God's heart, that he firmly believed, without mentioning things of greater merit, that in every step which they made, and in every movement of their hands, they added somewhat to the crown prepared for them in the eternal world *. There was, again, the pilgrim life, with its purifying renouncements, and yet, on the other hand, its sweet and sanctifying recollections of holy men and holy places; there was the knightly life, with its chivalrous allegiance to heaven, its high enjoyment of all the reverential sentiments of our nature, and all its gentle associations of forest glades and crested towers, with the defence of the weak and the noble love of whatever is good and honourable. Nor let us forget the peasant life, with its delicious initiation into all the ineffable consolations and splendours of the saints, having in each rural church and monastery a paradise ever open to it, yielding not alone a peace and felicity, but even a form of external beauty surpassing whatever could be imagined in the palaces of kings,-all were conditions sanctified and pure, yielding a vision of God to men of good will, peace to the heart, truth to the intelligence; so that, wherever the recognized type of each was fulfilled, one might truly say with poets, "The deadly germs of languor and disease Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor care How lovely the intrepid front of youth! With meek-eyed courage, deck'd with freshest grace- And elevated will, that journey'd on Through life's phantasmal scene in fearlessness!" This Catholic view of the constitution of human life suggested to blessed Gregory the plan of his septiform litany; for he divided all the people of the city into seven choirs, comprising in separate divisions the monks, the nuns, the children, the laymen, the widows, and the married woment. Duties were multiplied with the Epist. ccccxli. † Hist. Miscell. Addit. Script. Rer. Italic. tom. i. varieties of offices arising out of the order of society, so that nothing could be more different than the type of a pure and happy state, in ages of faith, and that which the modern views of civilization would substitute in its place; for they would have only the one prosaic unspiritual life of passions misapplied and energies squandered upon ends that satisfy not-life monotonous and toilsome-life which sin, which avarice, not God, has made -recalling the unhappy days of ancient Rome, when there was only the rhetorician's life, the sophist's life, the tribune or the patrician life; none of which states to the intelligence could have ever yielded one ray of hope to gild the sad horizon of this brief existence, or to console in misery the poor diseased heart. The angel of the school saw nothing in the difference of rank and degrees established around him in the world but what he thought might have been fitting human existence before the fall. "In the state of innocence," saith he, "there was disparity from difference of sex, age, disposition, and knowledge; for man worked not by necessity, but by free-will, which implies that man may more or less apply his mind to do any thing or acquire any knowledge. Therefore some make greater proficiency in justice and wisdom than others. There was disparity, also, of bodily strength or constitution. Now it is true that equality is a cause of rendering mutual love equal; yet nevertheless amongst unequals there might be greater love than amongst equals, for a father loves his child more than a brother loves a brother. Disparity may arise from the part of God, that the beauty of order may be developed amongst men. It was not contrary to the dignity of the state of innocence that man should rule over man, since even amongst angels there are dominations; the dominion in the state of innocence would have been that by which a free man is directed towards his own good; and this dominion is good, because man is naturally a social animal; and the social life of man could not exist unless some one should preside to provide for the common welfare *. How strange to many ears at present must be this proposition of St. Thomas: "Nec inæqualitas hominum excluditur per innocentiæ statum." Who would now dare to utter it before a large assembly? It is that we *P. i. Q. xcvi. art. 4. have lost the idea of the possibility of such a combination; it is that we have lost the idea of the state of the rich being sanctified, of the state of rule and authority sanctified, of the state of knowledge and intellectual superiority sanctified. How few men are there who can now represent any fair and glorious ideal!-how few now living associated, in the minds of their contemporaries, with any complete, beautiful, or inspiring image of moral grandeur or loveliness! There are the personages of Greece and Rome, and of our modern novels perhaps, at every step; but those of holy or knightly books, on which our fathers fed their lofty hearts, may be sought in vain. This supernatural direction of mind, by which the intention was fixed upon fulfilling the highest duty, was shown by the moralists of the ages of faith to be the only basis on which any structure of virtue could rise with security; and their remarks in verification are highly interesting. "I have seen," says St. John Climacus, "many and various germs of virtues planted by those who live in the world, watered with vain glory as if from the pollution of a sewer, dug round by ostentation, and manured with human praise, which, when they were afterwards transferred to the desert, where they were no longer seen by men of the world nor nourished with the miry waters of vain glory, have all suddenly dried up and withered *, "" away With such morality the blessed clean of heart were not content. "Where is faith?" exclaims St. Jerome"where is purity of soul?-where is the prayer of Jonas in the sea, and of the children in the furnace, and of Daniel among the lions, and of the thief upon the cross? Let every one examine his own heart, and he will perceive how rare it is to find a faithful soul which does nothing for glory or to please men. For he who fasts does not immediately fast to God; nor does he who stretches out his hand to the poor immediately lend to God. Vices are neighbours to virtues. It is difficult to be content with the judgment of God alone +." Difficult, no doubt, it was, in all ages, to possess such contentment; nevertheless we have only to consult the historical * Scala Paradisi, grad. ii. † S. Hieron. advers. Luciferianos. monuments which bear testimony to the manners of that middle period, to behold the difficulty overcome; for it is certainly no misrepresentation to affirm that men in those times had merely to look around them to witness indisputable evidence of faith and purity of soul—to see crowds who not alone abstained from wrong like virtuous Gentiles, loving truth and equity, and hating and resisting, as far as the Christian law permits, all things opposed to them with the steadiness of instinct, but who attained to an angelic life through the love of God. The exception would not have been a man like Aristides, who was remarkable as being the only one amongst his contemporaries that was acknowledged to be above calumny; but however numerous might be the unhappy who fell from the height of their vocation, either in ecclesiastical or civil life, it was such persons in reality who formed the phenomenon that was pointed out as strange. Without being sceptical to a degree that would destroy the foundation of all knowledge, we cannot avoid arriving at this conclusion, that it was the spirit of multitudes in those ages to do nothing for glory or to win human praise-to be directed in all actions by the immediate sense of a religious duty, and to be content with the judgment of God alone. There was a soul of self-devotion in the whole order of the ancient Catholic state, pervading all its members, which imparted to men the faculty of rendering every path of life a way to heaven Hear how a prince of Italy speaks, and you may learn from his words what was purity of heart in relation to a crown:- -"My conscience is witness," says John Francis Picus, of Mirandula, that I do not covet sovereign power, nor am I prompted by the desire of riches; for I prefer a life of peaceful meditation and tranquil study to turbulent riches: and I would rather be governed than govern; but I perceive that unless there be one prince, our affairs will go on ill, and that we shall be devoured by continual seditions. Now that I say this sincerely may be easily credited; for what more horrible to a composed mind than popular commotions and the discussion of civil controversies?-what more abhorrent from the life of study and philosophy, which I love, than to fear continually hostile invasions, domestic treachery, enemies without, poison within? Nevertheless, since by says my birth and by the laws I seem destined to fulfil the office of ruler, I will endure these things to the best of my power, and accommodate myself to them *" King Ferdinand, covered with years and glory," Roderick of Toledo, 66 was forewarned of his death in a vision, and soon after visited with the first symptoms of his malady. He caused himself to be carried, therefore, to the city of Leon, where he first went to the cathedral, and prostrated himself before the altars, praying that God would grant him a happy passage to immortal bliss. It being the night of our Lord's nativity, the king, though sick, assisted at matins with the clergy. The next day, the mass of Toledo, the Mozarabic, was solemnly celebrated in his presence, when he received the sacrament of the Lord's body and blood. On the next day, having called the bishops, abbots, and religious men, he caused himself to be carried into the church, and there, with his diadem on his head and clothed in the royal robes before the sarcophagus of St. Isidore, he cried out to the Lord with a clear voice, saying, 'Tua est potentia, tuum est regnum, Domine, tu es super omnes reges, tuo imperio omnia sunt subjecta: quod te donante accepi, restituo tibi regnum, tantum animam meam in æterna luce jubeas collocari.' So saying, laying aside his royal garments, he begged for mercy, and received from the bishops penitence and the grace of last unction. Clothed in sackcloth and covered with ashes, he passed two days in penitence and tears. On the third, at the hour of sext, it being the feast of St. John the Evangelist, full of days, he rendered up his spirit to God, and was buried in the same church of St. Isidore +." Thus could a king die. If we were desired to point out men in regal authority resembling in their views and policy Hippias, after the detection of the conspiracy against him, who regarded all his subjects as his secret enemies, and who, instead of attempting to provide for their future welfare, aimed only at plundering them-who, being conscious of deserving their hatred, and feeling in proportion less secure from its effects, considered Attica as a domain held by a precarious tenure, and thought only of profiting as much as possible by his uncertain possession, taking care to place Joan. F. Pic. Mirand. Epist. lib. i. † Moderici Toletani de Rebus Hispaniæ, lib. vi. c. 14. |