"Would you ask amidst what scene this path will end? It has an abrupt termination. The road crosses a deep ravine, and winds, with short turns, down the precipice;

nour.

"And in its depth there is a mighty rock
Which has from unimaginable years
Sustained itself with terror and with toil
Over a gulf, and with the agony

With which it clings seems slowly coming down ;
Even as a wretched soul hour after hour

Clings to the mass of life, yet clinging, leans,
And leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss
In which it fears to fall: beneath this crag,
Huge as despair, as if in weariness,

The melancholy mountain yawns; below
You hear, but see not, an impetuous torrent
Raging among the caverns, and a bridge
Crosses the chasm; and high above there grow,
With intersecting trunks from crag to crag,
Cedars, and yews, and pines, whose tangled hair
Is mantled in one solid roof of shade

By the dark ivy's twine. At noonday here
'Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night."+

Here ends the treacherous path that is so mourned by those who, with the old minstrel, vainly hope,

"That foul debate 'twixt noblemen may cease.'

For as an old writer, who contrasts the Christian with the diabolic morals, says, "Inordinate self-love proceeds to such lengths in esteeming its own, and despising others' good, that it prefers its own honour and its own money to the life of others; and therefore it seeks to kill those who invade either, though it were only to the value of an apple. But that is not true honour which cannot be preserved without killing men; for true honour depends upon the excellence of one's own virtue, and not on the malice of a man unjustly endeavouring to take it away; but inordinate love considers worldly honour as of equal value with life, and even of greater, because its pride exceeds the pleasure of actual life; and as he loves his own honour so he detests the good reputation of others, though he takes care not to seem to be malevolent."+ "Nature herself," says the admiral of Portugal, in a drama of Calderon, seems to have subjected even animals to the law of honour. The pride of the point of honour is visible in birds."§ The sequels were seen of old; as when the tragic poet commemo* S. Diadochi de Perfect. Spiritual. lib. c. 91. + Shelley. Ægid. Gabrielus, Specimen Mor. Diabolicæ, xiii.-xv. § Louis Perez de Galicis...

rates these words: "I was told to marry my daughters to a wild boar and a lion. When Tydeus and Polynices came as stranger-guests by night to my house they quarrelled and fought together, which made me regard them as two wild beasts; and therefore, to obey the god, I gave them my daughters." "* Such is the bestial transformation. Can we wonder that many, from a distance seeing it, should pause? And besides, how soon is revealed the deformity of him whose actions spring from worshipping himself? "Vana est omnino spes ista, et hæc confundit, eo quod charitas desit."t

See, then, how many noble spirits already meet us on this path, retracing their steps, and exclaiming to all whom they behold advancing on it, "Stop, ignorant traveller! Beware of proceeding further on this road." Who can count these spirits? from the artist and poet, who worshipped honour, to the knight and king, who had won it by their swords? Hear how John della Casa speaks: "Then a foolish belief turned my thoughts to follow the false banner of honour; and I desired to render myself externally similar to the good, as if virtue without ornaments were of itself imperfect. How have I wept, O sweet and humble condition, for the loss of thy repose, and thy serene days changed to gloomy and cruel nights, when I recognized, that instead of the glory which it promised, the world gives only anguish and affronts! Such are the crooked ways that I have trodden. Now, fatigued, conquered, my hair grown grey, and my strength failing, I turn my steps backward; for by the former paths man goes to death. O my sad song! a little flame shines from farsometimes a narrow lane leads to a noble land. Who knows whether this infirm thought, which I feel moving in my afflicted soul, may not disperse the thick clouds which have caused my course to end in darkness, and serve me for light and guidance on a sure and heaven-protected way?" But it would be endless to cite such palinodes. It has been remarked that the great Calderon de la Barca, in his Autos, inculcates a contempt for that honour to which he consecrates his secular dramas; and Lopez de Vega, expressing equal regret for having so long followed the same path, has left these impressive words to denounce its sinfulness: "O honour, cursed honour, detestable invention of men! thou dost reverse the laws of nature! Woe to him who did invent thee!"

And yet, false and deceitful as this road undoubtedly is proved to be, there are signals set up all along it, indicating paths which branch from it at almost every step, which, if heeded, would enable those who have set out with the inten*Eurip. Suppl. 140. † S. Bern. in Ps.

+ Canz. iv.

tion of following it, to correct their error, and pass safely to their end: nor indeed, perhaps, amidst the mazes of this dark labyrinth, is there any false track which presents more openings to the cross, or greater facilities for penetrating to it with security. For, in the first place, those who would pursue the old road of honour come at the very outset to the path branching from it of contempt for riches, which, as far as it goes, would never lead them wrong. There can be no danger of their overlooking this signal.

"Perdidit arma, locum virtutis deseruit, qui
Semper in augendâ festinat et obruitur re.'

On this road we meet no one betraying the anxiety of Ulysses, crying out,

πῆ δὴ χρήματα πολλὰ φέρω τάδε ;†

Those you meet are inspired with a noble disdain for the means which are now thought so necessary for what is termed supporting the dignity of honourable men; so that they are the first to re-echo words like those of the old poet, "You may as well stop the sea as bend an avaricious man always desiring more: xaipétw bσris tołoç. But I prefer to the possession of mules and horses benevolence and honour :"

αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ τιμήν τε καὶ ἀνθρώπων φιλότητα
πολλῶν ἡμιόνων τε καὶ ἵππων πρόσθεν ἑλοίμαν.

The road leads far from the love of gain to those primitive motives of the heroic world, which extorted the admiration of the philosopher, when he exclaimed, "O mores æternos, qui tanta opera honore solo donaverint; et cum reliquas coronas auro commendarent, salutem civis in pretio esse noluerint clare professi, ne servari quidem hominem fas esse lucri causa." Under such impressions, then, what can be so attractive as the faith and manners of the Catholic Church, which, in the noble language and lives of her pontiffs, proclaim the beauty of disinterested labour for the service of men, and even the necessity of obtaining security of heart by renouncing all secular concupiscence ? Magna est securitas cordis," says St. Gregory, "nil concupiscentiæ habere sæcularis." || "You ought not to give them the name of goods,' says St. Augustin; "for if you call them riches, you will love them; and if you love them, you will perish with them." And mark how, with these views, there is no other issue left but that which leads to Catholicity; for out of that

Hor. Ep. i. 16.
Theoc.

|| S. Greg. Mor. xxii. 10.

+ Od. xiii. 203.

§ Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 5.
Serm. 35 in Luc.

66

communion riches only are essential. "Melius est nomen bonum," said the sage, quam divitiæ multæ ;" but where the voice of the Catholic Church is not heard, nothing is more forgotten than his counsel; for as Antonio de Guevara, who saw the new manners at their rise, observes, "Right and left, with conscience or without conscience, men seem to take pleasure in chasing out the honour of a house by little and little, on condition only that wealth enters. Ah!" exclaims this noble representative of the Church's wisdom, “how differently did holy Job act, when, having lost seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred asses, and, moreover, all his substance, that which he lamented was his honour: 'Spoliavit me gloria mea; et abstulit coronam meam de capite meo!"" Alexander had only one wish that Homer might be recalled to life to celebrate his actions. "I can pardon the heathen," adds Antonio de Escobar. "Alas! it is not exactly the revival of the prince of poets to celebrate their achievements in solemn verse that the men of our age would wish above everything; they have no need of being admonished to beware of the love of fame and glory."* The modern civilization has reduced to a system the abuses of which antiquity complained; for as the old poet cries, "Who now desires a minstrel to recount his deeds? Men no longer wish to be praised for great achievements, as formerly; but, being subdued by avarice, each one, with hand within his breast, seeks only how he can scrape money :"

τίς εὖ εἰπόντα φιλασεῖ;

οὐκ οἶδ'· οὐ γὰρ ἔτ ̓ ἄνδρες ἐπ ̓ ἔργοις, ὡς πάρος, ἐσθλοῖς
αἰνεῖσθαι σπεύδοντα· νενίκηνται δ' ὑπὸ κερδέων.

πᾶς δ ̓ ὑπὸ κόλπον χεῖρας ἔχων, πόθεν οἴσεται ἀθρεῖ
ἄργυρον.†

This brings us, then, to the second branching path, which leads to the centre through the love of honourable renown. Men set out seeking what they esteem glory, and fearing all reproach; and this seems best "when lofty thought lifts a young heart above its mortal lair;" some having regard to what all may think, as when Iden says,

"" Nay, it shall n'er be said, while England stands,
That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,

Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man ;"

and others only heeding the judgment of a select few, as Dion, who, as Plutarch says, cared not for what all the rest of the world might think or say of him, but only regarded

* Ant. de Escobar in Evang. Com. tom. vii.

+ Theoc.

what the Academy would think of his actions. Well, this very path, consisting in the love of glory, leads man, if he uses his discretion, to desire the true glory of pleasing God; for, says a French writer, "Though the natural is far from being the Catholic man, yet all his higher aspirations from his youth have a tendency to make him become the latter."*

"Some yet live, treading the thorny road

Which leads through toil and hate to Fame's serene abode."

Of their desire St. Augustin says, "Partim puto approbandum, partim cavendum."+ For what do they seek? immortality in the memory and monuments of men? How quick is the passage to the sounder and more reasonable love of the true immortality in Him who can alone confer it! for, as Dante saith,

"Your renown

Is as the herb, whose hue doth come and go;
And his might withers it, by whom it sprang
Crude from the lap of earth."‡

"It is from God," says Lopez de Vega, "that honour comes. It is God who sustains the weak and timid; it is God who establishes kings; and whatever comes to pass in empires has its principle in God, and not in kings." Honour," says the King Don Pedro to the Infant Don Henry, in a drama of Calderon, "is a treasure which belongs only to the soul; and I cannot dispose of the honour of my vassals, because I am not the king of souls."§ What renown on earth can be compared to that which waits on those who are great in the Catholic sense within the Church? Coram Domino, as John the Baptist was to be? "Weigh those words," says Antonio de Escobar, 66 coram Domino. Others in the absence of the Lord are great." || "They seek glory; forgetting that amidst the trials of this life, Christians," as St. Leo says, "should pray for endurance, not for glory." ¶ They think that they have won their aim; but how soon is all their glory tarnished? It is that "sin renders man little and mean,' as Origen observes, "virtue great and eminent ;" and St. Bernard says that the quantity of each soul is estimated by its measure of charity, of which he who has much is great, and he who has little is little, and he who has nothing is nothing; as the Apostle says, "Si charitatem non habuero, nihil sum.'"** * Études sur les Idées et sur leur Union au sein du Catholicisme, i. 43.

دو

In Evang. Com. vol. vi. 70. ** Ap. id. vi. 70.