necessary development for corruption and abuse. It shows us the Church 66 Creating festivals of majesty And obligation diverse, as she deems, Instinct with heavenly guidance, that the needs For truths neglected, or for growing store Of friends in Paradise." It leads us necessarily, if we follow it with perseverance, to that religion, which, as the English Catholics said in their petition to James I.," is venerable for antiquity, majestic for its amplitude, irreprehensible for its doctrine, inciting to all sorts of virtues, and dissuading from all vices and sins-to that religion which was preached by all the ancient doctors, maintained by the first and best Christian emperors, celebrated by all ecclesiastical historians, watered with the blood of millions of martyrs, adorned with the virtues of as many confessors, conformable to reason and to the text of the word of Godt." Those who follow this road, therefore, ought to be the first to say with St. Augustin, "that we can never err if we hold in our hands the clue which is attached to the Catholic Church. Tenentes ergo Ecclesiam, quæ dilatatur per omnes gentes, non figmentum_sequimur humanum, sed promissum factumque divinum." For those, above all, who come from the far country, where Catholicism has long been legally renounced, the road of historians is fraught with lessons of supreme interest. At every step they hear its voice repeating, I have some rights of memory in this kingdom" and, when reproved for proclaiming their discoveries, in words like those of the third Richard,— 66 Harp not on that string, that is pass'd;" their farthest limits of compliance will only dictate such an answer as "Farewell! thou canst not teach me to forget." Et vacet annales nostrorum audire laborum, Yes, this is indeed that straight and even way to reach the beatitude which dwells with truth, of which we may say, in Virgil's words,- "Perge modo, et qua te ducit via dirige gressum." * Morris. + Pierre Mathieu, Hist. de Hen. IV. lib. vi. § Æn. i. 372. S. Aug. cont. Gaudent. ii. 25. Therefore, in past times, every human study was thought subordinate to history. "What is writing?" asks Pepin, the son of Charlemagne. Alcuin replies, " It is the guardian of history." From the unknown author of the book of virtues and vices, or Magister Historiarum, noticed in the catalogue of the Depying priory, in Lincolnshire, to the learned and accomplished William of Malmsbury, all were impressed with an especial reverence for history; which, as the latter says, "by a certain agreeable recapitulation of past events excites its readers, by example, to frame their lives to the pursuit of good, or to aversion from evil." During ages when divine faith was extended farthest, even the historians of the Gentile world were studied with more interest than they are at the present day. Valerius Maximus was then, perhaps, more familiar to the European nations than he ever was to his contemporaries. Niebuhr says that it was then considered the most important book next to the Bible. Livy, as a man amans virtutum, osor vitiorum *, was as much respected as when persons used to come from the farthest parts of Spain and Gaul for the sole purpose of seeing him. It was not forgotten that Caligula had wished to destroy his history with the poems of Virgil, that his own vices might not be contrasted with the virtues they describe. It was not the monks who called Livy verbose, from impatience at so long a history; nor did they object to his Patavinity, like Asinius Pollio. When his body was discovered, in 1413, in the monastery of St. Justin, at Padua, which had been the temple of Juno, in digging the foundation for a new tower, the spot being known to the monks by tradition, the whole city flocked to behold it, with such reverence, that some holy men were fearful lest they exceeded what was lawful. Rolandus, the monk, however, gave it up to the nobles of the city, who carried it on their shoulders to the forum. The names of each bearer are recorded by Tomasinus. In 1451, Alphonso, king of Aragon, obtained the bone of the arm with which he wrote his history, and removed it, with honours, to Naples, where it was placed in an urn. effigy were inscribed these lines : Under his "Cura tibi Historia est; per te quoque mortua vivunt: "The memory of heroic virtue and of high deeds," says a Catholic historian of Spain," is a great and inestimable thing. From history, as from a fountain, kings and magistrates may learn humanity, clemency, justice, prudence, and to preserve * Balthazar Bonifacius de Scriptoribus Rom. Historiæ. Tit. Liv. Tomasini, 38. inviolable faith with others. Nothing is more useful, more necessary, than history; for men can use it not only in regard to public, but also to private life, since it contains examples of all actions*." Christian annals were not merely written, studied, and treasured up as a sacred deposit, their substance was rendered familiar to all classes of a Catholic population; for at all epochs, since the life in catacombs, Catholicism exclaims,— "The good and mighty of departed ages Are in their graves: the innocent and free, And we Are like to them-Such perish, but they leave Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive 66 Truly, as Caxton says, great thanks, laud, and honour ought to be given unto the clerks, poets, and historiographs, that have written many noble books of wisdom of the lives, passions, and miracles of holy saints, of histories of noble and famous acts." The road of historians, if men will not obstinately throw themselves into the pit-falls on each side, becomes one of the safest of all roads that lead to the Catholic Church-it becomes the road of heaven; and all the ancient guides proclaim it to be such, saying, with Cassiodorus, "Futuræ beatitudinis mores, vitas patrum, confessiones fidelium, passiones martyrum legite constanter, vitæ sanctæ imitatio nos provocans ad cælestia regna perducat. Ament." This road, then, presents, from the very first steps we take upon it, a wide avenue to the centre, for the reason already alleged, that Catholicism is historical, not a succession of individual speculations—a fact, not a theory. And," as Balmes observes, "it is at present of the utmost importance, when speaking of the benefits resulting to the world from the Christian religion, to distinguish between Christianity (which is often a mere word on the tongue of men ignorant of the past) and Catholicism, which is its sole legitimate form, to show that what has regenerated mankind was not a mere idea, thrown into the midst of others which disputed for the preference, but an aggregate of truths transmitted by means of a society divinely instituted." Now, when following this road of history, men cannot remain ignorant of the existence of this society; they cannot but perceive-for I will not take into ac count men obstinately blind to facts-that the Catholic Church * Siculus, de Rebus Hispaniæ Prolog. Ch. 27. in their own times, in communion with the Holy See, is the same as it was once in the age of St. Irenæus, St. Ambrose, St. Bernard, and such as it was once in England, in the days of Venerable Bede, and Edward the Confessor, imparting spiritual life, as the holy spouse of that bridegroom who renders new what is ancient, and ancient what is new, as Pope St. Pius V. said in his brief to the English Catholics. Such considerations have led, in every age, men versed in history to the Church; and there they learned to understand much that was before inexplicable to them. How should they, then, doubt, when things to come were theirs, and how much more were bygone things? Vita mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita. Catholics, in regard to history, are the true living; and varied reminiscences have waked in them tablets that never fade. No other men are competent to treat on the history of Christian ages; and then how associated with proofs of the truth of Catholicism become all their thoughts! how many things, corresponding with the signals upon this road, are placed in, what St. Augustin terms, the immense hall of their memory! A certain sublime horror seizes upon them when they penetrate into that profound infinite multiplicity of images, all proclaiming truth-" tanta vis est memoriæ, tanta vitæ vis est in homine vivente mortaliter*." Then, if moved by local sympathy, they salute upon this road, with joyful acclamations, either the monarchy of St. Louis, the Spain of the Cid, the old heroic German empire, the golden age of the Scandinavian kingdoms, or, as a recent author says, the apparition of the old England, that admirable and holy state, inhabited by an illustrious people; they behold it again in all the majesty of its ancient wisdom. An historian is sometimes actually startled by the proof he meets with of the exact identity of the religion of these long past ages, so full of every noble image to inspire admiration, and that of Catholics living around him. No miracle can exceed such a long-continued, exact, and extended concordance. Take an instance, only, of what regards discipline, which is changeable. "When the hour came for him to make the profession of faith, which consists in certain words committed to memory, and which those who are received recite in an elevated place, in presence of the faithful, the priests proposed that he should recite them in private, according to the custom, when persons are likely to be intimidated by a public assembly; but he preferred professing his faith in presence of the holy multitude; for, as he had professed eloquence publicly without the doctrine of salvation, he thought that he ought not to fear to pronounce Thy word, O God, before the humble flock, as he had felt no diffidence in presence formerly of the insane auditors Conf. x. 17. of science." Is this extracted from a Catholic journal of the present day? Nay, it is the account given by St. Augustin of Victorinus being received into the Church in Rome*. Certainly, looking even no further back than the middle ages, a most profound impression is produced by seeing the dead brought back thus to life. Within the Church, all that they used is serviceable still; and used as they used it. Open, for example, the work of William of Paris on the seven sacraments. Without changing a letter, you might suppose that it was just drawn up to be used as a class-book in schools at the present day. Yet he only followed earlier guides, who had received what they transmitted from the fathers. "You have proposed," he says, "certain questions; et, quemadmodum à meis antecessoribus et à sacris doctoribus didici, pro meo modulo cum Dei adjutorio respondebot." Thus we ascertain upon this road the fact of the constant transmission of truth, and of the identity of present Catholicism with the past, prompting us to say, “The ancient spirit is not dead: Old times, thought I, are breathing here;" or, as Robert d'Arbriselle observes of the ancients and contemporaries, "Nec eos damno, sed nec neotericos respuo. Quælibet ætas in suo sensu abundat ‡.” And accordingly look around you through the Catholic world, and see how Truth's deathless voice pauses among mankind. What grace that shines in history is not still flourishing in some who still mingle with the crowd? Do we not witness things powerful to araise St. Louis, nay, to give great Charlemagne a pen in his hand to praise them? The line inscribed on the triumphal arch erected in Rome on the victory of Lepanto, "Adhuc viget virtus, flagrat amor, pollet pietas,—" would not be inapplicable if set up to commemorate contemporary events at present. To how many living pontiffs, and even senators, might the words of the Roman orator be applied, "Nam homines quidem sic te ita viventem intuebuntur, ut quemdam ex annalium memoria, aut etiam de cœlo divinum hominem, esse in provinciam delapsum putent." Some appear to be insensible to the good and greatness that survive around them; but their habit of mind is in great part owing to their ignorance of past times. On the road of historians they would learn to ap *Conf. viii. 2. + Guill. Paris de Sacramentis. Rob. Arboricens. Opus quadripartitum super Compescend. Hæret. Petulant. |