Volume 26 — VOL. XXVI., No. 152.—NOVEMBER, 1877.

THE FREE-RELIGIONISTS.

I.—THE NEW-ENGLANDER.

This pamphlet^[17] of ninety-five pages gives an account of the last annual meeting in Boston of the “Free-Religious Association, its object being to promote the practical interests of pure religion, to increase fellowship in spirit, and to encourage the scientific study of man’s religious nature and history.” Associations of this kind seem to be necessary as safety-valves to a certain class of men and women, chiefly found in New England, who, especially in matters of religion, are in a state of effervescence, and feel the pressing need at times of publicly delivering themselves of such thoughts as come uppermost in their minds on this and kindred subjects. The phenomenon is a peculiar one, and perhaps in no other country could such a variety of odd spirits as are usually found in these assemblies be convoked. Their proceedings are full of interest to the student of religion and 288the mental philosopher, no less than to the observer of the phases of religious development of some of the most active thinkers of this section of our country.

The American mind at bottom is serious, clings with deathless tenacity to a religion of some sort; and of none is this more characteristic than of the descendants of the Puritan Fathers. The children of the Puritans may be eccentric, at times fanatical, and inclined to thrust their religious, social, political, and even dietetical notions upon others; but they are men and women who think; they are restless until they have gained a religious belief, and are marked with earnestness of some sort, energy, and practical skill. The Puritan race is a thinking, religious, and an aggressive race of men and women. Whatever he may be, there is always in a genuine Puritan a great deal of positive human nature. Let him be under error, and his teeming brain will breed countless crotchets, any one of which he will maintain with the bitterest fanaticism, and, if placed in power, will impose it upon others with a ruthless intolerance.

289Give him truth, and you have an enlightened faith, indomitable zeal, and not a few of the elements which go to make up an apostle. The main qualities which distinguish the typical New-Englander, though not altogether the most attractive, are nevertheless not the meanest in human nature, and we candidly confess, though not a drop of Puritan blood runs in our veins, that we have but few dislikes, while we entertain many feelings of sincere respect, for the New England type of man. It is, therefore, with special interest that we read whatever offers an insight into the workings of the minds of so large, influential, and important a class of the American people.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. Hecker. 1877.

II.—WHAT IS THE FREE-RELIGIONIST MOVEMENT.

The Unitarian Association did not go far enough and fast enough to suit the temper of a class of its more radical and ardent members; hence the existence of the separate organization of “The Free-Religious Association.” The movement of the free-religionists may be said to spring from a laudable desire to get rid in the speediest way possible of the spurious Christianity which was imposed upon them by their forefathers as genuine Christianity and pure religion.

Suppose they have accomplished this laborious task of purification, what then? Have they found wherewith “to yield the religious sentiment reasonable satisfaction,” which Mr. Tyndall says “is the problem of problems at this hour”? By no means; this discovery is quite another affair.

“Hic labor,

Hoc opus est.”

They have only reached its starting-point. 290Let them begin their search, and investigate every form or scheme of religion that has existed among men from the beginning of the human race; let them speculate on these to their hearts’ content, and indulge in the fancy that they have a mission to invent or construct a new religion—and what then? Why, they will find, at the end of all their earnest efforts, that there are, and especially for those who have been under the light and quickening influences of Christianity, but two possible movements, one a continuous curve and the other a tangent. One or the other of these lines they will be inevitably forced to take. If they pursue the first and push their premises to their logical consequences, they will, if intelligent and consistent, be led at some point into the circle of the Catholic Church; if they follow the latter, and have the courage of their opinions, they will declare themselves first infidels and then atheists. The fact is becoming daily more and more plain to intelligent and fearlessly honest men that there is no logical standing ground, we do not say between Catholicity and atheism—for atheism has no logical standing position whatever—but that there is no logical standing ground at all outside of Catholicity. For Catholicity professes to be, and has ever maintained that it is, the most perfect manifestation to men of the supreme divine Reason, and to reject the truths which it sets before human reason with the convincing evidence of their divine origin necessarily involves the denial of human reason itself; consequently, human reason inevitably falls, in the end, with the rejection of Catholicity. A man may reject Protestantism and claim human 291reason; nay, he is bound to repudiate Protestantism, if he holds to human reason, for the doctrine of “total depravity” taught by orthodox Protestant sects undermines altogether the value of human reason.^[18] But Catholicity appeals confidently to human reason for its firm support, since its entire structure is based upon the infallibility of human reason in its sphere, and the irrefragable certitude of its great primary truths. The interdependent relations, therefore, existing between reason and Catholicity are essential, and they stand or fall together. The way that Dr. Holmes has put this question is not, we beg his pardon, the right way; he says: “Rome or Reason?” He should have said: Rome and Reason.

There can be no rational belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, in human responsibility as against Christianity, as there can be no rational belief in Christianity as against Catholicity. Outside of the Catholic Church there is only nihilism.

III.—THE DRIFTS OF FREE-RELIGIONISM.

It would be difficult to predict the precise course of these “come-outers” of the latest date, called free-religionists. Some will probably stop after having repudiated Protestantism, rest upon the truths of reason, and, without inquiring further, vainly try to satisfy, with a species of theism, the great aspirations and deep needs of their souls; eventually they may fall back on old Unitarianism. Others will venture to examine, as some before them have done, the claims of the Catholic Church, and finding that 292these are founded on human reason, that her doctrines perfect the truths of human reason, and that she alone is adequate to satisfy all the wants of the human heart, will become in the course of time Catholics, and save their souls—that is, reach their high destiny. Another section will, during, perhaps, their whole lives, seriously amuse themselves with the study of Brahminism, Buddhism, and every other kind of outlandish religion—not a vain intellectual amusement, except when associated with the absurd idea of concocting a new religion. While the larger section, we fear, will follow the tangent and end in nihilism. For although the main drift of the religious world outside of the Catholic Church, especially in the United States, is towards naturalism; although the face of each free-religionist looks in a somewhat different way, yet the actual movement of the greatest number of these Unitarian dissenters is apparently in the direction of zero.

Precisely where the president of the Free-Religious Association stands, to what definite truths he assents as undeniable, and what convictions he holds as settled, is not to be gathered from any of his sermons, tracts, speeches, and several published books. He seems to be laboring under the impression that he has a mission to bring forth a new religion, but thus far he or his associates in this illusive idea have given to the world no new word in religion, or in morals, or in philosophy, or in politics, or in social life, or in art, or in science, or in method, or in anything else scibile. Mr. William R. Alger has ventured to predict to his free-religionist brethren in their last annual gathering a new incarnation and its 293gospel, in which we fail to see anything new or important, if true. “The spirit of science,” such are the words of his prophecy, “enriched with the spirit of piety, is the avatar of the new Messiah.”

Francis Ellswood Abbot, a conspicuous member of the Free-Religious Association, as well as one of its active directors and the editor of the Index, a weekly journal which is in some sort the organ of the free-religious movement, has, among other notable things, come to the front and publicly impeached Christianity. His indictment contains five counts against the Christian religion: “human intelligence, human virtue, the human heart, human freedom, and humanitarian religion.”^[19] Here are his charges: “Christianity,” he says, “no longer proclaims the highest truths, inculcates the purest ethics, breathes the noblest spirit, stimulates to the grandest life, holds up to the soul and to society the loftiest ideal of that which ought to be.”^[20] But this is neither new nor original; for what is the Christianity which Mr. Abbot so boldly impeaches? Why, in all its main features it is that disfigurement of Christianity which he has inherited from his Calvinistic progenitors, and which the Council of Trent impeached, and for the most part on the very same grounds as he does, more than three centuries ago; so that in each of his articles of impeachment every Catholic to-day will heartily join, and to each of his charges say: Amen; Anathema sit!

What is surprising to Catholics is that there should be intelligent and educated men living in this enlightened nineteenth century who have found out that Calvinism is 294false, and have not yet discovered in the intellectual environment of Boston that Calvinism is not Christianity. “They do not attack the Catholic Church,” said Daniel O’Connell, in speaking of a similar class of men, “but a monster which they have created and called the Catholic Church.”

But Mr. Abbot is not of the men who are content to rest in mere negation. In a lecture delivered by him in a course under the auspices of the Free-Religious Association, entitled A Study of Religion, after much preliminary discourse, he gives with the heading, “The New Conception of Religion,” the following definition of religion: “Religion,” he says, “is the effort of man to perfect himself.”^[21] Now, what is the origin of “man’s effort to perfect himself”? “Religion,” he affirms, “appears in its universal aspect as the decree of Nature that her own end shall be achieved. Religion is the inward impulsion of Nature, seconded by the conscious effort of the individual to conform to it,” etc.^[22]

What Mr. Abbot calls “nature” and “ideal excellence in all directions” is what the common sense of mankind has named God. Mr. Abbot has no objection to the same name; only he insists that the idea of God, which is very proper, should be submitted “to the educated intelligence of the human race.”^[23] “It is,” he says, “because I do believe in God that I am willing to submit my belief in him to the sharpest and most searching scrutiny of science.”^[24]

Now, Mr. Abbot admits that if you once concede the Messianic claim of Christ, “then it is true that Catholicism is itself Christianity 295in its most perfect form.”^[25] He therefore stops virtually in his analysis of religion at the idea of God, and, if he believed in the Divinity of Christ and did not eschew logic, he would have to embrace Catholicity. Mr. Abbot, like many Unitarians, agrees on this point with P. J. Proudhon, but with this difference: the Frenchman recedes a step, and maintains that “outside of Christianity there is no God, no religion, no faith, no theology.... The church believes in God, and believes in God more faithfully and more perfectly than any sect. The church is the purest, most perfect, and most enlightened revelation of the divine Being, and none other understands what is worship. From a religious stand-point the Catholicism of the Latin peoples is the best, the most rational, and the most perfect. Rome, in spite of her repeated and frightful falls, remains the only legitimate church.” Hence Proudhon and those of his school lay it down as a sine qua non that the elimination of the idea of God, and of all obligation to any divine law, is the condition of all true progress. From this we may draw the conclusion that Francis E. Abbot is on the curve line, and, if he follows out his definition of religion to its logical consequences, he will surely land, whatever may be the sweep of his continuous curve, in the bosom of the Catholic Church. There is no escape from this ultimate result, if reason is to rule, except by hastily taking the back track, and starting on the tangent, and eventually plunging with Proudhon into the dark abyss of nihilism. Hence every sagacious straight-line radical cannot but look upon the platform of the editor of the Index as 296the jumping-off place into popery for all consistent theists. That this is not meant as pleasantry, but is written in downright earnestness, we quote the conclusion of his lecture on A Study of Religion, and preface it by saying that the language with which he urges his definition of religion on his hearers finds in every word an echo in the hearts of all sincere and instructed Catholics, and receives their full endorsement.

“I speak now,” he says, “as one who believes in religion, thus conceived, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, without apology either for the name or the thing, and without the smallest concession to the prejudice that assails either the one or the other. To-day I speak only to the large in heart and broad in mind—to those who must accept science and would fain accept religion too. To these I say that science itself would lose its fearless love of truth, were it not that religion fed its secret springs; that social reform would lose its motive and inspiration, literature and art their beauty, and all human life its sweetest and tenderest grace, did not religion evermore create the insatiable hunger after perfection in the soul of man. Bright, cheerful, ennobling, stimulating, emancipating, religion is the greatest friend of humanity, ever guiding it upward and onward to the right and the true; ay, and to all we yearn for, if, as we believe, the right and the true are indeed the pathway to God.”

But not all free-religionists are gifted with so deep, intelligent, and healthy an appreciation of the essence of religion as Francis E. Abbot, who leaves nothing at present to be desired but the courage of his convictions—proficiat!

There is, however, in the Christian Inquirer a revelation made by William Ellery Channing, a distinguished nephew of the celebrated Dr. Channing, which tells quite another story. It appears by this article that the president of the Free Religious 297Association, O. B. Frothingham, had attributed to Mr. Channing, one of the speakers in the tenth annual assembly, a “poetic Christianity,” a “religion in the air,” an “up-in-a-balloon” religion, and in reply to this accusation he draws from nature the following unattractive personal portraits:

“Let me,” says Mr. Channing, “make a clean breast of it to you before all onlookers. What you mean by the ‘rumors’ that I had become ‘ecclesiastical in tastes and opinions’ I can but conjecture. But the simple facts are in brief these: You remember how seven years ago, on the public platform, and in the reunions of the Free-Religionists in dear John Sargent’s hospitable rooms, and in private ‘confabs’ with yourself, and W. J. Potter, and S. Longfellow, and S. Johnson, and J. Weiss, and T. W. Higginson, and D. A. Wasson, and F. E. Abbot, etc., I tried to preach my gospel, that the vital centre of free religious union is the life of God in man as made gloriously manifest in Jesus the Christ. And you remember, too, how around that centre I illustrated the historic fact that the great religions of our race arranged themselves in orderly groups. For nearly a year I opened my heart and mind to the free-religionists and liberal Christians, without a veil to hide my inmost holy of holies. But shall I tell you, my friend, that when I bade you all farewell, in the summer of 1870, it was with sad forebodings? And why? The story, too long to tell in full, ran thus: One, in his wish to be bathed in the sense of ever-present Deity, had ceased to commune with the Spirit of spirits in prayer. Another, in his repulsion from imprisoning anthropomorphism, had abandoned all conceptions of a personal God, and so lost the Father. A third, in his historic purpose to lead a heavenly-human life, here and now, gave up the hope of immortal existence, as a sailor might turn from contemplating the cloud-palaces of sunset to pull the tarry cordage and spread the coarse canvas of his ship. And, saddest of all, a fourth, in his bold purpose to be spontaneous in every impulse and emotion, spurned the motherly monitions of duty so sternly that conscience 298even seemed driven to return to heaven, like ‘Astræa Redux.’ In brief, one felt as if the liberal college of all religions in council with pantheism, agnosticism, and atheistic materialism was destined to fall flat to dust in a confused chaos of most commonplace spiritual ‘know-nothingism.’ Such was my disheartening vision of the near future for dearly-loved compeers. And a darker valley of ‘devastation,’ as our Swedenborgian friends say, than I was driven into I have never traversed.”

But Mr. Channing goes further; he shows that he has studied the religious philosophers of antiquity to some purpose, seized their true meaning and real drift, and in touching language takes his readers into his confidence, offering to them an insight into his present relations to Christianity.

The following remarkable paragraph possesses a thrilling interest for Catholics; and if it affects others as it has the present writer on reading it, they will not fail to offer up an aspiration to Him who has given such graces to the soul of the man who penned it—and doubtless to others among the free-religionists—that he will render their faith explicit and perfect it.

“Once again,” he says, “I sought comfort with the blessed company of sages and saints of the Orient and Hellas—with Lao-Tsee and Kung Fu-Tsee; with the writers of the Bhagava-Geeta and the Dhamma-Bada; of the hymns of ancient Avesta and the modern sayings and songs of the Sufis; with radiant Plato and heroic Epictetus, etc., etc. Once more they refreshed and reinspirited me as of old. But they did something better: hand in hand they brought me up to the white marble steps, and the crystal baptismal font, and the bread and wine-crowned communion-table—ay, to the cross in the chancel of the Christian temple—and, as they laid their hands in benediction on my head, they whispered: ‘Here is your real home. We have been but your guides in the desert to lead you to fellowship with the Father and his 299Son in the spirit of holy humanity. Peace be with you.’ And so, my brother, once again, and with a purer, profounder, tenderer love than ever, like a little child, I kissed the blood-stained feet and hands and side of the Hero of Calvary, and laid my hand on the knees of the gentlest of martyrs, and was uplifted by the embracing arms of the gracious elder Brother, and in his kiss of mingled pity and pardon found the peace I sought, and became a Christian in experience, as through a long life I had hoped and prayed to be. Depend upon it, dear Frothingham, there is on this small earth-ball no reality more real than this central communion with God in Christ, of which the saints of all ages in the church universal bear witness.”

IV.—THE MEETING.

But we have wandered off somewhat from our present point, which is the proceedings of “the tenth annual meeting” of the free-religionists in Boston. What is singularly remarkable among so intellectual and cultivated a class of men as assemble at these gatherings, and especially among its select speakers and essayists, is that they should display so great a lack of true knowledge of the Catholic Church. If the Catholic Church is not worthy of serious study, then why make it a subject for speeches and essays in so important an assembly? But if it be worthy of so much attention, why not give it that investigation which its significance demands? We dare not say that the leaders among the free-religionists are not intelligent men, that they have not read considerably. But when they charge the Catholic Church with heresies which she has condemned; when they attribute to her doctrine which she always has detested and does detest; and when they blacken her with stale and oft-refuted calumnies, and recklessly traduce her dearest and best, her holiest children, we dare not trust 300ourselves to give expression to what comes uppermost in our thoughts. Shakspeare gives good advice in this matter:

“Though honesty be no Puritan,

Yet it will do no hurt.”

We recommend this to the consideration of our free-religionists. It will do them “no hurt” to show more of this virtue when speaking of the Catholic Church. It becomes those who talk so much about science to talk a little less about it, and, when the Catholic religion is concerned, to give more evidence of scientific study. Especially does this course become men who claim to be public teachers belonging to a body whose object is “to encourage the scientific study of man’s religious nature and history.”

The first essay, delivered by William R. Alger, entitled Steps towards Religious Emancipation in Christendom, and published in their tenth annual report, will serve to illustrate our meaning. Mr. Alger is a scholar of repute, a man who has travelled abroad, written and published several books displaying extensive reading, refined tastes, and high literary culture. He is, moreover, a distinguished minister of the Unitarian denomination. His essay, we have reason to believe, was prepared with the usual care bestowed upon such papers; for the president of the association, in introducing the author, said: “The discussion will be opened by an essay by Mr. William R. Alger, of New York, who has made this matter in its historical aspects the study of years, and is carefully prepared to present the result of his deepest thought and investigation.”^[26]

301In its fourth paragraph the essay proposes to give a rough sketch of the “doctrinal thought” on which in mediæval times the “intellectual unity” of the church rested. Our limits will not allow us to quote it entire, but it is enough for our purpose to say—and we weigh our words before putting them on paper—that scarcely any one sentence of this paragraph contains a correct statement of the “doctrinal thought” of the Catholic Church either in the middle ages or in any other age.

Here are some of the statements: “The whole human race, descended from Adam, who lived five thousand years before,” etc. Mr. Alger would convey new information to the readers of The Catholic World, if he would give his authorities for this assertion. Thus far, if our authorities do not deceive us, the Catholic Church has, in her wisdom, left the question of the date of man’s appearance upon this earth to the discussion of chronologists and to the disputes among scientists.

Again: “The Bible, a mysterious book dictated by the Spirit of God, containing an infallible record of what is most important in this scheme of salvation, is withheld from the laity.” It would also increase the knowledge of our readers if the author had given his authorities to prove the above charge. The testimony of Catholics, if we be a judge, is precisely the contrary to this accusation. They entertain the conviction that it was the most earnest desire of the church in the period of which Mr. Alger is speaking to render the Bible accessible to all classes of men. Her monks devoted themselves to the severe manual labor of copying the Bible, and engaged in the noble toil of 302translating it into the vulgar tongues of various nations, that the people might become readers of the Bible. She exposed the Bible publicly in her libraries, and chained it to their walls by the windows, and to desks in her churches, in order that it might be read by everybody and not stolen. The charge is simply an old and oft-repeated calumny quite unworthy a man of reputed intelligence.

“The actual power or seal of salvation is made available to believers only through the sacraments of the church—confession, baptism, Mass, and penance—legally administered by her accredited representatives.” There is such an inextricable confusion pervading this statement that it is difficult to discern its meaning. No one, we venture to say, who had mastered the “doctrinal thought” of the church would have ever penned so distracted a sentence on so important a point. One would suppose that, according to Mr. Alger, there were two sacraments, one “confession” and the other “penance”; whereas every Catholic who has learned the little catechism knows that “confession,” the popular term, means, in the language of the church, the Sacrament of Penance. Then what is meant by “baptism legally administered by her accredited representatives”? This is not clear; but the whole statement is so confused in thought and tangled in expression that the only hope of understanding the author’s meaning is to give him an opportunity of trying again. It would be, among ourselves, interesting to read from non-Catholic authors the “doctrinal thought” of the church on what is essential to salvation and what is ordinarily necessary to salvation. It would also, we are inclined to 303think, clear up many of their misconceptions and do them no little good to have correct ideas on so important a matter.

“Those,” says Mr. Alger, “who humbly believe and observe these doctrines shall be saved; all others lost for ever.”

This sentence follows the preceding one, and the same confusion and error underlie both. When the ingenuous author of this essay has corrected the former sentence by reading up on the point involved, he will, as a matter of course, correct the error contained in the latter.

Passing now over several paragraphs containing many charges, we regret to say, in unusually bitter words, we come to the following: “The revival of the Greek learning, the study of the works of Plato, Aristotle, the classic poets, orators, and historians, with their beautiful and surprising revelations of genius, virtue, and piety, entirely independent and outside of the church and Bible, exerted an immense force in liberalizing and refining the narrow, dogmatic mind of the Christian world, refuting its arrogant pretensions to an exclusive communion with God and heritage in Providence.” If the cultivated writer of this essay had qualified the phrase “outside of the church” as I understand it, “exclusive communion” as I view it, this sentence might pass; but, as it stands, the position in which the Catholic Church is placed is entirely false, and we refer our readers to what is said on these points under the heading of “The Mission of the Latin Race,” commencing on page 5, in the last number of this magazine.

“Now the Pope,” says Mr. Alger, “excommunicates the emperor, sets up a rival, foments a rebellion 304among his subjects, or launches the terrible interdict on a whole nation, shutting the churches, muffling the bells, forbidding confession to the penitent, unction to the dying, burial to the dead.”^[27] Either the author has been imposed upon by his authorities, or perhaps he has not weighed sufficiently his words. The effect of an interdict of the Pope is inaccurately stated. These are “terrible” matters, and one who is reciting history should be careful and exact in his specifications. Here, as before, he is bound to give his authorities, and learned and credible ones, or change his language.

“The repeated gross contradictions of bishops, councils, and popes, their inconsistent decrees reversing or neutralizing each other, infallibility clashing with infallibility, begat irrepressible doubts.”^[28] This sentence may pass for a rhetorical flourish, but it involves a grave, a very grave, a most grave charge, and is backed up by no example, or proof, or relation of authorities! These cutting and slashing assertions where conscientious accuracy is required and sound scholarship ought to be displayed, place the intelligence and education of his Boston audience in no enviable light. Let us have some specimens of “infallibility clashing with infallibility” by all means:

“Luther sprang forth with one-third of Christendom in revolt at his back.... But the fundamental doctrines of the church scheme otherwise remained essentially as they had been, unchallenged.”^[29] What a pity that the theologians of the sixteenth century had not known that “the fundamental doctrines of the church scheme remained essentially” 305the same! The Council of Trent, if it had only understood this, might have saved its anathemas.

“After Luther, then, we see Christendom, with fundamental agreement of belief, differing, for the most part, only in affairs of polity and ritual, split into two bodies—those who rest their belief on the inspired authority of the church, and those who rest it on the inspired authority of the Bible.”^[30] Here again we have another fundamental erroneous idea of the church. “Inspired” authority is not what Catholics believe. This language shows poor theological training or a loose way of handling delicate and important points. But on this point we shall have more to say.

“Third,” says Mr. Alger, “a revolt of common sense against errors with which the teachings of church and Scripture were identified, but which, by the simple lapse of time, had been demonstrated to be false. For example, in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelations it is recorded: ‘And he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled; after that he must be loosed a little season.’ This passage was thought to fix the date of the Day of Judgment. And as the time drew near the terror was profound. Throughout the generation preceding the year one thousand the pulpits of the Christian world rang with this frightful text and with awful descriptions of what it implied. The fear was as intense as the belief was general.”

Has not the author of this essay taken some romancer of history or some idle tale for his authority in the above charge? When and where did the church identify her teachings with this error? We 306grow uneasy in asking for authorities and examples; and when we are given an example of things which are said to have taken place eight hundred years or more ago, no authority is cited to authenticate the fact. The author may have given his hearers “the result of his deepest thought,” but he is too chary of the authorities for his “historical study of years.”

“The priests,” he tells us, “from the first hour scented this enemy from afar, and declared war against it [physical science], as the meaner portion of them still do everywhere. In the twelfth century the Council of Tours, in the thirteenth century the Council of Paris, interdicted to monks the reading of works on physical science as sinful.”^[31] We retract having said that Mr. Alger cites no authorities; he does in the above accusation, but fails to quote the decrees or give their language, or tell what kind of councils these were and what their weight. We feel suspicious, and have grounds for this feeling, and we demand more definite proofs. The charge is precise; let the proofs be equally so. Let us have the authentic decrees and ipsissima verba. This is asking only fair play. It would not be pleasant to find this accusation, on serious investigation, a misconception, or a misinterpretation, or perhaps an invented calumny, but not by our author. We take real pleasure in finding a point in which we agree with him. Here is one: they are the “meaner portion,” if there be such “priests,” who “war against” the study of “the physical sciences.” We know of priests who are devoted to the study of the physical sciences, and some who are distinguished in these 307studies; but we have no acquaintance with the “meaner portion” who have “declared war against physical science.” Perhaps Mr. Alger has, and, if so, he will inform us who they are.

“Ethnology,” he asserts, “multiplies the actors in its drama [that of history], and takes the keystone from the arch of the church theology by disproving the inheritance of total depravity from one progenitor of all men.”^[32] Here the author shares the error in common with almost all, if not all, Unitarians and free-religionists. They seem not to be able to grasp the idea that the Catholic Church, in the œcumenical Council of Trent, condemned the doctrines of Protestantism concerning original sin; and, whatever may be said to the contrary, the Catholic Church never goes back on her authoritative decisions. Mr. Alger well says that the doctrine of original sin is “the keystone of the arch of theology”; so much the more reason, therefore, that there should be no mistake on a point which shapes theology almost entirely. And if he and his brethren, free-religionists and Unitarians, could be got to understand and acknowledge that the Catholic Church has condemned the doctrines of Protestantism on original sin, as well as “the five points of Calvinism”—for they go together—then there would be some hope that the gross error of identifying Catholicity and Protestantism as “fundamentally and essentially the same” on this most important subject would be corrected. The error is an egregious one, which is constantly appearing in their addresses, sermons, tracts, essays, books, weekly papers, and journals, and with that error a 308thousand dependent errors would disappear. But, alas! we fear that we shall have to regard this as hopeless, and resign ourselves, for the present generation at least, to placing this, with other radical errors, among the points of “invincible ignorance”! May we just here be allowed, without being stigmatized as one of the “meaner portion” of the priesthood, to put in a humble demurrer to the unsustained assertion that “ethnology” has “disproven” “one progenitor of all men”?

If the reader is weary of following up with us this labyrinth of error in this not very long essay, he will pity the present writer; for he has not touched upon one-tenth of the errors which the same short essay holds. We have been careful, too, to be silent on language which might have come from Exeter Hall ranters or from the late Dr. Brownlee, a notorious anti-popery lecturer of former days. Indeed, we can scarcely allow ourselves the freedom of expressing our feelings of indignation at reading such language coming from men who have a reputation for polite culture. “Men,” we say; for at the close of its delivery Mr. Alger’s essay was endorsed by the president of the association as “the admirable essay by Mr. Alger, at once a history and an argument, a summary of facts and also a summary of apprehensions and suggestions, etc.”^[33] Another speaker pronounced it a “most magnificent and masterly essay.”^[34] We are not over-sensitive in matters of this kind, and before concluding our remarks we give a specimen of the language and spirit of the “most magnificent and masterly essay.”

309

V. FREE-RELIGIONISTS AND THE MONKS.

“Few men,” says our estimable writer, “duly feel what a debt the nineteenth century owes to the illustrious founders and cultivators of science, Aristotle, Archimedes, Kepler, Newton, and the hundreds of lesser lights in many departments. What a beneficent and herculean task they have accomplished in breaking the chains of false authority, opening the dungeons of superstition, removing the incubus of religious terror! Their sunlit and open-air minds, in harmonious working connection with nature and their race, have done much to dispel the baneful power of a celibate church, the cloistered and mephitic minds of monks and hermits, introspective dreamers, tyrannical theorizers, who, set apart from the living interests of men, had woven over Christianity a horrid web of diseased logic spun out of the entrails of their own morbid brains.”

Let free-religionists honor Aristotle, Archimedes, Kepler, Newton, and other great masters in natural science; they are worthy, and we also pay them honor. Let them be grateful to those “cultivators of science” for all the hidden truths which, by their genius and toil, they have brought to light, and in this we also sympathize. Let them join with this class the men of our own day distinguished in this line of studies: the Herschels, the Faradays, the Agassiz, the Quatrefages, the Darwins, the Secchis, the Huxleys, the Tyndalls, the Drapers, etc.; they are all worthy of honor and gratitude for every new truth which they have discovered and made known to the world. Not to love all truth unreservedly is to renounce the light of reason and to repudiate God; for he was God who said, “I am the truth.” But this grateful acknowledgment for the labors of cultivators of the sciences by no manner of means implies the acceptance of every hypothesis or theory, put forth by some of them, 310which for the most part are based upon insufficient data or spun out of misconceptions of religion with secret hostility to Christianity. For there are men who pass for scientists who seem to be actuated more by a spirit of opposition to religion than a sincere desire for the discovery of the secrets of nature. Hence genuine science has to suffer no less than true religion from bigots and hypocrites, who erect their untenable opinions into final decisions of scientific investigation, and cloak themselves with the honorable livery of science to put forth the ignoble doctrines of materialism. Speculations, however brilliant, ought not to pass for science, and one must be on his guard in our days, lest he allow the authority of great names to impose upon his credulity the romance of science for real science.

But could not the author of this essay honor the really great men of science and be content, without dishonoring another class of men who devoted their gifts and gave their toil as enthusiastically at least, and with an equal self-sacrificing spirit, to the contemplation and discovery of another, and even, in degree, a higher, class of truths? Could he not pay Paul without robbing Peter?

Then, again, why this bitterness of expression towards the monks? Have these monks no aspirations that are holy? no convictions that are sacred? no rights worthy of respect? Why could not the monks with equal liberty lead such lives as the highest feelings in their souls called them to do as well as a Bronson Alcott, a Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Henry Thoreau, or William R. Alger? What or who has given to these Americans the liberty to lead such lives as they 311chose, and deprived men of other climes of this same personal privilege? Is it a commendable thing for a Sir Isaac Newton to lead a celibate life out of devotion to mathematics, and a sin for a St. Benedict to lead a single life out of as pure a devotion, at least, to the religion of Christ? If Reverend Ralph Waldo Emerson throws up his pastorate over a respectable Unitarian congregation, and retires to a remote country village to devote himself to the cultivation of literature and whatever he may please to think a more useful calling, in fidelity to his best aspirations, why may not a Bernadotti of Assisi retire from the business of a silk merchant, renounce his gay companions, and, in obedience to the voice of God in his soul, practise poverty and turn a religious reformer under the name of Francis? If Henry Thoreau repudiates the calling to be a clergyman not to be false to his highest convictions, devotes his leisure hours to the study of nature and the Greek poets, and, living for the most part on bread and water, takes up the manual labor of making lead-pencils to meet the cost of his scanty support, and in so doing not lose cast among the literary brahmins of Boston, why not let, with equal freedom, Anthony retire to the deserts of Egypt and give himself to divine contemplation and the making of baskets and mats for his innocent way of life, without being loaded with a heap of most abusive epithets? Was it heroic in Mr. Bronson Alcott to make an attempt to realize his ideal of a pure and holy life with a few choice spirits at Fruitlands, in the State of Massachusetts, while it was only the “mephitic” action of a “morbid brain” in a saintly Bernard 312actually to realize the ideal at Clairvaux, in the province of Burgundy in France? Are we to praise and never be weary of praising the Pilgrim Fathers for abandoning their country, their homes, their friends, and their relations to come to the wilds of inhospitable New England, in order that they might worship God according to the dictates of their consciences, and must we condemn the first pioneers in the wilderness who plunged into the solitudes of Egypt for precisely the same reason, in order to fulfil the great aspiration of their souls to God—the pilgrim saints of the desert? Who can read the riddle why the aspiration or effort of the soul to perfect itself is the result of “mephitic minds” in a Hebrew, or an Egyptian, or a Latin, or a Celt, and the same aspiration is religious, sacred, holy, when found in the soul of a New-Englander?

Did it not suggest itself to the mind of the author of this essay, when he perused the passage quoted against the monks, that he exposed himself to a flank movement? For where could you find better specimens and more plentifully of “introspective dreamers” and “tyrannical theorizers” than in the State, in the very city, nay, in the actual audience which assembled at the time to listen to Mr. Alger’s essay?

“O wad some power the giftie gie us,

To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us,

And foolish notion.”

Why is it that a certain number of New England authors, whenever they can find an occasion or make an opportunity, are sure to cast a fling at monks and nuns and a celibate priesthood? Even the genial author, Dr. Oliver Wendell 313Holmes, not to mention Whittier and others, from some yet unexplained cause, will turn bitter and his temper grow ruffled when he encounters in his literary excursions a monk or speaks of the celibate clergy of the church. There is no difficulty in acquitting such authors of intentional malice, but men so well bred and of such broad experience ought and do know better, and should not blot their otherwise pleasant pages with foul abuse.

But whence does this acrimony spring? Does it spring from the bully who strikes a victim, knowing himself safe from a return blow? or is it that the intellectual faculty of insight is lacking in these highly-gifted authors? Is this rancor to be attributed to their environment? or, finally, is it to be classified by some future clerical Darwin as an instance of Puritanical “inherited habit”? Be that as it may, Catholics ask no favors from the opponents of the church, but they have good reason to look for, and the right to demand, fair play, sound scholarship where scholarship is needed and claimed, and at least an average amount of intelligence.

These monks—and let us add also nuns, for their aim is identical—who have as a distinctive principle of life the resolve always to tend towards perfection, are not perfect and make no pretension to being saints, for although human nature is immanently good, there is notwithstanding much evil in the world, and no class of men or women, whoever they may be, is wholly free from the possibility of deviating from the path which leads to their true destiny. That there have been among monks and nuns hypocrites, fanatics, and those who have forgotten the sacredness of 314their calling and given public scandal everybody knows: “Canker vice the sweetest buds doth love.” Had these incurred the severe animadversion of the author of this essay, his abusive language might have passed unnoticed; but no qualification is made between innocent and guilty—the exemplary and scandalous, one and all, are passed upon as the same by a most unsparing and unjust sentence.

But not all free-religionists have read the history of the church and of the influence of monks upon civilization in the light of the author of this essay. We cannot forego the gratification of quoting a passage written many years ago by one, a speaker in this tenth annual meeting too, in which he gives a different estimate of the church and the monks in the precise period of which Mr. Alger has attempted to draw a rough sketch, it is true, but still his intention must have been to give a correct picture.

“Truly,” says the Rev. William Ellery Channing, “the church has been a quickening centre of modern civilization, a fountain of law and art, of manners and policy. It would not be easy to estimate how much of our actual freedom and humanity, of our cultivation and prosperity, we owe to her foresight and just acknowledgment of rights and duties. It is easy to ascribe to the cunning and love of power of priests the wonderful sovereignty which this spiritual dictator has exerted; but it is proof of surprising superficiality that these critics do not recognize that only sincere enthusiasm and truth, however adulterated by errors, can give such a hold upon human will. The Christian Church has been unquestionably the most dignified institution which the earth has seen.... Beautiful have been its abbeys in lonely solitudes, clearing the forests, smoothing the mountains, nurseries of agricultural skill amidst the desolating wars of barbarous ages, sanctuaries 315for the suffering. Beautiful its learned cloisters, with students’ lamps shining late in the dark night as a beacon to wandering pilgrims, to merchants with loaded trains, to homeless exiles—their silent bands of high-browed, pallid scholars watching the form of Science in the tomb of Ignorance, where she lay entranced. Beautiful its peaceful armies of charity, subduing evil with works of love in the crowded alleys and dens of cities, amid the pestilences of disease and the fouler pestilence of crime, and carrying the sign of sacrifice through nations more barren of virtues than the deserts which have bordered them.”

VI.—THE FREE-RELIGIONISTS AND THE MYSTICS.

Mr. Alger must have seen that his canvas up to this moment was overcharged with sombre colors, and to give it a vraisemblance he put in the following words:

“There has been another marked class of persons, in the extreme opposite sphere of life to those just described—a class nourished in the inmost bosom of the church itself—whose very important influence has acted in harmony with that of science, which seems so wholly contrary to it—acted to melt away dogmatism, free men from hatred and force and fraud, and join them in a heavenly enthusiasm of accord. I allude to the mystics, who cultivated the sinless peace and raptures of the inner life of devotion, absorption in divine contemplation, ecstatic union with God. Boundless is the charm exerted, incalculable the good done, in impregnating the finest strata of humanity with paradisal germs by Victor, Bonaventura, Suso, Tauler, Teresa, Behmen, Fénelon, Guyon, John of the Cross, and the rest of these breathing minds, hearts of seraphic passion, souls of immortal flame. This class of believers, devoted to the nurture of exalted virtue and piety, were the choicest depositaries of the grace of religion.”

The general reader would suppose that this “marked class of persons, in the extreme opposite sphere of life to those just described,” were not, of course, “monks.” 316But such is the fact, with the exception of two he mentions. Let us examine this list. Here is the first mystic, Victor. Victor! Who is he? Whom does the essayist mean? There was St. Victor of Marseilles, who suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, July 21, A.D. 303. He surely does not mean this Victor? Then there was the celebrated Abbey of St. Victor, near Paris, named after St. Victor of Marseilles, founded in the first year of the twelfth century; he cannot mean that? There is no telling, though. Then there was Hugh, born in Flanders, and Richard, a Scotchman, the latter a disciple of the former, both inmates of the monastery of St. Victor, both illustrious by their writings on mystical theology, and saintly men. Perhaps he means one of these, or both? Perhaps that is not his meaning. If it be, then his sentence should have run thus: Hugh of St. Victor, or Richard of St. Victor. Let us proceed; both of these were “monks.” St. Bonaventure, disciple of St. Francis, was a “monk.” John Tauler, a disciple of St. Dominic, another monk. St. Teresa, a nun, a “cloistered” nun, consequently as bad, at least, as a “monk.” Behmen? Behmen? Jacob Boehme. Oh! yes; a German, a shoemaker—not to his discredit—a Protestant, and mystical writer. O blessed saints in Paradise! do not, we beg, lay it to our charge of making you “acquainted with so strange a bed-fellow!” Then comes Fénelon the saintly archbishop, the friend, be it known, of monks and nuns. Now Mme. Guyon; it is singular that there is always a strange hankering among a class of Protestants after Catholic writers of suspected orthodoxy. St. John of the Cross is next, and the last, though not least, 317the Aquinas of mystical theology, a Carmelite, a “monk.” Now let us count up. But we have forgotten our beloved Swabian, Henry Suso, the Minnesinger of divine love; and he too was a Dominican, a “monk.” In sum—excluding, of course, the Protestant; for of him it cannot be said that he was “nourished in the inmost bosom of the church”—we have six “monks,” if you include both Hugh and Richard of St. Victor in the number, and one “cloistered” nun, all, without exception, “celibates,” of the eight examples selected by our author as “devoted to the nurture of exalted virtue and piety,” and “the choicest depositaries of the graces of religion!” Six out of eight—not a bad showing for monks and nuns “as the choicest depositaries of the graces of religion,” where a learned author has his pick, running over many centuries.

VII.—THE FREE-RELIGIONISTS AND CHRISTIANITY, OR THE FINAL ISSUE.

It is time to draw these remarks to a close, and that, too, without even casting a glance at the speeches that followed the essay which has been under review.

We did not offer, as our readers will have remarked, a refutation of the misconceptions, misinterpretations, and errors which have been pointed out in the essay of Mr. Alger. We intentionally abstained from doing so until its author brings forth his authorities and proves his assertions, in obedience to a commonly-received maxim rightly followed in discussion, which says, Quod gratis affirmatur, gratis negatur. Besides, the Catholic Church is in possession, and therefore the burden of proof rests not on her defenders, but on the 318part of her assailants. Our refutations will come soon enough when we have learned that there is something to refute. But, that our purpose might not be ambiguous, we have italicized, in most instances, the words which contain the special errors to which we wished to call attention.

The opponents of the church have not changed their mode of attack, but only their weapons. They no longer charge her with atheism, as the early pagans did, or of worshipping the head of an ass, or drinking the blood of an infant, but absurdities and idle tales of the “dark ages” are trumped up and laid at her door.

Just now, as if by a general conspiracy, an attempt is made to place the church in a false position, as hostile to reason, science, education, civilization, liberty, and the state. These are the popular charges of the day, and these show at least that the “gall” of her enemies is active and “coins slanders as a mint.” Counterfeits, however, may pass current for a limited period, but in the long run they are detected and bring upon their authors’ heads grief and shame. Only truth and justice are enduring and immortal.

The true position of the Catholic Church is now, as it ever has been, not against but for reason and God, science and revelation, for education and Christianity, for civilization and progress, for liberty and law, for the state and the church; as against atheism, naturalism, infidelity, barbarism, license, and anarchy.

Let us have in this free country, where all religions to an uncommon degree are placed on an equal footing, a fair and honest discussion, avoiding unsupported 319assertions, refuted charges, and all bigotry. Whichever religion is worsted in such an encounter by fair and honest blows, why, let it die. If the free-religionists can clear the whole field from Christianity, as they appear to think, and invent instead a better religion, as some fancy, let them do so and come on with their new religion. Give it a fair chance, and, if their new religion proves to be a better one, let it have a joyful greeting.

Until then the Catholic Church is in possession of the field, and in the congress of intelligent men holds its high place; for all thoroughly-instructed minds see clearly the impossibility of entertaining honorable ideas of God without being Christians, and of being Christians and not becoming Catholics. The real issue, if the free-religionists can be induced to look at it, is between Catholicity and nihilism.

320

SMOKE-BOUND.

O cool east wind! so moist of breath,

With strength blow from the sea,

Loosen the smoky chains that curb

Our proud hills’ sovereignty;

Wake in the silent mountain glens,

Where streams grow dumb with drought,

The clamor of your lowland home—

The sea-waves’ battle-shout.

Sweep onward with your pennon clouds,

Marshal your spears of rain,

Sound in the pines your bugle-call—

Set free our hills again!

Hide them for days, if so you will,

In cloudy depths of storm;

Wrestle, as human soul should win

Its strong, immortal form.

We shall not grieve in such dark veil

To lose our valley’s crown,

That gaineth so from your pure breath

But mightier renown.

321Our hearts shall greet the slanting rain,

Like blessèd water flung;

Your voice shall the Asperges sing

The cross-boughed firs among.

Like sin unshriven these earth-fires

Hold heart and mountain fast,

Each day a stronger link is forged,

A drearier light is cast.

All day the smoky shadow flings

Its dream of heaven’s blue,

Its mockery of summer’s smile,

Its vision all untrue,—

Winning, at eve, the sun to spin

Dull shadow into gold—

Bright meshes of enchanter’s web

O’er hill and valley rolled;

Hiding our far-off sunset peaks

That longest keep day’s light—

The temple’s porch called Beautiful,

Steps to a holier height.

Broad steps whose strength our valley lacks

To lift our thoughts on high.

Blow, eastern wind! give our dim eyes

Our peaks that mount the sky.

O moist of breath! with cloudy lips,

Quench these dread earthly fires

That turn our mountain altars all

To beauty’s funeral pyres.

Upon this stifling chain drop dew,

Its glamour exorcise,

That, pure as pardoned soul, our hills

In Heaven-sent strength may rise.

Give us anew their morning grace,

Their midday depths of blue;

Open the sunset gates where light

Of Paradise shines through.

322

ST. JAMES OF COMPOSTELLA.

Although most have heard the name of Santiago in Galicia, yet it is now a place that is scarcely known. In the days of our infancy there were still such beings heard of as the pilgrims of Compostella, but the silence of the present day is well-nigh oblivion: and of this famous sanctuary, which still exists, there only remains an almost forgotten and far-distant renown. France has unlearnt the very roads which led to the apostle’s tomb; and the Spaniards themselves, who will speak to you freely of Nuestra Señora del Pilar, scarcely guess that the Madonna of Saragossa placed her origin under the patronage of St. James, whose shrine all Christendom in former days bestirred itself to go and visit.

The apostle venerated at Compostella is St. James the Great, whose vocation to the apostolate is related in the fourth chapter of St. Matthew, immediately after that of Peter and Andrew, and where we are told that at the call of Jesus the brothers forthwith “left the ship and their father and followed him.” According to the most probable opinion, Zebedee and his family dwelt at the little town of Saffa, now called by the Arabs Deir, about three miles distant from Nazareth. Andrichomius, in his Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ, mentions a church there, which some years later no longer existed. Their prompt obedience indicates the generous character which rendered the brothers particularly dear to their divine Master, and caused them to be, with St. Peter, the chosen witnesses of scenes and 323miracles at which the other disciples were not present. The last mention made of St. James in the Gospel is in the narrative of the miraculous draught of fishes after the Resurrection. The next is in the Acts of the Apostles, which briefly recounts his martyrdom: “Herod ... killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.”

This took place in the year 42. Of the nine years which intervened between the Ascension of our Lord and this event the Holy Scriptures say nothing, and tradition is our only source of information. According to this, St. James departed early from Jerusalem, and, directing his course towards the western countries of Europe, arrived in Spain, where he preached the Gospel and appointed some of the first bishops. Here also, according to an ancient and constant tradition, he caused to be built at Saragossa a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, known as “Our Lady of the Pillar,” and, on the termination of his sojourn in the west, returned to Jerusalem, where, a few days after his arrival, about the time of the Jewish Passover, Herod caused him to be seized and slain.^[35]

324It is certain that the apostles delayed not in obeying the divine command to “go and teach the nations”; neither can one explain in any other manner how the light emanating from Syria so rapidly illumined (as even the infidel critic, Renan, confesses) the three great peninsulas of Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, and soon afterwards the whole coast of the Mediterranean, so that in a short space of time the Christian world was co-extensive with the Roman—Orbis Romanus, orbis Christianus. St. Jerome and Theodoret both affirm that Spain was evangelized by some of the apostles. The Gothic liturgy, which is considerably anterior to the Mozarabic, and which dates from the fifth century, is the most ancient interpreter of this tradition. “The illustrious Sons of Thunder,” it says, “have both obtained that which their mother requested for them. John rules Asia, and, on the left, his brother possesses Spain.” The great doctor St. Isidore, who lived in the first half of the seventh century, writes: “James the son of Zebedee ... preached the Gospel to the peoples of Spain and the countries of the west.” The Bollandists furnish a number of additional witnesses.^[36] The breviary of St. Pius V. and the enactments of Urban VIII. corroborate their testimony, the Roman Breviary saying also that St. Braulio not only compared St. Isidore to St. Gregory the Great, but declared that he had been given by Heaven to Spain as her teacher in the place of St. James.^[37]

325Whatever opinion may be adopted with regard to the mission of St. James, it does not affect the facts relating to the translation of his body to the Iberian peninsula. The following account of this event is given in the curious History of Compostella, written previous to the twelfth century by two canons of that church, and confirmed by a letter of Leo III. which is quoted in the Breviary of Evreux. The facts as there given appear to be free from the legendary embellishments, more or less probable, with which, in certain other manuscripts, they have been adorned.

At the time when the apostle was put to death at Jerusalem the persecution was so bitter, and the hatred against the Christians so extreme, that the Jews would not suffer his body to be buried, but cast it ignominiously outside the walls of the city, that it might be devoured by dogs and birds of prey. The disciples of the saint watched for the moment when they might carry away his remains, and, having secured them, they could not venture to re-enter Jerusalem with their precious burden, but turned their steps toward the sea, and, on arriving at Joppa, found a ship on the point of sailing for Spain. They embarked, and in due time reached the northwest coast of that country, and landed at the port of Iria, whence they proceeded some distance inland, and buried the body of the apostle at a place called Liberum Donum, afterwards Compostella. His sepulchre was made in a marble grotto which already existed, and which in all probability had been formerly dedicated to Bacchus, as its name seemed to indicate. Thus the spot received the highest Christian consecration, and the people of Galicia, 326among whom were numerous converts, held in great veneration the tomb of their apostle. The pagan persecution became, however, so violent in this province that Christianity entirely disappeared from it, and was not planted there again until after the first victory of the Goths.

The invasion of these barbarians, instead of being a misfortune, was of the greatest benefit to the country, and resulted in prosperity which continued through several centuries. The favor shown to Arianism by some of the earlier kings for a time imperilled the truth, but it was not long before Spain saw the faith of her first apostle flourishing in all its purity; and her sons would doubtless have flocked to the tomb of him who was declared in the Gothic liturgy to be the patron of Spain, if the same thing had not happened with regard to the tomb of the second martyr of our Lord as had before happened to that of the first. When the faith had disappeared from Galicia the place of the apostle’s tomb was forgotten; it is, moreover, possible that the last Christians had buried the grotto which contained it, that it might be hidden from pagan profanation. The spot was overgrown with underwood and brambles. Tall forest trees rose around it, and there was no trace left of anything which could indicate the sanctity of the spot. Thus, in the early and bright days of the faith in Spain, the night of oblivion rested on the remains of her great patron; but when evil times came upon the land God’s hour was come for pointing out the tomb of his apostle. The Gothic kings were about to disappear, and their sceptres to be wielded by the followers of Mahomet.

327Invited to fight against King Roderic, by a competitor to the throne of the country to which he thus proved himself so great a traitor, the Arabs thronged into Spain, which in less than ten years they entirely conquered. Their domination was not always violent and persecuting; a certain toleration was at times accorded to the Christians; but, thanks to the proud courage of Pelayo and a handful of brave men who would not despair of their country, and who could not be driven from the mountains of the Asturias, war had set her foot on the soil of Spain, to quit it no more until the utter expulsion of the Moors had been effected. Galicia, with Leon and the Asturias, had the honor of being the centre of the national resistance, and consequently suffered from frequent and sanguinary devastation while the long struggle lasted.

It was in these troubled times that the apostle’s tomb was brought to light.

Already several kings had established themselves in the northern and western parts of Spain. Miron, King of the Suevi, had regulated the limits of each diocese; Alfonso the Chaste was then king of Leon and Galicia; and Theodomir, a holy and faithful prelate, was Bishop of Iria.

Certain trustworthy persons one day came to inform Theodomir that every night lights of great brilliancy were seen shining above a wood on the summit of a hill at a little distance from the town, and that all the neighborhood was illuminated by them. The bishop, fearing lest there might be some deception or illusion, resolved to see for himself, and repaired to the place indicated. The prodigy was 328evident to all, the lights throwing a marvellous splendor; and as this continued night after night, the bishop caused the trees to be cut down on that spot and the brushwood cleared away, after which an excavation was commenced on the top of the hill. The workers had not dug far before they came to a marble grotto, within which was found the apostle’s tomb.

Theodomir lost no time in repairing to the court of Alfonso to announce the discovery, which caused great joy to the pious monarch, who saw in it a sign of God’s protection and a presage of the triumph of the Christian arms. He hastened to the spot and assured himself by personal observation of the reality of the facts related to him by the bishop. Mariana, the Spanish historian, says: “After having examined all that has been written by learned authors for and against the matter, I am convinced that there are not in all Europe any relics more certain and authentic than those of St. James at Compostella.”

The first care of King Alfonso was to raise a sanctuary on the spot where the tomb had just been miraculously discovered. Built in haste, and at a time when, owing to the unsettled state of the kingdom, the royal resources were very limited, the edifice was of a very humble character as regarded both size and materials: “Petra et luto opus parvum” is the description given of it in the Act of Erection of the second church, built later by Alfonso III. The king was nevertheless able to endow it with a certain revenue, and to secure a permanent provision to its ministers. The archives of Compostella long preserved a privilege granted by Alfonso the Chaste, in virtue of which all the lands with their villages, 329for three miles round, were made over to the church.

Spain was speedily made aware of the discovery; the neighboring nations, and in particular the Gauls, heard of it also, and the faithful from both countries flocked in great numbers to the tomb, drawn by the fame of the miracles which immediately began to be wrought there, and of which Valafrid Strabo, who died in the year 849, makes mention: Plurima hic præsul patravit signa stupenda.

The relations of Gaul with Christian Spain were at that time very frequent. The infidels were the common enemy. Charles Martel had driven them from Gaul, but the struggle that still went on south of the Gallic frontiers had an intense interest for all Christendom. Charlemagne was allied in friendship with Alfonso the Chaste, though it is doubtful whether he ever made the pilgrimage of Compostella, as some have said. It is, however, certain that he joined his entreaties to those of the king of Leon to obtain from Pope Leo III. the transfer of the bishopric of Iria to Compostella. This was the name already borne by the town which had rapidly risen round the apostle’s tomb, and which was given in remembrance of the starlike lights which had revealed its locality—Campus Stellæ.

The pope granted the request of the two monarchs. Compostella replaced the bishopric of Iria and remained suffragan to the archbishop of Braga until the town of St. James should be raised to the metropolitan dignity. King Alfonso, who had no children, offered to bequeath his throne to Charlemagne, on condition that that monarch would drive the Moors out of Spain. Charlemagne accepted the 330terms and crossed the Pyrenees; but the Spanish princes, disapproving of Alfonso’s proposal, leagued together against the emperor, and some of them, later on, allied themselves with the Moorish king of Saragossa, and destroyed at Roncesvaux the rearguard of Charlemagne’s army, in which perished Roland, the hero par excellence of the lays and chronicles of the time.

Some time afterwards, when Ramira had succeeded Alfonso the Chaste, and Abderahman II. was King of Cordova, the latter, inflated by his successes, sent to demand of the Spanish king an annual tribute of a hundred young maidens. Ramira indignantly drove away the ambassadors, assembled his troops, and declared war. He was defeated in the battle of Alaveda, and forced to withdraw with the remnant of his army to a neighboring elevation, where the Moor could not fail to attack him. The Christian monarchy in Spain seemed on the very brink of ruin. That night the king had a dream, in which the apostle St. James appeared to him, grand and majestic, bidding him be of good courage, for that on the morrow he should be victorious. The king related his vision to the prelates and leaders of his army, and made it known to the soldiers also. Immediately every heart kindled with fresh enthusiasm; the little band threw itself upon the infidel host, while on all sides arose the shout, Sant’ Iago! Sant’ Iago! which has ever since been the war-cry of Spain.

The Moors were thrown into confusion and completely routed, leaving 60,000 of their number on the field of battle. It was averred that during the whole engagement the apostle St. James, mounted on a white charger, and bearing in his 331hand a white banner with a red cross, was seen at the head of the Christian battalions, scattering terror and death among the ranks of the enemy. Thus was fought, in 846, the famous battle of Clavijo, all the glory of which is due to the patron of Spain.

After a solemn act of thanksgiving to God the army made a public vow, obligatory on all the kingdom, to pay yearly to the church at Compostella one measure of corn and one of wine from every acre of land. Immense riches were found in the Moorish camp, and these were consecrated to the erection of two magnificent churches—one at Oviedo, in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and another under the invocation of St. Michael.

From this time the devotion to the apostle who had shown himself the protector and deliverer of the country spread far and wide. Pilgrims thronged from every quarter to his tomb, which became the great pilgrimage of the west, the pendant to Jerusalem, with Rome between the two.

The humble church erected by Alfonso the Chaste was by no means suitable to the dignity of the deliverer of Spain, nor sufficient for the ever-increasing number of pilgrims. In the year 868 Alfonso III., together with Sisenand, then Bishop of Compostella, undertook to replace it by a cathedral. “We, Alfonso,” it is written in the Act of Erection, “have resolved, together with the bishop aforesaid, to build the house of the Lord and to restore the temple and tomb of the apostle which aforetime had been raised to his august memory by the Lord Alfonso, and which was only a small construction of stone and clay. Urged by the inspiration of God, we are come with our subjects, 332our family, into this holy place. Traversing Spain through the battalions of the Moors, we have brought from the city of Ebeca blocks of marble which we have selected, and which our forefathers had carried thither by sea, and with which they built superb habitations, which the enemy has destroyed.”

All the materials for the new building were thus gathered together, the slabs and columns of marble being of great beauty, but we have little information as to its architectural style or merit. The arts were at that time in a state of temporary decay. The edifices of the Roman period had for the most part perished in the invasions of the Goths, the Suevi, and the Alani. These nations, after having embraced the faith, were speedily civilized, and under its inspiration had raised numerous religious buildings which were not without a certain grandeur, when the Moorish conquest of Spain brought again an almost universal ruin over the land. The influence of the climate, the beauty of the Andalusian skies, softened the fierce character of the victors, and their minds speedily received a wonderful intellectual development. Never did any people make so much progress in so short a time, in art, in science, in culture of ideas, and also in a certain elevation of sentiment. Architecture of great magnificence and originality made rapid advances among them, of which the richness always bore the stamp of a peculiar tastefulness and delicacy.

The vanquished were unable to make the same progress, nor were they to attain to great results until after having received the contact of the works of their conquerors. 333These results were arrived at later on, thanks to a certain courtesy which, outside the war as it were, and in times of truce, established between the two peoples mutual relations and currents of influence which left their impress on all the creations of genius.

When King Alfonso commenced the cathedral of Compostella, the conquest was still too recent and the animosity too great between the Spaniards and their subduers to allow of any amicable intercourse or interchange of ideas on matters connected with the arts of peace. The architecture of the close of the ninth century was heavy and the forms massive; not without grandeur, though for the most part devoid of grace. Such, doubtless, in its general features, was the ancient cathedral of Compostella, which was completed about the year 874. Mariana, following the statement of Sandoval, says that there was held there in 876 a council of fourteen bishops, who consecrated the new edifice. The high altar was dedicated to our Lord under the title of St. Saviour, that on the right to St. Peter, and that on the left to St. Paul, while the ancient altar over the apostle’s tomb, which reached back to a remote antiquity, received no consecration, it being regarded as certain that this had received it from the first disciples of St. James.

The erection of the cathedral gave a new impetus to the pilgrimage, to facilitate which roads were made in the south of France and the north of Spain. Monasteries and houses of refuge were built along the wild and lonely defiles of the Pyrenees, and bridges thrown across the streams and rivers. The roads were thronged by the multitudes, 334who came, some from simple devotion, others to do penance and seek pardon of their sins, and many also to obtain some particular favor—the cure of a sickness or the success of an undertaking. Great was the renown of Monsignor St. James, the power of whose intercession and the splendor of whose miracles were held in high esteem at Rome. Pope John X., at the commencement of the tenth century, sent to his tomb a priest named Zanelus to obtain correct information respecting the number of pilgrims and the authenticity of the numerous miracles; he was also charged to examine the liturgical books of the Goths, respecting which it had been stated that they were full of errors. The bishop, Sisenand, received him with all honor, supplied him with every means of faithfully acquitting himself of his mission, and convinced him of the purity of the ancient liturgy of Spain. All the books which Zanelus took from thence received the Supreme Pontiff’s approval, the only alteration he required being that in the words of consecration the Spanish rite should conform itself exactly to that of Rome.

Compostella, daily enriched by travellers too numerous for her to entertain, became a town of ever-increasing importance. The church especially, to which very costly offerings were continually being made, which had immense revenues and possessed superb domains, was in richness and magnificence one of the first in the world. Her prelates, however, did not always make good use of their riches. The church was then passing through deplorable times, and corruption, which was invading all besides, made inroads also in the sanctuary. 335The bishops of Compostella were usually chosen from among the noble and illustrious families of the kingdom, brought up amid luxury, pleasure, and the tumult of arms, and, carrying their worldly predilections with them to the episcopal throne, they might be seen constantly in the chase or at the war, sometimes driven from their see, and, attempting to return by force, dying a violent death. One of these, Sisenand, unlike his worthy predecessor of the same name, was in 979 killed at the head of a squadron while charging the Normans, who had invaded Galicia. He would have been a good captain; why was he made a bishop? Compostella owed to him the solid walls and strong towers with which he fortified the town. His successor, Pelayo, being equally unfitted for his office, was deposed, and replaced by a pious priest named Pedro Mansorio, upon whom the misdoings of his predecessors were visited. He had the grief of seeing the city taken by the Moors, who profaned and devastated the cathedral. His immediate successors failed to profit by this chastisement, and, after three unworthy prelates had occupied the see, the enemy advanced from the direction of Portugal (which they had invaded and ravaged) in greater numbers than before; again they besieged and took the city, which they set on fire and razed the walls. Alman-Zour fed his horse from the porphyry urn in the cathedral which was used for the baptismal font, and which still exists; gave up the sanctuary to pillage and destruction, throwing down many of the pillars, as well as a portion of the walls; and, taking down the bells, caused them to be dragged by Christian captives to the great 336mosque at Toledo, where they were turned upside down and made to serve as lamps. He was proceeding to make havoc also of the apostle’s tomb, when a bright light, suddenly emanating from and enveloping it, so terrified the infidels that they stopped short in their sacrilege, fearing lest they should be stricken by the “apostle of Isa” (Jesus). An aged monk sat by the tomb, alone, and doubtless hoping for martyrdom in that spot at the hand of the spoilers. Alman-Zour asked why he stayed there, and, on his answering that he was “the friend of Santiago,” commanded that no one should lay hands upon him, and the Mussulmans respected the fakir. It is the Moorish annals nearly contemporary with the events we are noticing which mention this incident, and which appreciate in a very curious manner the pilgrimage of St. James, describing as follows Shant Jakoh, the sacred city of Kalikija (Galicia): “Their Kabah is a colossal idol in the centre of the church; they swear by it, and come on pilgrimage to it from the most distant lands, from Rome as well as from other countries, pretending that the tomb which may there be seen is that of Jakoh, one of the best beloved of the twelve apostles of Isa. May happiness and the benediction of Allah be upon him and upon our Prophet!”

The army of Alman-Zour did not reap any benefit from its sacrilegious plunder: a contagious malady made such terrible ravages in its ranks that there were scarcely any soldiers left; he therefore hastened his departure from Galicia, but was himself also stricken by death upon the way.

It was not possible immediately to raise the cathedral from its 337ruins, but the confluence of pilgrims never ceased, and the offerings of Christendom were such as to render the hope almost a certainty that it would at no distant period be worthily rebuilt.

Towards the year 1038 Ferdinand, having been made king of Castile and Leon, fought the Moors in several engagements, defeated them in Portugal, and, having dispossessed them of numerous strongholds and fortified places, desired to testify his gratitude to the God of armies by repairing to Compostella. There he prayed long at the apostle’s tomb, and took the resolution never to lay down his arms until he had broken the power of the enemy.

After taking the powerful city of Coimbra, the capture of which he attributed to the protection of St. James, the king returned to Compostella laden with booty, which, in gratitude for his victory, he presented to the church.

Compostella had now bishops worthy of their sacred dignity. In 1056 Cresconius, who then ruled the diocese, presided, at a council held there, in his quality of bishop of the Apostolic See. Rome thus exercised her influence, and this influence was so salutary that Pelago, a near successor of Cresconius, desired to give it a larger place in his church. He laid aside the Mozarabic Rite and adopted the Roman in the celebration of Mass and the recitation of the Canonical Hours, accepting at the same time all the Roman rules on important matters of sacerdotal discipline. And Compostella had not long to wait before receiving the recompense of her submission and good-will. In 1075, the same year in which Ferdinand took Toledo, the see of Santiago (for this had become 338the name of the town), which had hitherto been suffragan to Merida, was raised to the metropolitan dignity.

We have now reached the period in which, thanks to the liberality of the faithful, the cathedral of Compostella was not only raised from its ruins, but entirely rebuilt on a larger scale and with much greater splendor. Gemirez, the first archbishop of Santiago, was one of its greatest prelates.

The work of reconstruction, which had been commenced about the year 1082, he not only actively continued, but also proposed to the chapter to build cloisters and offices, as well as commodious lodgings for those who came on pilgrimage from distant lands, engaging for his part to pay a hundred marks of pure silver towards the expense.

The sole aim of this prelate was the glory of God and the honor of St. James, never his own worldly advantage; the people knew this, and that the use made of their offerings was always in conformity with their intentions. The times, however, were troubled, and the archbishop had his share of their disquiet.

Queen Urraca, the sister of Alfonso VI. of Castile and Leon, and widow of Raymond of Burgundy, claimed as her right, until her son should be old enough to reign, the government of Castile and the countries dependent on it, while her second husband, Alfonso of Aragon, repudiated these pretensions. Gemirez, whose influence was so great that he might be regarded as the real sovereign of the country, took the part of Urraca, and her cause prospered for a time, owing to the weight of his support; but she ruined her own case by her haughtiness and ambition; 339a rebellion broke out, and the prelate narrowly escaped falling a victim to the fury of the populace, who set fire to the cathedral. Happily, the solidity of its structure was such as to resist the flames, the interior wood-work and fittings, etc., only being destroyed, so that not many years afterwards, in 1117, we find the archbishop, in an address to his canons, able to speak of it as one of the richest and most beautiful as well as one of the most illustrious churches in the world.

In 1130 Gemirez ended his career, but not until he had lived to see the work far advanced towards its completion. We hear no more of its progress for forty years afterwards. The crosses of the consecration, which are still to be seen, are floriated at their extremities, and between the arms are the sun and moon above, and the letters [Greek: A Ô] below, some of them bearing also a date which appears to be that of 1154.

The pilgrims, who came in continuous multitudes, had innumerable perils to encounter on their way. The roads were bad; the countries through which they passed often so barren and thinly peopled that they were in danger of dying of hunger; the highways so infested with brigands that in those days they were avoided as those in the East had been in the time of Deborah, every one seeking rather the by-ways, which were also beset with obstacles of all kinds. St. Dominic of Calzada had done well to make roads and build bridges, but something was still wanting to his work, and that was the safety of those who travelled by them, and who were constantly liable to be attacked and despoiled by the infidels, to be taken captive, and condemned to slavery or death.

340This state of things could not be allowed to continue. The Moors had their rabitos, or armed fakirs—a sort of warrior-monk—to protect their pilgrims and defend their frontiers; the religious and military orders of the Templars and Knights of St. John were covering themselves with glory in the East, and Spain could not fail to profit by these examples. The canons of St. Eloi had recently founded a chain of hospices, reaching from the frontiers of France to Compostella, specially destined for the reception of pilgrims, the most considerable being that of St. Mark, on the borders of Leon. These places of refuge, which were productive of the greatest good, were richly endowed by various princes; but even this was not enough: some brave noblemen of Castile resolved to devote their whole life to the defence and protection of the pilgrims. They placed their possessions in one common stock, and, joining the canons of St. Eloi, dwelt with them in a convent not far from Compostella. Being advised by Cardinal Jacinthus to go to Rome and obtain from the Pope the confirmation of their institute according to the rule of St. Augustine, they charged Don Pedro Fernandez de la Puente with this embassy, and obtained a bull, dated July 5, 1175, which regulated their manner of life, their duties, and their privileges, and created, under the title of Knights of St. James, a military order, of which Don Pedro was the first grand master. They wore a white tunic, with a red cross in the form of a sword on the breast. Their principal house was at first the hospice of St. Mark; but the castles and domains which were made over to them from time to time were so numerous that 341their riches became almost incalculable, and their influence and importance increased in proportion. They established themselves at Uclès, the better to carry on the warfare against the infidel, whose terror they had become. We soon find them a power in the state, the grand master taking rank with kings, and at times appearing to rule them. Even the simple knights had great privileges. It was not until the reign of Ferdinand that, owing to the skilful management of Isabella, the power and influence of the order began to decrease.

Our notice would be incomplete without a few words on the subject of the miracles which took place at the tomb or by the intercession of the apostle. The countless favors which have rendered many a chosen sanctuary justly illustrious will never be known; indeed, their absence would make the continual faith of the people—always asking and never receiving; always believing, and yet to be ever disappointed and deceived—not only inexplicable but impossible, whereas it was absolute and complete; but exaggeration, which, even in the world of ordinary facts, so frequently goes hand in hand with truth, plays still more freely with facts which are beyond and above the events of daily life, and, not being satisfied with the simple beauty of miraculous deliverances, it must fain make marvels still more marvellous—quit the domain of faith for that of myths and chimera. A MS. of the monastery of La Marcha is full of the recital of prodigies which a faith the most robust would nowadays find it difficult to accept; and Cæsar of Heisterbach tells us that a young man of Maestricht having been condemned and hung on a false accusation, commending himself 342to St. James, was preserved alive a whole month hanging from the gibbet, where his father found him safe and sound at the end of that time. Whereupon the people of Toulouse, jealous of the glory which the renown of this announcement gave to St. James of Compostella, attributed to their St. James a miracle exactly similar.

In numerous instances the accounts of the dead restored to life have nothing impossible or exaggerated about them, and often in their pathos and simplicity remind one of those mentioned in the Gospel narrative; for instance, a poor woman, by the intercession of St. James, obtained a son, who became not only her greatest comfort, but in time her only support. He fell ill and died. With a breaking heart the mother hastens to the apostle’s tomb, and in her agony of desolation mingles reproaches with her prayers and tears, asking the saint why he had won for her the blessing she had desired, only to let her lose it when her need was greatest, and herself a thousand times more sorrowful than before; and then, full of faith, entreated him to obtain from God the life of her son. Her prayer was granted, and, returning home, she found the youth restored. But of a very different character is the extraordinary legend related by Guibert, Abbot of Nogent, and which we quote as a curiosity. A certain pilgrim was on his way to Compostella to perform penance and obtain the pardon of a crime he had committed. On the road the enemy of mankind appeared to him under the form of St. James, and, telling him that his sin was far too great to be remitted by a simple pilgrimage, insisted that there was only one means of obtaining mercy, 343and that was by the sacrifice of his life; he must kill himself, and then all would be forgiven him. The pilgrim, who believed that he was listening to St. James in person and was bound to obey him, stabbed himself and died, a victim to the fraud of the demon. He appears before the tribunal of God, and there Satan claims him as his prey by a double title: first, because of the old crime, which had not been remitted; and, secondly, because of the new one of which he had been guilty in committing suicide. In vain the poor man pleads that he had acted in good faith and in the simplicity of his heart; he was in great danger of being condemned. But St. James hears what is going on and hastens to the scene. He does not intend that the evil one should take his form and name to deceive his pilgrims and then have all the profits, and pleads that the only way to do perfect justice in the affair is to put everything exactly as it was before Satan had so odiously meddled in the matter, and to send back the soul of the unfortunate man into his body again. This representation, being just, was acceded to, and the resuscitated pilgrim continued on his way to Compostella, where he confessed with great contrition and was absolved of all the sins of his past life.

We must, however, leave the realm of legend and return to historical facts. The anchoretic life was at an early period introduced into Europe from the East, and Spain appears to have been a land where hermits especially abounded. We often find them mentioned as coming on pilgrimage to Compostella, as St. Simeon and St. Theobald in the twelfth century, St. William somewhat later, and St. John the 344Hermit, who built near the cathedral a place of shelter for pilgrims, where he himself received them, rendering them all the offices of Christian hospitality.

Another William also came hither on pilgrimage, who was an illustrious personage, though not a hermit; this was the Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine, whose past life had been anything but exemplary. In Normandy and elsewhere he had been guilty of grievous misdemeanors, for which he desired to do penance before his death; and, more than this, he did his utmost, by good and upright administration, to repair the evil he had done before. For this reason Hildebert, Bishop of Mans, was not well pleased at his setting out for Spain, and wrote to him as follows: “We are told, most noble count, that you have undertaken a pilgrimage in honor of Blessed James. We do not desire to deny the excellence of this, but whosoever is at the head of an administration is bound to obedience, nor can he free himself therefrom without deserting his post, unless, at least, he be called to one of greater usefulness. Wherefore, very dear son, it is an inexcusable fault in you to have preferred that which is not necessary before that which is—repose rather than labor, and, instead of duty, your own will.” But the great prelate would probably have been less severe could he have foreseen the holy death of Count William, who, on Good Friday, after having received the Blessed Sacrament, peacefully rendered up his soul to God before the altar of St. James.

About the same time a young maiden of Pisa, afterwards St. Bona, came to Compostella, and there received singular favors and graces. 345Sophia, Countess of Holland,^[38] journeying thither also, fell into the hands of robbers, and through one whole night found that she had nothing to expect but spoliation and death. In the morning their resolution was changed; they threw themselves at her feet and entreated her pardon, allowing her to proceed unharmed on her way. After visiting the tomb of St. James the princess went to Jerusalem, there to spend the remainder of her life.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century pilgrims from all lands had become so numerous that it was frequently impossible, especially on the feast of the patron saint, for all to find even standing-room in the cathedral. The tumult was indescribable, and did not always end outside the doors. On some occasions there were not only blows but bloodshed, so that Pope Innocent III. wrote to the archbishop, saying that his church had need of reconciliation, and the ceremony was performed with water, wine, and blessed ashes.^[39]

Alman-Zour, as we have previously mentioned, had caused the bells of Compostella to be carried to Cordova on the backs of Christian captives. In 1229 Ferdinand, who had united under his sway the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, made the conquest of Cordova, and, finding the bells in the great mosque, he inflicted retaliation on the infidels by compelling them to carry them, on their shoulders, back to the place whence they had been taken two hundred and sixty years before.