withdraw man from the world, and extinguish in him all attachment to perishable things. The force of love is as great as that of death; and the victory which it obtains over vice is no less sensible to all the faculties of the soul, than is the hand of death to the body when it seizes upon all its parts." 66 Our heart," says another spiritual guide, "is transformed into what it loves. I am in a manner all divine if I love God, and I become earth if I love the earth." What, think you, was the purity of blessed Francis on that mountain of Alvernia, when he saw the seraph, and received the stigmas of Christ? But of this hereafter. "In the first degree," saith Richard of St. Victor, "love is insuperable, in the second it is inseparable, in the third singular, in the fourth insatiable: insuperable, yielding to no other affection; inseparable, never departing from the memory; singular, admitting of no ally; insatiable, when nothing can satisfy it. Mark then here the excellence of love, which exceeds all other affections, the vehemence of love, which suffers not the mind to rest, its violence, which expels all other affections, its super-eminence, to which nothing can suffice. These four degrees of love are distinguished either as engaged on divine or on human objects, and in divine affections the greater they are the better they are. O how precious that insuperable love of God, that inseparable, singular, and insatiable love of God *." 66 Other axioms we find laid down to guide men to the true felicity. "The least imperfection," says blessed John of the Cross, prevents the soul from ascending. As it matters not whether the thread which is attached to a bird be slight or strong, since either hinders it from flying away; so an imperfection, whether little or great, keeps down the soul. When a vessel is full of fluid, the least fissure is sufficient to occasion the gradual loss of every drop and in like manner, when the soul is filled with the precious liquor of virtue and grace, if the opening caused by the slightest imperfection be not effectually stopped, this liquor escapes by little and little to the last drop t." Richard. S. Victor, Tractat. de quatuor gradibus violentæ charitatis. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, liv. i. "Lava a malitia cor tuum Hierusalem, ut salva fiat *." "The innocent in work," says St. Bernardine of Sienna, "ascend the mountain of the Lord; which signifies purity of mind, and contemplation of celestial things +." "There is no middle state for the heart to rest in," say these high teachers; "necesse est enim animam ad carnalia et terrena dejici, quæ à spirituali vita degenerans ad cœlestia non aspirat ." Therefore," says Gerson, "without the exercise of meditation, no one, excepting in the event of an especial miracle of God, can attain to the right observance of a Christian life." St. Bernard remarks that, "nothing is felt so sweet in this life, nothing separates the mind so much from the love of the world, nothing strengthens the soul so effectually against temptations, nothing exalts a man so much, and assists him so effectually to every good work, as the grace of contemplation §." And Louis of Blois says, "That all masters of the spiritual life teach, that the most useful of all exercises, and the sole necessary, is that of the remembrance of the humanity of Jesus Christ, and principally of his sacred passion |." Above all, they insist on the necessity of continual vigilance, remarking with St. Ambrose, that" the ordinary fraud of Satan is to endeavour to cast men down from their eminence, as he tempted our Lord to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple: he tries," saith he, "to precipitate them from their holy and venerable deeds to earthly and defiled, that he who stands in purity of mind on the summit of the temple, may cast himself down into the deep abyss and contagion of sin ¶." 66 The admonitions of Richard of St. Victor on this head evince subtle observation of intellectual operations, and show with what care every insinuating evil was repelled. Frequently," he says, "when disturbed by evil thoughts, a man fancies that this arises not from his negligence, but in order to preserve him from pride; and thus he supposes it humility to be less watchful against ⚫ Jer. 4. † S. Bernardin. Sen. Sermo X. Petri Blesensis, Epist. cxi. ¶S. Amb. Serm. XXVI. lust, and he knows not how detestable is the pride which in such defilement suggests that he is not a sinner, but another Paul, to whom the angel of Satan gives a thorn in the flesh, lest the multitude of virtues, or the greatness of revelations, should exalt him. Thus, in a piteous and wondrous manner, he grows proud, without ceasing to be luxurious, and he gives himself to luxury without ceasing to be proud. Who do you think can break such cedars? Truly he who breaketh the cedars of Libanus. This is the change of the right hand of the Most High, to bow down the swelling heart to the image of the humility of Christ *." Faith, as St. Augustine said, directed the intention, but power to vanquish diabolic obstacles would have failed without the intervention of celestial aid; therefore the universal belief of these ages was that of the Angelic Doctor, that "man in the state of this life is constituted as if on a journey to his country, on which he is beset with many perils, and therefore that as to men on dangerous roads guards are given, so to every man, as long as he is a wayfarer, the protection of an angel is granted, until he arrives at the end of this journey, when he will no longer have an angel guardian, but will either have in heaven an angel reigning along with him, or in hell a demon punishing him t." This belief was not without an influence on the general manners of men, and especially in regard to their mutual intercourse. It would appear from the ancient writings, that wherever those who were nourished with thoughts of piety met a man, they considered that they rather met his angel; and into whatever assembly of persons they came, there they acted under the impression that it was an assembly of angels ‡. Indeed one of the most remarkable features in the intellectual character of the middle ages, was the propensity to look always at the unearthly, the beautiful, the engaging, the innocent side of things. This breaks out most strikingly in their pictures, in their books, in their ceremonies, and in their social customs. What pure and amiable creatures are the * Richardi S. Victoris Annot. in Psalm. xxviii. St. Thom. Sum. 1. p. Q. cxiii. art. 4. Niremberg, Doct. Ascet. lib. iv. p. iv. cap. 34. young of human kind in all their representations? youth's nature sanctified, is most lovely in their eyes; it is a beauty coveted of angels, an image stampt by the everlasting pleasure, to enhance the joy of heaven. CHAPTER II. THE extent to which purity of heart was cultivated during ages of faith, may be considered in relation to many subjects, and ascertained from many sources of information connected with history. It may be traced by observing its influence on the affections of men, on the manners of society, on literature and art, and on philosophy: in all which relations it led to such results that Savonarola, addressing the Italian philosophers of his time, appeals to their observation of the manifest effects daily appearing in the Catholic church to justify his concluding, from them, that the religion must be divine *. A consideration of its influence on the affections alone would open a boundless field for psychlogical or moral researches. It would afford an opportunity for penetrating deeper into the mysterious side of the ancient life than we have hitherto done, and for noticing some of the most interesting phenomena presented in the history of mankind. But the whole subject is of such extent that we can only throw a very rapid glance at each branch. The reader, who is already familiarised with many characteristic features of the ancient Catholic civilization, will not be surprised when I cite among the first and most prominent of the facts connected with the desire of this sixth beatitude, the doctrinal and practical love of God, which, in those ages, formed a distinct element in the constitution of society, produced as great an effect upon the external aspect of the world, and gave rise to as many novelties and modifications in the whole order of human life, as result at present from the love of per sonal distinction under the mask of political and social *Triumph. Crucis, lib. ii. c. 13. forms, or from any other of the great leading principles to which the thoughts and actions of men are made subordinate. Among the teachers who, in these subsequent times, have come forward intending to transmit or impart a knowledge of the principles of moral and theological truth, there is no want, it is true, of unity and conformity as far as regards the general expression of their obligation to fulfil the first and greatest of the commandments of the new law; but when they have done this and laid down the abstract principle, they may be said to stop as if the subject demanded no further investigation, or admitted of no ulterior developement. But it was not so in the middle ages, when the most important offices of human life, the institutions which presented themselves at every side, the whole frame and order of society, the half of literature, and all philosophy may truly be said to have turned on this hinge, and to have been identified with the doctrine and practice of the love of God, so that when it prevailed they flourished, and when it declined they fell to ruin and past away. The thoughts and affections of men," says the ascetic," are various and unstable, but all are vain and impure which are not of God. O human heart, cupidinous, anxious, and insatiable, how evil and bitter it is for thee to forsake thy God *!" "Ut miser est homo qui amat!" exclaims the slave in Plautus, regarding the condition of his master's mind: but the poets of later and happier ages knew to say rather how wretched is the man who loves not as he ought. Purity of heart changed every thing. Let us hear the blessed John of the Cross describing this renovation. "Those who begin to love God may be compared to new wine, and those who have long loved him to old. As new wine ought to effervesce in the barrel, in order that it may discharge its froth and impurity, in like manner those who begin to love God ought, in their first fervour, to purify themselves from their vices and natural imperfections; and as this wine is neither pure, nor agreeable to the taste, nor conducive to health, in like manner these persons are not confirmed in the service of God, nor of a pure and refined taste in things spiritual, nor representatives *Thom. Kemp. Hortulus Rosarum. |