MORES CATHOLICI; OR, AGES OF FAITH. N THE FOURTH BOOK. CHAPTER I. O more discourse of earth and all its fair possessions, promised from the mountain, which heard the heavenly voice disclosing the way of happiness to men. I now must change the notes to tragic; for such are those which tell of mourners, though they were in mourning blessed. Solemn task! yet argument, not less concerned with beatitude than that which described the lives of those who secured, by meekness and povverty of spirit, both earth and heaven's eternal kingdom. Deep, mysterious theme! more than speech can tell, attractive, announced as it was in tone so soft and mild, as one might have thought never before met the ear on mortal strand, sounding as if from the voice of some angelic marshal, fanning us with swan-like wings, while the gates of lucid mansions opened to the music of this unearthly strain, which affirms that those who mourn are blessed, for that comfort shall be theirs. All generations of men have mourned; but how vain would be the search into ancient history, in hopes of discovering that they were therefore blessed! Here is however a new voice, and sweet, indeed, in mortal ears, which consoleth those who mourn with the assurance that they shall be comforted; and since this is the voice of Him, whose knowledge is the law of nature and of grace, we may be sure that henceforth the study of history will bring new results, and present a very different phenomena from any thing that philosophers had ever before observed. It seemed no less strange to affirm, that the poor in spirit and the meek were blessed; and yet, what striking illustrations and evidence of that fact have we discovered in the history of the ages of faith? Let us feel emboldened then by this ex 655 perience, and resume our study, giving it this new direction, investigating the annals of these ages of the world in especial reference to the tenor of man's woe, whether proceeding from the incidents to which he is obnoxious by nature, or from the influence of supernatural causes, which are the consequence of the light and life of faith. But ere we proceed it may be well to remove the objection which some might advance against our intended course in general, from supposing that it obtruded upon them melancholy themes. Such persons must be reminded, that it is not religion's voice, transmitted in the writings of the middle ages, which first makes men acquainted with mourning, and that they will not be the less constrained to remember woe by attempting to banish the principles and associations of faith. To say nothing as yet in proof that it is faith which alone affords a remedy for the wounds of life, but leaving them to think as gloomily as they will of the influence which it sheds upon history, they must, notwithstanding, admit at once that, by nature, as men, independent of all tradition and revelation, they are, sooner or later, compelled, either by the experience of present sorrows, or by the fear and anticipation of future evils, to fall into the ranks of those who mourn-or, rather, as Cicero says, of the miserable. Do what they will, depart as far as they please from the philosophy of the middle ages, there is no avoiding this. As reasonably might they hope to be dispensed from death, as to pass through life, short as it is, exempt from the experience and the thoughts of woe. If they look at the world which surrounds them, and mark the countenances that front them on every side, they will find the greatest and most heroic men, visibly written mourners in their looks, like Spencer's gentle knight, who was armed, ndeed, with glorious panoply "But of his cheere did seme too solemne sad." * Melancholy is ascribed as an heroic quality to Hercules, Lysander, Ajax, Alcmæon, Bellerophon, Socrates, and Plato. There is no escaping it by taking refuge in boldness and absolute war against goodness. Cain was melancholy, as St. Augustin says;† and who is not? It is propagated from Adam. Mourning, then, by itself, formed no distinguishing characteristic of the ages of faith "From time's first records the diviner's voice Eschylus delivers this testimony; and what a solemn melancholy breathes in the chorus of the Edipus Coloneus, which sings the mourning of the human course! Never to have been born is best of all; but after having appeared, to descend again, as soon as possible, to the lower regions, while young, is next in degree of good. "The happiness of man lasts not long," says Pindar.§ Would you hear the faEschyl. Agam. *Faery Quene. Epist. 105. § Pyth. Od. III. ther of heroic poetry himself announcing his own conviction in the solemn words of his ideal hero. "O, Amphinomus ! truly you seem to me to be wise, being the son of so great a father, whose fame is so widely spread; and they say that you are his son, and you resemble him; therefore, to you, I say, but do you hearken and consider it in your mind, that the earth produces nothing, not one animal breathing and moving upon it, more wretched than man."* You have here the affecting testimony of the human race to the misery of its condition, before it had beheld the light of Christ. In whatever direction we turn through the world we shall hear mourning's voice, whether it sound of sharp anguish, or breathe in sighs. Orosius, the historian, whom Alfred translated, and made so well known to our ancestors, diffused a tone of great melancholy over his history, which he had intended first to entitle, "De Miseria Hominum"-a title which, Bonarsius says, might be given to all history. Hesiod says, that a thousand woes wander amidst men, that the earth is full of evils, the sea full of them. Profound was the sense entertained by the ancients of the vanity of all human prosperity and joy; amidst their delights, they always felt as if, to use their own expression, there was something cruel that would strangle them -τρία μὲν Ἔργα ποδαρκής αμέρα Remark what an instance is here furnished by Pindar in celebrating the glories of Xenophon of Corinth-"That one single day which passes so quickly! placed around his head these three illustrious deeds, or the crown, which was the reward of his victory in the Stadium, the Dialium, and the armed course."§ And, again, the same expression occurs the day ταχυτὰς ποδῶν ἐρίζεται ;|| so that even when commemorating the glory of a conqueror, he deemed it right to remind him of the shortness of the day which procured it, and consequently of that in which he could enjoy it. Indeed, the Pæan, as a song of rejoicing for victory, always bore a mournful sense in reference to the battle, as well as a joyous sense in reference to the victory. Dionysius, after relating the combat of the Horatii and Curatii, and the joyful triumph of the victor, adds, "but it was necessary that, as a man, he should not be happy throughout, but should excite the envy of the demon; who, when he had exalted him, contrary to the expectation of all, and, in a moment, even to the highest pinnacle of glory and happiness, cast him down the very same day into the miserable calamity of killing his own sister." Cicero, in his oration for the Manilian law, furnishes a similar example of the scrupulous timidity and extreme caution with which it was deemed right to speak of the happiness of the prosperous, so fearfully uncertain was its stability, and so necessary did they feel *Od. XVIII. 125. Olymp. XIII. | Olymp. 1. In Præfat. ad gesta Dei per Francos. it to be always prepared against what they termed the stroke of envious fate. This, too, is what the lofty grave tragedians taught— Ζω βρότεια πράγματ' εὐτυχοῦντα μὲν ολαὶς ὑγρωσσων σπόγγος ὤλεσεν γραφήν. Bitter Let no one, then, ascribe melancholy to the history of the renovated race. and profound has been the mourning of men in all ages, who enjoyed not the consolations of faith, as antiquity will avow, and even our own times bear witness; for many of the modern writers have raised again the desolating voice of the heathen lamentations, if not with that Philoctetean clamor which old philosophy deemed unbecoming, yet often in a strain of even still more wild despair. What is the tone of modern literature and modern poetry? Does it indicate smiling hearts, elate with peacefulness and joy? Truly it expresses only that sadness of the world which, in the language of the Holy Spirit, worketh death.† Only those suggestions which proceed from anguish of the mind and humors black, that mingle with the fancy, distempered discontented thoughts, inordinate desires, like those which moved Dicoopolis to exclaim, "How many things devour my heart! very few things delight me ; truly not more than four. What torment me are as numerous as the sands of the sea shore." In fact, without the Catholic piety, the Catholic type and hope to support one, life must necessarily grow every day, in the estimation of the heart, more flat, stale, and unprofitable; for there is constantly something dropping off, something dying, something happening for the last time, so that every man will have the sad experience of the troubadour and warrior, Bertram de Born, who complains of this constant and rapid decay, saying, "Tous les jours vous verrez qu' aujourd'hui vaut moins qu' hier." Age itself, disables the mind from supporting the calamities of life, as is confessed by Dante in an affecting allusion to his own power of enduring the misfortunes which befell his country "That chance Were in good time, if it befell thee now. For, as time wears me, I shall grieve the more." § The dismal lucubrations of modern philosophers and poets can only inspire the idea of a gloomy consistory, composed of persons who, in their disdain of the holy discipline, sit, like Michol, full of scorn and sorrow, || disfigured, more than can befall spirit of happy sort. Alas! if men in ages of faith could, in a dream, have been brought in presence of this present intellectual world, after searching with fixed ken, to know what place it was wherein they stood, they might have supposed themselves for certain *Esch. agam. 1327. § Hell, XXVI. Epist. ad Corinth. II. 7. Aristoph. Acharnensis. |