we know to be based upon truth and justice. In pursuing any course of action maturely planned, and followed up from commendable motives, we must courteously but firmly resist all attacks materially affecting the nature of our resolve. It is common with the giddy and the irresolute to seek to bring down men of unbending firmness to their own contemptible level. Whoever lacks the courage to be singular, lacks the first element of greatness, is wanting in a source of solid happiness, and can scarcely be a true Christian. To give up a tried and disinterested friend, to relinquish a line of conduct in itself good and deliberately entered upon—unless from motives far more overpowering than those which had hitherto swayed you—besides furnishing clear evidence of fickleness, inflicts upon the will an incurable wound.

If steadfastness be the twin-sister of independence, fortitude is its eldest daughter. It has various manifestations; but it is best evidenced in danger and in time of difficulty. Opposition is its touchstone, elicits its latent powers, displays them in their modest and unborrowed beauty, making us regard their possessor with feelings akin to those with which we behold a gallant ship that has just ridden out a violent tempest, or the conqueror who, having waded, in calm courage, through a sea of blood, conducts his triumphant legions through the captured provinces to survey the rich spoils of victory. Fortitude may be considered the lion-virtue of the human breast. It is the shield of all the other virtues, rising in earnest promptness at the signal of approaching combat, and waiting, with giant force, to crush, if it cannot repel, the invader. Sydney Smith would compare no pleasure to that of conversation with a man of well-stored mind and communicative disposition. It seems to us there is no sight more beautiful to contemplate than that of a brave man in the midst of danger. If aught could enhance its thrilling interest, it would be the elevating assurance that the invincible hero wars with bitter reluctance, and solely for the sacred interests of truth and justice. Yet such, in all instances, has been the struggle of the saints and the eminent servants of the church, in which her history so copiously abounds. Such, in these latter days, was the attitude of Dr. Doyle, before the lords and commons of Britain, disdainfully repelling their calumnies against the Catholics of Ireland, scattering a serried phalanx of Oxford’s ablest champions, and submitting his very examiners to an unexpected ordeal of scrutiny. A still more beautiful instance of quiet courage is that evinced by St. Paul before the judgment-seat of Festus: “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Cæsar, have I offended in anything. But Festus, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, answering Paul, said: Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me? Then Paul said: I stand at Cæsar’s judgment-seat where I ought to be judged. To the Jews I have done no injury, as thou very well knowest. For if I have injured them, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. But if there be none of these things whereof they accuse me, no man may deliver me to them: I appeal to Cæsar.”[126] It was not only a fearless assertion of the civil rights and liberty of the subject, but also the stirring rebuke to the perfidious judge for that he sought to transgress the limits of the constitution. St. Chrysostom’s reply to the courtier who brought him the intimation of the Empress Eudoxia’s intention to banish him from his see, breathes the spirit of conscious fortitude: “Is there any place she can send me where God will not be with me?”

There are few things we more admire in others than energy of character. Indolence is the weightiest of burdens. It has been well said, “People that have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company.” Sluggishness is the paralysis of the mind, and the grave of physical health. The intellectual faculties of the sluggard are like pearls in the depths of the sea, or ingots of priceless ore in an undiscovered gold-field. They are a lost treasure. But they are more. Their loss entails life-long death. “Desires kill the slothful, for his hands have refused to work.”[127] The most miserable of men is the idler. Pleasure he cannot enjoy. Food without an appetite is worse than useless; it is positively noxious. A keen relish for delightful pastime is the fruit of healthy industry. But from this the sluggard revolts, as do children from ghosts and hobgoblins. For him there needs no demon to tempt; he is the direst of tempters to himself. Sloth is the couch of Lucifer. Moreover, it stifles self-respect, awakening in its stead a rancorous spirit of hostility to those of opposite character. The loudest grumblers are idlers. Being out of sorts with themselves, they can ill brook the conflicting influences of those who relish labor. When positive and negative electricity conflict, lightning is the result. And when the magic charms of ceaseless industry shine like sunbeams on the stagnant, marshy nature of the do-nothing, there is generated a brood of vipers which thrive by diffusing poison.

It is not wonderful that the saints should one and all have declared unceasing war against sloth. They were prodigies of industry. The mighty feats of labor which they successively undertook, and, in most instances, amid harassing embarrassment, carried to speedy completion, astonish the most energetic. It would seem as if their bodies had been recast in some unearthly mould, whence they came forth purged from all animal properties. It was not so much that they acted in harmonious concert with the will, as that they appear instinctively to have in some sort anticipated its behests, outrunning it in the race of industry. And as the sluggard, imperceptibly, becomes so besotted as to seem denaturalized, so, on the other hand, the quickened energies of the saints assumed an unflagging elasticity, second only to the miraculous gift of bilocation, whereby, at sundry intervals, they were empowered to be simultaneously present in different localities. If it be true that no great enterprise has ever been accomplished without sustained effort, and that before the levelling force of persistent determination the most appalling difficulties soon disappear, it is no less certain that by none more than by the saints has this cheering truth been realized. In a just appreciation of the value and dignity of labor, and the refreshing streams of pleasure that flow from it, their history shows them to have excelled: nor is it too much to say that on this one ground alone they would be entitled to the gratitude and veneration of mankind.

Hence the uniform cheerfulness which characterized them, and which they ungrudgingly seized every means of imparting to others. It is among the balmiest comforts which this shifting world can bestow to hold constant, or even frequent, intercourse with men of happy and contented minds. They make life a cloudless sunshine, beneath whose genial warmth the chilling shadows of sorrow and depression must needs melt rapidly away. The happiest of men were the saints. Descrying in nature’s tiniest product but a feebly reflected beam of uncreated beauty, they could sing with the Florentine bard:

If to murmur or grumble was with them a sin, to be blithe and cheerful was the lightest of duties. Hours of sadness they indeed had, when their own and the world’s sins were present to their piercing minds. But through those passing eclipses there evermore shone out a radiant smile—glittering sparks, issuing from the glowing furnace of the heart within, where constantly burned the loving recollection of promises sure to be redeemed and favors graciously vouchsafed.

There are, it seems to us, but few more desirable fortunes than a state of perpetual cheerfulness. It is one which is not to be purchased with gold. Its roots must be cast in the “eternal hills.” The saints understood this. They held not in fiefdom from men their changeless buoyancy of spirits. It was not with them a vortical flux and reflux. It was not a checkered alternation of rapturous mirth and gloomy dejection. Such is the ephemeral gladness of the shallow humorist or the surfeited bon vivant. The cheerfulness of the saints had nothing of the spasmodic. It was not a rushing avalanche of fitfully majestic grandeur. It was a calm, stilly lake of perennial transparency, lying in a hushed valley of mossy verdure, fringed by a redolent clustering of midsummer’s fairest flowers, reflecting the many-colored beauty of a rich autumnal foliage, and resounding to the blessed harmonies of nature’s feathered choristers. It was a fixed and permanent habit of mind, sustaining the faculties in even security, keeping the emotions of the will poised in rational equilibrium, dispelling all care, all discontent, all overweening solitude, and diffusing throughout their being a moral odor of sweet and undying fragrance.

One of the most evident results of such a state of mind is a spirit of disinterestedness. This rare gift is, we consider, the strongest proof of solid virtue. It is also the most winning attraction observable in Christian character; and this, doubtless, is why it is so frequently counterfeited, and employed as a subterfuge to disguise the petty artifices of selfishness. It was not from disinterestedness, but to be rid of the anxiety attendant upon wealth, that the Grecian philosopher cast his gold into the sea. He was the founder of a numerous school, whose adherents, lacking true greatness of soul, comfort themselves, and seek to hoodwink others, by aping excellence which they do not possess. Disinterestedness, if it implies not sacrifice in actu, at least supposes a readiness to submit, as often as need be, to the loss of private interest. It seeks to eradicate, root and branch, all narrow self-seeking. Herein lies the secret of its power in evoking sympathy. It subdues the sternest enemy, wins plaudits from the most callous observer, captivates all well-regulated minds, and goes straight to every true, tender, and impressible heart. Knaves are well aware of its popularity; conceal under its lambkin-like guilelessness their wolfish cunning; and frequently glide, upon its unerring prestige, into sudden and unmerited fortune. But only with the saints—except in instances so rare as but to confirm the rule—has disinterestedness attained its full growth. Riches, high position, the esteem of the great ones of this world, such things they deem it a luxury to be able to despise. But they stopped not here, for this is but the threshold of disinterestedness. A stilly and breathless contentment with the existing state of things; an ever-vigilant eagerness to keep self-interest in the background, giving due prominence to all things else; a prompt readiness to be ignored rather than exalted; to be tossed to and fro upon the sea of life, yet ever be buoyed to the surface by uncomplaining indifference; to be all to all and dead to self—such is the point they sedulously strove to reach. It was this beautiful quality which so much endeared St. Francis de Sales to all with whom he held intercourse. There went out from him that which distinctly assured them that they stood in the presence of a superior being. His sovereign once declared that there was more true nobility in Francis than in any king he had ever read of, and that he regarded his lofty virtue as something far more to be coveted than the throne and sceptre of France. Having been requested by a distinguished personage to accept a purse of gold, he declined for the memorable reason that “he really knew not what to do with it.” Centuries before, Saul of Tharsus spoke in similarly unselfish strains to the citizens of Corinth: “Behold now the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burthensome unto you. For I seek not the things that are yours, but you.”[129]

Disinterestedness finds vent in generosity without limit, and in sympathy which admits of no distinction. Greatness embodies these ministering angels of succor, and calls them her almoners and handmaids. Heroes and conquerors have been bravest in their deeds of magnanimity—most honored in their tender considerateness. “Cæsar dando, sublevando, ignoscendo, gloriam sibi adeptus est.”[130] It is said of Napoleon the First that, walking one day on the coast of Calais, and meditating the ruin of the British empire, he descried an English lad furtively launching a tiny skiff, with a view to escaping from the navy of France and revisiting his native land. There was too much of precocious daring in the act not to stir the feelings of a soldier who had conquered everything but his cool contempt for danger. The emperor gave orders that a vessel of the line should be despatched to bear the young Saxon to the shores of Britain. The achievements of human generosity and sympathy fade into insignificance beside the heroism of the saints. Nothing was with them too sacred to be transformed into instruments of sympathy—into healing balsam to staunch the wounds of sorrow and distress. The sacred vessels of the altar were converted into money; the revenues of the church were made the patrimony of the poor; and asylums of mercy went up to meet the ravages of sudden epidemic, wherein the princely blood and fine feelings of a St. Charles Borromeo and the genius of a Bellarmine were happiest and most at home in bending over the pestilential couch of smitten wretchedness. It is written of the “Seraph of Assisi” that, on learning of a dearth of provisions among a horde of banditti, he furnished them with an abundant supply, went in person and publicly embraced the bandit chief, and soon saw them exchange their career of plunder for a life of edifying industry. To the hair-splitting sciolist, he would appear to have travelled beyond the bounds of orthodoxy and sanctioned highway robbery; but to the closer student of the Gospel, he will rather resemble him who, going out from Gethsemani, kissed the worst of robbers, and with his dying breath gave paradise to a public malefactor.

We have thus far indicated a few of those leading characteristics which, if they be not, in the aggregate, true moral greatness itself, are recognized as among its special and essential ingredients. We cannot take leave of this subject without repeating what at the outset we intimated, namely, that it is in the lives of the saints those lofty traits of character are most commonly and most endearingly illustrated. What share grace and nature respectively have had in the formation and development of each individual one, it has not been our object to investigate. “Facienti quod in se est Deus nunquam denigat gratiam.”[131] One thing only the saints sought at the hands of men—to be denied a place in their memory. While here below, their wish was for the most part realized to the fullest. They were of all others the least understood and most abused. Their lowliness is now fittingly exalted, and, while their bodies rest in peace, their names shall be honored from generation to generation. Nor can we conceive any means whereby men may more easily or more surely attain true greatness, even in the natural order, than by striving, however imperfectly, to rival those great men and women, once the earthly gems of our ransomed humanity, now the sharers of its glorified dignity and beauty, whom the church, in the progressive march of time, steadily reproduces to our notice, to strengthen our faith, to vivify our hopes, and intensify our undivided love for the Creator in the first instance, and then for our fellow-creature, without limit or distinction.