has sorrow. This is all the sweetness which that muse can promise to you." "O, it is not just to call you," as the poets styled men of old, "unwise and vain, who have invented hymns for days of festal joy, for banqueting and triumph, the delightful sounds to sweeten prosperous life, but who have never discovered, by the muse and harmonious ode, how to soothe the bitter sorrows of mortals, when deaths and dreadful evils come to visit houses; then there would have been some advantage from song to wretched men ; but in times of joyful feasting, what need of sounds to increase a pleasure which is already at its full στυγίους δὲ βροτῶν οὐδεὶς λύπας δειναί τε τύχαι πράλλουσι δόμους. Ah! if you would but condescend to visit the humble and meek race, and investigate their ways, lifting up your eyes, like men in those antique days, to the mountains whence help might come to you, you would, like them, find consolation according to the multitude of the sorrows which oppress your heart. Secundum multitudinem dolorum meorum in corde meo, consolationes tuæ lætificaverunt animam meam.§ Then you would say, like them, "Gladden the soul of thy servant, my Saviour and Creator; gladden it, because I have raised it to thee. It was on the earth, and on the earth it was full of bitterness; lest it should become corrupted through bitterness, lest it should lose all the sweetness of thy grace, I have raised it to thee, who alone art joy. The world is full of bitterness. Rightly are men admonished that they should raise their hearts to thee. Let them hear and obey. Let them raise to heaven what is wretched upon earth."|| St. Augustin has attempted to enumerate the principal sources of pain and sorrow to men, and mournful indeed is the view which he reveals of this life. Yet, then, with this confirmed, even by your own experience, "You would feel," as St. Chrysostom says, "that it was a greater gift to suffer than to raise the dead; for, by the gift of miracles God would render thee a debtor to himself; whereas, when he sendeth thee sufferings, he maketh himself debtor to thee; he has pledged himself that you shall be comforted." Then, however afflicted, your peace of mind would not be lost: "But," as St. Bernard says, "your desolation would be sweet. Desolatur suaviter." Joy would well from grief, as in that beauteous gulf of Spezzia, where one sees the sweet water rise up out of the salt and bitter sea. "It is only the beginning of misfortune," as the author of the Martyrs says, "which could for an instant alarm you." In the full height of adversity, you would find, in separating yourself from the earth, tranquil and serene regions; as when one ascends the bank of a furious torrent, one is horror struck at the entrance of the valley, and with the roar of the waves; but in proportion as one ascends the mountain, the falls di Eurip. Troades, 608. Eurip. Medea. 193. Ludovic. Blosii Tractat. in Ps. lxxxv. Ps. cxx. 1. § Ps. xciii. 19. De Civitate Dei, Lib. XXII. 22. minish, the noise dies away, and the course of the traveller comes to an end in regions of silence near the sky, in sweet verdant spots, enamelled with a thousand new flowers, far from all that can wound or contaminate pure and innocent creatures. Yes, the ineffable goodness of God would be felt even when he punishes, for it would be the effect of his correction that you had discovered this source of surpassing joy. The hour when the solitary soul, widowed of its last hope, would expect nothing more from the earth, when friendship would fail, and weak man, who fears the contagion of misfortune, would leave you face to face with grief, when the future would have no longer any charms to make you wish for the morrow; then, if you were one of those humble and blessed mourners, the voice of God would be heard in the silence of your heart, that language which can be mixed with no other, and which consoles and beatifies those who cannot be otherwise comforted.* At the sweet sounds of comfort you would turn from earth, and in saintly contemplation behold a love which must be left in silence here; "Nor through distrust," as Dante saith, "of words only, but that to such bliss the mind remounts not without aid." Then, too, God would give such grace that, without boasting, you might use whatever language had been framed by sages to express how little they feared calamity : happy were your death, your ending blest, your torments easy, full of sweet delight. After having been in the dungeon in the midst of sufferings, like another chosen vessel, you would participate in his raptures into the third heaven; after having sunk under the weight of chains with Peter, you would be delivered and comforted by an angel. Do you not hear what the holy Church sings? Francis, Francis the mourner, the despised, the persecuted; Francis, poor and humble, enters rich into heaven, and is honored with celestial hymns. Well, then, thither too, would you follow to receive the last abundant consolation, for "There are the treasures tasted, that with tears Were in the Babylonian exile won."‡ Oh, that Highest God would deal thus with these poor mortals for whom Christ wept, and bled, and died, with, these deceived but still generous creatures, once made in God's own image, in the freshness of their being so gifted virtually, that all better habits would wondrously have thrived, and possessed of faculties to be again his glorious champions, defenders of his holy city, the joy of mystic Sion. O that he would behold them in their state calamitous, betrayed by apostates, dispossessed of strength, and turn their labors, for he ever can, to peaceful end. Then, in the blest kingdoms, meek of joy and love, all the saints in solemn troops would entertain them. Angels, ever bright and fair, would sing; and, singing in great glory, comfort them, and wipe the tears for ever from their eyes. * La Martine, Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses. Dante, Parad. XXIII. + Parad. XVIII. |