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PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD
LONDON, S.E.
1876.
Price Sixpence.
�LONDON :
FEINTED RY C. W. EEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�INTRODUCTION.
Those who, having given a cursory glance at
this “ Interior,” put it down and never resume it,
have the cordial sympathy of the writer, who "is
well aware that portions of it strongly resemble
passages from the ‘ Lives of the Saints,’ a work
said to have been “ written by knaves and read
by fools.” These pages can interest those only
who have had some experience of earnest, per
severing, fruitless prayer. They can be useful
to those only who may still be running after
phantoms, building beautiful castles upon fallacious texts, and striving to grasp the unattain
9
able.
Those who are satisfied with themselves and
their prayers are advised not to give their atten
tion to this “Interior,” which is calculated to
wound their feelings and to suggest doubts which
may disturb their peace of mind.
�w’-.■j/
�AN INTERIOR.
AM a straightforward1 practical woman. I have
never been into hysterics, and was never fond
of allegories, fairy tales, or ghost stories. I was not
particularly piously brought up. Religion in our
family was viewed mainly from a controversial point
of view. My mother was a consistent churchwoman,
and went to church once a week. My father cared
only for good sermons and good organs ; he generally
waited till all the prayers were over before he entered
any place of worship. There was nothing at home
to draw my attention to the subject of prayer. I
may have been about eighteen when an aunt came to
see us, and hearing that I had not been confirmed,
said it would be “as well” to send in my name,
because, if in after years, I should wish to be con
firmed, I might “feel awkward among the young
people.” This view of the subject was entertained,
and, to’ avoid the contemplated contingency, it was
voted that I might “ as well ” be confirmed. The
Rev. Llewelyn Davies prepared me for the rite. He
did not inquire into the state of my religious belief,
which, considering the praiseworthy motive which
brought me to him, was fortunate. He gave me
many questions, which I answered to his satisfaction,
and obtained my ticket for Confirmation.
I suppose the rite had already been delayed too
I
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An Interior.
long, for I felt exceedingly awkward on the Confir
mation day; others, especially the boys, looked as if
they felt uncommonly awkward too. However, they
might have felt still more ill at ease in after life, and
it was perhaps “ as well ” to confirm them then.
That day was an eventful one, for my aunt had her
pocket picked in the church, and an impression was
made upon me which may be called the beginning of
my spiritual career. Upon returning to the pew
after kneeling at the altar, I took my seat; therewere no hassocks. Presently the young lady next
me placed herself upon her knees upon the dirty
floor, and began praying with evident fervour. Her
hands covered her face, and I could see the tears
streaming between her fingers. I felt inclined to
laugh, but was ashamed of myself. I ended by
admiring her moral courage, and by envying her her
apparent faith and sincerity.
Converting in the received sense of the word I did
not require. I was a thoughtful, studious girl. I
hated dancing and all other amusements which
involved late hours. I never omitted morning and
evening prayers, and was rather fond of going to
church. I had long been a communicant, so that
Confirmation was not in my case a stepping-stone to
the Lord’s Supper. I had looked upon it as an
optional affair, and went through it without faith or
fervour. By prayer, I understood nothing beyond
reading over or repeating by heart other people’s
compositions. That young girl did not appear to me
to be doing either, and her conduct struck me, though
the impression faded away.
Some months later we passed a few weeks with a
friend who had an Irish cook. One winter’s morning
I rose for some forgotten reason earlier than usual,
and went into the kitchen at a quarter to seven. At
the same moment in walked the Irish cook out of the
foggy street. An unworthy suspicion crossed my
�An Interior.
7
mind, and I wished myself back in my room ; it wasdark enough for me to retreat unobserved, but Nancy
had the gas alight in a trice, and we stood face to
face. In her chapped hand was a well-worn prayer
book, and round her huge wrist was a rosary. She
had been to Mass, and it was not Sunday. “ That,”
said my friend, “ is the best of Nancy, she gets my
husband’s breakfast ready every morning at half-past
seven.” Nancy’s conduct made a deep and lasting
impression upon me. There was something earnest
and practical about it that edified me, and I began to
“meditate upon these things.” I determined to
devote more time and attention to prayer, and, as
there was morning service twice a week at our own
church, I began to attend it with great regularity. I
made quite a study of the Liturgy, and at length
came with reluctance to the conclusion that it was
an inappropriate manual for constant use. I was
not always in the same mood, but the prayers were
always equally melancholy, depressing, and mono
tonous. My spirits were frequently at high water
mark, and on those occasions I felt like a dissembler
while saying my prayers—or rather somebody else’s
prayers—for it never entered my head to use words
of my own when speaking to God, or even to ask
Him for anything that was not named in the Prayer
Book. However, it very often struck me that we
were saying an immense deal to God, and not giving
Him the opportunity of saying anything to us. I
felt attracted towards God, dissatisfied with the
means I was using to get at Him, and very anxious
to feel upon a surer footing with Him. I suppose I
was what is called “ awakened ”—I was in earnest.
I repeated my prayers with unflagging reverence, and
while wishing they were more in harmony with my
grateful happy frame of mind, continued to use them,
until one morning, while the curate was reading a
chapter in the Old Testament consisting principally
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of names, if struck me that I was making no spiritual
progress; that those prayers would remain the same;
that, having admitted for the millionth time that I
was a miserable sinner, I was absolutely unable to
keep my soul in such a penitential attitude any
longer. I required a more varied diet; and though
nobody I knew found any fault with the Liturgy,. I
was painfully conscious that it no longer suited me,, so
I began to. confine my devotions to Sunday. It seems
very strange that it never occurred to me to address
God in words of my own choosing. Though most
anxious to become better acquainted with God, and
to realise something like fervour, I saw no further
than that melancholy Prayer Book, and of mental
prayer I had, no idea whatever. The people I knew
never appeared to care at all about these things, so- I
kept my aspirations to myself. Now and then I
went to dissenting chapels, but the vulgarity of the
extempore prayers I heard there soon thoroughly dis
gusted me, and for a while I took more kindly to my
own sad Liturgy as- the lesser of two evils. I
wonder it never once occurred to me to pray extem
pore myself, for I was deeply interested in my soul’s
welfare, but it did not. I was very well acquainted
with the tenets, of the Church of Rome, but took no
interest in Catholics^ and never went to their chapels.
However, I always defended them whenever I heard
them ridiculed for the absurdity of their doctrines. I
used to say, with pertinent flippancy,, “thosewho live
in glass houses should not throw stones; and you
must give u.p nearly all you hold before you are in a
position, to twit them with the absurdity of what they
hold.” My friends were shocked. We had but one
Roman Catholic acquaintance, and he was far above
the average: at that time he was our most intellectual
visitor.
One morning,, long after my interest in the Church
prayers had considerably diminished, I was walking
�An Interior.
9
in the region of the wretched little French Catholic
Chapel and it began to rain heavily. The door was
open ; I went in, and there I saw one solitary man
kneeling near the altar. I had never noticed a man
on his knees before. He was in a very cramped
position and must have been extremely uncom
fortable ; but there he remained for a long time, and
I sat watching him. He had no book. I could see
his profile. His lips were closed, his eyes were fixed
upon the altar. Not until he turned his full face
towards me as he came down the aisle did I recognise
our highly-cultivated Roman Catholic friend. I
wished myself out in the rain, and fancied he would
feel ashamed of being caught upon his knees in such
a miserable little place as that chapel was then. I
felt myself turn scarlet, but he came forward with
his usual simple, manly manner, and said, “ Say a
little prayer for my intention, I am rather in a fix; ”
then composedly beating the dust off his knees with
his gloves he went away, leaving me with abundant
matter for meditation.
I had never seen any one praying in a church when
no service was going on. I had never seen any one
praying mentally. The people I knew viewed prayer
solely as a duty and were glad if anything prevented
its accomplishment. They never seemed to me to
expect any results to ensue from their prayers, and
they laughed at those who went to church on week
days. Here was a man of more than ordinary acute
ness who came on a week-day to pray upon his knees
for half-an-hour without a book, in an empty church,
to be helped out of “ a fix.” The simplicity of the
scene puzzled me beyond measure. Of course I was
well aware that Adam’s conduct had placed us all in
“ a fix,” and that we must be continually beseeching
God to ‘‘have mercy upon us miserable sinners;” but
here was a man asking his Father to help him out of
a private, personal dilemma, and I envied him his
�IO
An Interior.
filial confidence towards that Being with whom I so
earnestly longed to become better acquainted.
Four years’ practical experience of the lachrymose
Liturgy of the Church of England had wofully
disappointed me. For some months I had been
merely putting up with it, but the idea of leaving
the Anglican communion never occurred to me,
not even on that memorable morning in the little
chapel.
It was not as a Homan Catholic that my friend
came before me, but simply as one who seemed on a
very enviable footing with God. He appeared to
have attained what I was aiming at. Had I seen a
Quaker or a Mahommedan thus earnestly engaged in
prayer, I should have been equally sure that he was
nearer God than I was, and should have envied him
as I envied my friend; moreover he had asked me
to pray for his intention, which nobody had ever
done before. I knew people who were in “a fix,”
but they never said “Let us prayperhaps they
had found out the futility of prayer, as I did later on.
I was just thinking about leaving the chapel when
the door was pushed, and in came a man. He did not
take the trouble to go into a seat, he knelt in the aisle
close to the door, slightly in advance of me. After
several failures he at length succeeded in poising his
dripping hat upon the knob of his umbrella, and
producing a very thick book, began to pray. I
looked over his shoulder and read “ Litany of the
Holy Ghost.” Here was a discovery! there were
other Litanies.
I might have asked for the title of the book, but
in leaning forward, shook the woodwork, and down
went the hat and umbrella; so I merely apologised
and took my leave.
As far as I was concerned there might as well
have been no Holy Ghost, though I was supposed to
have received Him in Confirmation.
�An Interior.
11
I walked home full of good resolutions, which for
fifteen years were, in spite, of many obstacles,
religiously kept.
Before going further it seems necessary to state
what my idea of religion was. I lived in an atmo
sphere of religious discussion, and had come to the
conclusion that doctrinal difficulties had nothing to
do with personal piety. I had seen my father con
found men of different persuasions with the simplest
questions, and was of opinion that the doctrines
about which they grew so vehement could never be
satisfactorily proved, and that therefore salvation
could not depend upon them. I was tired of these
continual discussions, which rarely ended amicably,
and which were so hostile to my notion of piety.
So little interest did I take in the subjects generally
brought forward that I could defend either side
without scruples of conscience. The truth of Chris
tianity and the inspiration of the Bible were never
attacked in our house. I firmly believed both ; but
so contrary to common sense did I consider the
doctrine of the Trinity, that I wondered how
believers in that could cavil at Transubstantiation,
Baptismal Regeneration, &c.
To know and to love God under the name of
Christ, and to get into communication with Him by
His own appointed means—Prayer—was my ambition.
Quite tired of the Church Prayers, and thoroughly
disgusted with the lamentable want of unity among
Christians generally, I found no help from without.
I was in the Anglican Church, but not of it. Still
I had no intention of joining any other sect. Por
forms, ceremonies, choral services, and sermons, I
cared not one whit. Sermons I always thought a
vexatious excrescence thrust in when the attention
was wearied with so many prayers ; my mother and
I often sneaked off before the sermon began. I only
cared for Prayer. Those who are neither tired of
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the Liturgy nor much interested in these matters will
fail to appreciate the intense delight and sense of
relief I experienced while turning over the leaves of
the Catholic prayer-books I bought.
After having addressed God in a minor key until
I no longer felt sorry at all, it was indescribably
refreshing to get into a major key, and find prayers
suggested by a spirit of love from which all fear was
banished—prayers emanating from a feeling of grati
tude, not merely for abstract and contingent blessings,
but for tangible, every-day advantages—prayers, in
short, of which the spirit was in harmony with my
own, and which gave a fillip to my devotion, then on
the wane. It was not that I admired those prayers
—far from it: as compositions they were inferior to
those in our Liturgy, and the translations were less
dignified; but as a bird would rather fly around a
large barn than hop about a golden cage, so I, after
my long confinement to the Liturgy, enjoyed the
wider range afforded by a book in which there were
more varied devotions, and where the Holy Ghost was
prominently brought forward as the great illuminator
and consoler of the faithful.
*
Conscious how utterly I had neglected Him, and
most anxious to be enlightened, I commenced in
voking Him with a fervour and a perseverance which
in the retrospect amazes me.
Casting aside the feeble translations, I committed
the noble Latin hymns to memory, and in the simple
words of the fine old “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” I
invoked the Holy Ghost w’ith all my heart. Not by
fits and starts, but many times a day for many
months did I implore Him to give me light to know
and strength to execute God’s will. I addressed Him
in a spirit of reparation for past neglect, and long
after I had entered the more lofty region of mental
prayer the “ Veni Sancte Spiritus ” was one of my
daily companions. It became painful to me to listen
�An Interior.
13
to the frequent discussions concerning His personality,
mission, procession, etc., which went on in our
family; I ceased to take any share in them, and used
to pray that they might be discontinued. The Ghost,
however, was not invoked to the exclusion of the
Father and the Son. I invoked them all with all the
faith, hope, charity, reverence, and humility I could
command. I did my very best. I used to visit
Catholic chapels merely because they were open, and
as others were praying too, I was not an object of
attention. I always chose times when no service was
going on, and was aiming at feeling alone with God.
Occasionally I prayed mentally, but it was not until
Christ became the main object of my love and
devotion that I dived deeply into the depths of that
unfathomable ocean called mental prayer. I had
been quite ashamed of having for years all but
ignored the existence of the Holy Ghost, and had
been zealously making up for past negligence; but
now it occurred to me that Protestants, at any rate
Anglicans, were extremely remiss in reference to Christ
too ; for they pray to the Father almost exclusively.
There is but one Collect in their Prayer-book to
God the Son, while in my Catholic manual He took
precedence, and the petitions to the Father were few
and far between. I preferred the Son to the Father,
and could no longer blind myself to the fact that I
was of the Roman Catholic Church, but not in it.
Led, as I firmly believed, by the Holy Ghost, whom
I was continually petitioning for light, I abandoned
the Anglicans entirely. Ever since I had found out
that even on Sunday during High Mass Catholics
were quite at liberty to use what prayers they pleased,
and were by no means compelled to follow the priest,
I had given up going to my own Church. I dearly
loved the liberty I enjoyed, and ardently did I thank
God for leading me, through the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, along the flowery path of prayer. I had
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not a misgiving. I looked upon the tendency of my
mind as an answer to prayer, and was content to
follow the guidance of that Ghost whithersoever it
might lead me ; it led me into the Church of Rome.
Of course my relatives had no faith in the holiness
of any ghost who led the way to Rome, and she
who had formerly promoted my Confirmation now
refused to kiss me !
I had not one Romish acquaintance; he of the
“ fix ” had gone to the colonies. Reared for none of
the Romish ceremonies. I cared solely for what I
believed to be the Holy Ghost and His inspiration ;
if I was mistaken it was not my fault. The ill-will
of my relations did not disturb my peace of mind ; I
went on my way rejoicing, doing all I could to be
good, and trying to imitate the Christ of the Gospels
to the best of my poor ability.
Had it occurred to me (and I wonder it did not) to go
up with the others to Communion as if I were a Catholic
I believe I should never have joined Rome outwardly.
But I longed to get nearer to Jesus'. All the best
prayers were addressed to Him “ in the Blessed Sacra
ment,” and I was most anxious to become one with
Him in that mysterious rite. Knowing that Confes
sion and Absolution preceded Communion in the
Roman Church, I again and with renewed fervour
besought the Holy Ghost to “ show me the way
wherein I should walk,” and he (or, as some Pro
testants would say, a “ lying spirit ”) led me into the
Church of Rome. I went to a Jesuit, told him how
hard I had been praying, explained to him the bent
of my inclination, but assured him that I could not
care at all about Indulgences, Purgatory, Angels,
Saints, Sacred Hearts, Scapulars, &c.
He said that faith in all these things would come
by-and-by, that if I was willing to receive the teaching
of the Church, God would supply what was wanting.
After three interviews he baptised me, and three
�An Interior.
*5
weeks later I made my first Communion. I made it
with boundless faith. I really believed most fervently
that Jesus would help me to overcome some of my
faults. For many years I communicated four times
weekly, and no inducement would have been strong
enough to divert me from my purpose. Through all
weathers, at all seasons, I took a walk of twenty
minutes, before seven, for I was always in church
long before Mass began, and with never-failing fervour
I engaged in earnest mental prayer.
I am sure that no worldly advantages would have
induced me to forego my Communions. I delibe
rately gave up a trip to Paris because I feared that
my devotion might cool amid the festivities of that
gay capital; so I stayed at home by myself.
“ Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye
shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” I
was ready to lay down my life for the truth of those
assertions, and though I was painfully conscious that
hitherto I had not realised any of the help I sought,
either for myself or others, I thought it must be my
fault, and turned with importunity to the Holy
Ghost to teach me how to pray.
Prayer now engrossed nearly all my attention and
a great portion of my time.
Of distractions in prayer I knew nothing. Entirely
engrossed with my subject, I could remain for an
hour sunk in a species of mute adoration, called con
templation, so profound that not until it was over was
I aware how stiff and tender my knees had become.
No slamming of doors, tuning of the organ, or any
other disturbance could rouse me. I was intensely
happy. Occasionally all sense of weight seemed to
leave my limbs, and sometimes while walking down
the aisle I was not conscious of the boards. Torrents
of delicious tears gushed from my eyes, and thus
cradled, as I fancied myself, in 11 the everlasting
arms,” I enjoyed every day what S. Climachus calls
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.
a “ spiritual feast; ” for the “ gift of tears” is, accord
ing to him and all the Saints, a very great favour. I
had no difficulty in realising what is called “ The Pre
sence of God,” and whether in the street, a railway
station, or even in a place of amusement, my heart
was always kneeling before the altar. I lost all
interest in the studies which had formerly been my
delight. I gave up the several languages of which
I had previously been so fond, and for ten years or
more I rarely looked into a secular book. God, I
knew, was a jealous God. I was aiming at becoming
a faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost, who demanded
all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength. He
wanted all, and I gave him all, not grudgingly, but
cheerfully, lovingly, and devotedly. I occupied my
time with visiting the sick poor and with other
charitable undertakings. Unaware that mine was an
exceptional class of prayer, and that even to be able to
pray without distractions was extremely rare; unaware,
moreover, that Catholics were encouraged to add
experiences such as mine when they went to Confes
sion, and that these experiences were called a 11 mani
festation of conscience,” I should in all probability
have kept all these things and “ pondered them in my
heart,” without having recourse to priests, had I not
become acquainted with some very fervent and intel
ligent Roman Catholic ladies.
Not a syllable did I utter respecting the state of my
“ interior,” but soon collected that I was the recipient
of unusual “ graces ”—graces which were ordinarily
the portion of great saints; they talked about
“ spiritual direction,” and mentioned St. Teresa and
Penelon. Through them I made the unwelcome dis
covery that it Was very rare indeed to receive an
answer to prayer, so rare that I ought not to expect
any. Prayer, said they, is a duty; if God gave us
what we want we might become proud ; He withholds
His gifts to try us and to keep us humble. It struck
�An Interior.
me that if by prayer they meant the irreverent
gabble which so lamentably disfigures the public
services of the Church of Rome, it was not surprising
that no results ensued.
I did not like what the ladies said. I would not
believe that Christ could deceive. “ Everyone that
asketh receiveth,” were words attributed to Him, and
I clung to them. From £ime to time,, however, an
ominous cloud had crossed, my horizon, many miser
able misgivings had assailed me. Over and. over
again had I struggled with irrepressible doubts as to
the veracity of such assertions as “ all things whatso
ever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,”
and I could not conceal from myself the budding con
viction that the whole affair was a delusion. Such
notions I did my best to eject as suggestions from
the Evil One; I accused myself in Confession of
“ doubting about God’s mercy,” got absolution, and
recommenced praying with renewed fervour. I never
undertook anything without earnestly imploring God
to enlighten me as to whether it was His will that I
should engage in it. No light came. My prayers
were mainly for others—for the sick, the suffering,
for people in “ fixes,” and, above all, for the conver
sion of sinners. To prayer I added penance, care
fully abstaining from everything that gratified my
senses. Every Friday, by the advice of my Confessor,
I took the discipline for seven minutes, and wore a
hair shirt d discretion; in short, I endeavoured by
every means in. my power to propitiate God in the
various ways approved by the Church of Rome. The
non-success of my prayers I attributed to my own
remissness, want of faith, hope, charity, &c., though
I knew I was doing my best. I was very glad that
my earthly parents were not so inexorable as my
heavenly one, but thought it wicked to draw com
parisons. I did not neglect Mary. For years I said
the rosary daily with a definite object, but nothing
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ever came of it. I thought over what the ladies had
said, and procured Fenelon’s works and Teresa’s
autobiography. The plot thickened. A new era
began in my spiritual life.
To my exceeding amazement, that remarkable
woman’s experience of prayer, &c., seemed marvel
lously like my own. I could have written many of
the pages I was reading w-jth such interest. Here I
found the same love of solitude, devotion to mental
prayer, indifference to transitory things, zeal for the
conversion of sinners, and, above all, the same, though
in her case intensified, mysterious physical sensations,
such as lightness of body, bright light, interior words,
&c. However, though she was in ecstasies with
God, she seemed to have found Joseph more propi
tious, for she very distinctly tells us that she never
appealed to him in vain, and the Church, in a prayer
to St. Joseph called the “ Memorare,” reminds him
that St. Teresa had never had recourse to him
in vain.
I was both amazed and amused. Here was a great
saint, a woman of experience who, after soaring into
celestial regions and communing for hours with the
Blessed Trinity, came down to Joseph io get what she
wanted 1 Hitherto I had been disposed to ridicule
Catholics for having so many strings to their bow. I
thought it so Uncomplimentary to Christ and his pro
mises ; now my eyes were opened. Even the sublime
Teresa sighed for reciprocity—had she found it in God
would it have occurred to her to turn to Joseph ?
After basking in the ineffable rays of God’s myste
rious presence, she went round like any other beggar
to the back door for some broken victuals. Joseph
received her well, gave her what she wanted, and,
like a sensible woman, she made frequent appeals to
his generosity, and was never refused. In simple,
forcible language, she urges everybody to apply to
Joseph; she gives her “experience,” and a verystrik-
�An Interior.
*9
ing one it is. 1 had no faith in Joseph. She and
Fenelon strongly advise “ direction.” I was bewildered
about many things, and determined I would have a
director—but I took my time. It consoled me to find
that St. Teresa had heartily hated manifesting her
interior to her director ; for so thoroughly did I abhor
even the mere thought of it, that I hesitated some
time before I could entertain it at all. My own old
Confessor had gone abroad, and the new one did not
know me so well, which enhanced the difficulty.
Before exposing myself to an ordeal so objection
able, and which was not of obligation, I determined
to take the opinion of an eminent Jesuit. Praying
earnestly to know the will of God from the mouth of
His minister, I entered his confessional and said
“ Father, I have come merely to ask your advice as
to whether it is expedient to expose other things in
dependent of sins to one’s Confessor—to have, in
short, a “ director.”
“Far better,” said he, “for every one to be his or
her own director.” An anwer so opposed to my ex
pectation and so entirely at variance with the opinions
of so many distinguished writers, perplexed and dis
appointed me. I determined to try another priest.
Prefacing my visit with a prayer to the Ghost as
before, I applied to an oblate of St. Charles, a man of
vast psychological experience and well-known piety.
“Hot only,” said he, “ do I earnestly recommend
you to have a director, but I tell you it is your bounden
duty to have one.” There is but one Holy Ghost,
thought I. Two entirely different counsels can never
come from the same ghost. I had better have no
director; he might be under the influence of the
wrong ghost and mislead me. St. Teresa had
suffered grievously for years, owing to an inexpert
director; so might I. However, one morning I
was in Church absorbed as usual with my devo
tions, when, just as the Sanctus bell rang, a bright
�20
An Interior.
light shone round me. I lost all consciousness of the
church, the priest, etc. I saw happy faces, felt in
tensely happy, and,, upon regaining my normal condi
tion at the“Domine non sum dignus,” thought the
altar, the vestments, the flowers^ etc., all looked
wofully faded, and paltry by, comparison with the
scene I had just left. This species . of vision deter
mined me to have a “ spiritual conference ” with my
Confessor.. Fully but briefly I stated all I considered
necessary to enable him to judge of my “ interior.”
With some hesitation he assured me that it was
extremely difficult to distinguish the operations of
God from those of the devil; that Satan could trans
form himself into an angel of light, that even St.
Teresa had pronounced it well nigh impossible to feel
certain on these matters—that he felt unequal to the
responsibility of “directing” me, and advised me to
seek counsel elsewhere.- I did nothing of the sort.
I bought a bottle of medicine to cure the ulcers
which fasting had induced in my throat, and bade a
long farewell to “ directors ” and to ghosts generally !
In my quiet corner of the church I loved so well,
and where I had passed so many hours, not merely
in petitioning but in devoutly worshipping God, I
reviewed my fifteen years’ experience of that eleva
tion of the soul to God commonly called mental
prayer.
. Not once nor twice, but frequently, did I meditate
upon the practice of prayer, and finally determined
to give it up entirely as useless, presumptuous, and
absurd. Not in a moment of fretful impatience, of
unwonted dejection, or of sudden indignation, but
after considerable reflection, with reverence and hu
mility, with confidence and gratitude, did I abandon
a practice from which I had learnt many a solemn
lesson. As we smile at a child who fills his pockets
with salt in the hope of catching birds, so I smiled at
my former self for believing that the Changeless One
�An Interior,
21
would alter His course to suit me, for wishing Him to
do so, and for supposing that He wanted any prompt
ing from me as to the time when He should set about
His own business.
In me the religious faculty was largely developed ;
but in my loftiest flights I had felt the futility, the
want of reciprocity, the chilling discouragement of
the whole affair, and prayer in the sense of mere
petition I had given up long before I had ceased
communing with God in the various methods which,
under the names of meditation, contemplation, prayer
of silence, ecstacy, &c., have engrossed religious
minds of all denominations. I never pray now.
I have left off running after ghosts. I have
given up building castles upon fallacious texts. I
no longer try to grasp the unattainable. I am
happy and contented. Formerly I fancied every
thing would go wrong if I neglected my prayers;
now I am convinced that the power we call God is
and ought to be uninfluenced by our petitions. Now
I am satisfied with God; I am certain He will do the
right thing at the right time, and that fortunately His
creatures can neither say nor do anything which can
interfere with the perfect harmony of His mighty'
operations. “I was blind, now I see.” Upon those
fifteen years I look back with more amazement than
regret. I was in good faith doing my best, and quite
unconscious what a poor, mean, childish idea I bad
formed of our great Creator. I have broader notions
now and live in a healthier atmosphere. It took me
many years to learn my lesson, but at length I mas
tered it, and am daily profiting by it.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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An interior
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 21 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A personal account, by an anonymous woman, of religious life and disillusion. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
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Thomas Scott
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1876
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CT188
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (An interior), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Catholic Church
Prayer
Conway Tracts
Faith
Prayer
Roman Catholic Church
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DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
First Letter, to the Very Rev. J. H. Neivman, D. D. By the Rev.
E. B. Pusey, D..D. James Parker A Co. 1869.
Is Healthful Reunion Impossible ? A Second Letter to the Very
Rev. J. H. Newman, D.D. By the Rev. E. B. Pvsey, D.D.
James Parker & Co. 1870.
The Reunion of'Christeniom. By'HENRY Edward, Archbishop of
Westminster. Longmans, Green, & Co. 1866.
Essays an the Reunion of Christendom. With an Introductory Essay
by tA'e’ Rev. E. B. Pt^Y^D.i), J. T. Hayes. 1867.
A. Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on his recent Eirenicon.
By.jjjOHN Henry JEewman, D.D. Longmans, Green, & Co.
1866.
Peace Through the Truth. By the Rev. T. Harper, S.J. Longmans,
& Cte., 1866.
Le Mouvement Catholique dans VAnglicanisme.—Revue du Monde
. Catholique. Eevrier et Mars. 1866.
^PHE peace between Rome and England is not yet concluded.
Earnest, simple-hearted Da^ Pusey continue his “ Eirenicon.”
He speaks of peace, and he is answered;,-—What hastAou to do with
peace ? His words, they say, are very swords. The voice is Jacob’s
voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. Dr. Pusey is regarded
by Roman Catholics as a Jehu, at/the gate| of Jeareel, a Zimri who
slew his master ; yea^he has < even been called an incarnation of the
arch-fiend who has taken upon him tike office of the accuser who
accuses the brethren day^and night. ,-Jesus said, “ Blessed are the
peace-makers; ” but Rome’s blessing is “ anathema sit.”
Dr. Pusey, however^s undaunted,. To use his own words, he is
not to be 11 discouraged by censures, disheartened by mistakes,
sickened by the supercilious tone of some in high station, or cowed
by rebuffs.” There is such a thing as faith, and men whose convic-
�59§
. 7LYA CONTEMPORAR Y RE VIE W
tions are firm, and who act upon them, certainly do great things in
this world. Faith “laughs at impossibilities.” The greatest revo
lutions that have taken place among men have been brought about
by faith. It is not necessary to suppose anything supernatural in
this, for faith leads to action, energy, and sacrifice.
But, whether Dr. Pusey succeeds or fails, the movement in which
he has borne so conspicuous a part will ever be regarded as one of
the greatest events in the history of Christianity. The multitude of
men may despise it. They may laugh at the certainly ludicrous
imitation of Catholicism to which it has given rise. Sorrow and
anger may alternate in their breasts, as they seem to be deprived of
the Protestant heritage of their forefathers, won for them at the
stake and the scaffold. But even granting that all this is just, yet the
“ Catholic revival ” is a great event in the religious history, not
merely of England, but of the world. It has pressed the demand for
an answer to two urgent questions, which, strange as it may appear,
have never yet been fully answered,—What is Protestantism ? and,
What is Catholicism ?
The reunion question is the most recent phase of “AngloCatholicism.” We can scarcely be wrong in saying that Dr. Pusey’s
“ Eirenicon ” is founded on Tract XC., written by Dr. Newman, who
soon after found himself at rest in the Church of Rome. Dr. Newman
had been led to embrace some doctrines that had been rejected by
the Reformers of the Church of England. He was anxious to recon
cile these doctrines with the formularies of the Church of which he
was a minister. The Prayer-Book, from its very nature, was found
not to have many difficulties; but the Thirty-nine Articles, which
defined the doctrines of the Church, were seriously in the way.
They were, in a great measure, taken from the confessions of the
Reformed Churches abroad. The men who compiled them were
known to have had intimate relations with the Reformers of these
Churches. The Articles themselves abounded in negative propo
sitions, and these were almost entirely aimed at what was understood
to be the doctrine of the Church of Rome. Yea, even the affirmative
parts were mostly counter-statements of what was called Roman
teaching. At first sight the Articles appeared to be, what the
Reformers really intended them to be, a moat and a fortification to
defend the Church of England in prospect of the Roman enemy.
But Dr. Newman had an intellect of marvellous ingenuity, yet, so
far as intention went, perfectly honest. He could not ignore the fact
that the Articles were Protestant—the product of a Protestant age ;
but he thought that a “ Catholic ” meaning might be put upon them,
so that they might be subscribed by those who believed the contrary of
what the compilers intended. It was admitted that they condemned,
�MpA>. PTTSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
599
■not merely the dominant errors of the time when they were written,
but also the “ authoritative teaching of the Church of Rome.” They
■were, however, supposed to be compatible with what was called
F “Catholic” or “primitive truth.” Dr. Newman was at last con
vinced that they were not. The result is known.
Dr. Pusey, while admitting that he does not take the Articles in
the sense of those who wrote them, yet maintains that, without
violence to their literal and grammatical meaning, they may be inter
preted so as to agree with the decrees of the Co until of Trent. Here
then is a basis for reunion, foundfed on the cifieds of the two Churches.
Of course the Tridentine ereed has also to be’i^&£Wd. But in the
natural uncertainty of human words, and the remarkable uncer
tainty of what is Roman Catholic doctrinfi, it is even easier to find
a serviceable interpretation of the decrees off Trent than of the
English Articles.
At the Reformation the greatest dofetiAal ■question between the
Reformers and the Church of Rome concerned the sacrament of the
tord’s Supper. Archbishop Granmer said! that it was with this
sacrament that “ the devil had craftily-’juggled.” The Church of
Rome taught that, by an act of omnipotence great^J dhan the act of
creation, by means of fihe blessing of the priest, fele bread and wine
were changed into the actual body and blood off CAris^1 This was,
and is, the central doctrine of the Romain system. It is called
Transubstantiation. Article XXVIII. o’fi 1th®ChurOh W England says
that it “ cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but’.is repugnant to the
plain words of Scripture, overthroweth th er nature of a sacrament,
and hath given occasion to many superstitions.” Here, surely, is a
sufficiently distinct renunciation of the Roman s doctrine. But it
happens that substance is just one of the thing’s off which, we know
nothing. We only know accidents or qualities. Theuinderlying essence
or substratum cannot be defined. In fact^sits exigence, apart from
these accidents, cannot be demonstrated. What is We meaning then
of a change of szibstarice ? Is it a change off#W®B®ts, or of this
unknown quantity ? The authorized Roman 'tdachfeg -is that the
accidents remain* The 'body and blood of Christ exist under the
species of bread and wine. Butrthere was also a;popular doctrine, or
“ dominant error,” that Christ’s body; with its accideiitscwas present,
and that it was eaten as the men of Capernaum understood the
discourse about eating His flesh. The Article isevidently directed
against the authorized doctrine, and d farti'ori agaiflst the “ dominant
error.” But then the change is an unknown change of something
unknown. Perhaps the matter or
off’ the philosophers is only an
illusion. Perhaps the substratum of all things is spirit. The Church
of England admits a spiritual presence. The Roman doctrine at the
�6oo
THE CONTEMPORAR Y RE VIE W.
most is an invisible presence, under the accidents or species of the
bread and wine. Dr. Pusey says that the Schoolmen taught that the
bread and wine in the Eucharist lost their qualities of supporting
and nourishing. But the Council of Trent declared that the “ bread
retains the quality natural to bread.” The presence of Christ then
is the presence of a spiritual substance, so that the Roman Church
agrees with the Anglican in teaching a spiritual and not a carnal
presence.
Connected with this doctrine was the sacrifice of the mass. The
Reformers called the Church of Rome “the Upas tree of super
stition.” They determined to cut it to pieces, root and branch. Article
XXXI. says—“The sacrifices of masses, in which it was commonly
said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have
remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous
deceits.” In all ages of the Church of England, in all controversies,
by all theologians since the Reformation to the days of Dr. Newman,
this Article was understood to condemn the sacrifice of the mass in
the Church of Rome. The counterpart of the phraseology is found
in Bishop Ridley, who calls the mass “ a new blasphemous kind of
sacrifice to satisfy and pay the price of sins both of the dead and of
the quick.” To this correspond the words of Archbishop Cranmer a
“ The Romish Antichrist, to deface this great benefit of Christ, hath
taught that His sacrifice upon the cross is not sufficient hereunto
without another sacrifice devised by him, and made by the priest.”
As Cranmer and Ridley lived before the Council of Trent, it is
possible that they may not have known the authorized doctrine of the
Church of Rome. They may have spoken of the mass as they had
themselves learned it, and as it was generally taught and understood
by the priests and people of that time. Gardiner and the defendants
of Catholicism denied the inference that the sacrifice of the mass
interfered with the one sacrifice of Christ. Yet the deliberate judg
ment of the Reformers clearly was that the mass is a blasphemous
fable and a dangerous deceit. But the Article does not say so. It
only speaks of “ masses.” It may, therefore, be understood as
referring to a custom prevalent at the time of buying and selling
masses, which was afterwards condemned by the Council of Trent.
These questions, with many others in debate between the Re
formers and the Church of Rome, ran up into the higher questions
which related to the authority of the Church and the place of the
Scriptures in reference to the Church. Article XX. says—“The
Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies and authority in
controversies of faith.” This clause was not in the Articles in 1552
nor m 1562, when they were subscribed by both Houses of Convoca
tion ; but it effected a surreptitious entrance before the Articles
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
601
received the assent of the Crown. It first appeared in the Latin
edition of 1563 ; but it was not in the English edition ratified by
Parliament that same year. The second clause of the Article is
usually understood to limit, if not to neutralize, the authority claimed
in the first. It says—“Yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain
anything that is contrary to God’s word written, neither may it so
expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another.”
Nevertheless, the clause remains, declaring that the Church has
“ authority in controversies of faiths” This?, Dr. Pussy says, is a Divine
authority. It must be if the Church hasj power to decide in matters
of faith. It implies the necessary preservation ofothe Church as a
whole from error. It is the fulfilment of, the promise,. “ Lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the wwldJ’^* The Church tells
us what is the Catholic faith, and what mustsbe believed as necessary
to salvation. The Church must net contradict Scripture nor herself.
The Fathers of the later Councils Began by expressing their assent to
the earlier. It is not open to individuals to^riticizC^by their private
judgment, the “ Catholic truth,;” which has been agreed on by the
whole Church. This,; of course^ is a long way short @f the claim of
the Church of Pome to speak infallibly on any controversy that may
arise. But then the infallibility of the Church of Rome is something
afloat.
Nobody knows exactly where it is or what it is. Two
things so indefinite as the authority of the Catholic Church and the
infallibility of the Roman Church may> meet, semewhere and touch
each other at some point.
Article VI. says—“ Holy Scripture.containeth all things necessary
to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be
proved thereby, is not to be required of any man -that it should be
believed as an article of the faith, dr he thdught necessary or requi
site to salvation.” Then follows' a list; ®f the books which are
“ Scripture,” that is, Scripture to be usedhlbr establishing doctrine.
From this list the Apocryphal writings are excluded, It is not said
who is to decide whether or not any doctrine has been “proved ” by
Scripture. The Article^ in its-obvious meaningj-sseems to imply the
Protestant doctrine of the right of private judgments But if con
nected with the clause in Article* XX.,,rfabout * the?- authority of
the Church in controversies of - faith, it may be understood to have
another meaning. We cannot adoptothe doctriUe bfithe infallibility
of General Councils, for Article XXI. says, that “ they may err, and
sometimes have erred, in thongs pertaining ito God;” but we have
the “ Catholic Church,” with traditional creeds, dootrines, and inter
pretations. Some General Councils may have erred, but all have
not. Those which have not erred are Catholic. That they have not
erred is the test of their Catholicity or (Ecumenicity. Who is to
�602
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW
decide which General Councils have erred and which have not, is
still in dehate between Dr. Pusey and the Church of Pome. But
the apparent Protestantism of Article VI. is removed. The right of
private judgment is denied. The meaning of the Scriptures is to be
learned from the traditional interpretations of the “ Catholic ” Church.
It is assumed by Dr. Pusey and his party that the Church of
England was not reformed according to the Scriptures alone, but
according to the Scriptures as understood by the Fathers. It can
scarcely be a mistake to say at once that, in the sense intended, this is a
supposition without any foundation. It is a principle never announced
in the writings of the Reformers. Cranmer and Ridley, considering
the great ignorance of the common people, decided, as a matter of
policy, that the changes in the services of the Church should be as
few as possible consistently with the entire elimination of Roman
doctrine. It is a matter of history that in this they had not the
agreement of Hooper, and were but partially favoured by LatimerJ
The principle of the English Reformation, stated expressly by Bishop
Jewel, is, that the appeal is made to the Scriptures alone. Then
followed the question as to the Fathers, which simply was, that they
are on the side of the Church of England rather than on that of Rome.
The solitary passage adduced by Newman and Pusey for their views
of the Patristic character of the English Reformation is from a canon
in the reign of Elizabeth. This canon enjoins that “preachers should
be careful that they never teach aught in a sermon to be religiously
held by the people except that which is agreeable to the doctrines of
the Old and New Testament, and which the Catholic Fathers and
ancient Bishops have collected from that very doctrine.” But there
is nothing to intimate that this canon meant more than Bishop
Jewel’s principle, that Roman doctrine was not to be found in the
Fathers. It was in the same reign that a Convocation gave a semi
official authority to Bullinger’s “ Decades,” commanding the less
educated clergy to find there the material for their sermons.
Article XXV. reduces the sacraments of the Gospel to two, rejecting
five of the Roman sacraments. With these five were connected many of
the superstitions which the Reformers had to remove. They declared
that they were not sacraments of “ like nature with Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony
ordained of God.” But the word sacrament has a very general meaning.
Whatever is a visible sign of the Divine goodness may be a sacraments
The rainbow is a sacrament. The flowers of spring are sacraments.
All nature is a sacrament. The Protestant meaning of the Article
was clear enough. The five rejected sacraments were regarded as
merely of ecclesiastical authority, and might, therefore, be either
retained or laid aside. Confirmation, orders, and matrimony were
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
603
retained: the first because it was an old and useful custom, the
lecond for the sake of order, and the third because no reformation
could abolish matrimony. Penance and extreme unction were closely
interwoven with the popular superstitions. The Prayer-Book recom
mends confession to those who are troubled in conscience, as a pre
paration for the Lord’s Supper. But penance, properly speaking, as
well as extreme unction, departed from the Church of England at the
Reformation.
Dr. Pusey passes in review these five rejected sacraments, lament
ing the loss of extreme unction, yet maintaining that in substance
the other four are still r-etained as sacraments. The mode of proof
is to have recourse to the Prayer-Book? and Homilies, connecting
together some stray passages, and interpreting them by the light of
what is called the “ Catholic ”1 Church. The j'principle by which
Dr. Pusey interprets the Articled is? to take them as they stand, and
see what the words may mean apart? from the history of the times
or the known sentiments of the BefoiiLdm. Bhdkwhile all external
light on the Protestant side is excluded, the Articles are to yield
to every “ Catholic ” phrase, and every overlooked remnant of the
old superstition that can be picked up’in any unswept corner of the
Homilies or the Prayer-Book. There.; is no Protestant who is un
willing to abide by the Homilies, and to subscribe to the words of
Article XXXV., that they contain a “ godly and wholesome doctrine
and necessary for these times.” But no man is required to subscribe
to every sentence in the Homilies; and Dr. Pusey, least of all men
living, would like to be bound even by their general teaching. They
were written by men whose sentiments differed widely; by the
“Catholic” Bishop Bonner and the Presbyterian Prebendary of
Canterbury, Thomas Becon, the judicious Archbishop Cranmer, and
the glory of the Elizabethan prelates, the learned Jewel. The
Homilies indeed contain a “ godly and a wholesome doctrine ;” but
they are full of blasphemy, both against the Popo and the devil.
When Dr. Newman applied his alembic to the Homilies, all the
“Catholic truth” he could distil out of themwas’a few unguarded
sentences chieflv from the Fathers, some general*- statements about
the primitive Church, the application of the Word “ Scripture ” to
the Apocryphal writings, and sometimes ordination or matrimony
called a sacrament. The exility of the evidence from the Homilies
was in strange contrast with the immensity of the conclusion.
It is naturally an important matter for Dr. Pusey’s object to be
able to prove that the Church of England has retained valid Orders.
Without this it would be idle to speak of the Church of England
being a part of the' Catholic Church, while the necessity of an
Episcopal succession is the first requisite of Catholicity. Now, what-
�604
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
ever Roman Catholics have to say against the validity of English
ordination, the historical fact cannot be denied that at the Reforma
tion the Episcopal succession was not broken. Dr. Pusey makes a
great matter of this. He finds the consecrators of Parker were
anxious to adhere to the ancient forms. They looked out for a
precedent, and found one in the case of Archbishop Chichele, who
was consecrated at a time when the intercourse between Rome and
England was interrupted. They used as the words of consecration,
“ Take the Holy Ghost,” which they had translated from the Exeter
Pontifical. To make sure work of it, all the four consecrating
bishops put their hands on the archbishop’s head, and all four
repeated the words of consecration. Hr. Pusey adds, “ Surely this
care to do what the Church had done is, in itself, evidence enough
of the intention required ! ” It is difficult to enter into men’s inten
tions, but it is not difficult to know that there were many reasons in
simple policy why the old forms of consecration should be retained.
We say nothing of the fact that the establishment of an Episcopal
Church at all was the will of the Queen rather than of the .men who
were made bishops. The Zurich Letters sufficiently reveal the
unepiscopal dispositions of Elizabeth’s first prelates. But to speak
only of the four consecrators of Parker. They were Barlow, Cover
dale, Scory, and Hodgskins. The last was only a suffragan. Of him
and Scory we know nothing, except it be that they preferred exile
rather than conformity under Mary. Miles Coverdale, all the world
knows, was a Puritan. He and Scory refused to wear Episcopal
robes at the consecration, and officiated in Geneva gowns. Cover
dale was never restored to his diocese. Conformity to the Church
was so little to his mind that the rest of his days were spent, for the
most part, in poverty and persecution. As to Barlow, his judgment of
the value of consecration is on record. He said in a sermon, that “ if
the king’s grace, being supreme head of the Church of England, did
choose, denominate, and elect any layman, being learned, to be a
bishop, he, so chosen, without mention being made of orders,
should be as good a bishop as I am, or the best in England.” This is
enough; but he adds, “ Wheresover two or three simple persons, as
cobblers or weavers, are in company, and elected in the name of God,
there is the true Church of God.” So far as Barlow was concerned,
the renowned Nag’s Head in Cheapside was as fit a place for the
consecration of an archbishop as the chapel at Lambeth Palace. We
cannot undertake to speak of his “ intention.” But we can scarcely
doubt that if William Barlow and Miles Coverdale had known the
use which Dr. Pusey was to make of their consecrating an archbishop,
they would sooner have put their hands into the fire than laid them
on the head of Matthew Parker.
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
605
Dr. Pusey’s Church of England is something altogether different
From the old Church of England, of which we read in history, and
which we find in the writings of the old English divines. The
reunionists generally make an effort to reconcile the old Reformed
Church with their “ Catholic ” ideas. When they fail they usually
revenge themselves by a kick at the Reformers. The bishops of
whom Dr. Pusey speaks, as so anxious to preserve the “ Catholic ”
faith and order, are dismissed by one of the Reunion Essayists as
“ the whole tribe of Calvinistic prelates under Elizabeth.” They were
not able, he adds, “ to root out faith and love ” from the people, nor
to prevent them still “piously drawing the sign of the cross on
forehead and breast.” Beyond all controversy Elizabeth’s bishops
were Calvinists. They simply conformed to Episcopacy. There is
no evidence that one of them believed in the’ divine institution of
bishops. In fact, that doctrine was unknown in ffhe Church of
England till Bancroft, in 1588, preached his famous sermon at St.
Paul’s Cross. Whitgift was then archbishop, and, tired of his long
warfare with the Puritans, he wished that Bancroft’s doctrine were
true, for it would be a shqrt and easy method of dealing with the
Nonconformists. An ecclesiastical polity by'^divine right was first
maintained by the Presbyterians. It is almosfi theJsole subject of the
discourses of Thomas Cartwright. It was the essence of the railings
of Martin Marprelate. “ The Lord’s discipline ” was the Puritan’s
phrase for the polity of the Church as it ought to be.. The doctrine
continued among the Independents. It is traceable, for instance, in
the works of Thomas Goodwin, in the form of grace coming by the
appointed ministers as by a sori of material channels. The Stuart
divines took up the idea, and connected it with Episcopacy. After
the Restoration, when Presbyterians and Independents became
brothers in adversity, it was gradually obscured. In the practical,
common-sense eighteenth century it. was almost extinct. In the
Episcopal form it has turned up again in our own day. On whatever
authority it may rest its claims, it is as certain as any matter of
history that it was not the doctrine of the Reformers of the Church
of England.
Again, in Dr. Pusey’s two favourite doctrines, the Real Presence in
the Eucharist and Baptismal Regeneration, we could show that he is
not in agreement with the old Reformed Church of England. Cranmer,
while using the strongest language concerning the presence of Christ’s
body and blood in the sacrament of the Supper, takes care to explain
it as meaning only that the faithful feed upon Christ in the Eucharist
in the same way as they feed upon Him in every act of worship.
All the Reformers, even Calvin, Bucer, and Peter Martyr, were
anxious to retain the rhetorical language of the Fathers concerning this
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THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
sacrament, and this caused them sometimes to speak as if they really
intended a transubstantiation. Then they had to explain themselves
by incomprehensible speeches, such as eating a body spiritually, and
feeding in the sacrament upon that which is really in heaven. This
was not peculiar to the Church of England. It passed into all the^
Eeformed Churches. Even the Westminster Assembly’s Confession
declares that the body and blood of Christ “ are as really but
spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the
elements themselves are to their outward senses.” Clear-headed men,
like John Hales of Eton and. Ralph Cudworth, rejected this way of
speaking as bordering upon nonsense. Even Bishop Jewel had
light enough. tojdeclare that the only use of the Supper was a com
memoration of Christ’s death.,. >and that all other uses are abuses.
But, while the language remained in the formularies, it is not remark
able that some took it literally. It suited the Stuart divines when
they tried to convert the Reformed Church of England into a
“ Catholic ” Church. They talked about altars and sacrifices, but it
was a long time before they, knew what they had to sacrifice.
Andrewes and Buckeridge gave the grotesque explanation that we offer
on the altar the elector mystical Church, which is the body of Christ.
The language .of the Baptismal service had a like origin. Calvinistic Reformers retained it, but in connection with their doctrine of
absolute predestination. It is found in all the Reformed Confessions
as strongly as in bur Prayer-Book. It really meant that every elect
child was regenerated in baptism. But as no man could distinguish
which children were elect, and which were not, it was charitably sup
posed that all were regenerated. This is the only explanation which
a Calvinist could put on. it if he believed the regeneration to be actual.
And it is the interpretation which the Calvinist divines of that age
did put upon it. Hooker, speaking of baptism in connection with
predestination, .says, that “ all do not receive the grace of the sacra
ment who receive the sacrament.” It is remarkable that, at the Savoy
Conference, the Puritans did not object to the baptismal regeneration
of the Baptismal service. They asked that the words “ remission of
sins by spiritual regeneration” might be changed into “may be
regenerated and receive remission of sins.” This was asked, not
because they objected to the doctrine, but because the words seem
to confound remission of isirih with regeneration. We have as little
desire as Dr. Pusey dan have to be bound by the meaning of the
service as understood by the “ Calvinistic prelates,” who made it part
of the Prayer-Book; and while the words are there, we are not
surprised that some persons will take them literally. They are
fairly capable of Dr. Pusey’s interpretation, but it will do no harm
to remember the truth and the whole truth concerning their history.
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
607
g But the greatest of all difficulties in the way of reunion between
the Church of England and- the Church of Rome, are the two latest
(Roman dogmas. The infallibility of the Pope, if not already pro
claimed, will be, it is generally believed, before many days. This
must put an end to all hopes of the reunion of England in any other
Way than by penance and absolution. If the Pope is infallible, Eng
land is in the fearful pit of heresy and schism. The Immaculate Con
ception of the mother of Jesus has been a dogma since 1854. This
is the great cpm# to Anglicans. The Protestant doctrine that Christ
alone is without sin, and that He alone is the Mediator, displaced the
worship of the Virgin in all Protestant countries. In the Church of
England there is not a vestige of it to be found. .Mary is no more
worshipped than any other holy matron. It is peculiarly the doctrine
of English Christians that “Jesus is all.” In Him they see supremely
all that in man is great and noble, all that in woman is pure and
gentle. The first thing that strikes and repels a Protestant when
he goes into a Roman Catholic Church, is ’the supremacy that seems
everywhere given to Mary.
Apart from the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, there is a
cultus which has grown wild and luxuriant, sometimes checked by the
authorities, and sometimes encouraged, as the devotion best suited
to certain classes of people. The account which Dr. Pusey gives
of the extent of Mary-worship in some Roman Catholic countries, is
a very sad one. The passages he quotes “from Roman Catholic
authors, some authorized and some not,” drew even from Dr. Newman
the confession that he read them with sorrow and anger. Dr. Pusey
shows that Roman Catholics pray to Mary to have remission of sins,
to be led into the way of truth, to have grace, life, and glory.
Catholicism, it is said, does not flourish in England, because English
Catholics do not give sufficient worship to Mary. “ Here in England,”
says a pious Roman Catholic writer, “Mary is not half enough
preached : devotion to her is low and thin. It is frightened out of
its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always inviting human respect
and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary, that
Protestants may feel at ease about her. Jesus is obscured, because
Mary is kept in the back-ground. Thousands of souls perish because
Nary is withheld from them.” Italian priests have lamented by the
death-beds of their English converts, that they were but half con
verted, for when dying they put their trust in Jesus, and never
littered a prayer to Mary. Dr. Pusey has often been told that before
he can expect to be converted he must learn to pray to Mary. In
the Church of Rome, Mary is all in all. She is the “ Queen of
heaven, and Mistress of the world,” “the Great One Herself,” “the
Holy Mother of God,” “ Companion of the Redeemer,” “ Co-redempl VOL. XTV.
SS
�6o8
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
tress,” li Authoress of eternal salvation,” “ the Destroyer of heresies
throughout the world,” “ the King in the chain of creatures,” “ the
Mediatress not of men only, but of angels,” “the Complement of the
Trinity.” One Catholic writer says, that in the Eucharist they eat
and drink not only the flesh and blood of Christ, but the flesh and
blood of the virgin Maryland that there is present in the sacrament,
not only the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also the
virgin milk of His virgin mother. Another writer says that the
regenerate are born not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man,
but of God md Mary.
It is sometimes very projvoking to have the plain truth told. Of
course this well-evidenced charge of Mariolatry implied that
“ the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their manner of living
and ceremonies, but. also in matters of faith.” Dr. Pusey’s pro
posals for reunion were met wifh a howl of indignation. The autho
rities at Rome put his book in the Index of books forbidden, along
with two others which, Dr. Pusey says, contain “ blasphemies against
our Lord’s All-Holiness.” The Church of Rome crucified Dr. Pusey,
nailing him to the back of the door of St. Peter’s along with two
malefactors, who only received the just reward of their deeds. Dr.
Pusey did not relish the socmfy of his two companions in tribula
tion. He did not. sne that “ Ecce Homo ” was really an “ Eirenicon,”
that its brilliant pages portrayed the human life of Him who even in
His humanity was divine., and thereby drew all men unto Him. And
did not the Either book also jS-peak peace ? Was it not an Eirenicon,
and with no “sword wreathed in myrtle ?” Did it not appeal to the
Catholic reason of mankind to find in that reason a basis for the
essential doctrines of the religion of Jesus Christ, and so to unite all
men into one Church wide as the human race, and Catholic as God’s
universe ? The Dublin Review complains that there are some things
which they “ cannot hammer into Dr. Pusey’s head.”*
Of the two great parties into which the Church of Rome is
divided it was from one only that Dr. Pusey could expect even a
patient hearing, and that party is not the one which rules the
Church of Rome. It only exists on sufferance. Taking it as repre
sented by such Catholics as Dr. Dollinger there is scarcely a doctrine
or ceremony on which they could not come easily to at least a tem
porary agreement with Dr. Pusey. But they meet each other only
by accident. Like travellers lodging at the “ Three Taverns,” they
are within a day’s journey of Rome. But while Dr. Pusey has set
his face as if he would go to the great city, Dr. Dollinger and his
' * In. the Essays on. Reunion Dr. Pusey complains bitterly of the treatment he had
received at Pome. He adds afterwards, in a note, that he has received reliable informa
tion that his book escaped the Index.
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
friends have been there already, and have no wish to return.
them it is not like
609
To
“ A little heaven below.”
The intimate relations that have long existed between Dr. Pusey
and Dr. Newman give a peculiar human interest to this controversy.
We say controversy, for such it has really become. Dr. Newman’s con
version to Roman Catholicism will never have any other significance
than that of a curious study for the psychologist. A great reasoner
adopts some principles which have no foundation in reason. He reasons
upon them till he becomes troubled with the incongruities between his
reason and what he believes. To get peace and to save his soul he at
last abandons reason, and clings only to authority. He wants to be
delivered from thetresponsibility of reason. So he joins the Church of
Rome because it makes the oldest and the boldest claim to speak in
fallibly in the name of God. There is an acknowledged principle in
physiology that a well-developed organ often has its strength at the ex
pense of some other organ or organs. The same principle is probably
applicable to the faculties of the mind, and explains the co-existence of
strength and weakness in the same man. Dr. Newman actually speaks
of “ saving his soul ” by leaving the Church of England for the
Church of Rome, and the principle is the one of being on the safe side
after a reckoning of probabilities. The turning-point of the con
version of this great master of reasoning was a rhetorical sentence
in the very illogical St. Augustine. “Securus judicat orbis ter
rarum ! ” cried the Bishop of Hippo, in his controversy with the
Donatists. The world must be right against* a sect that exists only
in the north of Africa. The world mustibe right, echoed Dr. New
man, against Anglicans who exist only in England. It is always
an argument that a man is in the wrong when the whole world is
against him. But what was St. Augustine’s “orbis terrarum?”
The great saint really believed that thes Roman empire embraced the
world, and that the whole world was converted to Christianity. What
was Dr. Newman’s world whose universal judgment was to overrule
his reason ? It was not the eight or nine hundred millions that people
the globe. It was not the judgment of the wise men of all ages which
he sought. It was not even the judgment of the learned men of
Europe. It was only, we may say, the judgment of the Council of Trent
received by Roman Catholics, not as the conclusion of their reason,
but as the evidence of their submission to the authority of a Church.
Dr. Pusey’s first letter to Newman, which we take to form Part II.
of the “ Eirenicon,” is entirely devoted to the Immaculate Conception.
This was the subject on which Dr. Newman had undertaken to
enlighten his “ deal’ Pusey,” whom he congratulates with a superb
piece of the most delicate sarcasm on his seeing his way to lay down
■s s 2
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,’AAT THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
definite proposals as a basis of corporate reunion. Dr. Pusey is
here told that the Church of England is fundamentally in error, and
that he must come to the Catholic Church in the spirit of obedience,
not reserving to himself so much private judgment as whether or
not he shall kiss a crucifix. Immaculate conception is explained as
simply meaning that, from the first moment of her existence, Mary
had a superadded fulness of .grace, which put her in a state of inno
cence corresponding to'that of Eve.
St. Augustine explained
original sin as birth by concupiscence. And in this sense Mary was
not without it. Her birth was not supernatural, like that of Jesus.
But she had supernatural graces added. She did not fall, as Eve
did, but merited to become the mother of the Redeemer. In this
sense, she too is a Saviour. Dr. Newman justifies to a great extent
the popular Mariolatry. The silly things which devout people say
in their devotions to Mary are compared to the silly things that fall
from lovers’ lips, to be whispered only in lovers’ ears. Dr. Pusey
naturally asks the question, If this worship of Mary was in the
primitive Church ? He applies the old rule of Catholicism, laid
down by Vincentius Lirinensis—“ What was believed by all, always,
and everywhere.” Dr. Newman answers from his theory of “ Deve
lopment,” that it existed in germ. Mr. Harper illustrates the process
by development in nature. We do not look for vertebrates in the
earliest geological strata; yet we find germs or rudiments of the
organisms that now exist. This means, we imagine, that if Mr. Dar
win had proved that men are developed from fishes, it would therefore
be right to say that fishes'.aye men, because men are developed from
fishes. In this way the unity of li Catholic truth ” is preserved.
The passages which Dr; Newman quotes from the Fathers in
support of Mary-worship are such as the words of St. Jerome,—
<l Death by Eve, life by Mary,” or this of Tertullian, Mary “ blotted
out ” Eve’s fault, and brought back “ the female sex,” or 11 the
human race ” to salvation.. The old Fathers had a great fondness
for contrasts. St. Paul’s illustration of the first and second man
may have suggested that of the first and second woman. The lan
guage, indeed, of the Fathers is not to be justified, but it is unfair
to take their fanciful parallels, and convert them into doctrines. If
this were done only by Roman Catholics we might have a word to
say for Dr. Pusey ; but Dr. Newman argues, we think justly, that
from Dr. Pusey’s own doctrine concerning the mother of Jesus, he
ought not to be offended by some of the titles used in the Church of
Rome. Dr. Pusey delights to call Mary the “ Mother of God.”
This is a title which to modern ears sounds like blasphemy. Taken
literally, it is destructive of the “ Catholic faith,” for even the creed
of St. Athanasius does not say that the man Jesus was God, but ex-
�fDR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. :6n
pressly the contrary, that He was “man, of the substance of His
mother.” A General Council decreed that Mary was Theotocos
Deipara, or Mother of God. It must then be received as an article
of the faith by all who believe in the infallibility of Councils. It
originated in the fond fancies of such Fathers as St. Ignatius, who
gays “ Our God was carried in the womb of Mary,” and of St. Chry
sostom, who speaks of the “ Everlasting ” as born of a woman. It
is continued by Dr. Newman, who does not scruple to say that
ii Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal.” Even with Dr.
Pusey she is “ Our Lady.”
“ Eirenicon,” Part III., or the second letter to Dr. Newman, is a
defence of the original positions of the “ Eirenicon.” It still maintains
that reunion is possible if we can treat with the Church, of Rome on
the Gallican principles as expounded by* Bossuet. This leads Dr.
Pusey to repeat the well-known arguments and facts against Papal
infallibility. But the repetition of them is an offence to the very
party which rules the Church of Rome.
For the spirit and claims of that party we must turn to Dr. Man
ning’s Pastoral. Some Roman Catholics and some Anglo-Catholics
had formed an association, and agreed to pray together for the
reunion of Christendom. The Roman Catholic! bishops in England
submitted the constitution of-the “association” to the judgment of
the “ Congregation of the Holy Office ” at Rome. The association
was condemned, and “Catholics” were*', forbidden to pray with
Anglicans for any such object. The grounds of the condemnation
involved the condemnation of the principles on; which the Anglicans
proposed reunion. The “ Congregation ” said that there were not
three Churches of Christ—-the Greek, the'Roman, and the Anglican
—but only one Church, which was that <rf Rome. Christ’s Church
had never lost its unity, and never could lose it. Diider pain of eter
nal death, it was declared to be the duty of every man to enter the only
Church of Christ, which was that presided oyer by the Bishop of Rome.
Dr. Manning described the scheme of union as based, not on the Thirtynine Articles as understood by Englishmen, nor* on the Council of
Trent as understood by Catholics, but in a sensevknown neither to the
Church of England nor the Church of Rome. He declares it to be as
impossible to be saved out of the “ on© fold,” which is that of Rome,
as it is to be regenerated without baptism. The Church of England is
the “ Anglican separation,” the Greek Church 'is. the “ Greek schism.”
To call these Churches parts of the Church Catholic is to destroy
the boundaries of truth and falsehood. If these Churches are Catho
lic, then the infallibility and oecumenicity of Trent must be denied.
Dr. Manning says that if Anglicans appeal to Bossuet, they must
believe with Bossuet. The infallibility of the Pope may be denied,
�612
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
but there remains the infallibility of the Church. Bossuet lived in
Catholic unity, Anglicans are in separation. It is not enough to
accept the decrees of Trent because we agree with them. This is
mere private judgment. They must be accepted because the Council
spoke with authority. To decide, because of evidence, to agree with
the Church in doctrine, through an exercise of private judgment,
does not make a man a Catholic. That requires submission and
obedience. It is the Church which interprets both antiquity and the
Scriptures. Its office is to assert, not to argue; to declare, not to
give reasons. It is no sign of humility, Dr. Manning says, and no
evidence of faith, to appeal from the Pope to a General Council of
Greeks, Anglicans, and Romans, *who shall put down Ultramontanism,
declare the Pope fallible, and restore the Immaculate Conception
to the region of pious opinions. True faith is obedience to the
Church of Rome; “other foundation can no man lay.”
Of the same tone and character is Mr. Harper’s elaborate work,
“Peace through the Truth.” The Church, that is, the Church of
Rome, is the visible kingdom of Christ, “His Incarnation.” It is a
supernatural institutiontaand lives a supernatural life. A religious
society, like the Church of England, outside of the “ true Church,”
has no rights. The question is between “the Incarnate Word” and
“ a body of men.” To say that the Church has erred for twelve
centuries is (to say that the Holy Ghost has failed in His mission.
The Church being,i*aiS -it were, the body of Christ, not by a figure, but
in reality, from Him, through the hierarchy, flows a never-ceasing
stream of supernatural grace; but it flows only through those in
union with the body. The Anglican priesthood are, therefore, but
“high and dry” channels, without even a globule of sacramental
grace. In Dr. Pusey’s objections to the extravagances of Roman
devotion Mr. Harper only sees hatred to the practical life of the
Church. The “dominant errors,” against which Dr. Newman said
our Articles were chiefly directed, are regarded as the “ perfected
consciousness ” of the Church. It cannot, we think, be denied that
Mr. Harper has here caught the spirit by which the Church of Rome
lives. This accords with the claims of an infallible Church. The con
sistency of the ideal is preserved. Our Reformers agreed with Mr.
Harper that the popular superstitions were a part of the consciousness
of the Church of Rome, and just on that account they did not trouble
themselves to distinguish between authorized dogma and what was
commonly believed. And this is really the vital question. It is
not whether a harmony can be effected between the creeds of the two
Churches, but whether the two Churches can have one life, one con
sciousness. All Protestants have felt instinctively, as Mr. Harper
feels, that between the Church of England and the Church of Rome
�THE ULTRAMONTANES. 613
there is “ a great gulf.” On which side are the companions of Dives
or Lazarus will be a matter of difference. But Mr. Harper is con
sistent with himself when he says, that but for the Deformation in
England “ thousands now in hell might have been eternally saved.”
He denies that there is one well authenticated case of a Pope
falling into error. The Anglican doctrine of the “ Heal Presence,”
even as explained by Dr. Pusey, is decld&ed to be in direct contradic
tion to that of the Council of Trent, while the1 history of the “Black
Rubric” determines, with historical certainty, that Dr. Pusey’s doc
trine is not that of the Church of England. Mr. Harper announces a
“ Second Series ” of Essays, and Dr. Pusey advertises a reply to Mr.
Harper.
,
Of all the answers to Dr. Pusey, W'e know of none to be compared
with that in the Revue du Mond'e Catholique. It consists of three
articles by a Jesuit Father, written with a fascin&tin'g precision, with
a penetrating insight into the minutest bearings of‘the question, and
with a delicate raillery worthy of the happiest moments of Voltaire.
The literary and theological value of the “ ESfenfeofflf” is estimated at
about nothing. The arguments are simply thteAhttV'ata^d thirty years
ago by Father Newman, and by the 's’ame Farther afterwards solidly
refuted. The Anglicans reject the natne of Protestant, and take upon
them that of Anglo-Catholics, “ or even Catholics.” Of all the Pro
testant sects the Anglican is- the most inconsequent, precisely because
it is that which has preserved most Catfrdlic truth while revolting
against the Catholic Church. It professes tb follow antiquity, and
yet there is nothing in antiquity more clea'H^y proclaimed by the first
Councils, or more energetically demonstrated by the Fathers, than
the supremacy of the Homan See. When Cardinal Wiseihan got the
Anglicans upon antiquity, he crushed them under the weight of
decisive texts. Anglicans rest on Episcopacy because of the privi
leges which the Fathers say are possessed by the bishops; but these
same Fathers show that the first condition of enjoying these privi
leges is legitimate appointment. Catholics have always denied the
validity of the consecration of the Anglican bishops under Elizabeth.
With only one exception they had all been vwlently introduced into
their sees by the royal authority, and contrary to the holy canons.
From the Fathers the Anglicans learned Some vague ideas about the
necessity of the unity of the Church. On the strength of this they
pronounced a severe sentence against the Dissenters. They even
called John Wesley a heresiarch. More than that, their simplicity
was such that they charged Catholics with quitting the great unity
of the Christian world. Anglicans saw the necessity of an authority,
but they could not determine where it was to be found. Article
XX. gives the Church a right to propose decisions, but not to impose
�614
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW^
them. The Church has some authority in appearance, but none in
reality.
In the early days of “ Anglo-Catholicism,” Newman and Oakley,
simply maintained that the Thirty-nine Articles could bear a
Catholic sense; but now Dr. Pusey says this is their real sense.
But to make Dr. Pusey a Catholic one thing is lacking. With!
out that one thing he will be a Protestant all the days of his
life. He wants that which in itself constitutes orthodoxy. He
wants submission to the authority of the Church. He must believe
the doctrines of the Church, not because of their agreement
with Scripture and tradition, but because the Church declare!
them. It is true he believes the Church, but then it is the Church
of another age.—a Church which speaks by documents of which.
Dr. Pusey remains the sole^judge. Like other Protestants, he still
exercises his private judgment. The only difference is that they
interpret the Bible only, while Dr. Pusey interprets decrees of
Councils and writings of Fathers. But in both cases there is private
judgment and an equal absence of true faith, which is submission.
The Church of the first centuries was infallible, according to Dr.
Pusey. That is to say, Christ’s promise to His Church was only
kept till the Cl^rrch was invaded by heresy and schism. The guides
of the Church now are to be the writings of the Fathers. But does
Dr. Pusey know the meaning of the Fathers? Their writings may
be understood in many senses. Moreover, if Christianity can only be
learned from the Fathers, what is to become of the multitude of
people who have no time to read either Fathers or decrees of Coun
cils ? Did Jesus Christ place His truth within the reach of Oxford
doctors only, and not also of infants and little children ? There is
nothing, the French writer says, peaceful in Dr. Pusey’s book except
its title. It is “a sad book.” It proposes to unite “Anglicans’!
and “ Catholics,” by converting both into “Puseyites.”
The Reunion Essays, published by Mr. Hayes, are in their way
curiosities. AVe might have given the volume a word of commendation, but for the utter inanity of three or four of the
essays about the middle and towards the end of the book. One
writer proposes nothing less than to un-Protestantize and to
Catholicize England. Another speaks of the restoration of the
“ Daily Sacrifice,” One charges the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge with “ an overt act of heresy,” in striking out of all
its books, at the instigation of a late Archbishop of Canterbury,
without a protest from a single bishop, the expression “ Mother of
God.
Another bemoans the infidelity of the age, which has almost
ceased to believe that there is “material fire” in hell. But the
gem of the collection is the Essay by “ A Priest of the Archdiocese of
�^DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 615
Bofftantinople,” who tells the Anglicans, in the spirit of Mr. Harper,
that they and the Roman Catholics tl must hear the words of truthful
warning from the unvarying lips of orthodoxy; that il the truth
which the orthodox hold must be affirmed ” by all, and that “ ortho1 doxy is ready and willing to explain when the uninformed are
prepared to be taught.”
With the Greek Church reunion is more probable than with the
Roman ; but the great interest of the question turns on the relation
of Rome to separated or national Churches. The claim which Rome
makes is peculiar, and as generations pass, that claim is increasingly
urged. The events of the passing hour take away all hope that
those who rule the Church of Rome will ever make even a sign to
Hr. Pusey and his friends, till, on bended knees, they receive from
the “ Holy Father ” that blessing which will purify them from the
birth-sin of heresy. Nor in one sense do we blame Rome.
If it really is what it professes to be, it is right in making no sur
render. But, on the other hand, if it is not what it professes to be,
then Protestants are justified in the severest things that they have
said against, it. If Mr. Harper’s view of the Church of Rome
really is the correct one, it either is what he calls it, an “ incarna
tion” of Christ, or it is Antichrist. In the latter case the claim
to infallibility will be its destruction, and Protestants may say,
“ Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone.”
We might urge this on “ Anglo-Catholics,” but we are too con
scious that their position is not one reached by reason. It is simply
due to a certain tendency of mind. The same men who are “ AngloCatholics ” in the Church of England would be Ultramontanes in the
Church of Rome. There are two tendencies in all Churches. One
is the disposition to rely on authority ; the other is to mental inde
pendence. We sometimes see Roman Catholics claiming the right
to reason for themselves, and Protestants rejoicing in the renun
ciation of reason. Dr. Pusey, in the nineteenth century, still looks
for grace coming through a hierarchy, as through a material channel.
Bishop Jewel, three centuries ago, was able to say that divine grace
K is not given to sees and successions, but to them, that fear God.
John Hunt.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dr Pusey and the ultramontanes
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Hunt, John
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [597]-615 p. ; 25 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Contemporary Review 14, July 1870.
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Dr Pusey and the ultramontanes), identified by <a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
Subject
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Catholic Church
Conway Tracts
Edward Bouver Pusey
Popes-Infallibility
Roman Catholic Church
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Text
ADDRESS
TO
PJ)PE PIUS IX.
ON HIS
ENCYCLICAL LETTER.
BY
JOSEPH MAZZINI.
LONDON:
TEUBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1865.
PRICE
SIXPENCE.
�M m im w
—
�ADDRESS TO
POPE
PIUS
IX.
i.
By your last Encyclica you have flung your Anathema
over the civilized world, over its movement, over the
life which inspires it, as if the world, life, and move
ment were not things of God. As the tempest-tossed
mariner, seeing the waves rising higher and higher
around him, despoils himself, in desperation, even of
the things most needful to man, so you* maddened
by the restless terrors that surround the death-agony
of a despairing sinner, have thrown aside all spirit
of love, all sense of the sacredness of this Earth,
providentially designed to perfect litself, all idea of
progress defined or indicated by Christianity, all the
traditions which for eight centuries have constituted
the Papacy’s right to live, all that can make Authority
revered, and powerful for good.
The tone of those ill-advised pages is one of grief
and anger; but it is a dry and barren sorrow breathing
the egotism of one who sees his power threatened,
1—2
�4
assailed, condemned, the pitiful anger of one who
longs to doom his assailants to the faggot, but knows
himself powerless to do so.
Lost for ever in the judgment of mankind, unable
to rule a single day unsustained by the bayonet;
abandoned by the world which no longer recognizes
its spring of life in you—incapable either of self
transformation or of resignation, you expire—saddest
of all deaths—with a curse upon your lips.
Tempered by Nature to surround every great ruin
with a lingering affection, reverencing the Tradition of
Humanity and all the elements that compose it, pre
cisely because I long for and have faith in the Future,
—I had dreamed of a different death for the Institution
whose last days you are now hastening. Seventeen
years ago, you were surrounded by an applauding
Europe bidding you 11 Onward.” Before you was a
people, the Italian people, newly awakened to con
sciousness of their high destiny, who would have
served you both as arm and lever in the great work of
transformation. A single word of love from you, a
blessing called down upon Italy—so long unlooked for
from a Pope—would have been sufficient. Millions of
souls, forgetting the profanations, persecutions, and
corruptions of four centuries, would have rallied round
you, thrilling with expectant hope and blind belief.
At that time, although incredulous of any revival
of the past, yet thinking a benediction and a word of
new life from the dying Institution might prevent long
years of anarchy and rebellion,—I wrote to you:
“ Believe, and unify Italy. If God wills that old faiths
should now transform themselves; that, .starting from the
�5
foot of the Cross, dogma and worship should purify them
selves, and advance one step nearer to Cod the Father and
Educator of the World—you may, by placing yourself
between the two epochs, lead mankind to the conquest and
practice of religious truth.”1
I should have wished that mindful of the words of
Jesus :—Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come,
he will guide you unto all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that
shall he speak; and he will show you the things to
come,1 and understanding their sublime presentiment
2
that for direct revelation through the individual, sub
stitutes the continuous collective revelation through
Humanity—you might have said to the peoples, “ The
Spirit is with you if only you will seek after and
hearken unto it: it is where universal Tradition and
individual conscience accord; most gloriously revealed
where Genius and Virtue unite, and I am nothing
but one believer among millions.”
I could have wished that an Institution beneficent
and life-giving in the past, should have blessed in
dying the emancipation of souls, and taught that death
in the future will be the consummation of one mission,
and the initiation of another.
I could have wished that as men bow the head
before the death of Genius, and are moved to poetry
by the sinking of the sun into the invisible infinite, so
might they have learned through you to hail with
solemn and reverent affection the going-down of the
past.
1 Lettera a Pio IX., 8 Settembre, 184=7.
2 John xvi. 13.
�It was an illusion. It is decreed, perhaps to pre
vent mankind, ever unstable in their conception of
life, from losing themselves in the worship of the
dead past, that the last inheritors of worn-out Insti
tutions should present the hideous spectacle of one
who in dying clings convulsively to life, and resists in
impotent blasphemy God’s law of transformation.
So dies the Papacy. So will you die: powerless
to resuscitate life; unable to comprehend the solemnity
of death.
II.
Look around you. To whom do you speak?
Who now has faith in your words ? Foreign soldiers
protect you from the anger of your own subjects, and
those soldiers are the children of Voltaire, unbelievers
and materialists like their Master. They protect you
as the tools of a policy of dominion, seeking to gain
credit with the French Clergy, and to keep open the
way for the division of Italy into three. Were they
to leave you, you would have to try to defend your
self with a*rabble rout of mercenaries from every
country in Europe, or you would have to leave with
them. Your allies are the Neapolitan brigands; they
wear your crosses and your indulgences upon their
breasts; but cease to pay them for a single month, and
suppose that we could sink so low as to hire them in
our turn, and they would fight against you. The men
who hedge themselves around you, who flatter you,
and hail you as Pope, King, and Father of Souls,
would desert you; denying both you and your faith,
�7
the day on which you should’ remain without Princely
aid, alone with the people you call yours. I heard
that people’s curses upon your madness some sixteen
years ago, when we inhabited your rooms in Rome;
and there was one who, while the French hemmed us
in, secretly conspired for you, and was afterwards con
demned for theft by your own judges, came to me,
terrified by the solitude in which he found himself, to
reveal his three or four accomplices. I smiled, and
let him go free.
Of such stamp were then and are now the
believers in you, whilst those. of our faith died cheer
fully with the words “ God and the People,” on their
lips.
Some among the reigning ones of the earth, also
threatened by their dissatisfied subjects, send their
ambassadors to pay you hypocritical homage as Christ’s
Vicar, because their authority is founded upon the
same basis as yours; but no sooner does Christ’s
Vicar venture to interfere even in the most timid and
hesitating manner in their affairs, than they doff their
hypocrisy and prohibit their! bishops from publishing
your Encyclica. Numbers of those who were formerly
believing Catholics in Europe, still preserve the old
habits, and follow the rites and discipline of your
Church, partly because even the dead forms of a
Great Religion that is past, exercise a prestige over
the mind; and partly because mankind—which has
and always will have need of religion—abhors the
barrenness of scepticism, and clings to the Traditions
of the past rather than be driven into mere negation.
But when, in 1849, we aroused the people of Raly
�to a sense of their dignity as men, and called upon
them to elect an Assembly to represent them and
decree your fate, they sent a Republican Assembly to
Rome, which unanimously abolished your power.
And when you and yours endeavoured from Gaeta
to raise up the populations against that Assembly in
the name of the Catholic faith, it was only at
Ascolani—where escape into the Neapolitan territory
was certain—that you found some who for a few
days were willing to risk their lives for you.
An echo of the Catholic Tradition still lingers in
the souls of men, but faith in it is dead for ever. You
cannot yourself rekindle it even in your own heart.
The virtue of sacrifice has left you. Your Church has
lost the power of suffering, and of dying, if need be,
for the salvation of mankind. Before the dangers of a
difficult position created by yourself, your adherents
concealed themselves : you fled, and fled in disguise.
Who henceforth would die for a Pope transformed into
the lackey of the Countess of Spaur ?
Faith is dead. Your Authority is but the ghost of
Authority, and the terror inspired by the spectre has
been diminishing for four centuries. It is for us now,
free from every doubt, strong in the irrevocable assent
of Humanity, to take up the gauntlet with the
certainty of Victory.
In saying “for us,” I include all who, like me,
reject alike the barren negations of the unreflectingly
rebellious, who, because one form of religion is
exhausted, imagine that the eternal religious Life of
Humanity is destroyed, and the inefficacious preteUces
of a Church which has neither knowledge, will, nor
�9
power any longer to direct that Life; I include all
vvho, like me, abhor the loathsomeness of materialism,
and are ready to do battle against it in the name of
the Ideal; all who reverently seek the City of the
Future, a new Heaven and a new Earth destined to
gather together in the name and in the love of God
and of man, and in faith in a common aim, all those
who now wander through your fault, mid fear of the
present and doubt of the future, in moral and intel
lectual anarchy : I include those who know that from
epoch to epoch God utters a new syllable of eternal
Truth to Humanity that every religion is ah initiation
towards the one destined to succeed it; and that an
educational revelation ceaselessly descends in manner
varying with the times upon the Nations J that to
arbitrarily seek to limit that revelation to a given
fraction of time# to one sole people, or to a single
individual is the only heresy essentially denying God,
the' manifestation of His Life, and the unbroken and
continuous link existing between the Divine Thought
and Humanity, which is destined gradually to discover
and to incarnate that Thought upon earth.
I include all those whoianxiously interrogating the
signs of the Times, and observing on the one hand
the constant increase of egotism, the dissolution of
every Power, the impotence of every ancient authority ;
and on the other the universal agitation of the peoples,
the growing though confused aspirations of intel
ligence, the apparition of new elements demanding
admission into the social edifice, and. of new words
potent to move the multitudes, the tendency towards
a new morality vaster than the former, and recognize
�10
in all these things the indications of a new epoch, and
therefore of a religious transformation.
Finally, I include all who hail with me the idea
that the initiative of that inevitable transformation
may sooner or later be taken by a People now for the
first time called to National Unity.
We take up the gauntlet flung down to the world
by your Encyclica. We take it up, not in the name of
a blind misguided analysis which . confounds the
Thought with its manifestation, and Life with the
organs by which it is revealed ;—not in the name of
a philosophy that presumes to substitute itself for the
Religious Synthesis, while its true historic office is
merely that of verifying the exhaustion of one belief
and preparing the way for another ;—but in the name
of Religion itself, which you would annihilate by
dooming it to immobility,—of Morality, which should
be enlarged from epoch to epoch, and which you
destroy by enchaining it to a dogma, the narrowness
and imperfection of which has been demonstrated by
four centuries of discovery;—in the name of the
teachings of Tradition, showing that the Religious
Idea assumes different forms and a different worship
at each stage of the education of Humanity;—in the
name of Jesus who foretold the future triumphs of the
Spirit1 through his own death, and whom you would
degrade from the “ Master ” to the tyrant of man ;—
in the name of Human Life which has need of harmo
nization, unification, and sanctification through Reli
gion, of all of which you deprive it by condemning its
1 John xvi.
�11
I*
i
progressive manifestations, and maintaining a fatal
duality between Earth and Heaven ;—and in the name
of God Himself who is eternal Life, Thought, Motion,
and Enlightenment, and to Whose power of revelation
you would assign a limit and a date.
Religion is with us, not with you. You mate
rialize it by the exclusive adoration of one of its forms,
as if the living God could be enchained in a single
form ; as if any form of Religion could ever be other
than a finite symbol of the Truth which He dispenses
in the chosen measure of time > as if when one form
were exhausted, it were possible that God should
perish, or withdraw Himself from the world which is
naught other than a manifestation of His Thought;
as if it were possible to assign ^limit to the Thought
of God; as if any people, any epoch, or any religion
might presume to have comprehended that Thought
entire ; as if Humanity were not bound constantly to
labour and to advance in order to acquire a knowledge
of, and identify itself with, that portion of the Divine
Idea destined to be realized on earth.
III.
We believe in God, who is Intellect and Love,
Educator and Lord:
We believe therefore in a sovereign Moral Law,
the expression of His Intellect, and of His Love:
We believe in a law of Duty for all of us, and that
we are bound to love, to comprehend, and, as far as
possible, to incarnate that law in our actions :
We believe that the sole manifestation of God
�12
visible to us is Life, and in it we seek the evidences of
the Divine Law:
We believe that as God is one, so is Life one, and
one the Law of Life throughout its twofold manifesta
tion in the Individual and in Collective Humanity:
We believe in Conscience—the revelation of Life in
the Individual—and in Tradition—the revelation of
Life in Humanity,—as the sole means given to us by
God by which to comprehend his Design,' and that
when the voice of Conscience and the voice of Tradi
tion are harmonized in an affirmation, that affirmation
is the Truth, or a portion of the Truth.
We believe that Conscience and Tradition, if reli
giously interrogated, will reveal to us that the Law
of Life is Progress, progress indefinite in all the
manifestations of. Being, the germs of which, inherent
in Life itself—are gradually and successively developed
throughout the various phases of existence :
We believe that as Life is one, and the Law of
Life is one, the Progress destined to be wrought out
by Collective Humanity, and gradually revealed to us
through Tradition, must be equally wrought out by the
individual, and since that indefinite progress forefelt
and conceived by Conscience and proclaimed by Tradi
tion, cannot be completely realized in the brief ter
restrial existence of the individual, we believe it will be
»
fulfilled elsewhere, and we believe in the continuity of
the Life made manifest in each of us, and of which our
terrestrial existence is but one period:
We believe that as in Collective Humanity every
presentiment of a vaster and purer ideal, every earnest
aspiration towards Good, is destined—it may be after
�13
the lapse of ages—to be realized,—so in the indi
vidual, every intuition of the Truth, every aspiration—
even if at present inefficacious—towards Good, and
towards the Ideal, is a pledge of future development,
a germ to be evolved in the course of the series of
existences constituting Life:
We believe that as Collective Humanity in its
-advance gradually acquires a knowledge and compre
hension of its own past;—so will the individual in
his advance upon the path of Progress acquire in pro
portion to the degree of moral education achieved, the
consciousness and memory of the past stages of his
existence:
We believe not only in Progress, but in Man’s
solidarity in progress: that as in Collective Humanity
the generations are linked one with the other, and the
Life of the one fortifies, assists, and promotes the life of
the other—so, also, is individual linked with individual,
and the life of one is of benefit to the life of the rest,
both here and elsewhere :
We believe that pure, virtuous, and constant affec
tion is a promise of communion in the future, and
a lint—invisible but powerful in its effect upon bn man
action—between the dead and the living :
We believe that Progress, the Law of God, must
infallibly be achieved by all, but we believe that we are
bound to work out the consciousness of that progress
and to deserve it through our own efforts, and that
time and space are vouchsafed to us by God as the
sphere of free will, wherein we merit or demerit in
proportion as we accelerate or delay it:
We believe, therefore, in human free will, the
condition of human responsibility:
�14
We believe in Human Equality, that is to say, that
God has given to all mankind the faculties and powers
necessary to the achievement of an equal amount of
progress; we believe that all are both called and
elected to achieve it, sooner or later, according to their
own works :
i
We believe that all that tends to impede Human
Progress, Equality, and Solidarity, is Evil, and that all
that tends to promote them, is Good.
We believe in the duty of each and all ceaselessly
to combat evil, and to promote good by thought and
action ; we believe that in order to overcome evil and to
promote good in each of us, it is necessary to overcome
evil and to promote good in others and for others : We
believe that no man can work out his own salvation
otherwise than by labouring for the salvation of others:
We believe that the sign of Evil is egotism, and the
sign of Virtue, sacrifice:
We believe our actual existence to be a step towards
a future existence, the earth to be a place of trial
wherein, by overcoming Evil and promoting Good, we
are bound to deserve to advance : We believe it to be
the duty of each and all to sanctify the earth by
realizing here as much as it is possible to realize of
the Law of God: And from this faith we deduce our
Morality:
We believe that the instinct of Progress innate in
Humanity from the beginning, and now become a
leading tendency of the human intellect, is the sole
revelation of God to mankind ; a revelation vouchsafed
to all, and continuous :
We believe that it is in virtue of this revelation
�15
that Humanity advances from epoch to epoch, from
religion to religion, upon the path of improvement
assigned to it:
We believe that whosoever presumes at the present
day to arrogate that revelation to himself, and declare
that he is the privileged intermediate between God
and man, is a blasphemer.
We believe that Authority is sacred when, conse
crated by Genius and Virtue,—sole Priests of the
Future—and made manifest by the greatest power
of sacrifice,—it preaches Truth, and is freely accepted
by mankind as their guide to Truth; but we believe
that we are bound to combat and exterminate as the
offspring of Falsehood and Parent of Tyranny, every
Authority not invested with these characteristics :
We believe that God is God, and Humanity is His
Prophet.
Such, in its broad outlines, is our faith. In that
faith we reverentially embrace—as stages of the pro
gress already achieved—all the manifestations of Religion
in the past, and—as symptoms and previsions of future
progress—every earnest and virtuous manifestation of
religious Thought in the present.
In that faith we recognize God as the Father of
all; Humanity as one in community of origin, of law,
and of aim; the Earth as sanctified by the gradual
accomplishment of the Divine Design, and the indi
vidual—blessed with immortality, free will, and power
—as the responsible Artificer of his own progress.
In this faith we live; in it we will die; in it we
love, labour, hope, and pray.
In the name of this faith we bid you : Descend
�16
FROM THE SEAT
YOU USURP AT
THE PRESENT DAY ,*
and, verily, you will descend before this age has run
its course.
The faith promulgated in your Encyclica of the
8th December, 1864, renounces alike Earth and
Heaven, Humanity and the individual.
God is Affirmation, absolute : You pretend to sub
sist upon negatives alone.
With the errors against which you cry Anathema
in the 1st, 2ncT, and 3rd of the articles annexed to the
Encyclica, we have naught to do. We believe that the
sole source of Sovereignty is in God, and in His Law,
and we therefore reject alike the Pantheism that con
founds God with the manifestations of His Power, and
every Authority.which is not the realization of the Law
of God on earth.
Neither have we aught to do with those articles
among the long series you have published, which treat
of the old question—consequent upon the Christian
duality—between the Temporal and Spiritual Au
thority.
We believe in one sole Power, the dominion of the
Moral Law, and from it we deduce the legitimacy or
illegitimacy of every temporal Authority.
We believe in the Church, the fraternity of
believers, guardian and progressive discoverer of the
Law. But is that Church your Church ? Are you
the Depositary of that Authority which all of us
invoke as Supreme over every Power ?
�17
IV.
No : your Church only gathers around it a fraction
of mankind, a fraction diminishing daily. For six
centuries past, your Authority has neither generated,
directed, nor promoted Life. You deny the faculties
you are bound to direct; you deny—by denying the
work to be accomplished on earth—the instruments
given to us by God for its accomplishment. You
deny the initiation contained in Christianity towards
higher things. You deny the free action of Man,
without which there is neither merit nor demerit.
You deny (Art. 80) that you have any mission to
promote the civilization and progress of mankind.
You deny the giftfe of God to us all by substituting
for them a grace arbitrarily bestowed upon a few. You
deny the immortality of the life given by God, by
the decapitation of the Soul in Hell. You deny the last
ing communion of God with His creatures by decreeing
a dual Humanity, the Humanity of the Fall, and the
Humanity of the Redemption. You deny Morality
by denying our power to constitute—as far as in us
lies—the Kingdom of God on earth, and by allowing
our brother men to remain a prey to tyranny, misery,
ignorance, and injustice. You deny to the Nations
their right of affirming their own free life, of frater
nizing for mutual benefit with their sister Nations,
and of choosing Rulers deserving of their Trust.
You do but affirm one thing—that you have a
right to be a Prince, and to possess—without incurring
any responsibility towards Humanity—those worldly
goods which you bid us despise.
2
�18
There was a time—a time I regard with reverence
—when the Papacy did affirm and guide. Depositaries
and Guardians of the Moral Law; believing in their
mission of Justice and Liberty for all; intrepid against
all who sought to violate their power,—and ready to
suffer for their faith, which then was the faith of the
peoples,—the Popes, from the fifth to the thirteenth
century, aided and promoted the progress you now
condemn.
In that Rome they had taught the barbarian to
respect, they represented the Ideal of the Epoch, the
dominion of spirit over matter; love, opposed to brute
force; the equality of souls,—individual merit set up
against arbitrary power ;—election against birth; justice
against feudal and monarchical rute. They watched
over and preserved the relics of ancient Learning in
their Convents, they protected Art, consoled and
alleviated suffering, educated antagonistic races, and
called them to brotherhood in the name of God and
Jesus.
Then might Leo truly declare to Rome, the centre
of a second civilization :—“ Although thou hast by thy
many victories extended thy empire over land and sea, thou
hast conquered less by valour in war than by the spirit of
Christian peaces”^ -V
' X
Then did Nicholas I. write word to the Bishops:—
‘‘ Observe whether the Kings and Princes be truly such;
if they govern rightly, first themselves, and then the peoples:
Observe if they reign according to justice ; because if they
do not, we must view them not as Kings, but as Tyrants,
and arise against them, and against the vices by which
they are corrupted.”
�19
Then did Innocent III. dare to declare to a power
ful Seigneur :—“ Were we but to take into consideration
your crimes, we should not only cry Anathema upon you,
but should call upon your people to arm themselves against
you;” and the Seigneur humbled himself before the
menace.
And before these, a man of gigantic heart and
mind—though misunderstood even yet by the majority
amongst us—the son of the people, Gregory VII., had
declared to the world that “ the sword of the Prince
must be laid doivn, as all human things bow down, before
the Church of God ; the King owes obedience to the Pope.
The Apostolic Authority is as the Sun ; the regal power is
as the Moon, illumined by the reflection of its ray;” and
the people hailed that lofty doctrine with applause,
and the Teutonic Monarchy prostrated itself in peni
tence for its attempted resistance, before the Italian
Pope in Canossa.
But the Popes of that day were the representatives
of a Duty. A Bishop then declared, in Orleans, that
“ the rich and powerful were bound to recognize the equal
nature of the poor and servile, because one sole God reigned
from on high over all.”
Gregory VII. justified the boldness of his acts
by the holy confession that “ the Church had sinned,
because it had allied itself to the world and to worldly
men, because its ministers had sought to serve the Church
and the world at the same time;—that Churchmen were
culpable and unworthy; and that they were bound to
correct and convert themselves £ that regeneration must
begin from the highest among them; that he felt bound to
declare war to vice, and to unmask it to the world; to
�20
protect all who were persecuted for justice and virtue’s
sake; that all belonging to the Church were bound to show
themselves pure and irreproachable ; and that it was
reserved for the Pope to achieve the great work of esta
blishing the reign of Peace on Earth.”
But you are both a Prince and the servant of
Princes at the present day; the bayonets that con
ducted you back through blood to Borne belong to
the man of the 2nd of December. You reign through
force, not through faith : your party is corrupt and
corrupting ; the Sanctuary is surrounded by Neapolitan
brigands upon whom you confer your blessing, while
you have no word of comfort for the peoples who
invoke God’s liberty and equality.
Therefore do the peoples look, not to you, but to
us; to us, the Precursors of the New Church; to us,
who teach them both by word and example, that it is
possible to fulfil God’s Law on earth.
Your predecessors conquered the Nations in the
name of a Religion of spiritual liberty and equality;
you do but persuade, from time to time, some unhappy
maiden to accept the death of the Cloister while
yearning for life, or steal some neglected son of Israel
and display him in triumph to the multitude as a
Convert.
I know that Gregory VII. failed to realize his
sublime conception of the triumph of the ideal over
the material on earth. I know that the instruments
he sought to employ were unequal to the aim. ' The
cardinal point of the dogma upon which he leaned
for support was the duality, the antagonism between
Earth and Heaven, and it was impossible to found
Human Unity upon that dogma.
�21
Instead of teaching that Religion is Life itself, it
made of Religion a compensation for life, and taught
the individual that he must achieve his salvation
independently of the earth, and set before him an
ideal impossible of realization in the brief years of
terrestrial existence. It can only be realized progres
sively through Association, and that dogma in no way
contemplated association; it contained no conception
of the Collective Life of Humanity, nor of the law of
Progress we now recognize.
Gregory VII. was therefore compelled to have
recourse to despotic means: he failed in his en
terprise, nor could it be successfully renewed by any
Pope.
But though it was forbidden that the Popes should
guide the world upon the path indicated by the vaster
and more unifying dogma now dawning upon us, they
might have accompanied the world in its advance
towards it; they might and ought, like Gregory«¥II.,
ever ready to suffer martyrdom, to have remained the
Representatives of that portion of the Truth contained
in their own dogma, which owes its actual triumph to
its incarnation in us. Christianity did not ordain
association on this earth, but it laid the foundations
for it by declaring: “ There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither lond nor free, there is neither male nor
female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”1
Jesus did not institute any Government of the
things of this world, but He laid down the principle
of all legitimate Government when He said : “ WhoPaul: Galatians iii. 28.
�22
soever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your
servant.”1
Jesus commanded endeavour and research,2 He
promised all things to labour,3 He understood and
reverenced the power of man,4 He foresaw the future,
the Epoch of Truth freed from every earthly symbol.3
Your predecessors might and ought, you might
and ought to have accompanied us upon the path
of discovery and advance, in order to have left us,
as Moses left his people, on the borders of the pro
mised land, and have blessed us in dying even as a
dying father blesses the children who are to survive
him. You expire cursing the spirit of inquiry, cursing
the power of intellect, cursing faith in the discovery of
the Truth, cursing the peoples who seek their freedom,
cursing mankind and Life itself^ An Apostate from
Jesus and Humanity, you condemn yourself to expire
in isolation, deprived of all communion with your
brother men. We are compelled mournfully to cast
back the Anathema upon yourself. We may say to you
—as the French Bishops said to Gregory IV.—you
came to excommunicate us, return excommunicated.
No : Religion is no longer with you. Before the
Popes were, before Jesus came, God was with us.
God is with us, the servants of His Law, who carry
out the Tradition which is the revelation of His
Design. From the days of Innocent III., the Papacy
renounced alike life and mission, to worship self, its
1 Matt. xx. 26, 27, 28.
2 Matt. vii. 7; x. 26, 27, 28.
3 Matt. xxi. 43.
4 Matt. xxi. 21, 22.
5 John xiv. 16, 17, &c.
�23
own Power, the World. From the days of Innocent
III., Knowledge is ours, Art is ours, Progress in
intellect and in the purer adoration of God, is ours.
In the face of your decrees, and cancelling the sen
tence of your Inquisition, we discovered the laws that
rule the Stars, the ages of the earth’s existence
anterior to the Biblical hypothesis, the continuity of
Creation, the Unity of the Law that links earth to
Heaven, the chain of progress extending without inter
ruption from the earliest generations to our own.
Without you, against you—dissolving the dark
ness of the past, we discovered a portion of God’s
revelation in all those religions which you have stig
matized as impostures, a portion of the Design of
God in those epochs anterior to the Cross, upon
which you had cried Anathema, a portion of God’s
power in Worlds of the existence of which you were
ignorant.
Without a word of inspiration or encouragement
from you, and often condemned by you, we, the men
of Progress, did battle against Mahometanism in the
East of Europe, called back Greece to life, diminished
the sufferings of the multitudes, raised the banner
of Liberty among the oppressed Nations, and now,
emancipate the Negroes of America, and create Italy
in the face of your opposition.
Not to you, but to God do the Peoples look for
courage in the struggle, and faith to meet death with
smiles. The martyrs of Duty are found amongst
those whom you term unbelievers: the comforters of
the poor amongst those whom you doom to damna
tion to serve the Princes whose support you seek.
�Naught is left for you but undignified lamentation,
to live a mendicant, and to die cursing, unheeded, and
despised.
Descend then from a throne on which you are no
longer a Pope, hut a vulgar tyrant, upheld by the
soldiers of tyrants. You know that, were not those
soldiers ranged around your Conclave, you would be
the last Pope of Rome. Humanity has worshipped
in the Religion of the Father, and in that of the Son.
Give place to the Religion of the holy Spirit.
V.
*
As Pope, six hundred years of impotence,—the
betrayal of every precept of Christ,—your Church’s
adultery with the wicked Princes of the earth,—the
idolatry of the form substituted for the Spirit of
Religion,—the systematic immorality of the men who
surround you, and the negation of all progress sanc
tioned by yourself as the condition of your existence,
rise in judgment against you.
As Prince, the blood of Rome, and the impos
sibility of your remaining there a single day other than
by brute force, rise in judgment against you.
Reconcile yourself with God. With Humanity
you cannot.
JOSEPH MAZZINI.
January, 1865.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Address to Pope Pious IX on his encyclical letter
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Joseph, Mazzini
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Quanta cura was a papal encyclical, issued December 1864, that was prompted by the September Convention of 1864 agreement between the then newly emerging Kingdom of Italy and the Second French Empire of Napoleon III. France had previously occupied Rome with French troops in order to prevent the Kingdom of Italy from defeating the Papal States with the Capture of Rome. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references.
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Trubner and Co.
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1865
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G5253
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Papacy
Catholic Church
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Conway Tracts
Italy-Politics and Government-19th Century
Pope Pius IX
Roman Catholic Church
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MONASTERY
By JOSEPH McCABE
(Also in Cloth, 9d.net.)
—
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Nos. 5 and 6 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
Copies of new publications are forwarded regularly on account of Members’sub
scriptions, or a Member can arrange to make his own selection from the lists of
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Tojoin the Association is to help on its work, but to subscribe liberally is of course
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THE LITERARY GUIDE is published on the rst of each month, price 2d.,
by post 23d. Annual subscription 2s. 6d. post paid. The contributors comprise
the leading writers in the Rationalist Movement, including Mr. Joseph McCabe,
Mrs. H. Bradlaugh Bonner, Mr. F. J. Gould, Mr. Charles T. Gorham, Dr. Q.
Callaway, Mr. A. W. Benn, and “ Mimnermus.”
Another Triumph in Publishing.
PAMPHLETS FOR THE MILLION.
First Edition of 120,000 copies now ready.
1. WHY I LEFT THE CHURCH.
with Portrait; id.
By Joseph McCabe. 48 pp. and cover,
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cover, with Portrait; Ad.
3. CHRISTIANITY’S DEBT TO EARLIER RELIGIONS.
64 pp. and cover, with Portrait; id.
By P. Vivian.
4. HOW TO REFORM MANKIND. By Colonel R. G. Ingersoll. 24 pp. and
cover, with Portrait ; Ad.
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48 pp. and cover, with Portrait; id.
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48 pp. and cover, with Portrait; id.
The set of six Pamphlets post paid. yd.
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�NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
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3dDebate with the Rev. A. J. Waldron on “The
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''Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
��TWELVE YEARS
IN A
MONASTERY
By Joseph McCabe
(Formerly the Very Rev. Father Antony, O.S.F.),
Author of “ Peter Aboard,” “ The Story
of Evolution,” “ Goethe,” etc.
Third and Revised Edition
Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited
London -
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Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH McCABE.
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cloth, 2s. net; paper cover, is. net.
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By
Prof. Arthur Drews. 6s. net.
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Edouard Dujardin.
London
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�PREFACE
TO THE THIRD EDITION
When this work first appeared, in 1897, the only
aj criticism which the author observed among the many
(columns of press notices was that he would have
done well to refrain for a few years from writing
a about the Church he had abandoned. The painful
?, experiences which are recorded in its later chapters
I
! would not unnaturally suggest that the book must
have been written in an embittered mood. The
implication was, however, inaccurate, and when, in
1903, a second edition was prepared, after the work
had been out of print for five years, very little
change was needed. The author had had the good
fortune, on leaving the Church, to come under the
genial influence of Sir Leslie Stephen, and had
endeavoured to write in the mood of “ good-natured
contempt,” which the great critic recommended to
him. Neither in this nor in any subsequent work
of his will there be found any justification for the
petulant Catholic complaint that the author writes
with “bitterness” or “hatred” of the Roman
Church.
The truth is that, on re-reading the book after
an interval of nine years, for the purpose of pre
paring a popular edition, the moderation of its
temper somewhat surprises the author. The reader
�vi
PREFACE
may judge for himself whether the system depicted
in the following pages has been harshly judged in
the few phrases of censure which have been admitted
into the work. The author himself looks back with
astonishment on features of that system which had
almost faded from his memory, and is amazed to
think that such a system still commands the nominal
allegiance of large numbers of educated men and
refined women. The Rome of history we all know
—the Rome which retained the bandage of ignor
ance about the eyes of Europe for a thousand years,
and, while exhibiting a spectacle of continuous and
unblushing immorality in its most sacred courts,
employed the rack and the stake to intimidate any
man who would venture to impugn its sanctity or
its truth. But there is a widespread feeling that
the Reformation chastened the Church of Rome,
and that at least in the nineteenth and twentieth
century it has ground, whatever its superstitions,
to claim to be one of the greatest spiritual forces
in the world.
This description of the Roman system by one who
had intimate experience of it for many years,
written with cold impartiality at a time when every
feature was still fresh in his memory, must give
ground for reflection to those who would grant
Catholicism some strange preference over the
Reformed Christian Churches. The work is not an
indictment, but a simple description. A distin
guished London priest once told the author that it
had had a considerable influence in checking the
flow of “ converts ” from the English to the Roman
Church. To such “ movements of population ” the
�PREFACE
vii
author is genially indifferent. His aim was solely to
present to those who were interested a candid
account of intimate Roman Catholic life and of the
author’s career as monk, priest, and professor; and
the constant circulation of the book fifteen years
after its first publication, no less than the cordial
welcome extended to it by men so diverse as Sir
John Robinson, Sir Walter Besant, Dr. St. George
Mivart, and Mr. Stead, have encouraged the author
to think that it was interesting in substance and
moderate in temper. Yet, when he looks back upon
that system across sixteen years’ experience of
“ worldly life ”—to use the phrase of his monastic
days—he is disposed to use a harsher language in
characterising its profound hypocrisy and its wilful
encouragement of delusions. More than sixteen
years ago the author looked out, timidly and
anxiously, from the windows of a monastery upon
what he had been taught to call, with a shudder,
the world ”—the world into which an honest
change of convictions now forced him. He has
found a sweeter and happier life, and finer types
of men and women, in that broad world, and now
looks back with a shudder on the musty, insincere,
and oppressive life of the cloister from which he was
happily delivered.
Yet the temptation to add a censorious language
to the book shall be resisted. It remains, in its
third edition, a cold and detached depictment of
modern monasticism, and of so much of the inner
life of the Roman clergy as came within the author’s
knowledge. Considerable revision was needed in
preparing the book for the wider public to which
B 2
�viii
PREFACE
it now appeals, but this has consisted only in some
literary correction of the juvenility of the original
and the substitution for certain technical passages of
material of more general interest. Here and there
the text has been brought up to date, but the author
must confess to a certain indifference to the for
tunes of the Church of Rome which prevents him
from bringing it entirely up to date. The fiction
of the Catholic journalist, that the author hovers
about the fringes of the Church in some mysterious
eagerness to assail it, is too ludicrous for words;
and the grossly untruthful character and low
cultural standard of such Catholic publications
(especially of the “ Catholic Truth Society ”) as are
occasionally sent to him, on account of their lurid
references to himself, deter him from taking such
interest in Romanist literature as he should like to
take. The work must, therefore, be regarded as
a plain statement of personal experience, which, in
the fifteen years of its circulation, has attracted
considerable and most virulent abuse, but no serious
criticism.
J. M.
September, 1912,
�CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAP.
I
II
.
INTRODUCTION
VOCATION
.
.
II
.
.
.
.
.
18
HI
NOVITIATE .
31
IV
STUDENTSHIP
59
81
V
PRIESTHOOD
THE CONFESSIONAL
IOI
VII
A YEAR AT LOUVAIN .
121
VIII
MINISTRY IN LONDON .
146
OTHER ORDERS AND THE I ONDON CLERGY
168
COUNTRY MINISTRY
.
192
SECESSION .
.
VI
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
.
.
.
208
CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM .
224
THE CHURCH OF ROME
239
IX
��TWELVE YEARS IN A
MONASTERY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Monasticism, inseparable as it is from every
advanced religious system, seems to be a direct out
growth from the fundamental religious idea. The
great religions of Asia, Europe, and America, despite
their marked differences in conceiving the ultimate
objects of religious belief, and the distinct racial and
territorial influences that have affected them, have been
equally prolific in monastic institutions; they seem to
have been evoked by the story which is common to
them all. Nor is it strange that that story inspired
such an abdication of earthly joys as the monastic
system embodies. If philosophers have, on their cold
reasonings, been led to despise the changeful forms
for the enduring realities they thought they perceived,
it is not strange that religion should have taught the
same theme with yet deeper effect. Men gazed on
the entrancing vision of a world beyond, until the
attitude of hope and expectancy satisfied them even,
now. In the hermit’s cell or in the cloistered abbey
11
�12
INTRODUCTION
they withdrew from earth and awaited the removal
of the veil.
But the religious mind has entered upon a more
troubled phase of its development. Physical and
economical science have drawn its attention more
eagerly to its present home; a growing self-conscious
ness has made it more critical and reflective; the
outlines of the eternal city are once more fading.
The vision has lost all the sharpness of outline and the
warmth of colour that once made it so potent an
agency in human life. The preacher must speak more
of “the city of men,” and be less, disdainful of its
interests and pleasures. The age of martyrs, the age
of Crusaders, the age of public penance, or even of
private mortification, must hope for no revival. The
sterner dictates of the older supernaturalism must be
explained away as unsuited to our more energetic age,
or as a blunder on the part of a less enlightened
generation.
Hence when, a few years ago, Dr. St. George Mivart
confessed that he looked forward to a revival of the
religious orders of the thirteenth century, he was
greeted with a smile of incredulity outside the narrow
sphere of his own co-religionists. Monasticism was
dying—not in the odour of sanctity. Men visited
the venerable ruins of abbeys and monasteries, and
re-peopled in spirit the deserted cells and dreary
cloisters and roofless chapel with a kindly archaeological
interest; smiled at their capacious refectories and
wine-cellars; dwelt gratefully on the labours of the
Benedictines through the Age of Iron; conjured up
the picturesque life and fervent activity of the Grey
Friars before their corruption; and shuddered at the
�INTRODUCTION
13
zeal of the White Friars in Inquisition days. But
people would as soon have thought to see the dead
bones of the monks re-clothed with flesh as to see
any great revival of their institutions. France and
Portugal have already expelled the monks for ever;
Italy and Spain will probably follow their example
within the next twenty years. And how could one
expect them to prosper in the lands of the Reformers?
In point of fact, however, there has been a revival
of monastic institutions in England, Germany, and
the United States proportionate to the revival of Roman
Catholicism. A hundred years ago England flattered
itself that the monastic spirit—if not Popery itself—
was extinguished for ever within its frontiers: the
few survivors of the old orders were still proscribed,
and crept stealthily about the land in strange disguises.
Then the French refugees surreptitiously reintroduced
it, just as they brought over large quantities of the
hated “ popish baubles ” in their huge boxes, which,
on the king’s secret instructions, passed the custom
house untouched. The long Irish immigration set in,
and the zeal of the aliens kept pace with growing
British tolerance. The removal of Catholic disabilities,
the Oxford movement, and the establishment of the
hierarchy followed in quick succession, and, as Catholi
cism spread rapidly through the land, the Continental
branches of the monastic orders grasped the oppor
tunity of once more planting colonies on the fruitful
British soil.
At the present day every order is represented in
England and America, and the vast army of monks
and nuns is tens of thousands strong. The expulsions
from France and Portugal are increasing the number
�14
INTRODUCTION
yearly. From train and road one sees the severe
quadrangular structures springing up on the hillsides
and in the quiet valleys as in days of old. Any
important ecclesiastical function in England or the
States attracts crowds of monks in their quaint
mediaeval costumes. After three long centuries they
have started from their graves, and are walking
amongst us once more.
It is true that the fact is not wholly realised outside
their own sphere, for the monks have fallen under
the law of evolution. The Benedictine does not now
bury himself with dusty tomes far from the cities of
men; he is found daily in the British Museum and
nightly in comfortable hotels about Russell Square.
The Grey Friar, erstwhile (and at home even now)
bareheaded and barefooted, flits about the suburbs in
silk hat and patent leather boots, and with silver
headed cane. The Jesuit is again found everywhere,
but in the garb of an English gentleman. Still, what
ever be their inconsistency, they come amongst us with
the old profession, the archaic customs and costumes,
of their long-buried brethren.
Their reappearance has provoked several contro
versies of some interest. When the monks last
vanished from the stage in England they left behind
them a dishonourable record which their enemies were
not slow to publish. Are modern monasteries and
convents the same whited sepulchres as their pre
decessors, on whom the scourge of the Reformation
fell so heavily? A strong suspicion is raised against
them by their former history; the suspicion is con
firmed by a number of “ escaped ” monks and nuns
who have traversed the land proclaiming that such
�INTRODUCTION
15
is the case, and it is not allayed by the impenetrable
secrecy of modern monastic life.
One of the least satisfactory features of the con
troversy that has arisen is that the disputants on both
sides are, as a rule, entirely ignorant of the true
condition of monasteries. The Catholic layman, to
whom the task of defending them is usually com
mitted, generally knows little more of the interior and
regime of English monasteries than he does of those
of Thibet. The monks preserve the most jealous
secrecy about their inner lives; their constitutions
strictly forbid them to talk of domestic matters to
outsiders, and their secular servants are enjoined a
like secrecy with regard to the little that falls under
their observation. Roman Catholics who live under the
very shadow of monasteries for many years are usually
found, in spite of a most ardent curiosity, to be com
pletely ignorant of the ways of conventual life. The
Protestant is, of course, not more enlightened. And it
must be stated that the pictures offered to the public
by impartial and liberal writers are not wholly trust
worthy. Sir Walter Besant once described to me a
visit of his to a Benedictine monastery for the purpose
of giving colour to his “ Westminster.” The life was '
very edifying ; the fathers had, of course, been “ sitting
for their portrait.” I remember an occasion when
Dr. Mivart spent twenty-four hours at our Franciscan
monastery for the purpose of describing our life in one
of the magazines. We were duly warned of his coming,
and the portrait he drew of us was admirable.
In such circumstances there is, perhaps, occasion for
an ex-monk to contribute his personal experiences.
The writer, after spending twelve years in various
�16
INTRODUCTION
monasteries of the Franciscan Order, found himself
compelled in the early part of 1896 to secede from
the Roman Catholic priesthood. During those years
he acquired a large experience of Catholic educational,
polemical, and administrative methods, and of the
monastic life, and it may not be inopportune to set
it forth in simple narrative.
The religious Order to which I belonged is a revival
of the once famous Province of Grey Friars, the
English section of the Order of St. Francis. At the
beginning of the thirteenth century, immediately after
the foundation of the Order, Agnellus of Pisa success
fully introduced it into England. Even after the
Reformation a few friars lived in the country in disguise
until the nineteenth century. Then occurred the
remarkable change in the fortunes of the Church of
Rome. The very causes which were undermining the
dominion of the Papacy in Italy, Spain, and France—
the growth of a sceptical and critical spirit, and the
broadening of the older feeling for dogma—reopened
England and Germany, and opened the United States,
to the Roman missionaries. The Belgian and French
friars quickly planted colonies in England, and the
German and Italian provinces (each national branch
of the Order is called “ a province ”) founded the
Order of St. Francis in the United States. The dis
persion of the Irish Catholics through the Englishspeaking world coincided in quite a dramatic fashion
with the new opportunity, and before the end of the
nineteenth century the Franciscans had become fairly
numerous.
Other monastic orders and religious congregations
advanced with the same rapidity. The Jesuit Society
�INTRODUCTION
17
has enjoyed its customary prosperity : the Benedictine,
Dominican, Carmelite, and Carthusian Orders are also
well represented, together with the minor congrega
tions—Passionists, Marists, Redemptorists, Oblates,
Servites, &c., and the infinite variety of orders and
congregations of women. In the following pages I
shall give such items of interest concerning them (and
the Church of Rome at large) as may have fallen under
my experience. As the narrative follows, for the sake
of convenience, the course of the writer’s own life,
it is necessary to commence with the means of recruit
ing the religious orders and the clergy in general.
�CHAPTER II
VOCATION
In an earlier age the “ vocation ” to a monastic life
was understood to have an element of miracle, and
there are psychologists of our time who affect at least
to find a fascinating problem in the religious “ con
version.” It may be said at once that the overwhelm
ing majority of calls to the monastic life have not the
least interest in either respect. The romantic con
versions of the days of faith are rare events in our
time. Monasteries and nunneries are no longer the
refuges of converted sinners, of outworn debauchees,
of maimed knights-errant, or of betrayed women.
One does not need the pen of a Huysman to describe
the soul en route to the higher life of the religious
world. The classes from which monasticism draws jts
adherents to-day are much less romantic, and much
less creditable, it must be confessed.
Nine-tenths of the religious and clerical vocations
of the present day are conceived at the early age of
fourteen or fifteen. As a general rule the boy is fired
with the desire of the priesthood or the monastery pre
cisely as he is fired with the longing for a military
career. His young imagination is impressed with the
dignity and the importance of the priest’s position,
his liturgical finery, his easy circumstances, his unJ8
�VOCATION
19
usually wide circle of friends and admirers. The
inconveniences of the office, very few of which he
really knows, are no more formidable to him than the
stern discipline and the balls and bayonets are to the
martial dreamer; the one great thorn of the priest’s
crown—celibacy—he is utterly incapable of appreciat
ing. So he declares his wish to his parents, and they
take every precaution to prevent the lapse of his
inclination. In due time, before .the breath of the
world can sully the purity of his mind—that is to say,
before he can know what he is about to sacrifice—he
is introduced into the seminary or monastery, where
every means is employed to foster and strengthen his
inclination until he shall have bound himself for life
by an irrevocable vow.
That is the ordinary growth of a vocation to the
clerical state to-day. There are exceptions, but men
of maturer age rarely seek admission into the cloister
now. Occasionally a “ convert ” to Rome in the first
rush of zeal plunges headlong into ascetical excesses.
Sometimes a man of more advanced years will enter a
monastery in order to attain the priesthood more
easily; monastic superiors are not unwilling, especially
if a generous alms is given to a monastery, to press
a timid aspirant through the episcopal examinations
(which are less formidable to monks), and then allow
him, with a dispensation from Rome, to pass into the
ranks of the secular clergy. There are cases, it is
true, when a man becomes seriously enamoured of the
monastic ideal, and seeks admission into the cloister;
rarely, however, does his zeal survive the first year
of practical experience.
Apart from such exceptional cases, monasteries and
�20
VOCATION
seminaries receive their yearly reinforcements from
boys of from fourteen to fifteen years. Nothing could
be more distant from the Roman Catholic practice
than the Anglican custom of choosing the Church at
an age of deliberation, during or after the university
career. The Catholic priesthood would be hopelessly
impoverished if that course were adopted. The earliest
boyish wish is jealously consecrated, for Catholic
parents are only too eager to contribute a member to
the ranks of the clergy, and ecclesiastical authorities
are only too deficient in agreeable applications for the
dignity. The result is that, instead of a boy being
afforded opportunities of learning what life really is
before he makes a solemn sacrifice of its fairest gifts,
he is carefully preserved from contact with it through
fear of endangering his vocation. Too often, indeed,
he is unduly influenced by the eagerness of his rela
tives, he enters a seminary or a convent for their
gratification or glorification, and, if he has not the
courage to return, to the disappointment and mortifica
tion of his friends, he bears for the rest of his life a
broken or a depraved heart under his vestments of silk
and gold. For it must be remembered that before he
reaches what is usually considered to be the age of
deliberation he is chained for life to his oar, as will
appear in the next chapter.
There was no trace of undue family influence in
my own case, but as my vocation was typical in its
banality, a few words on it will illustrate the theme.
My boyhood and early youth were spent under the
shadow of a beautiful Franciscan church at Man
chester. I have a distinct recollection that, in spite
of my eagerness to serve in the sanctuary, my mind
�VOCATION
21
was closed against the idea of joining the fraternity.
The friars frequently suggested it in playful mood,
but I always repulsed their advances. At length a
lay brother 1 with whom I spent long hours in the
sacristy exerted himself to inspire me with a desire
to enter their Order. After many conversations I
yielded to his influence. Twice circumstances inter
vened to prevent me from joining, and I acquiesced in
them as easily as I had done in my “ vocation.” At
length a third attempt was made to arrange my admis
sion, and I rather listlessly gave my name as a pupil
and aspirant to the monastic life. I had been con
scious throughout of merely yielding to circumstances,
to the advice and exhortations of my elders. There
was no definite craving for the life on my part, cer
tainly no “ voice speaking within me ” to which I felt
it a duty to submit. I do not, of course, mean to say
that my subsequent profession was in any way a matter
of constraint. Once within the walls of the monastery,
my mind was seriously and deliberately formed, in so
far as we may regard the reflections of a boy of fifteen
as serious. I am merely describing the manner in
which a religious “ vocation ” is engendered. About
the same time a Jesuit, the late F. Anderdon, S.J.,
made advances to me from another direction; and a
third proposal was made to send me to the diocesan
seminary to study for the secular clergy. There seem
1 The inmates of a monastery are divided into two sharply
distinct categories, clerics (priests and clerical students) and lay
brothers. The latter are usually men of little or no education,
who discharge the menial offices of the community. They are
called lay brothers in contradistinction to the students or cleric
brothers, who, however, familiarly go by their Latin name,
fratres.
�22
VOCATION
to have been no premonitory symptoms in my youthful
conduct of the scandal of my later years.
The
vocations ” of most of my fellow-students,
and of my students in later years, had a similar origin.
They had either lived in the vicinity of a Franciscan
convent, or their parish had been visited by Franciscan
missionaries. Already troubled with a vague desire
for a sacerdotal career, the picturesque brown robe, the
eventful life, and the commanding influence of the
missionary had completed their vision. They felt a
“ vocation ” to the Order of St. Francis ; their parents,
if they were at all unwilling, were too religious to
resist; the missionary was informed (after an unsuc
cessful struggle on the part of the parish priest to get
the boy for the diocesan seminary), and the boy of
thirteen or fourteen was admitted to the monastic
college.
Other religious orders are recruited, as a rule, in the
same way. The more important bodies—the Jesuits,
Benedictines, and Dominicans—have more reliable
sources of supply in their large public schools at Stonyhurst, Douai, and Downside. In those institutions the
thoughts of the more promising pupils can easily be
directed into the higher channels of religious aspiration
by the zealous monks, without any undue influence
whatever. But the minor congregations are sorely
pressed for recruits; many of them, indeed, were glad
to accept the very small fish that ran through even
the net of the Franciscans. Ireland furnishes most of
the recruits to the English orders and clergy.
Missionaries are the principal recruiting sergeants.
Besides holding his “ revival exercises ” for the good
of souls, the missionary has the task of procuring
�VOCATION
23
funds and novices for his monastery; and in propor
tion to his success in this will be his superior’s thought
fulness in appointing him to the more comfortable
missions. For the modern missionary is not so insens
ible to the charms of hospitality as his mediaeval
forerunner was.
The ranks of the secular clergy are recruited in the
same way. Large numbers of boys, usually of the
middle and poorer classes, are drafted annually into
the preparatory seminaries, to be preserved jealously
in their vocation if they have one, or inspired with
one if they have not. Parents and parish priests are
continually on the watch for symptoms of the divine
call, and in the case of clever, quiet boys the desire
is tactfully created.
Finally, a word must be said here of the vocation
of nuns; more will be said of them in the following
chapter. It is true that the proportion of women
who take the veil in maturer years is much larger
than that of men. Whatever may be their ultimate
attitude, it must be admitted that there is a large
amount of earnestness and religious sincerity in the
vocations of women. Still the number of young girls
who are received into nunneries is lamentably high,
and the anxiety shown by nun-teachers to inspire
their pupils with a “ vocation ” is extremely deplor
able. They frequently request priests to secure
aspirants for their congregations, and many a priest
is tempted, out of desire to find favour at the con
vent (an important social distinction), to welcome
the first word that his girl-penitents breathe in the
confessional about a religious vocation. Many priests
develop quite a mania for sending their penitents to
�24
VOCATION
convents. For myself, in my hours of deepest faith
I never found courage to send a girl to a nunnery.
One girl, a penitent of mine, often solicited me about
her vocation. I am thankful to say that I restrained
her, and that no heart is, owing to my action, wearing
itself out to-day in the dreary institutions which we
know as nunneries. It is a fiction of the Catholic
novelist that most nuns are happy in the life they have
chosen.
A conspicuous advantage of this system (from the
ecclesiastical point of view) is that it affords time for
a more extensive and systematic training. If other
Christian sects prefer the more honourable course of
not extending any ecclesiastical sanction whatever to
aspirants until they arrive at a deliberative age, they
must and do suffer in consequence in the training
of their ministry. The divinity lectures which the
Anglicans follow are but a feeble substitute for the
specialised education which their grave responsibility
as religious teachers obviously demands; and in a
large proportion of cases the theological training of
Anglican curates begins and ends with such lectures.
In later years, when contact with earnest readers
impresses them with a due sense of their position, they
are not infrequently heard to desiderate the systematic
training of their Romanist rivals. No doubt in point
of general culture they are much superior to the
average priest; one can often recognise the priest who
has entered the sanctuary in a maturer age, after seces
sion from Anglicanism, by that impalpable culture
which is the characteristic gift of the university.
How it happens that the Catholic educational system
produces such inferior results will appear subsequently ;
*
�VOCATION
25
in theory it is admirably constructed for the attain
ment of the ecclesiastical aim. Instead of merely
adding to an ordinary liberal education a few lectures
on current theological controversies, it takes the boy
of thirteen or fourteen and arranges his whole curri
culum up to the age of twenty-four with a direct
relation to his sacerdotal ministry. The course of
training thus extends over a period of ten or eleven
years under direct ecclesiastical control. The boy is
handed over by his parents and transferred to the
seminary, or to a preparatory college in connection
with it, where his education is at once undertaken
by clerics. All the larger dioceses have their own
seminaries, and each monastic body has its colleges.
The scheme of education is divided broadly, accord
ing to universal ecclesiastical usage, into three sections.
The preliminary training consists of the usual course
of classics and mathematics; the classics being more
than usually expurgated, and the whole training gener
ously provided with spiritual and ascetical exercises.
This stage extends over a period of five or six years on
the average. To the “ humanities ” succeeds a course
of scholastic philosophy, which usually occupies two
years, and which now usually includes a few carefully
expurgated and commentated lessons on physical
science. Finally the student is treated to a threeyears’ course of theology, passes a severe examination,
and is admitted to ordination. The various stages
will be described more in detail as the. writer passed
through them.
Such is the scheme of education of the Catholic
priesthood all the world over, with but few local
variations. The mendicant orders and the minor
�26
VOCATION
congregations generally corrupt and mutilate it: the
larger seminaries and the more important orders
expand it. The Jesuits have the longest and fullest
curriculum, and their educational scheme has the
highest reputation. In reality the curriculum of the
Jesuit student is protracted mainly because he has
to spend long periods in teaching, during which his
own studies are materially impeded. Although the
Jesuits have the finest Catholic schools to draw pupils
from, and the longest curriculum of clerical training,
it will hardly be contended that, as a body, they
show any marked superiority over their less-dreaded
colleagues, either in literature or pulpit oratory.
The Benedictines and Dominicans also conduct their
preliminary studies in a creditable manner in their
well-known colleges, but most of the other religious
bodies are extremely negligent in that stage of clerical
education. Each religious order is responsible for the
training of its own candidates. The religious orders
—the regular or monastic clergy as opposed to the
secular—do not fall directly under the jurisdiction
of the bishop of the diocese. Monks are irregular
auxiliaries of the ecclesiastical army, and are supposed
to emerge occasionally from their mountain fastnesses
to assist in the holy warfare. The monasteries of the
same order in each land are grouped into a province,
and the central authority, the provincial, exercises a
quasi-episcopal jurisdiction over them. All the pro
vinces are united under a common general at Rome;
and there is a special congregation of cardinals at
Rome to regulate the conflicts (not infrequent) of
bishops and the monastic clergy. Hence monks have
but few points of contact with episcopal authority,
�VOCATION
27
and indeed they are usually regarded with jealous
suspicion by the bishop and the secular clergy. Car
dinal Manning was known to cherish a profound anti
pathy to all religious orders except the Franciscan,
and to the Franciscans he said, with characteristic
candour: “I like you—where you are (in East
London).” Indeed, nearly throughout England the
monastic orders have been compelled to undertake
parochial duties like the ordinary clergy.
However, the comparative independence of the
monastic orders gives them an opportunity of modify
ing the scheme of education according to the pressure
of circumstances, and the general result is extremely
unsatisfactory. The low ideal of sacerdotal education
which they usually cherish is largely explained by the
strong foreign element pervading, if not dominating,
them. They have been founded, at no very remote
date, by foreigners (by Belgians in England, and by
Germans and Italians in the States), and are still
frequently reinforced from the Continent. And it
will be conceded at once that the continental priest
(or even the Irish priest) does not attach a very grave
importance to the necessity of culture. A priest has
definite functions assigned him by the Church, and
for their due fulfilment he needs a moderate acquaint
ance with liturgy, casuistry, and dogma; beyond these
all is a matter of taste. Relying, in Catholic countries,
upon the dogmatic idea, and the instinctive reverence
which his parishioners have for the priesthood, he does
not concern himself about any further means of con
ciliating and impressing them. The consequence is
that a low standard of education is accepted, and those
who have imported it into English-speaking countries
�28
VOCATION
have not fully appreciated their new environment—
have not realised that here a clergyman is expected to
be a gentleman of culture and refinement. The effect
is most clearly seen in a wanton neglect of classics.
The Franciscan regime, at the time I made its
acquaintance, may serve as an instance.
The preparatory college of the Grey Friars (for they
retain the name in spite of the fact that they now
wear the brown robe of their Belgian cousins) was, at
that time, part of their large monastery at Manchester.
Seraphic Colleges, as the Franciscan colleges are
called (because St. Francis is currently named the
“ Seraphic ” Saint), are a recent innovation on their
scheme of studies, on account of the falling-off of
vocations amongst more advanced students. The
college was not a grave burden on the time and
resources of the friars at that period. One of their
number, an estimable and energetic priest, whose only
defect was his weakness in classics, was appointed to
conduct the classical studies and generally supervise
and instruct the few aspirants to the order who pre
sented themselves. We numbered eight that year, and
it may be safely doubted whether there was an idler
and more mischievous set of collegiates in the United
Kingdom. Our worthy professor knew little more
of boys than he did of girls, and he had numerous
engagements to fulfil in addition to his professorial
duties. The rector of the college, a delightfully obtuse
old Belgian friar, would have discharged his function
equally well if he had lived on Mars.
In spite, however, of the discouraging circumstances
we contrived to attain our object very rapidly. We
were all anxious to begin our monastic career in robe
�VOCATION
29
and tonsure as soon as possible, and all that the order
required as a preliminary condition was a moderate
acquaintance with Latin—the language of the Liturgy.
Our professor, indeed, had a higher but imperfectly
grasped ideal. He added French and Greek to our
programme. Physics and mathematics were unthought-of luxuries, and our English was left at its
natural level, which was, in most cases, a rich and
substantial Irish brogue; but at one time our pro
fessor began to give us a course of Hebrew, learning
the day’s lesson himself on the previous evening.
Still, taking advantage of the fact that I studied at
my own home, I was enabled to present a list of
conquests at the end of the year which at once secured
my admission to the monastic garb. The list will
serve to illustrate further our educational proceedings :
it comprised, (1) French grammar and a little French
literature (such as Fenelon’s Telemaque); (2) Greek
grammar, St. John’s Gospel, one book of Xenophon,
and a few pages of the Iliad—crammed for the
purpose of disconcerting the monastic examiner; (3)
Latin grammar, several lives from Nepos, two books
of Caesar, six orations of Cicero, the Catilina of Sallust,
the Germania of Tacitus, the /lrs Poetica of Horace,
two books of Livy, two books of the ^Eneid, and
fragments of Ovid, Terence, and Curtius. As I
remained at the college only from June 1884 until
the following May, it will be seen how much private
care and exertion were required in later years to correct
the crudity of such an education.
The kindliness of my first professor and of most of
my later teachers will ever be remembered by me.
I was treated always as the favourite pupil. Yet this
�30
VOCATION
description of the only training which the Roman
Church gave me, apart from a theological equipment
which is now useless, will suffice to answer the ridicu
lous and frequent statement that I owe my knowledge
of languages, science, and history to that Church.
Such as that knowledge is, it represents thirty years
of intense personal labour. Even of Latin only an
elementary knowledge is given by the Church. Very
few monks could read Vergil at sight.
Those were not the worst days of our Seraphic
College. Our professor was an earnest and hard
working priest, though an indifferent scholar, an un
skilful teacher, and burdened with many tasks. But
the time came when even less discretion was exercised;
and not only were studies neglected, but the youthful
aspirants to the monastic life, living in a monastery,
had more licence than they would have had in any
college in England. The system is somewhat better
to-day. I was myself entrusted with the task of recon
structing it ten years later. But I pass on to my first
acquaintance with the inner working of monastic life.
�CHAPTER III
NOVITIATE
The novitiate is an episode in the training of the
monastic, not of the secular, clergy : it is a period of
probation imposed upon all aspirants to the monastic
life. Religious of every order and congregation,1 both
men and women, must spend at least one year as
“ novices ” before they are permitted to bind them
selves by the solemnity of the vows. During that
period they experience the full severity and asceticism
of the life to which they aspire, and they are minutely
observed and tested by their superiors. It is a wise
provision: the least that can be done to palliate the
gravity of taking such an irrevocable step. Since no
formal study is permitted during its course, it causes
an interruption of the “ humanities ” of the monastic
clerics.
In the original intention of the founders of the
monastic orders there was no distinction between cleric
and lay members. Francis of Assisi, who was not a
priest himself, simply drew up a rule of life, a modified
1 A congregation is a monastic institution of less importance and
antiquity than an order. The members of both are commonly
called “religious,” in the substantive sense. Monastic priests are
further known as “regular” clergy (because they live under a
“rule”), while the scattered, ordinary priests, who live “in the
world” (saeciilum), are known as the “secular” clergy.
31
�32
NOVITIATE
version of his own extraordinary life, and allowed his
followers, after due probation, to bind themselves by
vow to its fulfilment. In it he naively proscribes
study: “ Let those who know not letters not seek to
learn them.” However, although a divine inspiration
is claimed for him in his first composition of the rule,
he soon recognised the necessity of a different treat
ment of his clerical brethren; Antony of Padua was
appointed by him “ to teach theology to the brethren.”
He had not been many years in his grave—his pre
mature death was not unassisted by his grief at the
growing corruption of his order (the saintly Antony
of Padua having already been publicly flogged in the
convent of Aracaeli at Rome for his dogged resistance
to the corruptors)—when the intellectual fever of the
thirteenth century completely mastered the fraternity,
and friars were to be found in hundreds at all the great
universities, even in the professorial chairs at Oxford,
Paris, and Cologne. Gradually the lay-brothers became
the mere servants of the priests; and the studies of
the clerics were duly organised.
At that time and until the present century the
neophytes were men of a more advanced age. After
twelve months of trial, prayer, and reflection, they
were permitted to make their vows or “ profession,”
from which there was no dispensation. In recent
years, however, the practice of receiving aspirants at
an earlier age has developed so rapidly that one feels
apprehensive of a revival of the old Benedictine custom
of accepting children of tender years, whose parents
were resolved that they should be monks, for financial
or political reasons. Pius IX. made an important
change in this direction. “ Attenta raritate vocationum
�NOVITIATE
33
—seeing the fewness of vocations,” as he frankly
confessed, he decreed that there should be two sets of
vows. It would be too serious an outrage on human
nature to allow boys of sixteen to contract an utterly
irrevocable 1 obligation of so grave a character; at the
same time it w’as clearly imperative to secure boys at
that age if the religious orders were not to die of
inanition. So a compromise was effected. Boys should
be admitted to the monastic life at the age of fifteen
for their novitiate, and should make what are called
“ simple ” vows at the age of sixteen. From the
simple vows the Pope was prepared to grant a dis
pensation : and the General of the order could annul
them (on the part of the order) if the neophyte turned
out unsatisfactory. The “ solemn ” or indispensable
vows would be taken at nineteen, leaving three years
as a kind of secondary novitiate.
Thus the criticism of the enemies of monasticism
was thought to be averted, and at the same time
boys were practically secured at an early age; for
it will be readily imagined that few boys would care
to make an application to Rome for a dispensation
and return to disturb the peaceful content of their
families—having, moreover, had twelve months’ pro
bation besides two or three years in a monastic
college. In justice to the monks I must add that I
have never known a case in which difficulties have been
put in the way of one who desired a dispensation :
certainly the accusation of physical detention in
1 The Pope claims to have the power to dissolve solemn vows,
but in point of fact they are practically insoluble. There is only
one clear case on record where the power has been used ; needless
to say it was in favour of a member of a wealthy royal house,
which was threatened with extinction.
�34
NOVITIATE
monasteries or convents is without foundation in my
experience. If the student was promising, their advice
to him to reconsider his position would, no doubt, take
a very urgent and solemn character; if he persisted,
I feel sure they would conscientiously procure his
dispensation. However, in my personal experience I
have only known one instance; the youth had entered
under the influence of relatives and endured the strain
for two years, but he wisely revolted at length, sought
a dispensation, and took to the stage.
It is thus explained how the monastic career usually
commences at such an early age. A visitor to the
novitiate of any order (a privilege which is rarely
granted) cannot fail to notice the extreme youth of
most of those who are engaged in weighing the
tremendous problem of an irrevocable choice. They
have, as a rule, entered the preliminary college at the
age of thirteen, and have been called upon to come
to a decision, fraught with such momentous con
sequences, at the age of fifteen or sixteen.
The novitiate, as the convent is called in which the
novices are trained, is normally a distinct and secluded
monastery; but economy of space frequently compels
the monks merely to devote the wing of some existing
monastery to the purpose. In either case the regula
tions for its complete isolation are very severe. The
novices are not allowed to leave the monastery under
any pretext whatever, and they are permitted to
receive but few visitors, and to have little correspond
ence (which is carefully examined) with the outside
world. The comparison of monastic and secular life
is conspicuously one-sided.
For the novitiate of the Franciscan Order at that
�NOVITIATE
35
time a portion of their friary 1 at Killarney had been
set aside. The three enterprising Belgian friars who
invaded England forty or fifty years ago found them
selves presently compelled to carry their tent to the
more hospitable sister-isle. At Killarney their presence
led to scenes of enthusiasm that take one back to the
Middle Ages. The peasantry flew to their assistance,
and before long they erected the plain but substantial
building which catches the eye of the tourist on
issuing from the station. The friary enjoyed an
uninterrupted prosperity from the date of its founda
tion, with the usual consequence that its inner life
soon became much more notable for comfort than for
asceticism. However, one or two small scandals, the
advent of a hostile bishop, the impoverishment of the
country, and frequent visits from higher authorities,
brought about a curtailment of the friars’ amenities.
And when the place was chosen as convent of the
novitiate, the good friars put their house in order,
tightened their girdles, and resigned themselves to a
more or less regular discipline; for one of their
most sacred principles is that novices must not be
scandalised.
The first emotion which the place inspired in me
when I entered it at the end of May 1885 was one
of profound melancholy and discontent. It had a
large and well-cultivated garden, and before us daily
was the lovely and changeful panorama of the hills.
But the interior of the monastery, with its chill,
gloomy cloisters,, its solemn and silent inmates, gave
me a deep impression of solitude and isolation. When
1 A house of friars may with equal propriety be called a friary,
monastery, or convent.
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NOVITIATE
we sat down to supper at the bare wooden tables on
the evening of our arrival—my first community-meal
—widely separated from each other, eating in profound
silence, and with a most depressing gravity, I felt that
my monastic career would be a short one. A young
friend had entered their novitiate the previous year,
and had ignominiously taken flight two days after his
arrival; I found myself warmly sympathising with
him.
However, since we were not to receive the monastic
garb for a week or more, we were allowed a good deal
of liberty, and my depression gradually wore off. It
happened, too, that I was already acquainted with
three of the friars, and soon became attached to the
community. The first friar whom we had met, a
lay-brother, rather increased our trouble; he was
already far advanced in religious mania and ascetical
consumption, and did, in fact, die a year afterwards
in the local asylum. The second we met, also a laybrother, did not help to remove the unfavourable
impression. His jovial and effusive disposition only
accentuated his curious deformity of structure; his
hands and bare toes diverged conspicuously from the
central axis, one shoulder was much higher than its
fellow, his nose was a pronounced specimen of the
Socratic type, and a touch of rheumatism imparted a
shuffling gait to the entire composition. Happily we
found that the teratological department of the convent
ended with these two.
Our novice-master, or “ Instructor,” at that time
was an excellent and much esteemed friar of six-andtwenty years; we were soon convinced of his kindness,
consideration, and religious sincerity, and accepted
�NOVITIATE
37
willingly the intimate relations with him in which our
position placed us. The superior of the monastery
likewise had no difficulty in securing our esteem. He
was a kindly, generous, and upright man, but without
a touch of asceticism. Tall and very stout, with dark
twinkling eyes and full features, he was a real “ Friar
of Orders Grey ” of the good old times. He was a
Belgian, but he had attained wide popularity in Kerry
by acquiring a good Flemish parody of an Irish brogue,
and constructing a genealogical tree in which some
safely remote ancestor was shown to be Irish. His
ideal of life was not heroic, but he acted up to it con
scientiously; he was genuinely pious in church,
fulminatory in pulpit and confessional, kind and fami
liar with the poor and sick, generous and a moderate
disciplinarian in his convent.
A few lay-brothers and four other priests made up
the rest of the community. There was a cultured and
refined young friar, who, after a few years of perverse
misunderstanding and petty persecution from his
brethren, took to drink, and was happily rescued from
his position by the hand of death. A second, a tall,
eccentric friar, ultimately became a stumbling-block
to his fraternity and was expelled for drunkenness;
another, a little, stout Lancashireman, of earnest and
blameless life, and of a deeply humane and affectionate
disposition, fell a victim a year later to typhus. Lastly,
there was a little, round, rubicund Irishman of enthu
siastic, unreasoning piety; kind, ascetical, hard-work
ing, studious (he studied everything except religious
evidences), he was a greatly respected figure in Irish
missionary circles. The one rule he confided to young
missionaries was : “ Throw the fire of hell at them ”;
C
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NOVITIATE
and with his own stentorian voice (though he told you
he was consumptive, and that one lung had already
decayed) he threw it with prodigious effect amongst
the peasantry.
A few days afterwards we were duly clotlied with
the monastic garb. The “ clothing ” has developed
into an impressive religious ceremony, and as there
were six of us (of whom four were under the age of
sixteen) to be clothed on this occasion, and it was the
inauguration of a new novitiate, the event was cele
brated with much solemnity. The six tunics (“ habits,”
as they are called) of rough brown frieze, with their
knotted cords, were blessed and sprinkled with holy
water during the mass, and we were solemnly enrobed
with the consecrated garments amidst much prayer and
psalm-singing, and the audible groans of the peasantry.
Our heads had been shaven in advance, leaving a
bald uncomfortable patch on the vertex about the
size of a cheese plate, a symbol, it is said, of the crown
of thorns of Christ’s passion. The brown tunic is
also symbolical of the passion, for it is made in the
form of a cross, the body being of the same width
from neck to foot, and the wide sleeves branching
out at right angles. However, the symbolism is an
outgrowth of more modern piety. Francis of Assisi
made no fantastic choice of a costume. Casting aside
his rich garments at his conversion, he merely adopted
the costume of the Italian beggar of his time—a rough
tunic and hood, girded with a knotted cord, and
sandals to his feet. The habit which excites so much
comment on the modern friar is thus merely an Italian
beggar’s costume of the thirteenth century; substan
tially, at least, for it too has fallen under the law of
�NOVITIATE
39
evolution. In fact, the point of vital importance on
which the two great branches of the Franciscan Order 1
diverge is the sartorial question, What was the original
form of the habit of St. Francis? The Capuchins hold
that his hood (or “ capuce ”) was long and pointed,
and that he had a beard; their rivals—the Observantes,
Recollecti, and Reformati—dissent, and their age-long
and unfraternal strife on the subject became as fierce
and alarming as the historical controversy of the
Dominicans and Jesuits of the sixteenth century on the
nature of grace. The Roman authorities had to inter
vene and stop the flow of literature and untheological
language by declaring all further publications on the
subject to be on the Index Expurgatorius.
The costume is still uncomfortable and insanitary.
In summer the heavy robe and the rough woollen
underclothing are intolerable; in winter the looseness
and v/idth of the tunic promote ventilation to an un
desirable extent; and sandals, with all respect to Mr.
Edward Carpenter, are neither healthy nor delectable.
The rule prescribes that the costume consist of “ two
tunics, a hood, a girdle, and drawers,” but in England
and America the inner tunic is interpreted to mean
an ordinary woollen shirt; on the Continent it is a
second tight-fitting tunic of the same brown material.
A mantle of the same colour is usually worn out of
doors, and is considered part of the costume during
the winter.
The name of the novice is changed when he enters
the monastery, as a sign that he is henceforth dead
to the world. The surname is entirely dropped, and
1 Since united under a common General.
C 2
Second edition.
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NOVITIATE
the Christian name is changed into that of some saint
of the order, who is adopted as patron; thus my own
name was changed into Antony. We were now, there
fore, fully fledged friars—of the mature age of fifteen
—and we entered at once upon the dull routine of the
monastic life. The character of the life will be best
understood by a detailed description of an ordinary
monastic day.
At a quarter to five every morning one of the friars
was awakened by his alarm-clock, and proceeded at
once to rouse the community. We novices, having
the eye of our instructor constantly upon us, shot out
of our rooms with proper despatch, but in most cases
the procedure was not so simple. There were friars
of all stages of somnolency. Some, of nervous tem
perament, heard the alarm themselves, and perhaps
rushed upstairs for a cold bath (a luxury admitted in
the degenerate friaries of England and the States);
the majority were aroused by a vigorous tap of the
wooden hammer at their door, accompanied by the
pious salutation, “ Laudetur Jesus Christus,” to which
they sleepily responded “ Amen ” (or made some other
pious or facetious observation); some slept so pro
foundly that the knocker-up had to enter their rooms
and shake them violently every morning. On one
occasion a young friar was carried out on his mattress
in profound sleep by his fellow-students and laid in
the middle of the busy corridor. When the round
was completed (all the bedrooms opening into a wide
central corridor, in accordance with the ever-watchful
constitutions), the large bell sent a deafening clangour
through the dormitories, and we quickly prepared
for chapel.
�NOVITIATE
41
A quarter of an hour was allowed for the purpose,
but, as our toilet was extremely simple, most of the
friars who had got beyond the stage of “ primitive
innocence ” continued their slumbers for five or ten
minutes. We were ordered by the constitutions to
retain all our underclothing during the night, so there
was nothing to do but throw on the rough brown robe
and gird it with the knotted cord. Then, towel in
hand, we raced to our common lavatory, for our simple
cells of twelve feet square were not encumbered with
washstands and toilet tables. In the lavatory a long
narrow zinc trough, with a few metal basins and a
row of taps overhead, was provided for our ablutions.
I afterwards discovered that, crude as it was, this
arrangement was rather luxurious for a friary.
At the end of the quarter the bell rang out its
second warning, and all were supposed to be kneeling
in their stalls in the choir by that time. The supe
rior’s eye wandered over the room to see if all were
present, and any unfortunate sleeper was at once sum
moned, and would have to do public penance for his
fault at dinner. At five the religious exercises began,
and they continued, with half-an-hour’s interval, until
eight o’clock.
The ancient monastic custom of rising at midnight
for the purpose of chanting the “ Office ” finds little
favour with modern monks; and, even from a religious
point of view, they are wise. I was enabled to make
observations on the custom some years later on the
Continent, and I found little ground for that enthu
siasm which Roman Catholic writers (usually those
who have never tried it) frequently express. A few
devotees enter into the service with their usual fer
�42
NOVITIATE
vour; but the vast majority, to whom a religious con
centration of thought during an hour’s service is an
impossibility, even in their most lucid hours, are
fatally oppressed with sleep and weariness. In
summer they fall asleep in their stalls; in winter the
night s repose is lost, and many constitutions are
ruined, by the hour or hour and a half spent in the
icy-cold chapel at midnight. There is very slender
ground for romantic admiration.
1 he Office ” which is thus chanted in choir is a
collection of Latin psalms, hymns, and readings from
Scripture, which every priest is bound to recite every
day. The monks chant it, or “ psalmody ” it, as they
say, in a monotone in their chapel at various hours
of the day;
Matins and Lauds, ’ ’ the principal
section, form the opening ceremony in the morning.
It lasts about an hour, and is followed by a half-hour
of silent meditation—a sad pitfall for the somnolent
at that early hour. During meditation the friars turn
away from each other and kneel in their stalls, with
their faces buried in their hands and their arms rest
ing on the seat. A facetious London priest, who
had once endeavoured to pass through the novitiate of
a monastery, used to tell me that he was discharged
because he snored so loudly during meditation as to
disturb the slumbers of the elder brethren. Mass
followed, and then breakfast was taken in profound
silence. It was a simple meal, consisting only of
coffee (taken in bowls, and without sugar—except on
fast-days) and bread and butter; during the meal a
few pages of the Imitation of Christ were read
aloud. After breakfast a further section of the Office
was chanted, and we were dismissed to arrange our
�NOVITIATE
43
rooms; for every friar, even the highest superior, is
his own chambermaid.
Afterwards we were allowed a quarter of an hour
in the garden in strict silence, and then our semi
religious studies and classes commenced. During the
novitiate profane study is prohibited (the perusal of
a Greek grammar one day brought on me as severe
a reprimand as if it had been a French novel), and
the time is occupied with religious exercises, of which
we had seven or eight hours daily, and the study of
our rule and constitutions, of ritual, and of ascetica!
literature. At half-past eleven another section of the
Office was chanted, at twelve there was a second halfhour of silent contemplation (an injudicious custom—
St. Teresa rightly maintained that one cannot medi
tate fasting), and at 12.30 the welcome dinner bell
was heard. Growling, rather than reciting, a De
Profundis for departed benefactors, we walked in
silent procession to the refectory, where, standing face
to face in two long rows down the room, we chanted
a long and curiously intonated grace.
Dinner was taken in strict silence. Two friars read
aloud, in Latin and English alternately, from Scripture
or some ascetical work, and the superior gave the
necessary signals with a small bell that hung before
him. There were no table-cloths, as monks are for
bidden the use of linen, but our pine tables were as
smooth as marble and scrupulously clean. The friars
only sit on one side of the table, on benches fixed into
the wall, so that the long narrow tables run round
the sides of the room. The dinner itself was frugal
but substantial enough; it usually consisted of soup,
two courses of meat and two vegetables, and fruit,
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NOVITIATE
with a pint of beer to each friar. A pint is the con
stitutional potion, but we juniors were, after grave
deliberation, allowed to have a smaller mug as a con
cession to English sobriety. Many of us had hardly
reached the age of strong drink, but we were forced
to take our two mugs daily, at dinner and supper,
with the rest. In Belgian and German friaries there
is an amusing intrigue constantly going on for securing
the larger mugs, and there even the youngest novices
must drink at least three pints of beer a day.
After dinner tongues were loosened at last, and
recreation permitted until 2.30. There is a curious
custom for two of the friars (a priest and a student) to
wash the dishes after dinner. A large tank of hot
water containing the dishes is suitably mounted in
the kitchen, and the two friars, armed with cloths tied
to the end of sticks, hurry through their task, chanting
meanwhile alternate verses of the Miserere in Latin,
freely interspersed with comments on the temperature
of the water. From this custom, too, the element of
spiritual romance has departed. Every Friday evening,
when the offices of the ensuing week are distributed
at supper, and announced in Latin by the reader, it is
still prescribed that “ Pater A----- et Frater B----lavabunt scutellas,” but the ceremony has not a particle
of the spiritual force it had in the days when the papal
legates, bringing the cardinal’s hat to the great St.
Bonaventure, found him so employed, and were told to
hang the hat on the bushes until he had finished.
Recreation is, in all monasteries, an incurably dull
affair. It generally consists of a walk round the
garden, while the friars indulge in light banter or
ponderous discussions of theology. We were allowed
�NOVITIATE
45
cricket at the beginning of our monastic career, but
it was presently vetoed by a foreign authority on the
ground that it was contrary to religious modesty.
Hand-ball was played by the students, and at one
place an ineffectual attempt was made to introduce
tennis. The lay-brothers and the priests played
dominoes or skittles; but the three castes—priests,
students, and lay-brothers—are forbidden to inter
mingle, or even to speak to each other without neces
sity. Cards are strictly forbidden in the monastic con
stitutions ; bagatelle was popular, and billiards not
unknown; and I have known the priests of a London
monastery to occupy their recreation with marbles for
many months. It was strangely impressive to hear
such problems as Predestination or Neo-Malthusianism
discussed over a game of marbles.
At 2.30 the bell summoned us to choir for Vespers,
the last section of the Office, and shortly afterwards
tea was announced. Nothing was eaten, but each
friar received a large bowl of tea; many of the older
friars took a second pint of beer instead, for tea was
a comparatively recent innovation. The Belgian friars
and the early English missionaries always take beer.
Silence was not enforced during the quarter of an hour
which is allowed for tea, but at its termination the
strictest silence was supposed to be observed until
recreation on the following day. In point of fact,
however, the law of monastic silence is only observed
with any degree of fidelity by novices and students,
and by these only so long as the superior is within
earshot. “ Charity,” they would plead in justifica
tion, “ is the greatest of all commandments.”
After an hour of prayer and spiritual reading we
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NOVITIATE
continued our pious studies until 6.30, when a third
half-hour of silent contemplation had to be accom
plished. It was pitiful, sometimes, to see young
students endeavouring to keep their attention fixed
upon the abstract doctrines of Christianity for so long
a time—to see them nervously tightening their lips
against the assaults of the evil one. For our monastic
literature, never entertaining for a moment the idea
that such a performance was beyond the powers of
the average individual, taught us to see in spirit
myriads of ugly little demons, with pointed ears and
forked tails, sitting on our shoulders and on the arms
of our stalls, and filling our minds with irrelevant
thoughts. In fact, our worthy novice-master (and a
number of reputable authors) assured us that these
imps had been seen on more than one occasion by
particularly pious elder brethren; that on one dread
occasion, happily long ago, a full-sized demon had
entered the choir with a basket and orthodox trident,
discovered a young friar who was distracted in his
prayers, and promptly disappeared with him in his
basket. To all of which we were obliged to listen
with perfect gravity, if we set any value upon our
sojourn in the monastery.
A series of mental devices, or “ methods of medita
tion,” had been invented for the purpose of aiding
the mind to fix its gaze on the things of the spirit
without interruption. Unfortunately they were often
so complicated as to make confusion worse con
founded. The method which our instructor selected
for us was quite an elaborate treatise in itself. I
remember one of our novices confiding to me the
trouble it occasioned him. The method was, of course,
�NOVITIATE
47
merely an abstract form of thought to be filled in with
the subject one chose to meditate about. But my
comrade, a clever ex-solicitor, had by some incompre
hensible confusion actually mistaken it for the subject
of meditation, and complained that the bell usually
rang before he had got through the scheme, and that
he had no time left to consider the particular virtue
or vice he had wished to meditate upon. On the
whole, it will be readily understood that of the seven
hours of prayer which were imposed upon us at that
period six at least were a sheer waste of time.
At seven we were summoned to supper—a simple
meal of eggs or cold meat, potatoes, and beer. After
wards, on three evenings per week, we took the dis
cipline, or self-scourging. Each friar repaired to his
cell for the purpose and flogged himself (at his own
discretion) across the shoulders with a knotted cord,
whilst the superior, kneeling in the middle of the
corridor, recited the Miserere aloud. Knowing that
our instructor used to listen at our doors during the
performance, we frequently gave him an exaggerated
impression of our fervour by religiously flogging the
desk or any other resonant surface. However, our
instruments of torture were guaranteed to be perfectly
harmless, even in the hands of a fanatic. I remember
how we hated a bloodthirsty little Portuguese friar,
who told us, with a suggestion of imitation, stories
of the way they took discipline in Portugal. But
before the end of the novitiate we had learned the
true value of the edifying tales with which visitors
invariably entertained the novices.
The remainder of the evening was spent in private
devotions or spiritual reading, and at 9.30 we were
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NOVITIATE
obliged to retire. Straw mattresses and a few blankets
were our only bed-furniture; and one wooden chair, a
plain desk, with half-a-dozen necessary books, com
pleted the inventory of the cell. A small plaster
crucifix was the only decoration on the unwashed walls.
Our dormitory was cut off from the others by a special
partition which was locked every evening, for the
papal regulations for the isolation of novices were
very stringent. Our novice-master kept the key, and
even the superior of the monastery was not allowed
to enter our department except in the company of
one of the older friars.
That was the ordinary course of our lives through
out the year of the novitiate, and indeed it had few
variations. Feast-days were the principal events we
looked forward to; in fact, it would be safe to say
that few boys would persevere in their condition if
the feast-days were abolished. A score of festivals
were indicated in the constitutions on which the
superior was directed to allow conversation at
dinner, and to give wine to the brethren: “ half
a bottle to each ” was the generous allowance of
the constitutions. In ordinary monasteries festivals
are much more frequent, and conversation is granted
at dinner on the slightest pretext. In the novitiate,
where a stricter discipline prevailed, we had usually
two or three every month, and on the more important
feasts the midday dinner assumed enormous propor
tions. At Christmas the quantity of fowl and other
seasonable food which was sent in occupied our strenu
ous attention during a full week; in fact, all our
convents had the custom of celebrating the entire
octave of Christmas with full gastronomic honours.
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49
So many friends conceived the happy idea of sending
a gift to the “ poor friars ” that the larder was
swollen with vast quantities of Christmas fare. I had
never tasted beer or wine before I entered the
monastery, but a little calculation shows that I must
(in my sixteenth year) have consumed fifty gallons
of ale and a dozen bottles of good wine during that
first year of monastic life.
The greatest event of the year, however, was the
patronal feast of the superior of the monastery. He
was a warm favourite in Killarney, and there were
enough comestibles (and potables) sent in to store a
small ship, the two neighbouring nunneries especially,
and a host of friends, vying with each other in the
profusion and excellence of gifts to honour his festival.
Even when a feast-day fell upon a fast-day, the
restriction in solids was usually compensated by a
greater generosity in fluids; we young novices were
more than exhilarated on one or two occasions when
dinner had opened with a strong claret soup, had been
accompanied by the usual pint of beer and a glass of
sherry, and followed by two or three glasses of
excellent port—sometimes even champagne. Nor is
the restriction to fish felt very acutely in Killarney,
where the lakes yield magnificent salmon, and where,
by a most ingenious process of casuistic reasoning,
water-fowl are included under the heading of fish!
The monotony of the life was also relieved by the
occurrence of the fasts. Besides the ordinary fasts
of the Church, the friars observe several that are
peculiar to their rule of life, especially a long fast
from the first of November until Christmas. How
ever, there are now few who really fast—that is to
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NOVITIATE
say, content themselves with one full meal per day—
even in monasteries; abstinence from flesh meat is the
usual limit of monastic mortification. On the Con
tinent fasting, in the strict sense of the word, is
much more frequently practised in monasteries, but
it may be questioned if idleness is not too heavy a
price to pay for an observance which is discredited
by modern moralists of all schools. In England and
the States the monks, and clergy generally, more
wisely prefer industry to fasting, though it is regret
table that they do not modify their professions in
accordance. The Passionists are the only English con
gregation who cling to the practice with any fidelity,
and their statistics of premature mortality are a
sufficient commentary on the stupidity of the Italian
authorities who are responsible for it.1
Moreover, the fasting ” of modern times departs
not a little from the primitive model. I have seen
the “ one full meal ” which is allowed at midday
protracted until four o’clock; and a partial meal has
been introduced in the evening. Drink, of course,
does not break the fast, except strong soup, choco
late, and a few other thick fluids, a list of which is
duly drawn up by casuists. Any amount of beer or
wine may be taken. And since it is, or may be,
injurious to drink much without eating, a certain
quantity of bread is allowed with the morning coffee;
at night (or in the morning if preferred), eight or ten
ounces of solid food arc permitted. The Franciscans
. * Since this was written I have met an ex-member of the Passionist body, who laughingly assured me that my statement that
the Passionists were ascetic was “the only serious mistake in my
book.
Second edition.
J
�NOVITIATE
51
are much reproved by rival schools of theologians for
their laxity in this regard, and the strained interpreta
tion they put upon admitted principles. At one time a
caricature was brought out in Rome depicting a Fran
ciscan friar complacently attacking a huge flagon of
ale and a generous allowance of bread and cheese in
the middle of his fast. To the ale was attached the
sound theological aphorism, “ Potus non frangit
jejunium—drink does not break the fast ” ; the huge
chunk of bread was justified by the received principle,
“ Ne potus noceat—in order that the drink may do
no harm ” ; and the cheese was added in virtue of the
well-known saying, “ Parum pro nihilo reputatur—
a little counts as nothing.”
Since there was no parish attached to the monastery
at Killarney (which is the correct canonical status of
a monastery), a few words must be said of the life
of the priests. At that time it was a hopeless mystery
to me, and it is principally from later observation and
information that I am able to describe it. That it was
far from being an industrious life will be understood;
occasional visits to the sick poor and the rendeiing of
services to the secular clergy of the diocese con
stituted the whole of their work outside. In our own
church there was only one sermon per week, and there
were six friars to share the work. Hence the greater
portion of the day was at the personal disposal of
the priests; and, as manual labour was considered
beneath the sacerdotal dignity, and their crude educa
tion had given them, with few exceptions, little or
no taste for study, they were always eager for dis
tractions. They were frequently to be met rowing or
sailing on the lakes (always in their brown habits), or
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driving on side-cars through the loveliest parts of
Kerry; and in return the parish priests whom they
visited or assisted paid frequent visits to the friary
and helped the monks to fill up an idle hour with a
cigar and a glass of whisky. A few years later,
indeed, a large-minded superior of this friary con
verted a conservatory that stood in the centre of the
garden into a cosy smoking-room.
In point of fact both whisky and tobacco were
forbidden in our constitutions, but I have never yet
seen a constitution in which a theologian could not
find a loophole and pass through it with unruffled
dignity. Our professor of theology used to tell a
genial story (against the casuist) of an old lady at
Glasgow who lost her purse, and prayed that it might
not fall into the hands of a theologian. The con
viviality of the priests, in our days, was confined to
a small room at a safe distance from our wing of
the house, but we frequently met one of the younger
priests moving stealthily along the corridor with the
neck of a bottle peeping out from his mantle, and
often, as we lay awake at midnight, we caught the
faint echo from the distant room of “ Killarney ” or
“ The Dear Little Shamrock.”
The penances, too, were an interesting feature of
the life, when observed in the case of one’s com
panions. The common form of public penance is to
kneel in the centre of the refectory during dinner,
praying silently with arms outstretched, until the
superior gives permission to rise. The next in point
of severity is to kneel without the hood, or with an
inscription stating one’s crime, or with the fragments
of anything one has broken. For graver faults,
�NOVITIATE
58
especially of insubordination, a culprit is condemned
to eat his dinner on the floor in the centre, the
observed of all observers, for one or more days; and
for an exaggerated offence his diet is restricted to
bread and water. Confinement to the monastery for
a long period, suspension from sacerdotal functions,
and, ultimately, expulsion from the order, are the
more grievous forms of punishment. Though monastic
constitutions still direct that each monastery must
have its “ prison,” I do not think that formal incar
ceration is now practised in any part of the world.
Apart, however, from these penances the whole scheme
of discipline is crushing and degrading. For speaking
a word in time of silence a novice would be forced to
carry a stick in his mouth during recreation; he would
be called upon at any time, for no fault whatever
(and generally just in proportion as he was intelligent
and sensitive), to stand against the wall or in a corner
of the room and make a fool of himself in the most
idiotic fashion. Everything is done to expel the last
particle of what is commonly called self-respect, to
distort and pervert character according to a stupid
mediaeval ideal. I remember once nearly bringing my
monastic career to a very early close by a transgression
of this supreme command of blind obedience. I had
been asked a question which would implicate a col
league—in a trivial matter—and I refused out of a
sense of honour to reply. If I had not apologised
afterwards in a public and humiliating fashion I should
have been expelled at once.
Thus the twelve months passed monotonously, and
the time approached for us to take the “ simple vows.”
The votes of the community are taken every three
�54
NOVITIATE
months on the merits of candidates for the order. The
community is assembled for the purpose in the chapter
room (a room in which the superior assembles his
religious three times a week for prayer, exhortation,
and public confession of their minor faults—breaking
utensils, oversleeping, &c.) and the superior invites a
discussion on the merits or demerits of the novice.
He then produces a bag of white and black marbles,
of which he gives a pair to each voter; they are
collected with great secrecy in two bags, and if the
novice does not obtain a majority of “ white balls ”
he is invited to abandon his intention. If it is probable
that he will be “ blackballed,” he is usually warned
in advance : hence it very rarely happens.
Our votes having been satisfactorily obtained we
prepared to make our religious profession at the com
pletion of our year of probation. The profession, an
impressive religious ceremony, consists essentially of a
vow to observe the rule of St. Francis and to “ live
in poverty, chastity,1 and obedience for the whole
time of our lives.” When the morning arrived, a large
and sympathetic congregation had gathered in the
church, and the sight of the six young friars—mere
boys we all were—solemnly forswearing every earthly
desire moved them deeply. The purport of the vow
was explained to them in the exhortation given by
the superior, and they at least knew the extent of the
sacrifice we were making. We, too, were convinced
1 A vow of chastity embraces the obligation of celibacy and
much more : it doubles the guilt of any transgression of the virtue
of chastity or purity, which, in the theory of the Church of Rome,
is a very comprehensive piece of ethical legislation. Yet many
confessors encourage their girl-penitents, living in the world, to
make such a vow.
�NOVITIATE
55
that we fully realised the gravity of the step; as,
although our thoughts were taken up rather with the
glamour of the position we ultimately sought and the
advantages it offered, we were not in our way insens
ible of the price we were asked to pay. But it was
many.a long year before the act could be appreciated
—not until long after we had solemnly and irrevocably
ratified our vows.
What are the world and the flesh to a boy of
sixteen, or even to a youth of nineteen (at which age
the final, irrevocable step is taken), who has been
confined in an ecclesiastical institution from his
thirteenth year? He knows little more of the life
which he sacrifices so lightly with his vow of poverty
than he does of life on Mars; and he is, when he
utters his vow of celibacy, entirely unacquainted with
the passion that will one day throb in every fibre of
his being, and transform the world beyond conception.
He has signed a blank cheque, on which nature may
one day write a fearful sum. Yet he is permitted, nay
persuaded, to make that blind sacrifice, and place
himself in lifelong antagonism to the deepest forces
of his being, before he can have the faintest idea of
his moral strength. If it be true that monastic life
is ever sinking into corruption, we should feel more
inclined to pity than to blame the monks.
The secular clergy make no vow of poverty or
obedience, and it may be urged that even their vow
of celibacy is more defensible. The seminary student
makes his vow when he is admitted to the subdiaconate, the first of the holy orders, and the
canonical and usual age of the subdeacon is twentyone. The average youth of twenty-one may be
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NOVITIATE
admitted to be capable, in ordinary circumstances,
of forming an opinion on such matters, but we must
remember that the ecclesiastical student has had an
abnormal training. Every precaution has been taken
to keep him in complete ignorance of sexual matters,
and to defer the development of that faculty of which
he is asked to make a lifelong sacrifice. He has never
come in contact with the other sex, for even during
his vacation the fear of scandal hangs like a millstone
about him; he has never read a line concerning the
most elementary facts and forces of life—his classics,
his history, his very fiction, have been rigidly expur
gated; the weekly minute confession of his thoughts,
the incessant supervision of his superiors, the constant
presence of innumerable threats, have combined to
postpone the unfolding of his sex-life until he shall
have blindly abdicated it for ever. In the confessional
I have known students of a much more advanced age
yho were still sexually undeveloped. In fact, the
Church knows that they are unconscious of sex, and
expects them to be unconscious; for if she awaited the
full development of mind and body in her candidates
her clergy would never be sufficiently recruited as long
as she insists on celibacy.
The proportion of nuns who take the vow of chastity
at an early age is smaller, as I have said, but the sin
is more grievous. The life of the nun who finds in
later life that she has made a mistake is infinitely more
wretched. The priest is in the world and frequently
of it ;■ the nun is jealously imprisoned in the walls of
her convent. No doubt, her vow is usually only a
“ simple ” vow and theoretically dispensable; but who
ever knew a nun to write to Rome for a dispensation?
�NOVITIATE
57
No woman would dare to face the ignominy of such a
step. “ Woe to him (or her) who draws back his hand
from the plough ” is one of the most inculcated maxims
of the conventual life; and the prospect of returning,
a failure, to one’s family and friends is most for
bidding.
I have never been able to witness without a shudder
the ceremony of a young girl making her vows. Some
comfortable monk or light-tongued Jesuit preaches to
her from the altar of the tranquil joy of her future
life as spouse of Christ alone, and the candid virginal
eyes that are bent upon him tell only too clearly of
her profound ignorance of the sleeping fires within her,
the unknown joys of love and maternity which she
sacrifices so readily. In ten years more she will know
the meaning of the vow of chastity into which she has
been deluded. It was brought home to me vividly on
hearing one day the confession of a young nun who
was in the wild throes of passion-birth. After
enumerating the usual peccadilloes, she began to tell
me of her utter misery and isolation. Her sisters
were unkind, thoughtless, and jealous; “and yet,
father,” she urged piteously, “ I do want some one
to love me.” I muttered the commonplaces of our
literature; but as she knelt at my feet, looking sadly
up at me, in their little convent chapel, I felt how
dark a sin it was to admit an immature girl to a vow
of chastity. How their parents—their mothers—can
let them act thus, nay, can look on with smiles and
congratulations, surpasses my comprehension. We
read with shudders of the ancient Mexican sacrifices
of maidens, yet hundreds of fine-natured girls are
annually sacrificed on this perverse altar of chastity in
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NOVITIATE
England. They send home no word of unhappiness,
it may be said. Do their parents not know that every
letter they write must be given, open, to a superior?
I doubt if France ever did a greater service to its
women than when it (though not entirely) closed t-heir
convents.
�CHAPTER IV
STUDENTSHIP
After the novitiate had been successfully accom
plished it was necessary to resume the course of our
education. Owing to the total neglect of profane
study which is foolishly directed, most of the ground
we had already conquered was lost during the year
of the novitiate. Latin was sustained, even advanced
a step, since all our services and quasi-religious studies
had been in Latin; although ecclesiastical Latin, and
especially the Latin of the Psalms, of which we heard
so much, would make the shade of Cicero shudder.
Whatever other acquisitions had been made such as
Greek and French were entirely lost. We had, there
fore, to devote ourselves once more to “ humanities,”
and for this purpose we were transferred (without a
glimpse of the immortal lakes, for the friars had fallen
on evil days with the bishop) to what is now the
principal house of studies of the Franciscans at Forest
Gate in East London.
The large and imposing pile of buildings which the
friars have to-day at Forest Gate is often quoted as
an illustration of the growth of Catholicism. Fifteen
years ago (1882) there was no Catholic congregation
in the locality; only a dozen worshippers made their
way to the washhouse of the neighbouring nunnery,
59
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STUDENTSHIP
when the friars first came to celebrate mass there.
When our party arrived three years afterwards the
congregation numbered 300 souls; and when I left in
1896 the friars had erected property to the value of
about <£25,000, and ministered to a congregation of
more than 3000 souls. As a matter of fact this was
only a symptom of the decentralisation that was going
on in London. There were few converts to Rome in
the new congregation, and these were merely the
flotsam and jetsam of superficial religious controversy
—good people who would save their souls in any
Church, or none. The great bulk of the parish were
the middle-class Catholics who had migrated from all
parts of East London to the new and healthier district,
in which the sagacious friars had erected a church,
mainly on borrowed funds.1
The priest who was entrusted by the Belgian author
ities with the supervision of our studies was Father
David, since Minister-General of the entire Franciscan
Order, and erudite counsellor to the Holy Office. An
abler student than teacher—a distinction of which our
authorities never dreamed—and a man of many
interests, he contributed little more than the example
of his great industry and learning to our develop
ment; and most of us were very barren soil for that
seed. During the first six months no attempt was
made to organise our work. All our religious exer
cises were hurried through early in the morning,
making more than three consecutive hours of prayers
of divers kinds; as a rule we then had the monastery
to ourselves during the day. Once or twice a week,
1 One of their chief benefactors, Mgr. A. Wells, has since seceded
from the Church.
�STUDENTSHIP
61
at any hour of the day or night, our professor would
interrupt the course of his ministerial and parochial
duties, and his studies of Sanscrit at the British
Museum, to give us a class in Latin. Even during
that half-hour he used to write letters, and we would
purposely make the most atrocious blunders, and con
duct ourselves in the wildest manner our imagination
could suggest.
Our long Saturnalia came to an end at last with
the arrival of a second and younger professor, who
entered into the work of reform with alarming zeal.
He was fresh from the Belgian province, in which a
perfect discipline (from a mechanical point of view)
prevails in the houses of study. Young, intensely
earnest, and sincerely religious, he made an honest
effort to reform us without losing our sympathy, but,
as he knew little more of our studies than we did, and
had an uncontrollable temper and a conspicuous harsh
ness of character, lie alienated us more and more as
time went on. From Belgium, too, he had imported
the system of espionage, which is deservedly odious to
English students; he considered that the necessary
rigour of monastic discipline justified it. However,
he never cared to be caught in the act, and we gave
him many an unpleasant quarter of an hour by running
to the door of our study room when we saw his
shadow near it, and chasing him through the convent
in his anxiety not to be seen. At length we appealed
to authority, and effected his deposition and removal.
In later years I learned to esteem and respect him, and
he made rapid progress in the order and in the London
ministry; finally, however, he ended in an ignominious
flight with the contents of the fraternal cash-box.
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STUDENTSHIP
His successor was a monk of a very different char
acter. Far from continuing the rigour of his pre
decessor, he became alarmingly liberal and familiar,
and before many months had elapsed we found it
impossible to retain a particle of respect for him. In
point of fact he already showed symptoms of mental
aberration, and a few years afterwards his conduct
became so extraordinary that absolute dementia is the
kindest interpretation of it. He, too, was removed
at our appeal, and we began to have an evil reputation.
During our five years of study at Forest Gate we
succeeded in removing no less than six professors and
superiors; and, since I was the “dean” of the
students throughout my course, I attracted an uncom
plimentary interest. I have no doubt that my own
fall was frequently predicted many years in advance.
After twelve months at Latin we were initiated into
a course of rhetoric. The Jesuits more wisely post
pone the rhetorical studies until the last year; in any
case, it is little more than a waste of time. Lessons
in elocution and declamation are clearly expedient,
and should be insisted upon much more conscientiously
than they are in the training of priests, but the usual
“course of rhetoric ” is only learned to be forgotten.
It deals with the invention and distribution of argu
ments, the analysis and composition of orations, the
various styles of discourse, figures of speech, and the
comparative play of ideas and emotions. There are
few who retain any knowledge of its multitudinous
rules when the period of practice arrives; fewer still
who pay the slightest attention to them. The only
useful element of the training is the practice of
making ecclesiastical students prepare and deliver
�STUDENTSHIP
63
short sermons to their companions. In many
monasteries the students preach to the assembled com
munity during dinner. It affords excellent training
for public speaking, for one who is able to speak with
any degree of self-possession to a small audience will
have little fear of a large congregation. I often
preached to a congregation of a thousand people with
the utmost composure, yet trembled before a con
gregation of ten or twelve persons.
The course of rhetoric is succeeded by a course of
scholastic philosophy. In the great mediaeval schools
philosophy was taught in conjunction with theology,
but the rationalistic spirt, which had been so vigor
ously expressed by Abelard, and the growing import
ance of the Moorish thinkers, led gradually to the
separation of philosophy. By the sixteenth century,
when there was a notable revival of speculative
activity, the separation of philosophy from theology
was complete. In a rationalistic age like ours such
a separation is imperative. Before a positive revela
tion can be entertained, certain preliminary truths,
especially the existence, nature, and authority of the
Revealer, must necessarily be established by pure reason
ing ; in other words, philosophy must precede theology,
and this is now fully recognised by the Church.
The scholastic philosophy which is now taught in
Catholic seminaries usually includes treatises on logic,
metaphysics, and natural ethics. First is given a short
treatise on dialectics, which differs little from the
logic of Jevons or Whateley, and is followed by a more
careful study of the second or material part of logic.
A treatise of general metaphysics follows, in which
are discussed, analysed, and vindicated the general
�64
STUDENTSHIP
concepts and principles which will be used subse
quently in the construction of the desired theses.
Special metaphysics is divided into three parts,
cosmology, psychology and natural theology. It
opens with a proof of the existence of the material
world, against the Idealists, and discusses its origin
and its features of time and space; then the question
of life is entered upon, its origin and nature discussed,
and the two great branches of the organic world are
philosophically described and commented upon. The
second part, psychology, is concerned with the human
soul; it seeks to prove its spirituality and immortality,
against the Materialist, classifies and analyses its
various faculties, treats of the origin and nature of
thoughts, emotions, and volitions. The third part
treats of God; it opens with the usual demonstration
of his existence, against the Agnostics, endeavours to
elucidate his attributes as far as mere reasoning will
avail (and the scholastic philosopher is persuaded that
it will avail much), and considers his relations to
this nether world.
The line of reasoning throughout is taken closely
from Aristotle—or, as Renan would say, from a bad
Latin translation of an Arabic paraphrase of a Syriac
version of Aristotle. Until the time of Thomas
Aquinas, all Catholic philosophers (except Boetius) had
followed Plato, and regarded Aristotle with suspicion;
St. Thomas, however, and all the schoolmen, except
St. Bonaventure, rejected the Platonist method and
introduced Aristotle (through the Latin translations
of the Arabic school), expurgated his philosophy, and
enlarged it in certain directions in harmony with
Christian teaching. Thus the Neo-Scholastic philo-
�STUDENTSHIP
65
sophy is fundamentally the philosophy of Aristotle
enlarged by allusions to modern problems and philo
sophies, and usually enriched with a moderate acquaint
ance with modern science. The Jesuits of Stoneyhurst
have published (in English) an excellent series of
manuals of the Neo-Scholastic philosophy at its best.
To logic and metaphysics is usually added a treatise
on natural ethics, which is founded on the Nicomachean
ethics. It deals with the abstract conceptions of right
and duty, virtue and vice, law and conscience; dis
cusses the various current theories of moral obligation;
and expounds and enforces the various duties which
arise from the relations of individual, social, and inter
national life. Since no appeal to revelation is admitted
in it, and in order to distinguish it from moral
theology (which covers the same ground in the light
of revelation and authority), the treatise goes by the
name of natural ethics.
Customary as it is to decry the scholastic philo
sophy, I would willingly subscribe to the generous
appreciation of it by Mill and Hamilton as a mental
discipline. Its chief defect is its narrow and arrogant
exclusivism. That the system is strongly and skil
fully constructed is what one would expect from the
number of gifted minds that have contributed to it;
but almost every manual from which it is taught, and
nearly every professor, carefully excludes, or only gives
a most inaccurate version of, rival philosophies. The
impression made on the student is that the scholastic
system is so clearly and uniquely true that all oppo
nents are either feeble-minded or dishonest; the latter
theory is only too often urged. When I afterwards
became professor of philosophy I made it my duty to
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STUDENTSHIP
study more modern systems, and learned how petty
and antiquated the scholastic system is in comparison.
Even one who had taken a degree in it could hardly
read such writers as Lotze or Royce.
And, indeed, apart from the fact that all opponents
are on the Index 1 (in that they write “ expressly
against the faith ”), and that it would be a sacrilege
to entertain for a moment the possibility of their
being in the right, the time which is devoted to the
vast subject is wholly inadequate. Two years is the
usual duration of the course; one year is very fre
quently the limit of philosophical study. Then the
ages of the students must be taken into account.
They are generally youths of from eighteen to twentyone, who are quite incompetent to enter seriously into
such grave problems; only one in a hundred makes
an attempt to do so. Sufficient information to satisfy
an examiner is committed to memory; but, unless
the student is drawn to the science for a solution of
questions that have arisen in his own soul (which is
very rarely the case), he shirks philosophy as far as
possible, and looks forward eagerly to his deliverance
from it. Further, it is supposed to be taught through
the medium of a dead language, and most of the
professors in the seminaries have very little acquaint
ance with modern science. They are also injudicious
in that, neglecting the problems of actual interest and
importance, they fritter away the allotted time in the
1 The Index, or “list of prohibited books,” is really a far more
extensive thing than the published list. Every work that is
regarded as “against the faith ” (such as this) is prohibited to the
Catholic under pain of hell, although not expressly put on the list.
Hence the ease with which Catholic journals can misrepresent a
book. Their readers dare not read it.
�STUDENTSHIP
67
most trivial controversies. The liberty of the will
or the existence of God will be dismissed in a day,
and a week will be zealously devoted to the question
whether substance and personality are two distinct
entities, or whether the qualities of a thing are
physically, formally, or mentally distinct from its
substance. In many seminaries a certain amount of
physical science is taught in conjunction with the
course of philosophy, but much jealousy is shown with
regard to it. I was much attracted to the empirical
sciences from the beginning, and, though not actually
impeded, I was much discouraged in that pursuit; I
was informed that the empirical sciences made the
mind “ mechanical,” and predisposed to materialism.
F. David, though not actually my professor, guided
my studies with great kindness throughout my course.
Although I fortunately broke loose from his influence
in some directions, and found that I had subsequently
to verify with care whatever I had accepted from
him, I was certainly much indebted to him for the
formation of habits of industry and precision.
The priest who was nominally entrusted with our
philosophical training is certainly not responsible for
the fatal depth to which I ultimately penetrated. One
of the few things he had not mastered was meta
physics ; he could paint and play, and he was an
authority on architecture, archaeology, rubrics, canon
law, and history. He was a Belgian friar of pro
nounced eccentricity, and his method of teaching
philosophy was original. After each lesson he dictated
in Latin a number of questions and answers, and on
the following morning the answers had to be repeated
word for word. Some of my fellow-students passed
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STUDENTSHIP
a most satisfactory examination at the end of the
term without having a single idea on philosophical
questions. The worthy father was another victim of
our seditious movements, and his eccentricities enabled
us to make his life a serious burden. He, for instance,
hated meeting anybody on our broad staircases, and
we haunted the stairs. He lived mainly on hard toast,
and we at times stole some of it and scrunched it in
the most silent intervals of dinner, to the delight of
his colleagues.
The last three or four years of the student’s career
are devoted to theology. Under that title are usually
comprised ecclesiastical history, canon law, Scripture,
and moral and dogmatic theology. Ecclesiastical
history, usually a very one-sided version of the vicissi
tudes of the Church, does not, as a rule, occupy much
of the time. Canon law, a vast system of ecclesiastical
legislation, is either neglected or only given in a very
rudimentary fashion. Each order and diocese secures
one or two experts in the subject, who are appealed
to in case of complications, but the majority of the
clergy are content with the slight knowledge of canon
law which they necessarily glean from their moral
theology. The three years are, therefore, devoted to
Scripture and theology proper. In my course not a
single lesson of Canon Law was given.
With four lectures each week during a period of
two or three years it is impossible to study satisfac
torily more than a comparatively small section of the
Scriptures. Certain books are selected, after a general
introduction, for detailed commentary, and the students
are supposed to study the exegetical method in order
to cover the rest of the ground at their leisure.
�STUDENTSHIP
69
How far is the study of Scripture in the Church
of Rome affected by the Higher Criticism (and the
monuments)? Very profoundly, in point of fact,
though this modification of views can find no expres
sion since the celebrated retrograde encyclical of Leo
XIII. Newman’s contention, that there were obiter
dicta in Scripture which did not fall under the in
spiring influence, introduced a far-reaching principle;
it was not necessary to hold that all was inspired,
In face of the stern criticism of the Rationalists many
had begun to admit scientific and historical errors in
Scripture, and the famous French professor, M. Loisy,
went very far in company with the critics. Then
came the Pope’s encyclical, declaring that no errors
could be admitted in Scripture, and M. Loisy dis
appeared from his chair (with, it is true, a most suave
and courteous letter in his pocket, recognising his past
services, from the Pope). However, an encyclical only
affects the expressions, not the thoughts, of scholarly
Catholics. Leo XIII. has never once claimed to
exercise his infallible authority. His encyclicals enjoy
no more than his personal authority as a theologian,
and that is not serious. The bulk of the faithful are
impressed by his utterances, both on the ground of
their wisdom and under the erroneous impression that
they, according to Catholic theology, share to some
degree the prestige of his supernatural power. There
are no degrees in infallibility. Catholic scholars are
waiting patiently until Cardinal Vanutelli, or some
broader-minded man, assumes the tiara.
In the meantime, on this Scriptural question, they
have a refuge in the elasticity of the term “ inspira-‘
tion.” The advanced thinker may give it any interD
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STUDENTSHIP
pretation his views may require. A very able professor
of Scripture at Louvain University told me that his
own ideas on Scripture were absolutely chaotic on
account of this vagueness of the fundamental idea.
Another distinguished professor saw in it a line of
dignified retreat for the Papacy when the time came.
What the commission which is now sitting on the
Biblical question at the Vatican may determine can
not be conjectured. But the private opinion of the
leading spirit in that commission is not unknown to
me. “ The truth is,” I recollect Father David saying
to me, when Mr. Sayce’s “ Higher Criticism and the
Monuments ” appeared, “ the truth is that the Old
Testament was not written for us, and the sooner the
Church can quietly drop it overboard the better.” 1
Moral theology has been detached from dogmatic
in the specialisation of studies, and forms a distinct
science of a purely practical nature. It opens with a
few general treatises on moral responsibility, con1 When the first edition was written Leo XIII. had appointed a
commission of theologians, with my tutor, F. David, as secretary,
to draw up a series of guiding statements on the question of
Sciipture. It is plain that Leo XIII. had seen the error of his
encyclical, and was disposed to be more liberal. He is said to
have repeatedly muttered in his last hours : “The Biblical ques
tion, the Biblical question.” Then came the accession of Pius X.
one of the most narrow-minded and medieval of the whole college
of cardinals. The rival partisans of Vanutelli and RampoBa
could come to no agreement, and a nonentity had to be admitted
to the tiara. Unfortunately, he proved as conscientious as he is
ignorant. The Biblical Commission was swamped with reactionary
scholars, and one of the first pronouncements signed by my liberal
tutor was that the whole Pentateuch was certainly written by
Moses ! Then began the great fight against the liberals, or Modern
ists. Cultivated Catholics groan under the rule of Pius X., and
believe that he is ruining the Church. It is a singular commentary
on the dogma of papal inspiration. Third edition.
�STUDENTSHIP
71
science, law, and sin, which constitute what is called
fundamental theology. The special treatises which
follow discuss the obligations of the moral agent in
every conceivable relation and circumstance. Each
treatise usually takes a particular virtue as its object,
and enumerates every possible transgression of the
same, discussing their comparative gravity, and fre
quently giving practical rules to the confessor in deal
ing with them. There is a treatise on impurity, which
gives the student the physiological elements of the sub
ject, and enumerates (with the crudest details) the
interminable catalogue of forms of vice, the professor
usually supplementing the treatise from his own ex
perience in the confessional. There are also treatises
on charity, on justice (a voluminous treatise which
descends into the minutest details of conjugal, social,
and commercial life), on veracity, and all other virtues.
Throughout the preceding section on virtues and
vices, which usually forms a quarto volume of 500 or
600 pages, little appeal is made to positive revelation.
The judgments of the theologian are supported from
time to time by texts of Scripture and references to
ecclesiastical legislation, but the main portion of the
work is purely ethical and rational. The second
section, however, another quarto volume of 500 pages,
discusses the seven sacraments of the Church of Rome,
the vast number of obligations they entail in practical
life, the transgressions which arise from their neglect
or abuse, and their theory and practice. The principal
treatises are the two that deal with confession and
matrimony. In the one the future confessor receives
the necessary directions for his task (a much more
complicated one than is commonly supposed); in the
D2
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other the many impediments to marriage, on the
Catholic view, are discussed, as well as the dispensa
tions from them, and there is a further discussion of
conjugal relations. The path throughout is beset with
the innumerable conflicts of theologians, and every point
is profusely illustrated with real or fictitious “ cases.”
Moral theology is regarded as the most important
of sacerdotal studies, and in many monastic orders it
is the only study that is seriously cultivated. Young
priests have annual examinations in it for many years
after their ordination, and throughout life the priest
has to attend periodical conferences, which are held
in every monastery and diocese, for the discussion of
points of casuistry. Our professor was a young man
of much ability and refinement of character, who
lectured on the cruder sections with marked confusion
and apology, but, as a rule, priests soon acquire the
habit of discussing indelicate “ cases ” with the calm
ness of a medical man.
Much as we were attached to our professor for his
kindliness and charm of character, we had to procure
his removal at the end of a year. Though a man of
more than average ability, he was too weak and un
suited for the monastic condition to fill his position
with credit. The dull, oppressive environment grad
ually led him to drink, and he died an unhappy and
premature death.
For our course of dogmatic theology we had the
able guidance of Father David. He was a man of
wide erudition and considerable mental power, and
held us, with one or two exceptions, magnetically
bound to him during our studentship. It was a curious
fact that nearly all of his students withdrew them-
�STUDENTSHIP
73
selves from his influence in later years. The change
seemed to be due to the subsequent discovery of the
inaccuracy of many of the statements we had taken
from him—want of practice in writing and a shrinking
from criticism had encouraged a certain degree of care
lessness in his expressions—and partly to the fact that
his early kindness and assistance had too much of an
element of patronage and authority to survive in
maturer years. Personally I was the most indebted to
his guidance, and was the last of my course to remain
under his influence. He had a remarkable grasp of
dogmatic theology, because he had a thorough know
ledge of the scholastic philosophy, which pervades and
unites its entire structure. For dogmatic theology
takes the student in hand at the point at which philo
sophy has left him; it is, in fact, merely revelation set
in a philosophical frame. The various points of dogma
which are contained (or supposed to be contained) in
Scripture, were first selected by the Fathers, and
developed, generally by the aid of the Neo-Platonic
philosophy, into formidable structures. The schoolmen
completed the synthesis with the aid of the Peripatetic
philosophy, and elaborated the whole into a vast scheme
which they called theology. The purely philosophical
problems which arose have been extracted, and now
form the distinct science of metaphysics; the ethical
questions have been separated and formed into a moral
theology; the speculative science which remains, still
wholly philosophical in form and largely so in argu
ment, is dogmatic theology.
Much space is occupied with the conflicts of rival
schools of theologians, especially of the Thomists, or
followers of St. Thomas (chiefly the Dominicans and
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Jesuits—though Thomism is in general favour just
now, since the Pope has declared for St. Thomas), and
the Scotists (Franciscans) or followers of the Franciscan
Duns Scotus. These rival groups quarrel about every
question that the Church has left undefined. One im
portant result of these divisions is that grave questions
of living interest are only imperfectly grasped by
theologians until the world has moved on a step, and
they then ungracefully follow it. Their time is chiefly
occupied with questions that are fitly illustrated by the
problem of the number of angels that could stand on a
needle’s point.
Through this scheme of education every aspirant to
the Roman Catholic priesthood must pass. In the
larger seminaries and more prosperous congregations
the programme is carried out with great fidelity, and
the more brilliant students are sent on to the universi
ties (Washington, Louvain, Innspruck, Freiburg, and
Rome) for more advanced courses. The smaller
seminaries and minor congregations, who are ever
pressed for priests, curtail the scheme very freely;
philosophy is all but omitted, dogmatic theology is
reduced to the indispensable minimum, and moral
theology is carefully pruned of its luxurious growth
of superfluous controversies. In the case of monastic
orders, whose work consists almost entirely in mission
ary and parochial activity amongst the poor, the Church
connives at a lower standard of education.
In the Franciscan Order the constitutions, from
which its admirers usually but wrongly derive their
information of its practices, generously prescribe three
years for philosophy and four for theology. In few
branches of the order are more than five years devoted
�STUDENTSHIP
75
to the higher studies. In England we were the
pioneers of a new system, and from first to last our
studies were irregular and stunted. We spent five
years as students at Forest Gate, of which fifteen
months were devoted to classics and rhetoric, fifteen
months to philosophy, and two years and a half to
theology. During that period our life differed little
from the model described in the preceding chapter.
We rose at a quarter to five, dragged through the long
programme of religious services, and commenced study
at eight; six or seven hours per day were devoted to
study, and the remainder of the time was occupied as
I have described.
We had taken the irrevocable vows three years after
leaving the novitiate. One of our number had obtained
papal release from his “simple ” vows, but most of
us looked forward eagerly to the priesthood, the “ end
of study,” as we equivocally called it, and we found
means to enliven the dull and insanitary life that had
to be traversed first. No vacation is allowed during
the whole of the period, but once or twice a week we
had the luxury of divesting ourselves of the heavy robe
and taking long walks in ordinary clerical attire, and
once or twice a year we were granted a whole-day
holiday to some pleasant spot. This was in the later
years. At the commencement of the period we had
ample practical illustration of the meaning of a vow
of poverty—which is more than the modern mendicant
friar anticipates. Under one superior, a very mediocre
friar, who had been put into office to serve the purpose
of a diplomatic and ambitious higher superior, our diet
and clothing became painfully appropriate to our pro
fession of mendicancy. His parsimony and real lack
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of money were neatly concealed behind a cheerful pro
fession and praise of “ holy poverty ” before which all
complaint was stultified. However, our congregation,
and the income of our church increased, so that
“ holy poverty ” was laid aside in favour of more
humane sentiments. Our diet became generous and
substantial, our beer and wine more expensive, and a
heating apparatus was introduced; we almost attained
the ordinary level of modern monastic life.
Still the life was extremely insanitary, and there
was much sickness amongst us. During three years
we lost six of our young men, and almost all of us
entered upon our active career with deeply impaired
constitutions. Our medical attendant waged a constant
but fruitless war with our superiors to procure a saner
recreation for us; at his demand for exercise we were
furnished with picks and shovels and turned into our
garden. One huge mound of earth afforded us exercise
for four years; one superior desired to see it in a
central heap, his successor fancied it in the form of a
Roman camp, and a third directed us to form an en
trenchment along the side of the garden with it. But
the root of the evil was far deeper than they cared to
recognise; it lay in the isolation, the dull, soul
benumbing oppression of the monastic life.
The sick were treated with great kindness, as a
rule, but, naturally, with little skill and effectiveness;
for no woman is, under any conceivable circumstances,
allowed to enter the monastery. In a serious illness
which befell me I had painful experience of that aspect
of celibate life. The custards and beef-tea which the
doctor had ordered were made by our cook of corn
flour and somebody’s essence of beef (the cook had the
�STUDENTSHIP
77
laudable intention of saving time for his prayers); and
even when certain lady friends outside had taken the
responsibility for my diet, I still had the equivocal
blessing of “ fraternal ” nursing. The lay-brother
who acted as my infirmarian, a good, rough, kindhearted fellow, like most of his class, had been a collier
before his conversion, and, though he made a strained
effort to be gentle and soothing, his big horny hands
lent themselves very badly to the work. However, no
expense was spared in the care of the sick, and most
superiors were extremely kind and considerate in their
treatment.
The constant changes of the inmates of the monastery
also afford some relief to the monotony of the life.
Elections are held every eighteen months, at which
changes of superiors are made and monks are trans
ferred from one monastery to another. For months in
advance the convents are thrown into a fever of excite
ment over the issues. Discontented inferiors are
afforded an opportunity of venting their grievances, as
a commissioner, or “ visitator,” is sent from Rome,
who has a strictly secret and confidential talk with
every friar in the province before the election takes
place. In some monasteries and nunneries the superior
is elected for life, and in such cases he is usually
chosen by the inmates themselves with great care. In
our fraternity, and in many other congregations, the
local superiors, or “ guardians,” of the various mon
asteries were appointed by a higher council, as I will
describe later, and had to hand in their resignations
at the end of eighteen months; if their record was
satisfactory, they might be re-elected for a time. The
frequent change is a matter of general satisfaction, for
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no superior ever succeeds in gaining the sympathy of
an entire community. One of the kindest and ablest
superiors we ever had, Father Bede, a man of excep
tionally earnest, sincere, and unworldly life, only
retained the position for a year and a half, and at the
end of that term was with great difficulty dissuaded
from leaving our province altogether. There was a
great deal of intrigue afoot always in connection with
the elections.
Feast-days also helped to break the monotony of
the life. Even in our poorest days the higher festivals
were celebrated with much gaiety and opulent meals;
for there are always plenty of thoughtful friends, and
usually a nunnery or two, in the neighbourhood of a
friary to supply the defects of the masculine cuisine on
special occasions. On such days the law of silence is
suspended at dinner, and the friars join in a general
conversation and raillery; often, too, an impromptu
concert is added, and the songs of bygone days re-echo
through the cloisters. Our refectory was prudently
located, as is usual, at the back of the house, and far
from profane ears. Wine is poured out in abundance;
in our days of poverty it was weak Rhine wine or an
inferior port, but with the return of prosperity (and
the advent of a generous benefactress), good port and
whisky, and a fair quantity of champagne, made their
appearance. We students also were liberally supplied
with wine, and, as some religiously declined it, others
drank too generously. Youths in their teens, who had
never seen wine in their homes, drank their half-bottle
once or twice a month. A lamentable proportion of
them became immoderate drinkers.
The long preparation for the priesthood is divided
�STUDENTSHIP
79
into stages marked by the reception of the preliminary
orders. In the Church of Rome there are seven orders
through which the cleric must pass, four minor and
three major or “ holy ” orders. In the early Church
each order marked a certain category of officials in
which the candidate for the priesthood was detained
for some time. The first ceremony, the giving of the
“ tonsure,” in which the bishop symbolically cuts five
locks of hair from the head of the neophyte, is a formal
initiation into the ranks of the clergy. Whilst the hair
is being cut the youth repeats after the bishop the
words, “ The Lord is the part of my inheritance,” for
the “ cleric ” is one who has chosen the part (cleros)
of the Lord. After a time he passes through the four
minor orders, and becomes successively doorkeeper,
reader, exorcist, and acolythe. To-day the tonsure
and the minor orders are usually given in one ceremony,
for the lower offices have been partly absorbed in the
higher, and partly committed to non-clerics. But the
conservatism of the Church still insists on the orders
being taken and their functions discharged at least
once; so that the newly appointed doorkeeper, for in
stance, must march ceremoniously to the church door,
which he opens and shuts, and rings the bell, before
the bishop will proceed to make him reader. The
function of exorcist can now only be discharged by a
priest, with the permission of the bishop in each case.
In the west of Ireland, where belief in diabolical inter
ference and the power of the priest is still very pro
found, exorcisms are not infrequent. But they are not
unknown in enlightened London. A case came to my
knowledge recently in which Cardinal Vaughan con
templated exorcising a man, but the spirit threatened
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to do such serious internal damage before departing
that the ceremony was abandoned.
The subdiaconate is usually received at the age of
twenty-one, and the diaconate in the following year.
In the monastic orders, where the vow of celibacy has
already been pronounced, these ceremonies are com
paratively unimportant, but to the secular student the
subdiaconate is a fateful step; the vow is made by
taking a step forward in the sanctuary at the invita
tion of the bishop, and many a student has withdrawn
at the last moment. The long ceremony of ordination
is impressive and ridiculous in turns. It contains many
beautiful prayers and symbolic rites, but it retains parts
—such as the exhortations to the candidates (who rarely
understand the muttered Latin) and the interrogation
of the people (who would almost commit a sacrilege if
they replied) about the merits of the candidates—which
have long ceased to have any force whatever.
Two years are supposed to elapse between the diacon
ate and the priesthood, but we received the three major
orders within the same six months. Ecclesiastical laws
can always be suspended by Rome in unusual circum
stances, and the extraordinary extent to which clerical
regulations are over-ruled to-day indicates on what evil
days the Church has fallen.
�CHAPTER V
PRIESTHOOD
A consideration of the scheme of study which has
been described would lead to the impression that
Roman Catholic priests must be in a highly satisfactory
condition of intellectual equipment. No other priest
hood has, or ever had, a longer and more systematic
course of training. For ten years, on the average, the
candidate is under the exclusive control of the ecclesi
astical authorities—authorities who have the advantage
of an indefinitely long and world-wide experience in
training their neophytes and a religious authority over
them. Their scheme of education, indeed, does seem
perfectly constructed for the attainment of their
particular object.
Yet it is generally recognised that the Catholic priest
hood, as a body, are not at all remarkable for their
attainments and their intellectual training. Their
system is admirable on paper, but it evidently breaks
down somewhere. That this widely-felt impression of
their inferiority is not a lingering trace of the ancient
prejudice against Rome is clear from the fact that
Englishmen notice the inferiority more particularly out
side of England, where Roman Catholic priests do not
present themselves in the light of schismatical in
truders. And it is placed beyond all doubt by the cir81
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cumstance that the feeling is largely shared, and has
been emphatically expressed, by the Roman Catholic
laity. The correspondence columns of their journals
frequently contain appeals for the better education of
the clergy. The broad fact that, with the wider diffusion
of modern thought, the theological army has struck its
flag, and retreated from point after point, implies a
grave defect even in the leading thinkers of the Church,
as the laity are quick to perceive. It is not surpris
ing, therefore, to find the ordinary clergy much behind
the age in questions of general interest.
The last sermon I preached in a Catholic church
(that of St. Antony, at Forest Gate) was an appeal
for the higher education of the clergy. I urged that
modern thought had entirely changed the position of
the religious teacher, and had made it necessary to
have a regard for intellectual as well as moral train
ing; and I freely denounced the actual ignorance of
the clergy. My mind had already passed from the
Roman Catholic faith, and I spoke strongly and
sincerely on the subject. My colleagues feebly con
gratulated me afterwards, but the laymen of the con
gregation actually sent a deputy to assure me of their
gratitude and their admiration of my bold expression
of their sentiments. On the following evening, after
a scientific lecture I gave them, I spoke on the subject
to a group of educated laymen, and found them deeply
moved on the question. Certainly the clergy of St.
Antony’s (four of whom were professors) were not
below the average. In most of the churches of that
part of London the clergy were far more ignorant, and
even among communities of priests who have wealth
and leisure, like the Jesuits or Oratorians, there are
�PRIESTHOOD
83
few who have even a superficial knowledge of modem
science, history, or philosophy. The impression was
confirmed wherever one listened to Catholic sermons
or entered into serious conversation with the priests.
The reasons of this signal failure of a fine educational
scheme may be deduced partly from what has pre
ceded. The system is unproductive, in the first in
stance, on account of the youth and immaturity of
the students. At nineteen, when they should still be
polishing their wit on Homer, or Tacitus, or Euclid,
they are gravely attacking the profoundest problems
of metaphysics. A well-educated man of thirty-two,
who had a brief course of philosophy under F. David,
told me that he felt as if he were handling blocks of
granite which he was unable to penetrate; our usual
students never even realised that they were handling
“ blocks of granite.” Out of several groups of
students who passed through my hands only one boy
had an idea of the meaning of philosophy. He con
fessed to me that it was because, like myself, he was
tormented by religious doubt from an early age. Be
fore he reaches the age of twenty-four the student has
traversed the whole vast system of scholastic philosophy
and theology, with its innumerable secondary problems
and controversies. He has his opinions formed upon
hundreds of subjects, and knows what to think of every
philosophical and religious system that has ever been
invented, if it be ancient enough. He will have very
little opportunity and less competence to reconsider his
opinions afterwards.
But the studies are not even conducted at the ages
and with the intervals prescribed by the ecclesiastical
legislation; the scarcity of priests (the raritas voca-
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PRIESTHOOD
tionum of which the Pope speaks), induces authorities
unduly to accelerate and curtail the course cf the
higher studies. Every diocese and nearly every religi
ous congregation in England and the States is insuffi
ciently manned. Thousands of baptized Catholics are
allowed to drift for want of clergy, and bishops not
infrequently in despair accept priests who have been
expelled from other dioceses or congregations. It is
true that scores of priests are sent to convert the
natives of Borneo, or to bargain with rival missionaries
over the fortunate Ugandians, and that strenuous efforts
are made to touch the consciences of respectable adher
ents of other Churches; but the fact remains that in
both London and New York tens of thousands of poor
Catholics have drifted for want of priests and chapels.
This leads inevitably to pressure in the seminaries and
curtailment of the studies.
And it is not merely to procure “ labourers for the
vineyard ” that the studies are deplorably mutilated;
another, and a rather curious motive of hurry is found
in certain congregations at least. Certainly in the
Franciscan Order students were prematurely advanced
to the priesthood for the sake of earning money by
their masses. A mass, of course, cannot be sold; that
would be simony. But a priest will say mass for you
or your intention if you make him a present of halfa-crown. He may say it gratuitously if he pleases, but
the English bishops have decreed that if a priest
accepts a “ stipend ” at all he must not take less than
half-a-crown. Now every friar is bound to say mass
for his superior’s intention, and the superior, having
to provide for the community, secures as many and
as “ fat ” stipends as he possibly can. As a friar is
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85
bound to say mass every morning he is worth at least
£1 per week on that count alone; in fact, at Forest
Gate, where we were six priests, mere than £400 was
obtained annually in stipends for masses. As a priest,
however young he may be, says mass daily from the
day of his ordination, the anxiety of the superior to
see him ordained is easily understood. A student is
an onus on the community; he must be made productive
as soon as possible.
Under such conditions it is not strange that their
educational system leads to such unsatisfactory results.
Numbers of young priests are annually discharged upon
humanity with full powers to condemn and anathe
matise, and an intense itching to do so. They soon
find that the “ crude and undigested mass ” they have
learned is a burden to themselves and a source of pain
to their long-suffering audience. In their eagerness to
be subtle they teach rank heresy, trouble timid con
sciences, and hurt themselves against episcopal author
ity. Then they abandon study entirely, thinking it
useless for their purpose. Mr. Jerome has a caricature
somewhere of the newly fledged Anglican curate. The
young evangelist stands at a table on which are
cigarettes and brandy and soda; his books are on sale
or exchange, “ owner having no further use for same.”
The skit is entirely applicable to the average priest.
The canonical age for ordination is twenty-four,
and it is probably the average age; but this precau
tion is nullified by the facility with which dispensations
are granted. The bishop can dispense at twenty-three,
and the Roman authorities readily grant a dispensation
once the candidate has reached the age of twenty-two
and two months. Most of our friars began to earn
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PRIESTHOOD
their pound per week at the age of twenty-two or
twenty-three. Under one provincial bishop, it is said
that there was always a brood of half-fledged priests,
who went by the name of “ Sovereign Pontiffs ” ; they
used to be sent to sing mass on Sundays for priests
who were absent or unwell, and the bishop always
exacted a sovereign for their services. The usual
term of reproach for such immature priests is, “ Praesta
quaesumus ”—an allusion to the fact that they cannot
do more than say mass, for the expression is a common
beginning of mass-prayers.
The ordination is preceded by an episcopal examina
tion in theology. Before the subdiaconate the student
must present one treatise on theology for examination;
he must prepare two for the diaconate and three for
the priesthood. The examination is, however, little
more than a test of the memory and industry of the
aspirant; if he knows the defined points of Catholic
doctrine on the subjects taken, little more is expected
of him. And students are usually careful to select the
shortest treatises for presentation, and to carry the
same treatise through three examinations. Still aspir
ants are occasionally “ ploughed ”; though, judging
from the preposterous answers of certain successful
students whom I have seen at the tribunal, it is difficult
to conceive the possibility of failure.
The ceremony of ordination, which may be wit
nessed on Ember Saturdays in Catholic cathedrals, is
very long and highly symbolical. In fact, it has de
veloped to such an alarming extent that no theologian
can say in what the “ essence ” of the ordination
really consists; there are innumerable controversies as
to which rites are essential to the validity of the sacra
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87
ment. From the readiness of the theologian to pass
judgment on Anglican orders one would imagine that
he knew the conditions of validity without hesitation;
the truth is, that in the case of each of the three
“ sacred orders,” theologians differ emphatically as
to the essential parts of the ordination. Students are
usually in a state of terror about the numerous possi
bilities of the invalidity of their ordination, and even
bishops betray much nervous anxiety in the matter;
the ceremony is sometimes repeated for general satis
faction. A curious story in illustration of the strange
contingencies that affect the validity of orders is told
of a French bishop. He had exercised episcopal func
tions for many years, when one day his old nurse was
heard to boast that she had baptized him (in periculo),
and that she had not used common water, but rose
water for the purpose. The baptism was invalid; his
subsequent confirmation and ordination were invalid,
for baptism is an indispensable condition of receiving
the other sacraments; all the ordinations he had ever
held were invalid, and had. to be repeated; and all the
masses, absolutions, &c., performed by himself and
his priests during that period had been invalid.
A further source of confusion is found in the need
for what is called “ jurisdiction ” before certain of
the priestly functions can be validly used. At ordina
tion the priest receives the power to say mass, and not
even the Papacy can withdraw this (though it may for
bid him to exercise it). On the Catholic theory I still
possess that power in full, and if I seriously utter the
words, “ Hoc est enim corpus meum ” over the piece
of bread I am eating (for that is the essential part of
the mass) it is changed forthwith into the living body
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PRIESTHOOD
of Christ: it is seriously believed on the Continent
that apostate priests frequently consecrate for the socalled Satanists and Freemasons. However, the power
of absolving from sin is not of the same character; it
is only radically received in the ceremony of ordina
tion, and the validity of its exercise is entirely depend
ent upon ecclesiastical authority. M. Zola, most
patient and accurate of inquirers, has overlooked this
distinction; in “ Lourdes” the Abbe Pierre is made
to hear Marie’s confession when he has no jurisdiction
over her and could not validly absolve her.1
A second examination (in casuistry) is necessary
before “ faculties ” to hear confessions are granted,
which is usually some time after ordination. And
jurisdiction is limited to the diocese of the bishop who
gives faculties, and may be still further restricted at
his pleasure: nunneries and boarding-schools are
always excepted from it; and there are always a cer
tain number of sins the absolution of which the bishop
reserves for himself. In some dioceses the list of
“ reserved cases ” is long and interesting : it usually
comprises the sins which are most prevalent in a dis
trict. The confessor must, in such cases, write to the
bishop for power to absolve, and tell the penitent to
return to him. In London four cases are reserved :
immoral advances by a priest to women in the con
fessional, frequentation of theatres by a priest,1 murder,
2
1 A non-Catholic writer ia almost certain to stumble in liturgical
matters. M. Zola’s administration of the sacraments to the dying
—to the pilgrim in the train in 1 ‘ Lourdes, ” and to Count Dario in
“ Rome ”—is quite incorrect. It has never been pointed out, too,
that the moon’s conduct, during Pierre’s three last nights in Rome,
is out of all bounds of astronomical propriety.
2 It must not be supposed that every priest one sees in a London
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89
and connection with a secret society. Two cases which
are always reserved to the Pope will be treated in the
next chapter.
For a long period after his ordination the priest’s
activity is confined to saying mass every morning. He
is not indeed bound to say mass every morning; he is
compelled to hear mass every Sunday by the general
law, but there is no clear obligation for him to exercise
his power to consecrate.1 But the young priest says
it daily during the years of his primitive fervour, and
many continue the practice faithfully throughout life.
Monastic priests* are usually bound by their constitu
tions to say mass daily. It would be wiser to allow
them liberty in that respect. Priests soon contract
the habit of hurrying through their mass at a speed
which ill harmonises with its solemn character. In
fact, the Church has been forced to legislate on the
point, and forbid the saying of mass in less than twenty
minutes for an ordinary, and fifteen minutes for a
“ black ” * mass (for the dead). No doubt a priest
2
1
works up to a high rate of speed largely out of anxiety
to meet the wishes of his congregation, yet the sight
is distressing to one who knows how much is squeezed
into the twenty minutes. An ordinary worshipper
theatre has incurred this. The law is local only in action, and
does not apply to visitors—say, from the States.
1 So that Zola is wrong in imputing it as a fault that the priests
at Lourdes omitted to say mass.
2 A black mass—in which the priest wears black vestments—is
shorter than usual: hence it is that black vestments so often adorn
the shoulders of an ordinary secular priest. Green vestments are
worn on a common, saintless day ; red for a martyr or the Holy
Ghost; white for virgins, confessors, and all great feasts ; purple
for sadder festivals; and gold for any purpose.
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merely sees the rapid irreverent genuflections and the
desperate hand movements which are supposed to be
crosses over the sacrament, but the mutilation of the
prayers is much more deplorable: nearly all are direct
and more or less familiar petitions to the Almighty,
and one cannot but hope (for the priest’s sake) that
he is wholly unconscious of the meaning of his
orisons. It is difficult, no doubt, when a large con
gregation is shifting uneasily on the benches, and
perhaps another priest is frowning upon you from the
chancel, waiting for his turn. Certainly there are
very many priests who acquit themselves with edifying
devotion, but the majority run through their mass
(apart from pressure) in the allotted twenty minutes;
and, since it takes a priest nearly an hour to say mass
in his early practising days, one can imagine at what
price the high speed is obtained.
The mass is rendered rather ludicrous sometimes
from an opposite reason—through its undue prolonga
tion and interruption by musical accompaniment. The
High Mass only differs from the daily Low Mass in
the number of assistants and the musical rendering of
some of the parts. It is utterly incongruous from the
purely religious point of view that the celebrant should
interrupt his solemn rites, whilst he and his congrega
tion listen to the florid strains of Haydn or Gounod,
operatically rendered by soulless singers who have no
idea of the meaning of their words, and are very fre
quently non-Catholics. Pope Leo XIII. did endeavour
to bring about a reform, but he must have realised
that it is the music and display that fill the Catholic
churches.
At the same time it must be said that the Church
�PRIESTHOOD
91
does not do all in its power to make the mass (and
other ceremonies) appeal to the priest. It retains a
number of vestments and rites that have ceased to
have any meaning. The “ humeral veil,” which is
worn over the shoulders by the sub-deacon at mass and
by the priest at Benediction, is a curious survival of
the once intelligible custom of drawing a veil across
the sanctuary at the most solemn moments; the
maniple, an embroidered cloth that dangles at the
priest’s left elbow, and is a similarly atrophied relic
of the primitive handkerchief, is now not only un
meaning but gravely inconvenient. The practice of
solemnly facing the people to sing the epistle and gospel
in Latin, and other such survivals of ancient custom,
are interesting from an archaeological point of view,
but they ought to have been changed centuries ago;
indeed, no serious defence can be made of the use of
Latin at all in the Church of Rome.
Ecclesiastical Latin is, of course, easy, yet it is a
fact that many priests know so little Latin of any
kind that many parts of the mass and Office are quite
meaningless to them. I remember a country priest
who was invited to bless a churn. He took the book
of (Latin) benedictions to the farm, and donned his
surplice. Not knowing the Latin for a churn (which
may be excused) he pitched upon a “ Benedictio
thalami ” as probably referring to a churn, and read
the “ Blessing of a marriage bed,” with the usual
solemnity, over the churn of cream.1 Certainly some
1 There are blessings for every conceivable purpose. In my
younger days a woman once asked me to read a prayer over her.
I could not divine the particular purpose, and she seemed uncom
municative. So I chose one from the book, rather at random ; and
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PRIESTHOOD
of the sequences in the mass and many of the hymns
in the Breviary are beyond the capacity of a large
number of priests.
And it must be admitted that no familiarity with
Latin will enable the priest to attach a meaning to
certain portions of the liturgy—especially to some of
the psalms. The approved Latin version of the Psalter
is a disgraceful performance; yet it has been used for
1600 years, and there is no question of changing it.
St. Jerome, an expert Hebraist, offered an excellent
translation in his classical Latin, but the monks knew
the old Psalter by heart and would not change; hence
the first translation of the psalms into bad Latin by
very imperfect Hebrew scholars endures to this day.
Some of the psalms—notably the 58th—contain un
mitigated absurdities; the verse i( Kings of armies have
fled, have fled ” is rendered, “ King of virtues, beloved,
beloved ”; verse 18 runs, “ If you sleep in the middle
of the lots, the wings of the dove are silvered,” &c.
There are many similar verses. Yet the good old
monks, who doubtless found many deep symbolical
meanings in the above, clung to the version, and their
modern successors may be excused for wool-gathering
during their chanting.
About forty psalms enter into the daily “ Office ”
which the priest has to recite. One often sees a
secular priest mumbling over his Breviary in train or
omnibus; he is bound to form the words with his lips,
she was safely delivered of twins shortly afterwards. In Belgium I
was severely censured for sending to a dentist a young woman who
came to me with a severe toothache, and an old lady, who had
diseased cows, to a veterinary surgeon. I incurred grave suspicion
of rationalism from my colleagues.
�PRIESTHOOD
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at least. The monks, however, recite their Office in
their choir, or private chapel, which is fitted with
stalls, like a cathedral. The two sides take up the
alternate verses of the psalms, chanting the words in
a loud monotone; it is only sung on solemn occasions.
The whole of it is set to music, and in such inactive
monasteries as the Carthusians, where it is a question
what to do with one’s time, the whole is sung daily.
It takes about three hours to chant it in the ordinary
monotone, and no normal human mind could remain
in real prayer so long. Indeed, the facility with
which the two rows of chanting friars could be thrown
into fits of laughter was a clear symptom of vacuity.
Even during our novitiate we were frequently con
vulsed with laughter at the entanglements of an elderly
friar who read the prayers at breakneck speed. At
London one day our instructor, who led one side of the
choir, suddenly raised the tone about an octave in the
middle of the psalm. The head superior, who led the
other side, disagreed with him (as usual). We were
afraid to join with either, for they were equally formid
able to us, so we listened with interest as they con
tinued the psalm to the end, chanting alternate verses
at a distance of an octave and a half. Deaf elderly
friars also caused distraction by going ahead in com
plete unconsciousness of the pauses of the rest of the
community.
And if there was much to be desired in these'
religious offices which were of a private character it
will be readily imagined that their public services were
not more satisfactory. It is impossible to expect a
continuous ecstasy during the long hours which monks
and nuns devote to prayer every day; and since most
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PRIESTHOOD
of the psalms do not vary from day to day, the very
monotony of the services would stand in the way of
any very serious devotion. In fact, the idea of follow
ing the sense of the words recited day after day for
hours together was so forbidding that it was frankly
given up by our spiritual writers; they were content
to urge us to prepare in advance lines of religious
thought to follow while we were chanting which would
have no connection with the Office itself. We tried
to do so. But the early riser who passes some London
monastery in the small hours of a winter morning, and
catches the sound of the solemn chant breaking on the
sleepy air, must not too hastily conclude that here is a
focus of intense spiritual thought which should work_
if only telepathically (as some think to-day)—for the
betterment of life. The religious exercises of the friars
must be cut down by two-thirds before they can become
really spiritual.
But in the public ceremonies a new distracting
element is introduced—the presence of closely observ
ant spectators; it were not in human nature to be
insensible of their presence. The sanctuary becomes a
stage; and strive how he may to think of higher things,
the ordinary mortal cannot banish the thought that
some hundreds, perhaps thousands, of reverent eyes
are bent upon his every movement. The Catholic
sanctuary, with its myriads of burning tapers, its
fragrant incense, its glory of colour in flowers and
vestments, compels attention. Every line of the
church converges to the altar and the priest. Hence
it is not surprising to find that there is a great deal of
formalism and purely dramatic effect in sanctuary
work. No one, probably, will think much of the grave
�PRIESTHOOD
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and devout expressions of the ministers. It is a part
of their discipline to cultivate such an expression, and
it soon becomes automatic. In point of fact, there
are few who are not keenly concerned about the
material success of their function—their singing, their
deportment, and appearance. At such a time as Holy
Week, for instance, the feverish anxiety for the suc
cess of the elaborate services runs so high that one may
safely say they are quite unattended with religious
feeling in the sanctuary. Ceremonies and music are
practised for weeks in advance, and, when the time
comes, celebrants are too busy and too nervous to
think of more than the merely mechanical or theatrical
part of the devotions.
And the same thought applies, naturally, to preach
ing ; it runs on the same lines in the Church of Rome
as in every other church. There are deeply religious
preachers whose only serious thought is for the good
of their hearers, as they conceive it; there are preachers
who think only of making a flattering impression on
their audience, or who are utterly indifferent what
effect or impression they produce; the vast majority
strive to benefit their hearers, and are not unassisted
in their efforts by a very natural feeling of self-interest.
I heard a typical story of one a few years ago. The
priest in question is one of the most familiar figures
in Catholic circles in the north of England, an ardent
zealot for the “ conversion ” of England, and, I be
lieve, a very earnest and worthy man. On this
occasion he was preaching in the open air to a large
special congregation who had made a pilgrimage to
some Roman Catholic resort. The preacher seemed
to be carried away by his feelings. My informant,
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PRIESTHOOD
however, a keen critic of elocution, noticed that one
gesture—a graceful sweep of the wide-sleeved arm—
was unduly prolonged, and, looking more closely, he
saw that the preacher was signalling to a photographer
in the opposite corner of the quadrangle. The preacher
told him afterwards that he had arranged to be photo
graphed at this specially prepared gesture. The photo
grapher had been so captivated by the sermon that
he had to be recalled to his duty by the orator himself. I also remember being grievously shocked once
in my early days at one of the London “ stars.” I
happened to be near the door when he re-entered the
cloister after a very fervent discourse, and he immediately burst out with the exclamation, “ Now, where
is that glass of port! ” Five years later I used to
feel grateful myself for a glass of port after preaching.
It is not an apostolic practice, but this is not an
apostolic age, and it only merits contempt when it
professes to be such.
If the priest has an educated congregation he usually
prepares his sermon with care. The sermons are rarely
original, for there is a vast library of sermonnaires at
the disposal of the Catholic priest, but it is often
written out in full; though it is never read from the
pulpit, as is done in Anglican congregations. Good
preaching is, however, rather the exception than the
rule; though the age of martyrs has passed away, a
Catholic can always find a sufficient test of his faith
in the shape of an indifferent preacher who insists on
thinking that he needs two three-quarters of an hour
sermons every Sunday. In poor parishes the sermons
usually degenerate into intolerable harangues. A priest
who had charge of a large poor mission told me that
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he always prepared his sermon the hour before it was
delivered : he took a cup of tea, lit a cigar, opened the
gospel of the day and thought dreamily over it, then
he ascended the pulpit and preached for half-an-hour.
Men of wide erudition and facility of utterance would
often preach most impressive sermons at a few minutes’
notice; others, of an ascetic, earnest, contemplative
type, would also preach sound and rational moral dis
courses without preparation. The practice of preach
ing the same sermon many times is, of course, widely
prevalent. I remember one old friar fondly kissing a
much worn manuscript after a sermon on St. Joseph :
“ God bless it,” he said, “ that is the sixty-third time
I have preached it.”
There are many other functions in which the priest
finds it difficult to sustain the becoming attitude. Con
fession will be treated in the next chapter; Extreme
Unction is a ceremony in which only a keener faith
than we usually meet to-day can take a religious
interest. But it is in the ceremony of baptism,
especially, that the most unreasonable rites survive and
the most diverting incidents occur. There is, for in
stance, a long series of questions to be put to the
sponsors, and the Church, unmindful apparently of the
march of time, still insists on their being put in Latin
(and answered by the priest) and repeated afterwards
in English. One lay-brother who used to assist me
in baptizing thought it more proper that he should
learn the Latin responses, instead of allowing me to
answer myself. Unfortunately he muddled the dia
logues, and to my query : i ‘ Dost thou believe in God
the Father,” &c. ? he answered,* with proud emphasis,
“ Abrenuntio—I renounce him.”
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PRIESTHOOD
I was, however, little occupied with sacerdotal
functions. Even before my ordination I had been
appointed to the chair of philosophy, and as soon as
I became a priest I entered upon my duties as pro
fessor. My interest in philosophy had been noticed
by the authorities, and probably attributed to a natural
taste for the subject. The truth was that I was
tormented with doubt, and I knew that philosophy
alone could furnish the cure—if cure there was. My
doubts had commenced six years previously, in the
novitiate. I can remember almost the hour, almost
the spot in the monastic garden, when, on a fine
winter’s day, as I chanted to myself the eternal refrain
of our ascetic literature, “ Ye shall receive a hundred
fold in heaven,” the fatal question fell across my mind
like a lightning-shaft, to sear and torture for many a
weary year. I had dutifully confessed my state of
mind to my superior. Kind and earnest as he was,
he had nevertheless little capacity for such emer
gencies ; he made me kneel at his feet in his cell and,
after severely pointing out the conceit of a boy daring
to have doubts—holding up the exemplary faith of
Wiseman, Newman, &c.—he discharged me with the
usual admonition to stifle immediately any further
temptation of that character. He acted upon the
received ascetical principle that there are two kinds
of temptations which must be fled from, not met and
fought, namely, temptations against purity and tempta
tions against faith: in the second case the rule is
certainly dishonest. Indeed, thoughtful priests do not
recognise it, though it is sanctioned, in theory and
practice, by the majority.
My scepticism increased; it was partly an effect of
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99
temperament, partly a natural desire to verify the
opinions which I found myself acting upon. At
London I immediately put myself under the guidance
of F. David, and for seven years he was informed,
almost weekly, of the growth of my thoughts.
Though most intimate with him I never allowed him
to make any allusion to my difficulties outside the con
fessional, but, in confession, I spent many hours pro
pounding my difficulties and listening with sincere
attention to his replies. As time went on I began to
feel that I had exhausted his apologetical resources,
that he had but the old threadbare formulae to oppose
to my ever-deepening difficulties. I became, there
fore, more dependent upon my own studies; and, as
my difficulties were wholly philosophical, I devoted
myself with untiring energy to the study of scholastic
philosophy. If, in later years, I did not appeal to
F. David when the crisis came, it was because I was
firmly convinced that I had, in private and in public
lectures, heard all that he had to say on the subject.
He was the only man who knew that my secession
was not the work of one day, but the final step in a
bitter conflict of ten long painful years. All that my
colleagues knew was that I was ever reticent and
gloomy ‘ (which was, I think, attributed to pride and
to sickness), and that I was strangely enamoured of
metaphysics; I was, accordingly, appointed professor
of that subject.
In due time I received jurisdiction and commenced
the full exercise of sacerdotal power. A monastic
superior has the power of examining his own subjects,
and thus practically dispensing with the episcopal
examinations. Knowing that I was not a zealous student
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PRIESTHOOD
of casuistry, F. David kindly undertook my examina
tion ; he asked me the formula of absolution (which I
did not know) one day when I met him in the cloister,
and then sent me up to the Vicar-General as “ ex
amined and found worthy.” I then immediately
entered the mysterious and much-dreaded confessional.
How does one feel on entering upon that unique
experience? I remember the emotion, but am incom
petent to analyse it. I only know that as I sat for
the first time in “ the box ” awaiting the first penitent
I was benumbed, not exalted, with a vague, elemental,
un-rational excitement. Behind me lay my long and
minute book-knowledge of all the conceivable trans
gressions of man, woman, or child; before me vaguely
outstretched the living world, as few see it. Then
came the quick step, the opening of the door, the rustle
of a dress—one last tremor, and the sensation was gone
for ever.
Preaching and other functions also commenced. I
was fully launched on my sacerdotal career. But the
confessional is a subject for more careful study.
�CHAPTER VI
HIE CONFESSIONAL
No point in the vast and contentious system of the
Church of Rome has excited, and still excites, a deeper
and a less flattering interest than the practice of
auricular confession. The Inquisition and the com
merce in relics and indulgences (though this com
merce is by no means extinct) are still favourite sub
jects of the historical critic. Monasticism, the Index,
the use of a dead language, political ambition and
secular intrigue, are some of its actual features which
attract no small amount of opprobrium, and even try
the patience of many of its own adherents. But the
chief butt of the innumerable anti-papal lecturers and
pamphleteers is the confessional. The air of mystery
and secrecy is a necessary evil of the confessional, and
it is a feature that provokes bitter criticism. A
Catholic layman cannot, of course, with delicacy en
large upon his own experience of the confessional, and
in any case it would be too personal to be effective.
No ex-priest has hitherto given his impressions of the
institution, and no priest would venture to express an
unfavourable opinion upon it, or any opinion of a
circumstantial character, for fear of alarming his
co-religionists.
Yet, in point of fact, there is no reason in the
E
101
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THE CONFESSIONAL
nature of things why even an actual confessor should
not write a most ample and detailed account of his
experiences. The “ seal of confession ” is not merely
a sacramental obligation; it is a natural obligation
which no ex-priest would ever dream of violating.
But the obligation has certain limits which are ex
plicitly defined in theological works, and are practically
observed by priests. The obligation is merely to main
tain such secrecy about confessional matters as shall
prevent the knowledge of the crime of a definite indi
vidual ; within those limits the obligation is absolute,
and admits of no possible excuse in the smallest matter.
The priest is not even allowed to use a probability in
his own favour in this question. He is forbidden
under an obligation of the gravest possible character
to say a single word or perform any action whatever
from which the declaration of his penitent might pos
sibly be inferred. Hence he cannot, under any con
ceivable circumstances, act upon the information he
has received. If a priest learned from the confession
of his servant that she had put poison in the wine he
was to take for dinner, Catholic theology directs that
he must not even change the bottle, but act precisely
as if he had heard nothing. I never heard of a test
case, though it is well known that there have been
martyrs to the seal of confession. In less important
matters the confessor interprets his obligation gener
ously. One of our friars, the superior of a monastery,
interrupted an inferior who was confessing to him, and
made him stand up and repeat apart from his confes
sion a certain fault for which he wished to inflict a
public penance. It was a breach of the seal, though
my colleague was too subtle a casuist to admit it. I
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103
remember a priest who was confessor to an acquaint
ance of mine once saying to me of her: “ Miss ----seems to be very well educated; she speaks quite
smoothly on the most delicate points.” I doubt
whether my friend would have cared for me to know
so much of her confession.
However, once the danger of identifying the indi
vidual penitent is precluded, the confessor is free to
make whatever use he pleases of his knowledge.
Theological writers admonish him that it is extremely
imprudent to discuss such matters before laymen, but
that is only part of the discretion of the priest with
regard to the laity, and carries no moral obligation.
Amongst themselves priests discuss their interesting
experiences very freely; and the professor of casuistry
is usually a man of wide experience, who gives his
students the full benefit thereof. In their conferences
(discussion-meetings) the clergy talk freely of their
experiences. It is a common practice of missionaries
to discuss the relative wickedness of town and country,
and of large cities or localities in a city. Such com
mentaries, however, are carefully restricted to sacer
dotal circles, there is no doubt that any departure
from the policy of unqualified secrecy would deeply
impair the fidelity of the laity, and tend to withdraw
them from that greatest engine of sacerdotal influence,
the confessional.
And there is another reason why confessors have
not thought it necessary to enter into the controversy
to any important extent. The attacks upon the con
fessional have usually defeated their own object by
emphasising too strongly the accidental rather than
the inherent and essential evil of the institution.
E2
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THE CONFESSIONAL
Dark stories—which may quite possibly be true in
some cases—are circulated in connection with it, and
the impression is at once urged that such practices are
a normal, or at least a large part, of what is hidden
under the veil of secrecy. The generalisation is fatal,
for the Catholic apologist has little difficulty in pointing
out the impossibility of such a state of things; besides,
the days are happily gone by when the Catholic priest
hood as a body could be accused of systematic and con
scious immorality. The main contention of the critic
having been thus met and answered, attention ii
diverted from the real evil of the confessional, which
is not sufficiently realised by those who are unfamiliar
with it.
The structures which are found in every Catholic
church for the purpose of hearing confessions quite
exclude the cruder anti-papal view on the subject.
The penitent usually remains in sight of the congre
gation, but in any case priest and penitent are separ
ated by a complete partition; a wire gauze-work, about
eighteen inches square, which is set into the partition,
enables them to talk in whispers, but contact is im
possible. These “ boxes,” or confessionals, may be
inspected in any church. In hearing the confessions
of nuns the precautions are usually still more stringent;
the confessor is locked in a kind of bureau, the nun
remaining entirely outside. But it is a fact that the
priest is not bound to hear every confession in the
“box,” and that he frequently hears them in less
guarded places. I have heard the confessions of a
whole community of nuns where no such precautions
existed; they entered singly and entirely unobserved
into the room where I sat to hear them. Their usual
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105
confessor was a venerable and sedate old priest, and it
was either forgotten, or thought unnecessary, to alter
the arrangement for me. During certain hours on
Saturday the priest sits in his box for all comers. Out
side those hours he will hear confessions in the sacristy
(where I have known a liaison to be systematically
pursued under that pretence) or anywhere, and the
anti-papal lecturer may find serious ground for reflection
in that section of his practice.
Confessions are also frequently heard at the resi
dences of penitents. The Church does not sanction
the practice with regard to people who are capable of
attending church, but it is frequently necessary to
hear the confessions of persons who are confined to
bed. The priest is urged in such cases to leave doors
open and take various precautions to avoid scandal,
but those directions are seldom acted upon and would
not be appreciated, as a rule, by the penitent herself.
Cases are known to me in which women have feigned
or exaggerated illness for the purpose of bringing the
priest to their room—with his connivance or at his
suggestion—and a liaison of priest and penitent has
long been maintained in that way. But such appoint
ments are attended with danger, and cannot be
widespread.
I do not believe that there is any large amount of
immorality in connection with the confessional; the
legislation of the Church on that point is stringent and
effective, and the priest is well aware that the con
fessional is the worst place in the world for him to
indulge improper tendencies. He is involved in a net
work of regulations, and sooner or later his misconduct
is bound to come to the knowledge of his authorities,
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THE CONFESSIONAL
with very disastrous consequences to himself. In the
first place, as I explained in the last chapter, improper
suggestion on the part of the confessor is a sin reserved
to the bishop. He cannot say mass until he has
received absolution (I am assuming that he has not
lost all sense of obligation T), and no brother priest
can absolve him from his fault. He must have recourse
to the bishop; and it is safe to presume that he will
not relapse for a considerable period. In the second
place, he is deprived of the power of absolving his
accomplice. An attempt to do so is a sin reserved
to the Pope; and, as every Catholic woman knows
that such absolution is invalid, the misconduct is once
more liable to come to the cognisance of the author
ities. The second sin which is reserved to the Pope
is a false denunciation of a confessor by a woman, so
that one has a guarantee of the genuineness of such
denunciations as are actually made.
Thus it is obviously ill-advised for the unfaithful
priest to make an evil use of the confessional, for the
danger of exposure is sternly prohibitive. A devout
Roman Catholic is horrified at the very speculation;
an impartial thinker, whose estimate of human nature
is neither unduly raised by thoughts of special graces
nor depressed by prejudice, will think of priests as
men more than usually exposed to temptation and
burdened with an enforced celibacy, but will give them
credit, on the whole, for an honest effort to realise
that higher integrity which they profess. He will
1 In that case his infidelity might not be revealed until death,
when any priest can absolve. A curious case was mentioned (by a
priest) in the Daily Telegraph a few years ago. At the death of a
Catholic military chaplain a woman presented herself to the army
authorities as his wife, and actually produced a marriage certificate.
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107
not think them superhuman with the Catholic, nor
infrahuman with certain Protestants. He will not
believe that any of their habitual practices are in
herently immoral, but he will expect the occasional
lapses from which no large body of men can be
free.
The priest’s danger is not in the confessional. It
is the same as that of any voluntary celibate, though,
in the light of what has been said about the age of
taking the vow, perhaps we ought to call him an
involuntary celibate. The fact that from time im
memorial ecclesiastical legislation has returned again
and again to the question of priests’ servants is in
structive enough. From the thirteenth century onward
the Church has recognised a vast deal of this kind of
immorality, and I am aware that there is much of it
in England to-day, even where the housekeeper is a
relative of the priest. Further, the house-to-house
visits of the priest, and the visits he receives, are
made to ladies ; the priest is idle in the hours when
the husband is employed. From the nature of the
case, however, it is impossible to make positive state
ments in this matter.
Whatever may be said of the general integrity of
the priest’s life,1 it may be safely admitted that the
occasional transgressions of his vow in connection with
the confessional have been grossly exaggerated. And
one unfortunate consequence of the excess is that it
1 I have elsewhere ventured to say, as a result of long reflection,
that probably one priest in ten is a man of exceptionally high
character, and one in ten a man of degraded or hypocritical life ;
the remaining eight-tenths are neither very spiritual nor the re
verse, and may lapse occasionally. But in Catholic countries such
as Spain clerical immorality is general. Second edition.
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THE CONFESSIONAL
has diverted attention from the real evil of the con
fessional. It is bad enough for adult men and women
(apart from the few who really desire it) to have to
kneel weekly or monthly at the feet of a priest (usually
a man they know intimately), and tell every unworthy
thought and act into which they have been betrayed;
for girls and young women to discuss their inmost
thoughts and feelings with such a man is vicious and
lamentable. If they are of a refined temper the
practice causes them much pain, and often leads to
duplicity or to actual debasement; to those of a coarser
complexion the temptation to abuse the occasion is
very severe.
When I first began to hear confessions I was much
impressed with the number of girls who unburdened
their minds to me (I was almost a stranger to them)
of some long-concealed transgression of an indelicate
character. A Catholic girl usually chooses a particular
confessor (we were six in number at Forest Gate), and
presents herself at his box every week, fortnight, or
month. The priest learns to recognise her voice, if
he does not know her already, and counts her amongst
his regular penitents, of whom every confessor is
proud to have a certain number. Week after week
she comes with her slender list of the usual feminine
frailities—fibs, temper, and backbiting. At last she
is betrayed into some graver fault, or something which
she imagines (usually after it has taken place) to be
serious. She is unable to reveal it to her ordinary
confessor after her long immunity from serious sin has
won her a certain esteem from him. If she goes to
another confessor, her habitual director will learn it,
for she is bound to say how long it is since her last
�THE CONFESSIONAL
109
confession. He will draw an obvious conclusion; some
confessors go so far as to exact a repetition of the
confession to themselves. She therefore conceals the
sin, and continues her confessions and communions for
months, even years, without confessing it. Now each
such confession and communion, she has been taught,
is as vile a sin as murder or adultery. She goes
through life with her soul in her hands and the awful
picture of a Catholic hell burning deeper into her;
until at last, in an agony of fear, she crouches one day
in the corner of the box and falters out the dread
secret of her breaking heart. And it must be remem
bered that the subject of so much pain is often no real
sin at all. The most unavoidable feelings and acts are
confused with the most vicious practices, and some
times regarded as “ mortal sins.”
But a yet sadder category is the large number of
girls who are actually corrupted by the practice of
confession. Girls who would never dream of talking
to their companions, even to their sisters or mothers
on certain points, will talk without the least restraint
to the priest. They are taught when young that such
is the intention of Christ; that in the confessional
every irregular movement (and to their vaguely dis
ciplined moral sense the category embraces the whole
of sexual physiology) must be revealed. They are
reminded that nothing superfluous must be added, yet
that the sense of shame in the confessional must be
regarded as a grave temptation of the evil one. So
they learn to control it, then to lay it aside temporarily,
and finally, to lose it. They begin to confer with each
other on the subject, to compare the impressibility,
the inquisitiveness, or the knowledge, of various con
�110
THE CONFESSIONAL
fessors, and they make plots (they have admitted as
much to me) to put embarrassing questions to priests.
I am not suggesting for a moment that Catholic
women and girls are less sensitive or less moral than
those under the influence of other religions. That
would be an untruth. But quite certainly it is one
of the evil influences in their lives that, although they
at first manifest a quick sense of shame and delicacy,
they are compelled by the confessor to be more minute
and circumstantial in their narratives.1 A girl will
often try to slip her less delicate transgressions
hurriedly between two common peccadilloes, and only
accuse herself in a general way of having been “ rude ”
or immodest. No confessor can allow such a general
accusation to pass; he is bound to call her and question
her minutely on the subject; for by some curious pro
cess of reasoning the Church of Rome has deduced
from certain of Christ’s words that the confessor,
being judge, must have a detailed knowledge of every
serious transgression before he can give absolution.
The conversation which ensues can very well be
imagined.
Finally, there is a still more curious and pitiable
category of victims of the sacrament of penance. I
speak again of women, because men may be roughly
distributed into two simple classes; the small minority
who are spiritually aided by the weekly discussion of
their fallings and temptations, and the great majority
1 Here the traditional purity of the west of Ireland maiden may
be quoted to me. But, apart from the fact that there is no such
remarkable virtue in Catholic Dublin, or still more Catholic Spain,
it is now proved that the ratio of illegitimate births in the west of
Ireland is kept down by sending the sinners to Glasgow, Liverpool,
or America.
�THE CONFESSIONAL
111
to whom confession is a bore and a burden. The
missionary priest who travels from parish to parish is
often warned that certain women will come to confess
who must be carefully handled. These are, in various
degrees, monomaniacs of the system, and are found in
every diocese. Sometimes they have a morbid love of
denouncing priests to the bishop on a charge of solicita
tion; and in the hope of getting evidence they will
entangle him in the crudest conversation. Sometimes
they are women “ with a history,” which, in their
morbid love of the secret conversation, they urge,
freshly embroidered, upon every confessor they meet,
and make him think that he has secured a Magdalen.
Frequently they are mere novelists who deliberately
invent the most shameless stories in order to gratify
their craving for that peculiar conversation to which
they have grown accustomed in the confessional.
In this I am, of course, relying to some extent on
the larger experience of my older colleagues, but some
pitiable cases linger in my own memory. Almost one
of the first confessions which I received from a woman
was a sordid and lengthy story of a liaison with one
of my colleagues. She assured me that she had never
told it before. When, however, after an hour of this
conversation, I returned to the house, another priest,
who had seen her leave my “ box,” asked me with a
laugh: “How did you get on with Clara?” (I
change the name, of course.) It appeared that, though
her story was probably true, she had hawked it over
London. Others confessed that they came to con
fession precisely on account of the sexual excitement
it gave them; the effect was at times very perceptible.
These are exceptional, but numerous, cases; so are the
�112
THE CONFESSIONAL
cases in which the confession is a real and valued
spiritual aid. For the vast majority of Catholics it is
a burden which they would gladly avoid if the Church
did not force it on them.
This, then, is the essential, inalienable evil of the
confessional as an obligatory and universal institution.
It may not be so directly productive of gross acts as
is frequently supposed, but it has a corruptive influence
that is clear to all save those who have been familiar
with it from childhood. And yet this system, of so
grave a responsibility, has the most slender basis of all
the institutions of the Church of Rome. The reason
ing by which it is deduced from Scripture is a master
piece of subtlety. “ Whose sins ye shall forgive they
are forgiven, and whose sins ye shall retain they are
retained,” is the sole text bearing on the subject.
The Catholic method of inferring the obligation of
confession from the latter part of the text is interest
ing, and yet very simple. The Apostles, the Church
says, have the power of retaining sin; but if it were
possible to obtain forgiveness in any other way than
by absolution from the Apostles or their successors the
power of retaining sin would be nugatory; therefore
there is only one way of obtaining forgiveness—by
absolution, after full confession. This argument is
strengthened by one from tradition, from the fact that,
in the fourth century, the Church claimed, against the
Novatians, the power of absolving from all sins; but
what was meant in the fourth century by confession
and absolution is not quite clear even to Catholic
theologians, and an outsider may be excused for not
seeing the force of the argument. Certainly confession
was not then obligatory.
�THE CONFESSIONAL
113
The fact is that, when the Church first began (in
the thirteenth century) to talk about the obligation
of confession, it had not the same critical spirit to
face which it has to-day. It found that a practice
had somehow developed amongst the faithful which
could be turned into a most powerful instrument, and
it proceeded to make the practice obligatory. The
newly founded religious orders were then administer
ing their spiritual narcotics to humanity, and the law
was accepted with docility. Hence, in our own day,
when the Church must provide a more rational basis
for its tenets and institutions, the search for proof of
the divine sanction of the practice is found to be more
than usually difficult to the expert interpreters of the
Church of Rome.
Apart, however, from its feeble dogmatic defence,
it is usual for preachers and writers to expatiate upon
the moral advantages of the practice. Sermons on
the subject are very frequent, for it is well known
that many people are deterred by it from passing over
to Rome. It is urged that confession gives a certain
relief to the soul that is burdened with the conscious
ness of sin, and that it is a great preventive of dis
order. That a large number of the Catholics of the
higher spiritual type are helped by the weekly con
sultation with the confessor is unquestionable. All the
saintly men and women of the Church who are uni
versally esteemed to-day regarded the confessional as
an important aid. In fact, one often meets non
Catholics of high moral sensitiveness who look with
eager longing to the institution. That is certainly an
argument for the admission of quite voluntary con
fession under circumstances of especial security, but it
�114
THE CONFESSIONAL
lends no support to the Roman law of compulsory
confession.
On the other hand, the academic conclusion of the
preacher, that the confessional is a preventive of sin,
vanishes completely before facts which are patent to
all. Catholics are neither more nor less moral than
their non-Catholic fellows in any country where they
mingle. To compare Catholic countries with Protest
ant would be useless. London and Berlin, if we may
strike an average of conflicting opinions, are neither
better nor worse than Madrid or Rome. Paris has not
deteriorated, but rather improved, since it threw off
the yoke of the Church. Milan, largely non-Catholic,
is far more moral than Naples. Liverpool and Glasgow
are much more Catholic than Manchester or London;
yet missionaries admit that they are more vicious.1
The truth is, that whilst the confessor can exercise a
restraining influence over his habitual penitent (as a
rule), the majority soon become so inured to the con
fession that it fails to deter them, and a certain number
are actually encouraged to sin by the thought of the
facility of absolution. The latter point has been
strained by critics; it is by no means a general feature.
But I have been informed by penitents on more than
one occasion that they sinned more readily under the
influence of this thought. In monastic or quasi
monastic institutions the weekly confession to the
chaplain does exercise a degree of influence, but even
1 To meet the generally unfavourable contrast of Catholic lands
and Protestant, the Catholic apologist pretends that vice is more
easily avoided in cooler latitudes. This is ludicrous. Germany
and Italy were equal in vice before the Reformation ; Christiania
and St. Petersburg are as vicious as London : Canada is not more
virtuous than Australia.
�THE CONFESSIONAL
115
here nature has its revenge. The temptation to con
ceal and the practice of concealing are so great that
the Church prescribes that an “ extraordinary con
fessor ” shall be provided every three months, and
that each monk or nun or cleric shall present himself.
In discharging that function I have not only met cases
of long concealment, as might be expected, but I have
known the inmates deliberately to indulge in the pros
pect of my coming. All these facts must be set
against the advantages of the confession for the
spiritual elect1; or, rather, they show that, whatever
may be thought of confession in the abstract, the law
of obligatory confession is a grave moral blunder. I
have heard confessions in very many parts of England
and abroad; I have read much casuistic literature that
is permeated with confessional experience; I have con
ferred on the subject with missionaries who have heard
hundreds of thousands of confessions, and I am con
vinced that the majority of Catholics are unaffected
by the confessional. They are bound to confess once
every year; if they wish to pass as men of ordinary
piety they confess every month or oftener; but in the
whirligig of life the confessional is forgotten, and has
no influence whatever on their morality.
That the institution is a source of great power to
the Church at large is easily understood : it creates a
vast gulf between clergy and laity, and considerably
accentuates the superiority of the former. But to a
large number of individual priests the function is very
distasteful. Apart from the obvious unpleasantness of
1 I have dwelt more fully on these advantages, and said all that
can be urged in favour of confession, in my “ Church Discipline:
an Ethical Study of the Church of Rome,” ch. iv.
�116
THE CONFESSIONAL
the task, it is much more fatiguing than would be
supposed. Three or four hours’ continuous hearing I
have found very exhausting, and a missionary has fre
quently to spend seven or eight hours a day in the
box. Still there are many priests who show a great
liking for the work, and they will sit for hours in their
boxes waiting—one could not help comparing them to
patient spiders—for the arrival of penitents.
The obligation of confessing commences at the age
of seven years, and is incumbent upon every member
of the Church, clergy and laity alike, even on the
Pope, who has a simple, harmless Franciscan friar
serving him in that capacity. The theory is that the
obligation of confessing commences when the possi
bility of contracting grave sin is first developed, and
in the eyes of the Church of Rome the average child
of seven is capable of meriting eternal damnation by
its acts. Needless to say, the confession of the average
child of seven or eight is a farce. The children used
to be conducted to us from the schools every three
months, after a careful drilling from their teachers,
but scarcely one child in ten had the faintest glimmer
ing of an idea of the nature of absolution. Few of
them could even be sufficiently instructed to fulfil the
material part of the ceremony; they mixed the various
parts of the formulae in the most unintelligible fashion,
and generally wished to retreat before they had
received the essential object of their coming—
absolution.
The method of the ceremony is described in any
Roman Catholic prayer-book. The penitent first
kneels for ten or fifteen minutes in the church and,
with the aid of the minute catalogue of sins in his
�THE CONFESSIONAL
117
book, recalls his transgressions since his last confession.
Entering the box, and usually asking the priest’s bless
ing, he states the occasion of his last confession, so
that the confessor may form a correct estimate of his
sinfulness. He then states his faults, the number of
times he has committed each, and any aggravating
circumstances; if the confessor is not satisfied, he
questions him and elicits further details. Then pre
mising, as a rule, a few words of exhortation or re
proof, he imposes a penance and dismisses him with
absolution, after an act of sorrow and a promise to
amend. According to Catholic doctrine the act of
sorrow and the “ purpose of amendment ” are the vital
and essential elements of the ceremony. The utter
ing of the formula by the priest—every Catholic is
told repeatedly—is entirely useless unless the contri
tion and good resolve are present. This shows that
the Church itself has not a mechanical conception of
the confession; but it must be added that, in practice,
the ordinary Catholic does constantly tend to rely on
just such a conception of the mechanical efficacy of
the rite. No money is ever exacted or received for
absolution. The stories circulated by travellers of lists
of prices of absolution seen in Continental churches
are entirely devoid of foundation.1 Further, an “ in1 I leave this in the text, but must add that I have since been
credibly informed of lists hanging in Canadian churches which set
a price on sin. But I gather that this was not the price of absolu
tion, but of an indulgence (remission of purgatorial punishment)
roughly adapted to various sins. The Catholic believes that,
although absolution relieves him of the fear of hell, he has still the
fires of Purgatory to face. Alms and good works may reduce his
liability to this, and the lists in question, sordid as they are, may
be merely suggestions of what amount of alms may trust to clear
the penalty of sins. Third edition.
�118
THE CONFESSIONAL
diligence ” has no reference whatever to future sin,
but is a remission of the purgatorial punishment due
for sin committed, and already substantially forgiven
by absolution, which the Church of Rome claims the
power to give. That indulgences are still practically
sold cannot be denied : not that a written indulgence
is now ever handed over for so much hard cash 1—such
bargains have proved too disastrous to the Church—but
papal blessings, richly-indulgenced crosses and rosaries,
&c., are well-known rewards of the generous alms-giver.
In Tyndall’s “ Sound ” a curious instance is men
tioned of a church in which certain acoustic peculi
arities enabled the listener at a distant point to hear
the whispers in the confessional; it is said that a
husband in this way heard his own wife’s confession.
Such contingencies are foreseen and provided for in
theological works. The seal of confession applies not
only to the priest, but to every person who comes to
a knowledge of confessional matter. It happens some
times that the penitents waiting outside overhear the
words of priest or penitent, especially when one or
other is a little deaf. At a church in Manchester,
Once more I don the white sheet—so little does even the priest
know of Catholicism in Catholic lands. I have before me four
indulgences which were bought in Spain for fifty, seventy-five, and
105 centimos each in the year 1902, and they bear that date. The
Archbishop of Toledo issues millions of these every year, and
money alone secures them. The Church calls the money an alms
(to itself), and the indulgence a reward of the alms. One of these
infamous papers is known in Spain as “ the thieves’ bula.” It is
the most expensive of the four (about Is.). It assures the thief
that, if he does not know the name of the owner of the ill-gotten
property he has, the Church allows him to keep it in consideration
of this alms. For valuable property large sums have to be paid.
Third edition.
�THE CONFESSIONAL
119
one busy Saturday evening, the priest interrupted his
labours to inquire the object of a scuffle outside his
box. There was a quarrel—not uncommon—about
precedence amongst the mixed crowd that waited their
turn at the door. A boy was complaining of being
deprived of his legitimate place, and when the priest’s
head appeared he exclaimed, “ Please, father, I was
next to the woman who stole the silk umbrella! ”
And in my young days I remember that, on one occa
sion, when we had been conducted to church for the
purpose of confessing, we who were waiting our turn
were startled to hear our stolid elderly confessor cry
out, repeating with horrified emphasis some statement
of his youthful penitent, 44 Eighty-three times! ” We
knew little about the seal in those days, and the boy
did not grudge us the joke we had against him for
many a day.
The 44 penance ” which is inflicted usually consists
of a few prayers. Corporal penances are now unknown
outside of country districts in Spain or Italy (where
one may still see a girl kneeling in chapel with a
pointed reference to the seventh commandment pinned
to her back), and even long and frequently repeated
prayer is not now imposed in England or the States;
the Irish peasant may be ordered to say daily for
months the seven penitential psalms. I soon found,
from the number of people who accused themselves of
neglecting their penance, how useless it was to impose
burdens; those who did not curtail it hurried through
it with precipitate haste. For it is customary to kneel
and say the penance immediately after the confession,
and as there are some scores of idle witnesses, calculat
ing the severity of the penance from the time expended
�120
THE CONFESSIONAL
on it, and thence inferring the gravity of the sin,
brevity is a feature of some importance. Hence I
never imposed more than five or six Pater Nosters.
On one occasion I imposed the usual “ Four Hail
Marys ” on a quiet, unoffending old priest. He was
slightly deaf, and, changing his posture of deep
humility, he looked up at me indignantly, exclaiming
“ Forty Hail Marys! ”
Short penances were not the only deviation from
our theological rules which I allowed myself; I soon
abandoned the hateful practice of interrogating on
malodorous subjects. At first when I heard a general
accusation I merely asked whether the morbidity in
question was serious or not (for if it were not serious
there was no obligation to interrogate). I was, how
ever, so indignantly repulsed when the lady did
happen to have a lighter debt that I was compelled
to resort to the usual dialogue. It was not long
before I entirely abandoned the practice, and simply
allowed my penitents to say what they thought neces
sary. The Church imposes on the priest the obliga
tion of cross-examining under pain of mortal sin, so
that I do not doubt that some of my perplexed
colleagues will see in that “ sin ” the reason of the
withdrawal of the light of faith from me. However,
the institution had become repulsive to me, and I
eagerly embraced an opportunity of escaping from it
and other ministerial work by a course of study at
Louvain University. There came a year when our
studies were disorganised, and I had no students for
philosophy. I gladly accepted an invitation to go and
study oriental languages at Louvain.
�CHAPTER VII
A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
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Louvain University is the principal Roman Catholic
university in the north of Europe. Nominally it is
a centre of higher Catholic instruction for all the
northern countries, including, until a recent date, the
United States. However it is, in point of fact, little
more than a national institution. The patriotic
Germans naturally prefer their own vigorous, though
less venerable, University of Innspruck. Britons and
Americans have always been represented in its colleges
very sparsely, for they had been usually attracted to
the fountain-head, to Rome, in their thirst for higher
doctrine. Now America has its great Washington
University, and English Catholicism has brought to
an end its self-imposed banishment from Oxford and
Cambridge. English ecclesiastics will, no doubt, con
tinue to be sent into a more Catholic atmosphere
abroad, and will continue to prefer Spain or Italy to
Belgium. Still, Louvain could boast many nation
alities amongst its 1600 students.
The long struggle between Catholicism and Liberal
ism in Belgium has had the effect of isolating Louvain
as a distinctively Catholic university. The clerical
party naturally concentrated upon it, with its long
tradition of orthodoxy and its roll of illustrious names,
121
�122
A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
and determined to exclude the liberalising tendencies
which had either mastered, or threatened to master,
the universities of Brussels, Ghent, &c. The control
is exclusively clerical, both rector and vice-rector being
high ecclesiastical dignitaries, and every orthodox
family with a care for the correct training of its sons
is expected to send them to Louvain.
But Louvain is by no means merely a centre for
clerical training. Belgian Catholicism has fallen much
too low to realise so ambitious a dream. During the
year I spent there—1893-94—there were not more
than fifty clerical students out of the 1600. Ecclesi
astical studies were, therefore, working at a dead loss,
for the theological staff was numerous and distin
guished. The greater part of the students were in
law or medicine, though there were also sections for
engineering, brewery, and other technical branches.
Moreover, the university suffered from the presence of
a rival clerical establishment in the same town—con
ducted, of course, by the Jesuits. The Jesuits, the
“ thundering legion ” of the ecclesiastical army, have
one weakness from a disciplinary point of view; they
never co-operate. “ Aut Caesar aut nullus ” is their
motto whenever they take the field. And so at Lou
vain, after, it is said, a long and fruitless effort to
secure the monopoly of the university itself, they have
erected a splendid and efficient college, in which the
lectures are thrown open to outsiders, and from which
a brilliant student is occasionally sent to throw down
his glove to the university, to defend thirty or forty
theses against the united phalanx of veteran professors.
The Dominicans have also a large international college
in the town, and the American bishops a fourth, in
�A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
123
which European volunteers for the American missions
are trained. The rivalry which results, although it
does occasionally overflow the channel of fraternal
charity, helps to sustain the vitality of the Belgian
Church, and turns its attention from the rapid growth
of Rationalism and Socialism.
One difference between the Belgian and the English
system is that few of the students live in the colleges,
scattered at intervals over the town, which form the
university. These are usually only lecture halls, with
their attendant rooms and museums; the students live
in the houses of the townspeople, for the town exists
merely for the accommodation of the university. The
vice-president keeps a record of all houses and the
addresses of the students, but the supervision is slight,
and the liberty of the students great. A second and most
important difference from English or American uni
versity life lies in the complete absence of athleticism.
The Belgians are entirely averse to muscular exertion
of any kind. I saw very little cycling, no cricket, no
football, no rowing—nothing more active than skittles
during the whole period; for “ beer and skittles ” is
much more than a figurative ideal to the Belgians.
Their free time, and they are not at all a studious
race, is mainly spent in the estaminets, or beer houses;
and, like German students, they consume enormous
quantities of their national beverage and smoke
unceasingly.
The ethical result of such a mode of life may be
deduced from general physiological laws. The “ rector
magnificus ” was a very able and estimable man, but
of a retiring and studious character; the vice-rector,
Mgr. Cartuyvels, was, however, an active and zealous
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A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
disciplinarian, and, by means of a wide system of
espionnage, he was tolerably acquainted with the con
dition of affairs. Still he was powerless to stem an
inevitable tide, and indeed it was said that he was
afraid to enforce his authority too sternly, lest he
should drive more Catholics to the Liberal universities.
The religion of the students did not seem to be of a
much higher quality than their conduct. I was in
formed by a Louvain priest that at least 500 out of
the 1500 did not attend mass on Sundays; and such
attendance is obligatory and a test of communion in
the Church of Rome. Like that of so many of our
Irish neighbours in England, their faith needs the
stimulus of a row or a riot over religious questions to
bring it to consciousness. Once the Liberals or the
Socialists fill the street with their anti-clerical, “ A
bas la calotte,” the students are found to be Catholic
to a man. Apart from these uncanonical, though not
infrequent, ebullitions their piety is little exhibited.
The clerical students, who usually live in the
colleges, are priests who have distinguished them
selves in their ordinary theological course, and who
have been sent by their respective bishops to graduate
in theology, philosophy, or canon law. Few of them
see the full term of a university career, as their bishops
are compelled by financial and other pressure, if not
by reports of the examiners, to withdraw them pre
maturely to the active work of the diocese. The suc
cessful student secures his licentiate at the end of the
third year, and his bachelorship at the end of the
fourth. He then ceases to follow the public lectures
at the halls, and spends two years at the study of his
subject, under the guidance of his late professor.
�A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
125
During that time he must write a Latin treatise on
any theme he chooses. Finally, in the great hall,
before a numerous audience, he wins his cap by
defending a score of theses against the professors and
any ecclesiastic who cares to oppose him. As every
religious order, and consequently every school of
philosophy and theology, is formidably represented in
the town, very lively scenes are sometimes witnessed
during the discussion of the theses. Certain contro
versies have had to be practically excluded from the list
of debatable questions in order to avoid an undignified
delay of the proceedings by the Dominicans and Jesuits
in the gallery. The success of the student is, however,
practically guaranteed by the mere fact of his presenta
tion by a professor. The whole system differs little
from what it was in medieval Louvain, and the divorce
between modern Belgian culture and the Belgian
Church is thus foolishly maintained by the clergy
themselves.
The programme of clerical study at the university
is identical in form with that of the seminaries, but
the questions are treated more profoundly and ex
haustively. Only one treatise is taken each year.
Each question is thoroughly discussed, and subsidiary
questions are treated which are crushed out of the
briefer elementary course. It is like passing from
Huxley’s “ Elements of Physiology ” to the more
exhaustive work of Kirk or Carpenter on the same
subject. Then the philosopher has the advantage of
attending, with the medical students, scientific courses
under men who are eminent in their respective sciences
(which, however, he rarely does), and a few of the
students of theology and Scripture attend lectures in
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A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
the Oriental languages under equally distinguished pro
fessors. In addition to these there are courses of
Persian, Sanscrit, Chinese, &c., and courses of the
higher literature of most European languages, and of
Latin and Greek classics. There is, however, no
degree corresponding to the English M.A., and literary
studies are greatly neglected. All the clerical students
are intended by their bishops to become professors in
their seminaries, and, in addition to their degree in
theology, they are directed to follow the particular
course which will benefit them. Still a spirit of
narrow utilitarianism pervades all ranks. The laystudents have a definite profession in view and have
no superfluous industry to devote to other studies; the
priests think of little else besides their theology or
philosophy. There are a few disinterested worshippers
at the shrine of philosophy and letters, but their num
ber is comparatively small. The course of Sanscrit and
Chinese ascribed to the distinguished student of those
(and many other) languages, Mgr. de Harlez, seems to
have a mythical existence. Persian is never demanded,
and even Arabic (though the professor is an Arabic
scholar of the first rank) is rarely taken. Hebrew
must be studied by aspirants for theological degrees,
but Syriac has few scholars. There were three of us
who took the Syriac course in 1893, and of the three two
were mendicant friars who paid no fee. It will appear
presently that we received little more than we gave.
I was requested by my superior to follow the course
of Hebrew under M. Van Hoonacker, and, taking
advantage of the temporary interruption of my lectures
on philosophy, I made my way to the monastery of
our order at Louvain. I added a course of Syriac (in
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virtue of which I hoped to disturb my Anglican
brethren over the Peschito version of the New Testa
ment), an elementary course of biblical criticism, and
an advanced course of scholastic philosophy.
The lectures on Hebrew and on biblical criticism
were given by M. Van Hoonacker, an effective teacher
and erudite scholar, who crossed swords (with more
courage than success) with the great Kuenen. An
abler professor of Hebrew we could not have had, and
even in handling the delicate questions raised by the
Higher Criticism he displayed much wealth of know
ledge, a generous acquaintance with the writings of
his opponents (Wellhausen, Kuenen, &c.), and much
argumentative power. The subject marked on the
programme was an introduction to the canon of Scrip
ture; it was based upon the work of M. Loisy, and
ran upon the traditional lines. But he quickly ex
hausted that subject and hastened to his favourite
topic, the discussion, against Wellhausen, of the origin
of the Jewish festivals. Of erudition he gave abund
ant proof, and he showed not a little ingenuity in
research and in the grouping of arguments; but it was
obvious that few of the students had any large view
of the general issues at stake. All scribbled rapidly
as the professor spoke (for we had no manual), and
endeavoured to gather as much detailed information as
would suffice for examination purposes.
In private intercourse I found him extremely kind
and courteous, and he frequently spoke to me of the
difficulty of his position as professor of biblical criti
cism, when the Church left us without any clearly
defined doctrine about the nature and extent of in
spiration in face of modern rationalism : he did not
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appreciate the liberty of thought which the Church
wisely grants until secular science has reached its highwater mark and it knows what it can decide with
security. The Pope’s encyclical had not yet appeared,
but I know that, as a theologian and an expert, he
would have little internal respect for it.
The professor of Syriac (and of some parts of
Scripture) was a man of a very different type. He
was a very old man, Mgr. Lamy, a distinguished
Syriac scholar, but a poor teacher, and one whose
opinions on biblical questions were of the older days.
Like M. Van Hoonacker, he took the first chapter of
Genesis as a subject for translation, and devoted more
time to his commentaries on the text than to its
Syriac construction. The contrast was instructive.
On the Monday morning we had the Hebrew pro
fessor’s advanced and semi-rationalistic commentary,
resolving the famous chapter into myths and allegories;
the following morning, from the same pulpit, Mgr.
Lamy religiously anathematised all that we had heard,
and gave the literal interpretation so dear to the
earlier generation. He was kind and earnest, but his
method of teaching was so unfortunate that, after
receiving one lecture a week for nine months, we knew
little more than the Syriac alphabet. Toward the end
of the term he startled us by commanding us to pre
pare for the next lecture a translation of a dozen lines
of Syriac without vowel points! The sequel unhap
pily illustrates the average Flemish character as I met
it among the clergy. We were three in number in the
course, and it was my turn to read at the next lecture.
But my companions, fearful of their own turn, endeav
oured to persuade me not to attempt such a preposter
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ous task. By dint of great exertion I copied out the
translation of the passage and brought it to lecture on
the following Tuesday, when my companion, a Flemish
priest, snatched the paper from my hand and tore it
in pieces.
The third professor whose lectures I followed, Mgr.
Mercier, was a gentleman of refined and sympathetic
character, and one of the ablest living exponents of
Catholic philosophy. To a perfect knowledge of the
scholastic philosophy he added a wide acquaintance
with physical science (which can rarely be affirmed of
the scholastic metaphysician) and a very fair estimate
of modern rival schools of philosophy. Instead of
wasting time on the absurd controversies of the
medieval schools he made a continuous effort to face
the deep metaphysical criticism of the German and
English systems; with what success may be judged
from his numerous writings on philosophical questions.
During the year I attended, he took “ Criteriology ”
as his subject; he considered it the most important
section of philosophy in these days when, after 2000
years of faith, the Neo-Academic cry, “ What is
truth? ” has revived in such earnest.
Unfortunately the modern sophist finds little earn
est and disinterested attention, even in universities;
modern students of the great science are widely re
moved from the restless zeal of Athens or Alexandria
or medieval Paris. Mgr. Mercier is, moreover, bur
dened with an obligation to adhere to the teaching of
St. Thomas, almost the least critical of the medieval
theologians, but the present favourite at Rome. How
ever, the Vatican keeps a jealous eye on Louvain since
the outbreak of heterodoxy under the famous Ubaghs
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some thirty years ago. It is still under the suspicion
of Cartesianism in a mild form, but that is only a
matter of concern to Jesuits and other philosophical
rivals.
I experienced much kindness from Mgr. Mercier.
Like most of the Walloons, he is more refined and
sensitive than the Fleming usually is. Belgium is
made up of two radically distinct and hostile races.
The southern half is occupied by a French-speaking
people (with a curious native Walloon language) whose
characteristics are wholly French; while the northern
race, the Flemings, are decidedly Teutonic, very
hospitable, painfully candid and communicative, but
usually coarse, material, and unsympathetic. The two
races are nearly as hostile as the French and Germans
whom they respectively resemble (though, I think,
neither French nor Germans admit the affinity—the
Germans have a great contempt for the Flemings).
Louvain or Leuven is in Flemish territory, and Mgr.
Mercier, justly suspecting that I was not at ease with
my Teutonic brethren, offered to establish me in his
own house, but my monastic regulations forbade it.
Both through him and the other professors I have the
kindest recollection of the university, from which,
however, I was soon recalled.
A secondary object of my visit to Belgium was the
opportunity it afforded of studying monastic life in
all the tranquillity and fulness of development which
it enjoys in a Catholic country. In England it was
impossible to fulfil many of our obligations to the
letter. It is a firm decree of a monastic order that the
religious costume must never be laid aside. But it is
still decreed in English law that any person wearing
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a monastic habit in the public streets shall be im
prisoned; and, although the law has become a dead
letter, experiment has shown the practice to be at
tended with grave inconveniences. Again, the Fran
ciscan constitutions strictly forbid collective or indi
vidual ownership, and even the mere physical contact
of money; but English law does not recognise the
peculiar effects of a vow of poverty, and English rail
way companies and others are unwilling to accept a
note from a religious superior instead of the coin of
the realm, as the Belgian railways do. In a Roman
Catholic country, at least in Belgium, the friars have
full liberty to translate their evangelical ideas into
active life. I had heard that the Belgian province
was a perfect model of monastic life, and, as I had
vague dreams of helping F. David in his slowly
maturing plan to reform our English houses, I desired
to study it attentively.
I soon learned that perfection consisted, in their
view, very largely of a mechanical and lifeless disci
pline. Much stress was laid on the exact observance
of the letter of the constitutions, which we English
friars greatly neglected. In most of the monasteries
the friars arose at midnight for Office, rigorously
observed all the fasts, would not touch a sou with a
shovel, never laid aside their religious habit, and never
interfered in secular business. They felt themselves,
therefore, at a sufficient altitude to look down com
passionately on our English province, and they were
sincerely astonished when a general of the order, the
shrewd and gifted F. Bernardine, quite failed to
appreciate their excellent condition on the occasion of
a visit from Rome. In point of fact, the province is
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infected with the idle, intriguing, and materialistic
spirit which is too notoriously associated with monasti
cism when it is not under the constant pressure and
supervision of heretics and unbelievers.
Their literal fulfilment of the vow of poverty in
these unsympathetic times leads to curious complica
tions. In the primitive innocence of the order (its
first ten years) the vow of poverty implied that all
the houses, clothing, &c., that were given to the friars
remained the property of the donors; that money was
on no account to be received for their labours; and
that all food was to be begged in kind. In the course
of time the paternal solicitude of the Pope helped
them out of difficulties by declaring that whatever was
given to the friars became his—the Pope’s—property.
He also instructed them to appoint a layman as syndic
to each of the monasteries, who should undertake (in
the Pope’s name, not that of the friars) the financial
and legal matters which the letter of the rule forbade
the friars to undertake; gradually, too, brothers of
the third order, who make no vow of poverty, were
introduced into the friaries as servants, and a superior
could thus always have a treasurer at hand.
In England the friars never troubled either syndic
or lay-brother. Once a quarter the syndic, or “papa,”
was invited to the friary to sign the books, but the
friars were careful to choose some religious-minded
man whose trust was larger than his curiosity. I
remember the consternation that once fell on the Man
chester friary, which was far from ascetic, when the
syndic they had indiscreetly chosen asked that the
books might be sent to him to study before he signed.
The bill for spirits would have surprised him, if he
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133
had insisted on seeing the accounts. The superior of
each of our English monasteries had his safe and his
bank account, no priest ever went out with an empty
pocket, and the authorities made contracts (from which
the Pope’s name is wisely excluded) and went to law
like every other modern Christian. In Belgium the
scheme of holy poverty as modified by the Popes
(which would have pained Francis of Assisi) is followed
out faithfully. All food is sent in in kind by the
surrounding peasantry except, usually, meat and beer,
which are bought through the syndic. A lay-brother
is constantly wandering about the country begging
provisions for the friars, and the response is generous
both in quantity and quality. The brown habit is
sure to elicit sympathy, especially in the form of liquid,
and even the railway officials accept a note from the
friary when a ticket is necessary. I have travelled all
over Belgium, visiting Brussels, Waterloo, &c., as com
fortably as a tourist, without touching a centime from
one end of the year to the other.
Their monasteries, too, bear the visible stamp of
their voluntary poverty. Linen is never seen in them,
on tables (except on high festivals), on beds, or on the
persons of the friars; and another point on which they
imitate the apostle St. James is that they rigorously
deny themselves the luxury of a bath—for the reason,
apparently, that was given by the French nun to the
English girl who asked why she was not allowed to
take a bath at the pensionnat: “ Le bon Dieu vous
verrait! ” Gas is not admitted; and, worst of all,
they think it incumbent on them to reproduce in their
friaries the primitive sanitary arrangements of the
neighbouring cottages. Our lavatory, too, was fitted
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up with archaic severity. A dirty battered zinc
trough ran along under a row of carefully assorted
taps, and into these the water had to be pumped every
three minutes. There were no hand-basins, there was
no hot water, and neither comb nor brush; and only
a tub of black soft soap was provided for our ablutions.
Some of the friars made use, in the absence of basins,
of vessels which must be left to the reader’s imagina
tion. I have seen this done, from force of habit, even
in England. .
The fasts were rigorously observed; though, as it
is a widespread custom both in France and Belgium
not to breakfast before midday, the friars suffered
little inconvenience by this. At the same time the
feasts were celebrated with a proportionate zeal. On
an ordinary feast-day, which occurs once or twice
every month, the friars would sit for three hours or
more, sipping their wine, talking, chaffing, quarrelling,
long after the dinner had disappeared. Extraordinary
feasts would be celebrated with the enthusiasm of
schoolboys. There would be banquets of a most
sumptuous character, with linen tablecloths, flowers,
and myriads of glasses; wine in abundance and of
excellent quality; music, instrumental and vocal;
dramatic, humorous, and character sketches. In the
larger convents, where there are about thirty priests
and forty or fifty students, there was plenty of musical
talent, and concerts would sometimes be prepared for
weeksu in advance in honour of a jubilee or similar
festival; and every priest had his circle of “ quasels ”
•—pious admirers and penitents of the gentler sex—
who undertook the culinary honours of his festival.
The quantity of beer and claret which they consume
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135
is enormous, yet I saw no excesses in that direction;
their capacity, however, is astonishing, and there are
few of them who do not kindle at the prospect of an
extra pint of beer or of a bottle of red wine. The
youngest novices take three pints of beer per day, for
they take no tea in the afternoon, and they soon learn
to look out for every opportunity of an extra pint.
Spirits are forbidden, though a few of the elders who
have been on the English mission have developed a
taste for Whisky. They tell a curious story in con
nection with it in one of their monasteries. An Eng
lish visitor had smuggled over a bottle for a lay-brother
whom he had known in former years. Later in the
afternoon the lay-brother and one of his comrades
were missing from Vespers. After a long search they
were at length discovered in one of the workshops in
a profound slumber, with the half-empty bottle and
all the materials of punch on a table beside them. At
Louvain the friars had been forced to build a special
entrance to the monastery for the introduction of their
beer, as a censorious Liberal lived opposite the great
gate, and kept a malicious account of the barrels im
ported. One of the most anxious concerns of a superior
is his wine-cellar, for he knows well that his chance
of re-election is closely connected with it. On one
occasion, when I had asked why a certain young friar
seemed, to be a popular candidate for the highest posi
tion before an election, I was told with a smile that
“ his brother was a wine merchant.” Wherever I
went in Belgium, to monasteries, nunneries, or private
houses, I found that teetotalism was regarded as a
disease whose characteristic microbe was indigenous to
the British Isles.
F2
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The first unfavourable impression I made upon my
hosts was by my unintelligible refusal to drink. We
arrived at Ghent for dinner, and after dinner (with
the usual pint of strong ale) four of us sat down to
five or six bottles of good claret. I drew the line at
the sixth glass, and at once attracted as much sus
picion as a “ water-bibber” of ancient Greece or Rome.
At three o’clock a second pint of strong ale had to be
faced, and at seven a third; when wine re-appeared
after that I violently protested, and I neveT recovered
their good opinion. Thirst seems to be a national
affliction, for even the peasant women sometimes have
drinking matches (of coffee) at their village fairs, and
the first or second prize has more than once fallen a
victim to her cafeine intemperance. It is interesting
to note that few of the friars preserve any mental
vigour up to their sixtieth year, and that great
numbers fall victims to apoplexy.
• There are no congregations attached to the friaries,
so that their work differs materially from that of
English priests. In fact, their life is the typical
monastic life, for, as has been explained, canon law
prescribes that monastic houses should only be con
sidered as auxiliaries of the regular clergy. The first
result, however, is usually a conflict with the priest
in whose parish the monks establish themselves, as
they attract his parishioners to their services; and
they rarely find much favour with the bishop of the
diocese. They hear great numbers of confessions,
principally of the surrounding peasantry, and have
frequent ceremonies in their churches, but, as there
are usually so many friars, the work occupies little
time. The only work of importance which they do
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137
is to preach special sermons and give missions in dis
tant parishes, but even that is little in proportion to
their vast numbers. One meets amongst them many
earnest and devout men who are never idle for a
moment, but the majority lead the most dull and
inactive and useless lives.
At Louvain there were nine priests and hardly
sufficient work to occupy the time of four. There
was one earnest exemplary friar, who was constantly
and usefully occupied; another, equally earnest, would
exhaust himself one fortnight and recuperate the next;
the remainder led a life of most unenviable inaction.
Some, under one pretext or another, did absolutely
nothing from one end of the week to the other. They
were no students; in fact, most of them were grossly
ignorant, and their large library was practically unused.
In summer they would lounge in the garden or bask
at the windows of their cells until the bell rang out
the next signal for some vapid religious exercise; in
winter they would crowd round their stove, and discuss
the daily paper or some point of ritual or casuistry,
eager as children for the most trivial distraction.
In fact, between idleness and eccentricity, many of
them had developed most extraordinary manias. One
of our priests, a venerable old friar whose only
sacerdotal duties consisted in blessing babies and
giving the peasants recipes (prayers) for diseased
cattle, had succeeded in getting himself appointed as
assistant cook. His gluttony was the standard joke of
the community; his meals were prodigious. Another
friar devoted his time to the solution of the problem
of perpetual motion; another had designed a cycle
Which was to outrun any in the market, if he could
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A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
devise a brake capable of stopping it when in motion;
another explained to me a system of the universe which
he had constructed (from certain texts of Genesis) to
the utter and final overthrow of materialism. He had
explained it to several professors of science, who had
admitted its force in silence, and I found myself in
the same predicament. Some took to mending clocks,
of which they had a number in their cells, others to
painting, others to gardening, others to making col
lections of little pictures of the Virgin or St. Joseph,
or of miraculous statues. Few of them spent any
large proportion of their time in what even a Catholic
would consider the service of humanity.
The little knowledge they possessed was usually con
fined to liturgy and casuistry. Not being parish
priests they had not the advantage of daily visits
amongst the laity, which is the only refining influence
and almost the only stimulus to education of a celibate
clergy; and the little preaching and ministerial work
they were entrusted with, lying almost exclusively
amongst the poor, did not demand any serious thought
or study. There are always a few ripe scholars amongst
them—very few at the present time—but the majority
profess to base their undisguised aversion for study on
the letter and spirit of their constitutions; and not
without reason, though they forget that the age to
which that rule was adapted has passed for ever.
There is no pressure upon them, yet their ordinary
studies make little impression on them, and, though
the Catholic university opens its halls gratis to them,
they only reluctantly allow one or two of their students
to enter it each year. To graduate they regard as an
unpardonable conceit for a monk, and I was therefore
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139
not permitted to take the degree of Ph.D. to which my
studies entitled me.
Their complete ignorance of philosophy led them ta
take a superfluous interest in my welfare, and gave
me a small idea of the way in which Roger Bacons
are victimised. Mgr. Mercier had sent me Paul Janet’s
“ Causes Finales ” to read, and whilst I was doing
so one of the elder friars came to glance at the title
of my book. He considered it for some moments in
perplexity, and at length exclaimed : “ Tiens! la cause
finale, c’est la mort! ” I offered no correction, and
he went to acquaint the others, as usual. Then one
of the younger friars, the scholar of the community,
recollected that he had read somewhere that Janet
was “ chef de l’ecole spiritualiste ” in France, and,
nobody knowing the difference betwen spiritism and
spiritualism, it was agreed that I was exploring the
questionable region of spooks. When Mgr. Mercier
went on to lend me the works of Schopenhauer (and
they had looked up the name in the encyclopaedia) there
was serious question of breaking off my intercourse
with him and writing to England of my suspected
tendencies. Happily, I was in a position to treat them
with indifference, for I was neither their subject nor
their guest. They were paid (by my mass fees) for
my maintenance—which cost them nothing—and even
my books, clothing, bedding, &c., had to be paid for
from England. Englishmen, in their eyes, are
proverbially proud; I was credited with an inordinate
share of that British virtue.
At present they are making strenuous efforts to re
organise and improve their scheme of study. One or
two earnest men are striving to lift the burden which.
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is oppressing them, and possibly time will bring an
improvement; though it can only be by a sacrifice in
point of numbers which all are unwilling to make.
The two points in which the glory of the fraternity is
thought to consist are the maintenance of a perfect
formal discipline and the increase of members. The
Belgian friars are wrongly endeavouring to secure both
points at once. They have built recently a large pre
paratory college, which is always crowded with aspir
ants. But when I asked one of the Belgian friars, in
an unguarded moment, whence the aspirants came, he
answered with a shrug of his shoulders: “ They have
swept up the rubbish of the streets ”; and another
explained that their training was deeply vitiated by
espionnage and by an injudicious system of rewards
and punishments. Whatever may be their future—
and so long as Socialism is kept in check they have
every favourable condition—it is quite clear that any
serious attempt to purify, to vitalise and spiritualise
their fraternity, will meet bitter opposition, and will,
if successful, considerably reduce their numbers. No
large body of men will ever again sincerely adopt an
ascetical spirit in their common life. And the Belgian
fraternity will be healthier and happier for the re
mainder of its days if it can rid itself of all its malades
imaginaires, lazy pietists, crass sensualists, and
ambitious office-seekers.
Belgium is claimed as a Roman Catholic country,
and it may be interesting to discuss the extent and
nature of its fidelity to Rome in the light of my
inquiries and observations. I had many and intimate
opportunities for studying it, and I availed myself of
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141
them carefully; not only because I took a speculative
interest in the question, but on account of the dis
paraging references that the friars made repeatedly to
my own heretical country—“ your unhappy country ”
was their usual description of England. When I
noticed in the list of Peter’s-pence offerings that
Belgium had collected for his Holiness only 200,000
lire, and England 1,200,000, I felt there was occasion
for careful inquiry.
Politics and religion are so confused in Belgium
that the religious status of the country has been
roughly indicated at every election. For many years
there has been a fierce struggle between Liberalism
and Catholicism, in which the orthodox party has been
frequently overpowered; and Liberalism, as is well
known, is the anti-clerical, free-thought party. It is,
roughly speaking, the bourgeoisie of Belgium (with a
sprinkling of the higher and of the industrial class),
permeated with Voltaireanism and modern rationalism :
its motto was Gambetta’s “ Le clericalisme, voila
l’ennemi,” or as the Belgian mob puts it more forcibly
“ A bas la calotte! ” Not that it was at all a philo
sophical sect; it was purely active, but accepted the
conclusions of the philosophers and the critics as
honestly as the orthodox clung to the conclusions of
the theologian. In any case it was bitterly opposed
to the established religion and the dominion of the
clergy on every issue. The aristocracy, for obvious
reasons, indolently sided with the Church; the
peasantry, on the whole, remained faithful out of brute
stolidity and imperviousness to argument.
But during the last few years there has been a pro
found change in the field as Socialism gained power
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and character. Not very many years ago a young
advocate at the Brussels Catholic conference declared
himself a Christian socialist, and was emphatically
suppressed by the clerical and aristocratic members;
now, if it were not for Christian Socialism, Rome
would soon lose its hold of the peasantry. Socialism,
avowedly anti-Christian as it is on the Continent, has
secured the industrial classes and is undoubtedly mak
ing progress amongst the peasantry. However, it can
not join forces with waning Liberalism, for it hates
and is hated by the bourgeoisie; and it has had the
effect of arousing the monarchy and aristocracy to some
sense of their danger. Thus the power of the Church
remains as yet slightly in the ascendant: it can com
mand a little more than half the votes of the country
as long as the present partial suffrage holds. The
results, however, show that Catholics are really in the
minority, and if ever the Socialists and Liberals unite
they will be swept out of power.
So much is clear from election results; but in a
country that is fermenting with new ideas mere
statistics teach very little of themselves. A new party,
which is hardly a generation old, and which has had
a marvellously rapid growth, is presumed to have
acquired a serious momentum. It consists almost
entirely of converts, and the convert is usually con
scious of his opinions and zealous for them. The
adherents of the old party may still be, to a great
extent, in their traditional apathy, and only need
their minds to be quickened to make them change their
position. Such would seem to be the state of affairs
in Belgium, if we take no more than clerical
witnesses.
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It is much easier to test the real fidelity of nominal
adherents of the Church of Rome than of those of any
other sect or party in existence; it is the only sect that
binds its members under pain of grievous sin to certain
positive religious observances. Hence it is possible
to gauge the depth and vitality of its influence over
its statistical members without entering into their
consciences. And so the fact that one-third of the
students at the only Catholic university habitually
neglect mass has a great significance. I once heard
a dispute between a Walloon Premonstratensian monk
and a Flemish Franciscan about the religious merits
of their respective races. To a stranger it seemed
difficult to choose between them. Confession was
taken as a safe test, for annual confession is essential,
and its integrity is equally demanded under pain of
mortal sin. However, the Walloon boasted that you
could believe a Walloon in the confessional, but cer
tainly not a Fleming. The Fleming admitted that it
was true, but he added, “ You can believe a Walloon
when you get him, but he only comes to confess twice
in his life, at his first communion and at death.”
They were both old missionaries, and their points were
quite confirmed by the others present.
Moreover, I had a more intimate experience of the
country, which confirmed my low estimate of its
Catholicism. During the Easter vacation I went to a
small convent in the country, about ten miles south of
Brussels. The superior of the convent obtained juris
diction for me, and I did much service in the chapel
of the Comtesse de Meeus, in our own great solid iron
church at Argenteuil (well known to Waterloo visitors),
and in the parish church at Ohain. We monks were
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forbidden under pain of suspension to assist the dying
or to hear Easter confessions; but I soon found that if
we did not do so a great many people would refuse to
take the sacraments. I assisted three dying persons:
one was already unconscious and could only be
anointed, and her friends were utterly indifferent about
even that; another, a young man, had to be coaxed
into making his confession, but refused point blank
to receive communion and extreme unction from his
parish priest, and died without them; the third visibly
condescended to confess, saying that it was immaterial
to him—he would if I wished. Many others came to
confess, saying that they would either confess to me
or not at all. Everywhere, even amongst professing
Catholics, there was a strong anti-clerical feeling,
though the peasantry made a curious exception in
favour of monks. They had not the least idea of the
real life inside the friaries and the quantity of liquor
consumed.
And when I went down to assist at Ohain for the
last day of the Easter confessions I found the little
parish in a curious condition, even to my heretical
experience. The cure smiled when I asked how many
he expected for confession, and said that he had not
the faintest idea. Theoretically, he should have known
how many had already made their Paques (or Easter
confession), and how many parishioners he had; it was
a simple sum of subtraction. He was amused at my
simplicity. It appeared that there were some hundreds
who might or might not make their Paques: in point
of fact, we had about a hundred more than the per
ceding year. He did not seem much concerned about
the matter; said it was not an abnormal condition, and
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145
that it seemed irremediable. It was curious to note
that a Protestant mission which had been founded in
the neighbourhood for some time had only succeeded
after heroic efforts in securing two dilapidated “ con
verts.” The Belgians, like the French, are Catholic
or nothing.
What I observed was fully confirmed by the informa
tion I sought on the subject. The people were indif
ferent, and even a large proportion of the clergy were
apathetic. Great Catholic demonstrations there were
in abundance, but little importance can be attached to
such manifestations. In the great procession of the
Fete-Dieu at Louvain I saw hundreds taking part who
were merely nominal Catholics; and other extraordin
ary religious displays, such as the procession of the
miraculous statue at Hasselt, where I spent some time,
were largely supported by the Liberal municipality and
hotel-keepers from commercial reasons. Little can be
gathered, therefore, from statistics or from external
pageantry. The fidelity of the people must be tested,
as in France, by their obedience to the grave obligations
the Church imposes. Under such a test the Catholi
cism of Belgium fails lamentably. Although the
wisdom of uniting religious and political issues may
be questioned, one may confidently anticipate a steady
growth of the anti-clerical party.
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MINISTRY IN LONDON
From Louvain I was recalled at the close of the first
academical year by a revival of my educational func
tions at London. A new generation of philosophers
had arrived, and I had to resume the task of im
printing the conclusions of the scholastic philosophy
on their youthful and unsympathetic minds. The
theological studies also were conducted at Forest
Gate, and all the students had to remain under an
“ instructor ” until they were promoted to the priest
hood. As I held that position during most of the
time I remained at Forest Gate, I had ample oppor
tunity to study the formation of priests, as the in
structor is responsible for the material and spiritual
welfare of those under his charge. Of the innumer
able complications with superiors, and with a certain
type of inferiors, which my zeal (not always, perhaps,
nicely tempered with prudence) provoked I forbear
to speak. Enough has been said in the preceding
chapters about the life of the students, so I pass on
to a fuller treatment of the sacerdotal ministry, in
which I was now thoroughly immersed.
In a monastic house, evert in England, there are
always more priests than in a secular presbytery;
more, indeed, than are necessary for the administra146
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147
tion of the parish which is committed to their care.
Many of these priests, however, are travelling mis
sionaries whose work lies almost entirely outside their
convent. It is customary in Catholic churches to hold
a mission, or series of services somewhat akin to the
revival services of the Methodists, every few years;
it consists principally of a course of the most violent
and imaginative sermons on hell, heaven, eternity, &c.,
and really has the effect of converting numbers to a
sense of their religious duties. Although Cardinal
Manning, who, in writing and in action, shows a
studied disregard of the monastic orders, endeavoured
to form a band of secular or non-monastic missionaries,
it is usually conceded that the desired effect can only
be satisfactorily attained by monks. Hence every order
has a number of religious specially trained for that
purpose, of whom two or three are found in every
monastery. *
Their life differs entirely from that of the ordinary
monk; even when they are at home they are exempt
from community services, from which the constitu
tions release them for three days after returning from
and three days before starting for a mission. They
frequently travel long distances, especially to Ireland,
and are sometimes absent from their monastery for
months at a time. They are, as has been said, the
chief bread-winners of the community. They receive
from five to ten pounds per week for their services,
and bring home also large sums in the shape of alms
or mass-stipends; if a smaller fee is offered they never
return to that parish. I have known a Franciscan
superior (whose rule forbids him to claim any fee
whatever, or to receive any money) to maintain a
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warm correspondence with a parish priest on the in
sufficiency of his fee. “ Tempora mutantur, nos et
mutamur in illis ” would not be an inappropriate
motto for the friars to substitute for their highsounding “ In sanctitate et doctrina.” However, the
missionaries have very severe labours, as a rule, and
many of them work with untiring industry and devo
tion. They hold a service every evening, including
one heavy sermon, an instruction, and a number of
fatiguing ceremonies. I have known many priests
to collapse under the strain. The enormous number
of confessions they hear adds much to their exertions.
At the same time, many of them prefer the change
and comparative comfort of the life to confinement in
the monastery. They lighten their task by preaching
the same sermons everywhere they go, and they usually
find the presbytery much more comfortable than home;
if they do not, the parish priest will ask in vain for
a second mission.
Another form of outside work which is less understood is the practice of giving “ retreats ” to monas
teries, nunneries, and other religious establishments.
A retreat is a period of recollection in which the
inmates of a convent suspend all study and secular
occupation, and occupy themselves exclusively with
religious exercises; it usually lasts from ten to fourteen
days, and is held annually. The day is spent in
profound silence and meditation, but there are a
number of common ceremonies, and two or three
“ meditations ”—a kind of familiar sermon or causerie
—are preached daily. The amiable Jesuits are much
in demand for retreats, especially by the equally
amiable congregations of teaching nuns, but our friars
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149
were entrusted with a large number every year
amongst the Jess aristocratic congregations of nuns.
To give a retreat is, after a slight experience, not at
all a disagreeable task, and many even of our pro
fessors used to spend their vacation in preaching them.
The usual method is to write out a set of meditations
(the usual graphic descriptions of the “ last day,”
heaven, hell, &c.), though abler men, or men of
sincere fervour, make no preparation. The same set
of meditations is, of course, used in different places,
and five or six sets suffice for a lifetime; for a priest
is often invited several years in succession to the
same convent, and, if the nuns have been particularly
amiable and hospitable, he accepts. In such cases he
must have a new set of conferences, for nuns have
long memories, and will look up maliciously if he
drops into a passage of one of his former sermons.
Besides receiving the usual five or ten pounds, the
priest can always count upon a warm welcome and
tender and graceful hospitality from the good sisters
during his residence in their convent; and, as the
convent is very frequently at a pleasant wateringplace or other desirable locality, it is not surprising
that the work is much appreciated.
Then there are minor functions which bring grist
to the conventual mill, and afford the friars some
diversion from the dreary monotony of home life.
The secular clergy take annual holidays, and engage
a friar at one pound per Sunday to conduct their
services; one of our friaries (at Manchester), where
the missionaries were not in great demand for higher
work, took up the work of “ supply ” with such zeal
that it earned the title of the “ Seraphic Cab-stand.”
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Special sermons, also, are frequently asked, and
chaplaincies are sometimes offered to the friars. A
neighbouring nunnery will always demand their
services, and even country families may prefer to
bring a friar down every Sunday for a couple of
guineas than to have a chaplain haunting the premises
all the week.
With so many outward attractions of a lucrative and
congenial nature the friars are sometimes tempted to
neglect their own parish, which is, or should be, their
principal care. The superior of the monastery is
always rector or parish priest,1 and several of his
inferiors act as curates; as a rule there is about one
priest to every thousand people, less in older and
larger parishes—at Glasgow we had six priests to
attend to 16,000 people—and more in growing con
gregations. The work, however, is usually confined
to the week end. On Saturday confessions are heard,
for it is necessary to confess before approaching the
sacrament, which is usually received on Sunday morning. On Sunday the priest has a long and very
fatiguing day’s work; he must, as a rule, say two
masses, an early one for communicants and a late
sung mass, at which also he preaches. On account
of the obligation to remain fasting, so stern that not
even a drop of water must pass his lips until the end
of the last mass, the work is very exacting, especially
to a priest Who is single-handed. The section of
In reality all priests in England are merely missionaries, from
the. point of view of canon law ; the bishops are the only real
Parish priests. Beyond the fact that they are thus transferable at
diff^enc0^ S PleaSUrG’the irreSuIarity does not make much practical
�MINISTRY IN LONDON
151
theology which treats of this peculiar fast is interest
ing ; the careful calculation what fraction of a tea
spoonful of water, or what substances (whether flies,
cork, glass, silk, cotton, &c.) break the fast, affords
serious pre-occupation to the casuist. In the afternoon
there are numerous minor ceremonies, baptisms,
catechetical instructions, &c.; and in the evening
another long sermon with Vespers and Benediction.
Speaking from experience I may say that for one
man it is as severe a day’s work as can be found in
any profession.
Here, however, the monastic clergy have the
advantage of numbers. Even the ordinary priest has
the consolation that the other six days of the week
will be practically days of rest; but to monks the
Sunday itself is not very formidable. Of the six
friars in our community there were never less than
three at home on Sunday, so that the work was fairly
distributed.
However, the Sunday work of the priest is obvious
enough. Curiosity looks rather to the manner in
which he spends the other six days of the week. It
may be said in a word that the daily life of a clergy
man is much the same in every religious sect. Apart
from the fact that he has no family relations, the
Catholic priest occupies himself in a manner very
similar to that of his Anglican brother. The friar,
of course, is supposed to follow a very different and
much more serious “ order of the day,” but here
again theory and practice lie wide apart. The rule
of the friar, who, in a missionary country like England
or the States, is unfortunately compelled to take
charge of a parish, is simple and reasonable; he must
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MINISTRY IN LONDON
assist at the community devotions which have been
previously described, and the remainder of his time
must be divided between study and the discharge of
his parochial duties. In the morning from eight to
twelve he is supposed to study, from three to seven
he must visit his parishioners, from eight to ten he
must occupy himself once more with study or prayer.
That is the edifying theory, but the fact is that
the more agreeable task of attending to their
parishioners absorbs most of the priests’ time. There
are few friars who, after they have once entered upon
parochial duties, give more than a sporadic and careless
attention to study. They say that they do not find
any advantage for the better performance of their
duties in study, and, since most of their “ duty ”
resolves itself into visits to the sick and chattering
with ladies over afternoon tea, their contention is
plausible enough; although there are many cases in
which their unfamiliarity with modern literature and
its great problems brings them into contempt. I have
been asked by wives or sisters in the confessional to
visit men who were understood to be wavering in
faith. When I referred them to their parish priests,
I was answered that they had so low an estimate of
their parish priests that they refused to discuss with
them. And where they do meet a Catholic who shows
an interest in and acquaintance with modern literature,
the clergy are suspiciously prompt to urge the restric
tions imposed by the Index. If they are not prepared
to acquaint themselves with current literature—and a
not unintelligent colleague of mine once frankly
admitted that he could not read even the pellucid
essays of Mr. Huxley—they take care that their flock
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does not outstrip them. I once heard a professor of
dogmatic theology contend that the Nineteenth Century
is on the Index, and should be forbidden to Catholics;
yet so curious is the procedure of the Church, that
it was reserved for a Catholic writer (Mivart) to
procure for it, by his contributions, a place in the
distinguished gallery of the condemned. At any rate,
a priest who is not inclined to study finds in the
elasticity of the Church’s policy ample justification for
literary tyranny.
The manner in which the clergy exercise their
literary responsibility tries the patience of the educated
layman. The priest, and especially the friar, has very
little acquaintance with fiction (which is expressly
proscribed by the monastic constitutions), still less
with science or philosophy, and has very wrong ideas
of history; and, since the majority of condemned
books are not named in the Index, but are simply
involved in the general censure of “ against faith or
morals,” he has to exercise his judgment on a point
of some delicacy. The result is sad confusion. One
priest is delighted with “ The Three Musketeers,”
and permits Dumas—unconscious that Dumas is
expressly on the Index. Ouida is much disputed,
even amongst the Jesuits. The high-principled works
of George Eliot are condemned unread; she was an
agnostic, and lived with Lewes. Mrs. Lynn Linton,
Mrs. Humphry Ward, Sarah Grand, Marie Corelli,
George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, Hall Caine, Eden
Phillpotts, Jerome K. Jerome, Anthony Hope, H. G.
Wells, and most of our leading novelists are either
deists or agnostics. Even Mrs. Craigie and Dr. Barry
give anxiety at times. The poor Catholic is perplexed
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before the list of modern novelists, and so reads them
all. So it is with science and philosophy. The best
English and German exponents are heterodox, and
when the priest pays his visit and sees their works
lying about, he not infrequently demands that they
be destroyed. Hence it is that Jesuit and other
“ Catholic Truth Society ” writers find it possible to
foist on the Catholic body the lamentable garbling
of history and science which one finds in their publica
tions. Their readers are forbidden to read the other
side, and Catholic reviews of antagonistic literature
are quite unscrupulous, at least in such journals as
the Catholic Times.
The priest’s conversation is rendered insipid and
uninviting by the same dearth of knowledge and
narrowness of judgment. On biblical criticism,
sociology, and a host of prominent questions, the
priest is either painfully dogmatic on points that the
educated world has long ceased to dogmatise about,
or else he is just as painfully confused. But even on
a number of questions on which the world has formed
a decided opinion years ago, he is strangely timid and
conservative. Rome itself showed much caution in
responding to an inquiry about hypnotic phenomena,
and such eminent modern theologians as Lehmkuhl
and Ballerini seem convinced that in its more abstruse
phenomena hypnotism embodies a diabolical influence.
Even table-turning, of which Carpenter gave a lucid
explanation ages ago, is gravely called in question by
the Roman decrees and the casuists, and, naturally,
by the majority. In fact, the author whom I was
directed to use in teaching philosophy, Mgr. E. Grand claude, a widely popular modern author, gravely
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attributes the more curious manifestations of som
nambulism to the same untiring and ubiquitous agent.
On almost every question the priest is found to be
ignorant, antiquated, tyrannical.
Naturally, then, the conversations with their
parishioners, which occupy most of their time, are
not of an intellectual type. In the morning the friar
rarely visits, except in cases of sickness, but he is
much visited. In every monastery there is a section
marked off near the door—usually the hall and a few
small parlours—to which ladies are allowed access.
Into the monastery proper women (except the queen,
who cannot be excluded) are never admitted under
any circumstances, even to visit a dying son or brother,
under pain of excommunication. I have known a
mother to sit in tears in the waiting-room while her
son, a young priest, was dying in the infirmary almost
above her head. In these parlours, however (which, I
hasten to add, are fitted with glass doors), the friars
spend a good part of the morning. The rest of the
forenoon is supposed to be spent in reading or prepar
ing sermons in the cells; but it goes very largely in
chatting in each other’s cells, or in the library, or
over the daily paper—all of which is entirely illicit.
After dinner, recreation, and early tea, the friars
exchange their brown habits for ordinary clerical attire
and proceed to visit their parishioners. They are
directed to return to the convent at seven, but they
usually arrive much later.
Apart from the care of the sick and the dying, and
the occasional necessity of reproving wandering sheep,
the duty of “ visiting,” which is almost their only
function on the six appointed days of labour, is far
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from laborious. The parish is divided into districts,
of which one is committed to the care of each priest,
and he is directed to visit each family once in three
months. The object is, of course, to strengthen the
bond between clergy and laity and to secure individual
fidelity to the Church. Naturally, however, what
really happens is that a few agreeable families are
selected for frequent visits, which differ in no respect
from the visits of ordinary unconsecrated people (in
fact, the priest would hardly be welcome who paraded
his profession too much); sometimes they are unusu
ally generous benefactors, sometimes merely families
of ordinary social attractiveness, very frequently
merely young and amiable ladies whose husbands or
fathers are at business. In any case, the poor and
uninteresting are forgotten; the favourites are visited
weekly or oftener, and the visits are sometimes pro
tracted to two or three hours. Much jealousy ensues
amongst the favourites (who watch each other’s
houses), and counter visits, teas, dinners, parties, &c.,
have to be accepted. Thus the week is easily and not
uncongenially absorbed, and a priest often finds that
he is scarcely able to prepare a sermon for the Sunday.
Since most of the visits are made in the afternoon
and on week days, it follows that they are almost
exclusively made to ladies; one result of which is that
our English friars are found to be much less
misogynous than their continental or their medieval
brethren, who have or had no parishes to superintend.
Many Protestant husbands forbid the admission of a
priest into the house in their absence. On the whole,
the priests are discreet, and an excellent control is
exercised over all concerned by a comprehensive system
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157
of jealousy. The priests are jealous of each other, and
strongly resent any intrusion in each other’s district
or parish; the ladies honoured with the visits are
jealous of each other; and a numerous non-Catholic
population is jealously surveying the whole. In the
Franciscan rule there is, besides the vow of chastity,
a special grave precept enjoining the friars to avoid
“ suspicious intercourse ” with women, and it is not
uncommon for a superior publicly to denounce an
inferior for that fault. Two or three cases happened
at Forest Gate in my time, but the accusation clearly
sprang from jealousy on the part of the superior. In
private, mutual accusation, especially of frequenting
by preference the society of young women, was very
common, and was not without foundation. Another
rule that tended to prevent disorder was that all
letters were |o be given open to the superior to be
forwarded, and he was supposed to read all the letters
he received for his inferiors. But the superior who
followed out this rule in dealing with the correspond
ence of any but the juniors would have an unenviable
position; and, of course, the priests were out every
day themselves and could easily post their letters.
There was also a regulation—the only one in our
constitutions (which, unlike “ the rule ” written by
St. Francis, the friar does not solemnly vow to observe,
and which are only disciplinary) that was enforced
under a grave moral obligation—forbidding us to take
any intoxicating drink within the limits of our own
parish. The rule, which merely aimed at preventing
scandal, led to curious incidents and many transgres
sions. One old Belgian friar, who was afflicted with
chronic thirst and did not find the monastic allowance
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sufficient, used to take the tram regularly to some hotel
just outside the limits of the parish (at Stratford in
East London). A dispensation could only be obtained
by calling together the elders of the community and
asking their collective permission. They were, of
course, always willing to oblige each other and, to do
them justice, even the juniors. In my later monastic
days, when faith waned, I appreciated the arrange
ment. There were friars, however, who drank where
they willed and ignored the rule. Like all other
rules, it was susceptible of many ingenious interpreta
tions, and, finally, the opinion was started that the
whole of the constitutions were invalid.
The mutual intercourse of the friars was limited,
in theory, to the hour’s recreation after dinner. Wine
was only granted by the constitutions about once per
month, and whisky was entirely prohibited. In point
of fact, there were friaries (Manchester, for instance)
in which whisky was given almost every day, and
sometimes three times per day. In most friaries it
was given every Saturday and Sunday evening. At
Forest Gate, partly from greater sobriety, partly (and
very much) from greater poverty, and partly on account
of the presence of students, we only drank wine or
spirits three or four times per week; whisky was
discountenanced, but one friar found port to injure his
tonsils, another complained of liver, another of heart,
&c., so that it was the favourite drink. Smoking also
was prohibited in the monastery; but it was not
difficult to obtain a medical recommendation to smoke,
and the local superior could always distribute cigars
when he willed.
The nature of the recreation has been mentioned
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159
in a previous chapter. We sat and talked over our
coffee for half-an-hour, then discoursed in the garden
for half-an-hour. In some monasteries dominoes,
bagatelle, skittles, &c., were introduced to escape the
necessity for conversation. Cards were forbidden, and
chess was discountenanced (with complete success) on
the ambiguous ground that the friars had no cerebral
tissue to waste on intellectual games.1
The conversation only deserves a word on account
of the curiosity which seems to prevail with regard to
it. Two types of monastic conversation are known
to the general public: the spiritual talk recommended
by monastic writers and the jolly intercourse so dear
to the artist. Both types, and especially the former,
are infrequent in the real life of the friary. Mr.
Dendy Sadler’s pictures of jolly friars may serve to
illustrate their high festivals, but the ordinary con
versation was dull and depressing. Politics had the
largest share in it. All the friars were keen politicians,
though they dare not openly manifest any political
sympathy. They were all Liberals, but for the sake
of argument one or other would attack or defend some
point in an uninteresting way for an hour or so. One
daily paper is allowed in the friary, but no weeklies
or monthlies. Then casuistry gave much matter for
discussion, and points of ritual and canon law were
often debated. Here and there some friar of a higher
intellectual type might broach questions of living
interest, but in those cases the conversation was apt
1 It is a remarkable and mysterious fact that cards were, as far
as my experience went, never seen in a monastery. Speaking quite
literally, I may say that this was the only one of our rules which
we seriously observed.
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to degenerate into a pedantic and not very accurate
monologue. But a vast amount of time was spent,
as has frequently been suggested of them, in the most
painful puerilities. Their sense of humour seems to
undergo an extraordinary degeneration, and the more
rational of them frequently express their disgust at
the character of their “ recreation.” There are one
or two strong personalities who habitually tyrannise
over the friaries in which they are found, and even
contrive at the elections to keep near them one or
two less gifted brethren whom they may bully and
banter at will. As they are men of high authority
and influence, their victims find it expedient to submit
patiently to this constant flight of rudely fashioned
shafts for a year or two; in the end they usually
find themselves elevated to some position to which
their intrinsic merit could hardly have raised them.
For throughout the length and breadth of the
Franciscan Order (and every other order) ambition
and intrigue of office are the most effectual hindrances
to fraternal charity. All officials are elected and fre
quently changed, so that the little province is as
saturated with jealousy and intrigue as a South
American Republic. Every three years a general
election is held, at which the General from Rome is
supposed to preside. The usual course is for the
General (whose real name is “ general servant ” of
the fraternity, but it is usually preferred in the
abbreviated form) to send a deputy to the province
which is about to hold its elections. The deputy,
or “ visitator,” visits all the monasteries in succession
and affords each friar an opportunity, in private con
versation, to submit his personal grievances or his
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161
knowledge of general abuses. Of the former, how
ever, the visitator takes little notice, referring them
to more immediate superiors, and he is usually quite
powerless to correct any general abuse. One of our
English friars was deputed to visit the Irish province
on the occasion of its election some years before my
secession. He did not disguise his intention of making
a special effort to check the flow of whisky in that
province, as he considered it the source of all evil in
modern monastic life; his own particular vanity was
port. We were not a little surprised to find on the
return of our zealous crusader that he had himself
been converted to the seductive spirit, and only the
too openly manifested delight of his numerous enemies
—whom he had persistently denounced at Rome for
ten years as “ whisky-drinkers ”—prevailed upon him
to return to port.
When the visitator has completed the circuit of the
province he summons the members of the higher
council, or “ definitors,” to the monastery where the
election is held. The superiors or “ guardians ” of the
various monasteries then send in their resignations,
together with a declaration on oath by their priests
(if they can get all the signatures), that they have
fulfilled their duty to their community and a full
account of their financial transactions. The guardians
themselves arrive on the following day, and proceed
by a secret ballot to the election of a new provincial,
and his council of five definitors. The guardians then
disperse, and the newly elected council proceeds to
appoint new guardians with their subordinate officers.
Everything is conducted with the utmost secrecy, the
voting papers being burned and pulverised in the
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presence of the voters, and every friar present being
put under oath not to reveal the proceedings. Public
prayers are also commanded for weeks in advance, and
the election opens with a solemn High Mass to the
Holy Spirit; an oath is also taken by the electors that
they will choose those whom they consider the most
worthy.
That is the admirable theory of the election; its
actual course is somewhat different. Before the
solemn imploration of the light of the Holy Spirit
on the election morning the whole scheme has been
practically settled. The province is really an oligarchy,
not an elective democracy. A few abler or older men
form the Definitorium, and there is a sufficiently clear
understanding 1 between them and the guardians to
insure that the guardians will re-elect them and they,
in their turn, will reappoint the guardians. There is
a slight struggle from one or two young Radicals, and
perhaps a new aspirant to a place on the council, but
changes rarely occur. The old definitors are prac
1 The following extracts from a letter written by one monastic
superior to another may be instructive :—
“ . . . they are trying to force me to do what I don’t think fair or
just to my successor . . . but I will not do anything that I deem in
principle mean or unjust to my successor. I say mean, for I deem
it such when guardians to please their superiors send them gifts
which the papal Bulls call bribes, and which several Popes strictly
forbid. But I absolutely refused until compelled by obedience to do
such. Of course I was threatened by the ‘ powers that be ’ that I
would pay for it, etc. ; but I told them over and over again, ‘ I
fear only God and my conscience.’”
Unfortunately there were many who had not the firmness, honesty,
and deep religious spirit of the writer of that letter. [As the writer
is now dead, I will add that the letter was written by the Very Rev.
Father Jarlath, 0. S.F., to myself a few weeks before I left. Second
edition.']
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tically sure of re-election, and so on the night before
the electors arrive they have arranged all appointments
under no other spiritual influence than that of a cigar
and a glass of whisky.
For the higher position of provincial—a quasi
episcopate—the intrigue runs much deeper. Votes
are practically bought, by means of minor appoint
ments and other bon-bons, years in advance, and the
province is really severed into factions headed by the
different candidates. There are many friars to whom
these proceedings are very repugnant, but others use
them more or less unscrupulously. I once took a
prominent friar to task for his indulgent treatment of
a notoriously unworthy official. He answered frankly
that the man “ had a vote ”—going on to explain how
necessary it was for the good of the fraternity that
he himself should take the helm at the next election,
however reluctant he felt to do so.
When these facts are considered, in addition to the
jealousy which naturally arises in connection with
preaching, penitents, and the esteem of the laity
generally, it will be understood that life in a friary
is not one of paradisaical monotony. Open conflicts
are rare, but the strained relations between rivals and
their followers frequently find expression in conversa
tion and conference. In fact, the constant suspicion
and caution sometimes lead to very unexpected
phenomena. Thus, a colleague of mine seemed to me
in uncomfortable relations with a large number of friars,
and of one of them he told me a strange story. He
had entered his cell during the friar’s absence and
found a revolver, which he abstracted and destroyed;
he even added that he kept a secret lock on his own
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bedroom door at night, for the ordinary lock is open
to a superior’s master-key, and the friar in question
was a superior and a priest of high reputation.1
Besides the triennial election, called a chapter,
there is a half-chapter every eighteen months in which
many changes take place. The friars do not, how
ever, as a rule, appreciate the variety which is thus
afforded them, for they soon find attachments in a
mission which they are loth to break off. But quite
apart from elections a friar is liable to be ordered off
to a different monastery at any moment. It is related
of the celebrated Duns Scotus that when he received
the order to go from Paris to Cologne, he happened
to be away from the Paris monastery. He at once
set off on foot for Cologne without returning even
to bid good-bye to his brethren. The modern friar
is not so precipitate. His “ obedience,” as the formal
order to remove is called, allows three days to reach
his destination; so that the friar has ample time to
collect his luggage (for in spite of his vow of poverty
every friar has a certain amount of personal property),
and perhaps elicit a testimonial from his pious admirers.
Needless to say, the friar no longer makes his jour
neys on foot, as the founder of the order intended.
There is a precept in the rule that forbids “ riding ”
under pain of mortal sin, and commentators are much
at variance in their efforts to apply it to modern
1 This incident somewhat startled me on re-reading it, but I now
recollect it quite clearly. The two men were two of the most dis
tinguished preachers at our Forest Gate friary, and each tried to
turn me against the other. I leave it to the reader to settle whether
the one who spoke to me of revolvers and secret locks was merely
lying. Third edition.
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165
means of locomotion. Most of them say that the
horse is still gravely prohibited—to ride, that is to
say, for in Belgium we more than once had the
pleasure of eating it; the ass and the camel are not
to be mounted without necessity; and a ship may be
used when the friar has not to pay for his sail. The
railway is a subject of grave theoretical controversy,
but the majority of the pundits are agreed that it may
be used when necessary ; which is a convenient solution.
i In point of fact, the English or American friar takes
1 his cab or ’bus or train without giving a thought to
his rule. He has, at least once in three years, a
holiday of two or three weeks’ duration, and he has
I odd days in the country or at the seaside. He cannot,
I however, leave his own country without special per
mission from Rome.
| The “ obedience,” or formal order to travel, is at
I the same time a mark of identity for the friar when
he arrives at a strange convent. He is always bound
to seek the hospitality of his brethren if they have a
I convent in the town, and the superior’s first care is
to demand his “ obedience,” on which his destination
is marked. This is enjoined as a precaution against
| apostates, and especially against frauds. For even
monastic hospitality has been taken advantage of by
impostors. In Belgium some years ago the imposition
I was attempted on a large scale at one of our friaries.
| A bishop and his secretary presented themselves for
a few days’ hospitality, and were received and treated
I by the friars with the courtesy and attention which
I befitted their rank. There was nothing unusual in the
I occurrence, and the friars were always glad to receive
iso flattering a guest. His lordship said mass daily
G
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with correct episcopal ceremony, and had all the
requisite paraphernalia. After a time, however, a
suspicion was aroused, and when his lordship had
casually mentioned the name of the cardinal who had
consecrated him, a telegraphic communication was
made with Rome, with the result that the impostors
were handed over to the civil authority. At London
we had visitors from all parts of the world, and it
would be difficult to detect an impostor. I remember
one whom we turned out of the monastery after a
few weeks’ hospitality, and no one knows to this
day whether he was a genuine friar or not. He was
a Spaniard, an old man with our brown costume in
his possession, who represented himself as a laybrother from our province of Mexico. He hinted
that a secret Government mission had brought him
to London. He spoke French fluently, and was a
most interesting conversationalist, representing that he
had at one time been a private secretary of Don Carlos
and an active figure in Spanish politics. However,
Fra Carpoforo’s business in London seemed unduly
protracted, and our suspicious superiors politely
recommended him an hotel in the city.
Impostors find great difficulty in penetrating into the
order as novices in modern times, for there are
numerous formalities to comply with. Not only are
his baptismal certificate and a letter from his bishop
necessary, but inquiries are made as to whether there
is any hereditary disease, or insanity, or heresy in his
family, whether he is single and legitimate, and so
with a host of other qualifications. In olden times
anybody who presented himself was admitted to “ the
habit of probation ” without inquiry, and it is a well-
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167
known fact that women have thus obtained entrance
into the monastery and remained in it until their
neath. Several such women are recorded in the
official Martyrology of the Order : a book in which the
memory is preserved of holy friars who have not
attained the supreme rank of canonisation. Their
names were read to us annually.
An amusing case of imposture occurred at Forest
Gate a few years before my secession. A young man
of very smart appearance presented himself at the
monastery and intimated a desire to enter the order
as a lay-brother. He had no credentials, but mentioned
casually one or two friars in other monasteries “ whose
masses he had served.” He represented himself as a
cook, saying that he had been at Charing Cross Hotel
and other places. Without a single inquiry he was
received into the monastery, where he remained for
three weeks, cooking for the brethren and maintaining
a very modest and satisfactory demeanour. On the
third Sunday, however, he vanished with the whole
of the money that had been collected in the church on
that day, and a quantity of clothing, &c., which he
had borrowed. As the Sunday was one of the great
festivals, on which a special collection had been taken
for the friars, the anger of the superior may be
imagined. The police smiled when we gave them a
description of our “ novice.”
G2
�CHAPTER IX
OTHER ORDERS AND THE LONDON CLERGY
It will be readily perceived that the less attractive
features of the life of the Grey Friars, which I have
described, are not due to circumstances which are
peculiar to that order. They are the inevitable result
of forcing a mediaeval ideal on temperaments and in
circumstances that are entirely modern. It will be
expected, therefore, that other monastic congregations,
at least, will present much the same features. The
rules and constitutions of different orders differ as
much as their costumes, and their specific aims—for
each order is supposed to have a distinctive aim to
justify its separate foundation—also differ. But again,
the difference is rather theoretical than practical.
Through the exigencies of their missionary status in
England and the United States,1 they have been
1 As I have mentioned, the hierarchy and the parochial system
are not in their normal condition in ‘ ‘ heretical ” countries. Hence
Dr. Temple was, from the canonical point of view, more correct
than he knew when he-styled the Church of Borne in England
“ the Italian Mission.” The conditions are so exactly parallel in
England and the States, and in the greater part of Canada, that
my experiences may be freely used in estimating monastic life in
America. The American friars I have met were, if anything,
further removed from the ideal of St. Francis than my immediate
colleagues.
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brought down to one common level of parochial
activity. Their work differs little from that of the
secular clergy, or the non-Catholic clergy; and the
same curious and half-hearted efforts are made to
maintain their ritual and ascetical peculiarities in the
privacy of the convent as have been described in the
case of the Grey Friars.
It was well known by my colleagues that I was
deeply concerned at the unpleasant condition of my
surroundings for many years before my secession. I
frequently spoke with one distinguished friar on the
subject, and he professed to be in entire accord with
me on the point, and used to deprecate it in even
stronger terms than I. However, suspecting that I
would on that account be tempted to procure a release
from the Franciscan rule and pass to some other order
(for which permission could be obtained), he would
go on to assure me—and he was a man of knowledge
—that every other order, and the secular clergy too,
was in a similarly unsatisfactory condition. As time
went on I found many reasons to acquiesce in the
opinion he gave me. Catholic priests have two weak
nesses in common with the gentler sex—vanity and
love of scandal. One cannot move much in clerical
circles without soon learning the seamy side of different
orders and dioceses. The different dioceses of the
secular clergy are more or less jealous of each other,
and the secular clergy are, as a rule, strongly opposed
to the regulars. Nine secular priests out of ten hate
all monks, and nine priests (of either kind) out of ten
hate the Jesuits. One meets many priests who are
willing to accept the extreme Protestant version of
Jesuitism. Only a few years ago a drama was
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presented in a theatre at Barcelona, in which were
embodied the bitterest and gravest charges against the
Jesuits; and when the delighted Spaniards called for
the author, a priest in his clerical dress walked to the
footlights. In the presence of laymen, of course, every
branch of sacerdotalism is treated as little less than
angelic; a priest will then, as I have heard them do,
praise a priest he hates. But a few years’ attentive
intercourse with different orders and with the clergy
of several dioceses has taught me to regard all priests
as very human, neither more nor less.
For instance, there were in my time, as was ex
plained in the second chapter, three distinct branches
of the Franciscan Order in England; and the three
sections were as jealous, hostile, and mutually depre
ciatory as three rival missionary societies. A few
years before I left the French colony of friars at
Clevedon advertised for cast-off clothing for their
youthful aspirants for the order; our authorities imme
diately wrote to Rome and got their action reproved
as derogatory to the dignity of the order—the order,
it will be remembered, being a mendicant order, indeed
the most humble of all mendicant orders. The French
friars in their turn disturbed the peace of my colleagues
by securing the patronage of the Duchess of Newcastle
and pitching their tent within a few miles of Forest
Gate; not even inviting us to the foundation of their
church. Another day our friars were exalted at the
news that their Capuchin brethren (the bearded Fran
ciscans) had been forced to sell their Dulwich monas
tery to the Benedictines, and again at the rumour that
the Capuchins (amongst whom, it was said, there had
been a general scuffle and dispersion and that several
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of their best men had departed for the American
missions) were likely to be starved into selling their
house at Olton. Both these monastic bodies had the
same manner of life as ourselves, and are, indeed, now
amalgamated with my late colleagues.
Other historic bodies, such as the Dominicans,
Benedictines, and Carmelites, bear much the same
relation to their primitive models, though their mem
bers are more cultured and refined, on the whole, than
my colleagues were. The Protestant surroundings
are held to prevent them from being entirely faithful
to their rules, and once the thin end of the wedge
is in it penetrates very deeply. The modern friars
have too much sense to attempt a full revival of the
thirteenth century. There is a poetry and romance
about the retention of the costume, but its asceticism
and crude religious realism are as antiquated as
feudalism. In olden times every monastery had
quite an armoury of spiked chains, bloody scourges,
thigh-bracelets, hair shirts, &c. In all my experience
I have only seen one such instrument of self-torture.
It was a thigh-bracelet, a broad wire chain, each link
ending in a sharp point that ran into the flesh. It
was rusty enough, though not from the blood of
victims, and it excited as much interest and humorous
comment in the party of monks who were examin
ing it as does a Spanish instrument of torture in the
Tower of London in the crowd of Protestant visitors.
St. Aloysius, the great model of the Jesuits, was so
modest in his relations with the dangerous sex, that he
did not even know his own mother by sight. To shake
hands with a woman is condemned by all monastic
writers as a very grave action. Most Catholic young
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ladies are aware that the modern monk—above all,
the Jesuit—is not at all misogynous.
The Dominicans have several peculiar precepts in
their rule which they are much tempted to think
lightly of; they are entirely forbidden flesh-meat, and
they are always forbidden to talk over dinner. I
have had the pleasure of dining at their large house
at Haverstock Hill on several festive occasions, and
I noticed that they trim the constitution a little by
adjourning to the library for dessert and wine; in
fact, my estimable neighbour did keep up a sotto voce
conversation with me throughout dinner. I heard
a much bolder feat of another Dominican convent.
Their precept directs, I understand, that flesh-meat
must not enter the refectory or dining-room; the good
friars, however, wearied of the daily fish, but saved
their consciences on the days they took meat by
dining in another room. It reminds one of the pious
fraud of the Dublin Carmelites. They secured an
excellent site for a church, but had to surmount an
obstacle raised by a former proprietor. He, it appears,
did not wish a church to be erected on the spot, so
he stipulated that the land should only be sold to a
person or persons agreeing to build a house thereon.
That was too wide a net for a theologian; the Car
melites bought the land, erected a fine church on it,
and a house on top of the church!
I met another curious illustration of this theological
ingenuity at one time in London. A Dominican friar
had been commissioned to raise funds in England for
the conduct of the process of canonisation of a French
priest. He had with him a number of small patches
of black cloth, which were said to be portions of the
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cassock of the holy man. He could not sell these—
the sale of relics is a grave sin in theology—but he
was, like the Spanish Church with its indulgences,
prepared to give one to every Catholic who gave him
ten shillings for the cause. My colleagues made a
friendly calculation that the relics which were being
thus distributed all over the Catholic world were so
large and numerous that they would make a consider
able number of cassocks. Possibly the cloth had
grown, as the Holy Cross did in pre-critical days;
but we further noted that the relics were pieces of
excellent stuff, whereas it was recorded as a particular
proof of the saint’s piety that he always wore an old
and ragged cassock. All this criticism was passed
at the time by priests, for it must not be supposed
that the clergy are as credulous as they like the laity
to be. They know that the manufacture of relics is
a lucrative ecclesiastical industry. The Dominican, in
fact, admitted to us that his relics had merely touched
the original cassock of the saint, and we forced him,
under threat of exposure, to return a half sovereign
a lady had given him.
The Jesuits are the most flourishing body of regular
clergy in England and America, and in every other
civilised or uncivilised nation. The reason of their
success is not far to seek. St. Ignatius bade them*
from the start cultivate the powerful and wealthy and
found colleges for the young. They have been more
than faithful to this part of his teaching, and they
draw numbers of youths from their fine colleges. To
a good supply of men and money they add a rigorous
discipline, and the elements of success are complete.
A famous Roman caricature hits off very happily the
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characteristic feature of the Jesuits and of three other
orders by a play on the words of Peter to Christ.
A Franciscan, Dominican, Augustinian, and Jesuit are
seated at a table of money; the Franciscan repels it
with the words “ Behold we have left all things,”
the Dominican imitates him, “ And we have followed
thee,” the Augustinian strikes an argumentative atti
tude, asking, “ What then? ” and the Jesuit gathers
in the spoils, with the rest of the text, “ remains
for us.”
At the same time they are characterised by a
remarkable esprit de corps which leads to an intense
isolated activity. The glory of the society is para
mount, and always coupled with the glory of the
Church; they never co-operate with other orders, but
they freely cut across the lines of, and come into col
lision with, other ecclesiastical forces. Hence there is
a very strong feeling against them amongst the clergy
and in higher quarters; indeed, one would be sur
prised to find how many priests are ready to agree
with Kingsley and Zola with regard to them. In
considering the accusations that are so commonly
brought against them one must remember how far
the acknowledged principles of Catholic casuistry can
be extended. It is true that the maxim, “ The end
justifies the means,” is denounced by all the theo
logical schools, including the Jesuits, but the rejection
is at times little more than a quibble. An act which
remains intrinsically bad cannot be done for a good
purpose, they say, but every theologian admits that
the “ end ” of an action enters into and modifies its
moral essence; and the act must be a very wicked
one which cannot be hallowed by being pressed into
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the service of the Church Catholic—or of the Society
of Jesus.
Such quibbles as Kingsley attributes to them in
“ Westward Ho! ” are certainly defensible on Catholic
principles and are constantly perpetrated by priests; 1
and I should not be at all surprised if a Jesuit were
to argue himself into accepting the commission which
George Sand attributes to the Jesuit tutor in “ Con
suelo.” Many priests would admit that M. Zola’s
account of their activity, in “ Rome,” is probably cor
rect. I once heard F. Bernard Vaughan, S.J., preach
a sermon on the title “ What is a Jesuit? ” With his
accustomed eloquence he summed up the traditional
idea—the historian’s idea—of a Jesuit, and, in refuta
tion, contented himself with detailing the spiritual
exercises through which the Jesuit so frequently
passes. Although, aided by F. Vaughan’s great thea
trical power and by the operatic performances which
preceded and followed it, the sermon produced con
siderable effect, it was in reality merely a trick of
rhetoric. No one contends that the Jesuit is violating
his conscience in his plots, intrigues, and equivoca
tions; regret is usually felt that he should have been
able to bring his moral sense into such an accom
modating attitude. Every ecclesiastic claims to be
unworldly in ultimate ambition; yet even a pope
would think a lifetime well spent in diplomatic intrigue
for the restoration of his temporal power. All such
activity is easily covered by the accepted principles
of Catholic casuistry.
Still, whatever may have been the policy of Jesuits
1 See afterwards, p. 209.
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in past ages their activity in England at the present
day is patent. In London they have no parish, but
they are continually seeking out the wealthier Catholics
in various parishes and endeavouring to attach them
to their congregation at Farm Street, or send them to
help their struggling missions at Stamford Hill and
Wimbledon. They even penetrated to Forest Gate
in this “ poaching ” spirit, and my colleagues were
greatly agitated when a Jesuit was known to be
about. We usually lost a well-to-do parishioner.
They have thus excited much hostility amongst the
rest of the clergy, but four centuries of bad treatment
from clergy and laity alike have sufficiently inured
them, and only made them more self-contained and
independent. Apart from such petty intrigues for
the advancement of the society there does not seem
to be any deep undercurrent of Jesuit activity in
England at the present time; at Rome, of course,
every congregation and every individual must partici
pate in the great struggle for canonical existence.1
Besides the great orders there are innumerable
minor congregations of regular or monastic priests
represented in London—Oblates of Mary, Oblates of
the Sacred Heart, Oblates of St. Charles, Servites,
Barnabites, Vincentians, Fathers of Charity, Marists,
Passionists, Redemptorists, &c. Most of them have
been founded in recent times by priests who were
eager to promote some particular devotion, and, by
influence or money, succeeded in getting permission
to found congregations embodying their idea. As a
1 See Count Hoensbroech’s “ Fourteen Years a Jesuit ” for some
scathing observations on the English Jesuits.
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rule their ideal is not very ascetic, so that there is
less hypocrisy in their lives; but they also are gener
ally too hard pressed in the inere struggle for existence
to pay much attention to the particular features and
objects of their respective congregations. I knew
little of them, but used to hear my older colleagues
tell with pleasure how Cardinal Manning scornfully
spoke of the Brompton Oratory as “ the hen-coop,”
and how the Benedictines were rent with factions (as
one of them afterwards described in the Pall Mall
Magazine).
Besides the great number of regular clergy—who
would be more aptly styled the “ Irregulars,” both for
a disciplinary reason and in view of their canonical
relation to the rest of the clerical army—there are
the ordinary secular or non-monastic clergy. The
seculars are those who live in the world (sseculum)
and the regulars those who live in convents, under a
rule (regula). The seculars have a similar life to
that of the ordinary non-Catholic clergyman; it has
been fully described in the preceding chapter, for it
is similar to that of the monastic clergy who under
take parochial duties. On Sunday their work is long
and laborious. During the week they visit their
parishioners, and the more attractive amongst their
neighbour’s parishioners (which dangerous practice is
called “ poaching,” and is watched accordingly); take
tea and supper and play cards with them; visit, dine,
and wine with each other; and picnics, parties, enter
tainments, meetings, special services (with luncheons),
visits to the cardinal (after a polite and chilling
invitation called a compareat), and occasional holidays,
help to fill up the inside of the week. They are
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forbidden under pain of suspension to enter a theatre,
or witness theatrical performances of any kind.
They cordially detest the monastic clergy—who
have secured most of the best parishes of the diocese
—but do not object to dining with them on their
festivals. I remember hearing one at a dinner (or
near the close of a dinner) in a friary belonging to
our Franciscan rivals, unburden his mind about monks
in general and our friars in particular, in a way which
would have been w’armly approved by the most loyally
Protestant body. With nuns they are usually on very
good terms; they find pupils and novices for the
convent, and in return are invited to the innumerable
special services, luncheons, entertainments, distribu
tions of prizes, &c., which are equally gratifying to
them and the sisters.
Their circumstances, naturally, differ very widely
in different parishes; as a rule they are not rich. I
have known a priest to reduce his living expenses to
nine shillings per week, and I should think there
are few who have £150 per annum. However, they
live in hopes of better days. The State grant to their
schools has meant a material increase in their personal
income. They, of course, claim it as a relief to their
parishioners, but in point of fact the special collections
they make for their schools are and always were
insignificant.
The cardinal usually assists the poorest missions,
in some of which, as at Ongar in my time, there are
not a score of Catholics; at least Cardinal Manning
did, though Cardinal Vaughan withdrew most of his
predecessor’s allowances. They were more afraid of
having money taken from them by Cardinal Vaughan
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\ than of the contrary, and they filled up their statistical
papers with much ingenuity. Cardinal Manning took
little interest in the incomes and expenditures of his
clergy, but as soon as Vaughan arrived they all re
ceived a detailed form to fill in and return, giving
an account of their receipts and expenses. Unfor
tunately the cardinal made a canonical slip in sending
the same paper to the secular and to the monastic
clergy; the latter are not responsible to him for
their conduct qua monks, but only qua parish priests.
They therefore held an indignation meeting and pro
tested, with the result that a new form had to be
printed which distinguished between their parochial
property and income and their monastic affairs, and
only demanded an account of the former. Needless
to say, the replies were very discreet; it is said that
the Dominicans returned a blank sheet.
On the whole the relation of the secular clergy to
their archbishop 1 may be described as one of goodnatured tolerance. He was not popular in the north,
and he is not popular in the south. He is kind and
affable, and always leaves a good impression after a
visit to a priest. Not so inflexible as his predecessor
—in fact, it is complained that he is too easily influ
enced—he is a prelate of unquestionable earnestness
and sincerity. But he had the misfortune to step
into the shoes of a great man, and he has acted
unwisely in endeavouring to tread in his predecessor’s
footsteps instead of confining his attention to the
1 It is, perhaps, of interest to leave in the text this lengthy
reference to Cardinal Vaughan. It must be understood, however,
that it does not refer to the present Archbishop, of whom I know
nothing. Third edition.
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administration of the archdiocese. The intense activity
which has kept him continually on the move since
he entered the diocese, and which has so rapidly aged
him, has had little or no palpable result, and has
certainly not deepened the attachment of his clergy.
His predecessor remained day after day in his little
room at Carlyle Place; the world came to him and
sought his influence.
Yet with all his activity and the perpetual flutter
ing of aristocratic wings in his vicinity he cannot give
the financial aid to his clergy which his predecessor
did. One of his first cares was to change the existing
financial arrangements, cutting off many allowances
and commanding new contributions. He had a perfect
right to do so; but when, after so many economical
measures, he confessed in his Trinity Sunday pastoral
that he could not reach the income of his predecessor
his clergy felt little sympathy. In the same pastoral
he preached a panegyric of the aristocracy which gave
great offence, and he gave a comparison of the con
tributions of five West End churches and five East
End churches, which was not quite accurate, was
hardly fair, and was certainly impolitic. However,
he has made many wise changes in the distribution
of his clergy and other improvements that Cardinal
Manning had strangely neglected. When the time
comes it will not be a light task to find a worthy
successor to Cardinal Vaughan/
1 The Vaughan family is a remarkable one ; of the seven brothers
six became prominent ecclesiastics. Roger died Archbishop of
Sydney ; Herbert is cardinal; Bernard, the Jesuit, is the first
Catholic preacher in England; Jerome is the founder of a new
order ; Kenelm is a world-wide missionary : John is a monsignore.
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The same may be said of the education of secular
priests as of that of regulars; in fact, the observations
in the preceding chapter apply to the clergy generally.
The classical and mathematical training of the seculars
is slightly better than that of the friars; otherwise
the curriculum is much the same. Their philosophical
and theological studies in the seminary have been
equally disorderly and precipitate. They have had
no serious introduction either to the thought of past
ages (beyond the thirteenth century) or to the living
thoughts of our own day. They read little and know
little beyond the interminable Anglican controversy.
The laity are coerced into literary apathy, and con
sequently the stimulus to study is absent.
About five years ago the cardinal realised that his
priests were not up to date, and that they were really
unable to bring themselves adequately in touch with
modern thought, so he instituted a kind of intellectual
committee to sit upon modern questions, and report
to the majority. A dozen of the better-informed
London priests constituted it, and they met occasion
ally to discuss, especially social questions and the
biblical question. I remember procuring a large
amount of socialistic literature for certain members
who wished to study both sides. When the members
of this new Areopagus had come to a few decisions,
they were to enlighten their less studious or less
leisured brethren by a series of small books. Those
It is said that John attempted a smart aphorism on the family ; he
himself represented thought, Bernard word, and Herbert deed.
When Bernard heard it he caustically added, “ and Jerome
omission." The allusion is to the Catholic classification of sins—
sins of thought, word, deed, and omission.
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books have not yet appeared. The fact that the pro
posed writers (to my knowledge) dare not print their
true ideas on the above problems at present may not
be unconnected with the delay. A Jesuit writer,
about the same time, began a series of explanatory
and very dogmatic articles on the critical question
in the Tablet, but he was immediately cut to pieces
by other Catholic writers. The Jesuits have also
published a series of volumes of scholastic philo
sophy in English. The student will find in them an
acquaintance with modern science and philosophy
which is rarely found in the scholastic metaphysician.
Unfortunately they are little better on the main
lines of argument than a translation of the discarded
Latin manuals. They follow disused shafts of thought
much too frequently to be of value. The more im
portant volumes seem to have been entrusted to the
less important men; and whilst there is much acute
criticism of minor topics, the treatment of the more
profound problems is very unsatisfactory—such theses
as the spirituality of the soul and the existence and
infinity of God being merely supported by the old
worn-out arguments.
What has been said of the perpetual intrigues of
the monastic clergy does not apply so forcibly to the
secular priests. Each monastery is a small world in
itself, and contains nearly as many officers as privates;
to the secular clergy the number of possible appoint
ments is very slight in proportion to their numbers,
and thus the fever of ambition is less widespread.
There is naturally a certain amount of intrigue for
the wealthier parishes, but few of the priests have
any ambition beyond the desire to settle down as
�OTHER ORDERS
183
rector of some comfortable and respectable congrega
tion. In a witty French book a benevolent parent
gives as a supreme counsel to his son who has become
a priest, “ Arrondissez-vous.” A few may then aspire
to the dignity of dean of their district, or to the title
of “ missionary rector.” But so far there is no differ
ence from the clergy of any other denomination; the
genuine Roman fever only begins with the narrow
circle of those who presume to aspire to the title of
monsignore, or even of canon of the diocese. The
dignity of monsignore is not a very significant one;
it may or may not be a reward of merit. Any wealthy
priest of good family may receive it as a mere com
pliment. I know one monsignore who received his,
purple because he had given a few thousand pounds
to my colleagues, and another (a very worthy man, but
painfully commonplace) who got it for his attentions
to a distinguished visitor from Rome.
Even canons, as a rule, are very feeble and harm
less conspirators; they are generally old men, who
are more conspicuous for quantity than quality of
service, but have usually sufficient discretion left to
know that they are not expected to aspire any higher.
In matters of ordinary administration their long ex
perience is often useful to the bishop, with whom
they form the chapter of the diocese, but otherwise
they have not a very grave responsibility. The same
may be said of the titular bishops, or those whose
titles are in partibus infidelium—the “ suffragans ” 1
of the Anglican hierarchy. The cardinal (or any
1 The word has a different meaning amongst Catholics ; a suffragan
is any bishop under an archbishop. All the bishops of England
are suffragcmi to the cardinal-archbishop.
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important bishop) has a number of advisers quite
outside his chapter, experts in canon law, professors
of theology, &c., who are generally mutually hostile
and contradictory, and from their opinions he finally
deduces a course of action.
There is little excitement or intrigue over the
election to an unimportant bishopric. A private
income is as good a qualification as any where the
diocese is small and poor, and no great energy is
required for its administration. When the bishopric
of Clifton fell vacant a few years ago, it was laugh
ingly whispered in clerical circles that the first con
dition required in the candidate was the possession
of the modest private income of <£250 a year. When
an important see is vacant there is more wire-pulling,
both in the locality and at Rome; for the diocese has
not a decisive vote in the election of its bishop. The
canons meet and decide upon three names to send
to Rome as dignissimus, dignior, and dignus. But
the Pope frequently changes the order, and sometimes
(as in Manning’s election) entirely disregards the
ternum.
Thus it is that every prominent ecclesiastic, whether
he be bishop, priest, or monk (for a monk may be
raised to the episcopate without intermediate stages),
is a continuous object of jealous observation and
intrigue, in view of the possible cardinals’ hats or
bishoprics. The state of things described in Purcell’s
“ Life of Manning ” is only exceptional in that the
Church in England is not likely again to have such a
number of able men simultaneously. The jealousy,
hostility, meanness, and persecution therein described
are familiar incidents in the life of every “ great
�-J
[I
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OTHER ORDERS
185
'ecclesiastical statesman,” as Manning is most aptly
called. And it must not be imagined that the picture
is at all complete—it is not by any means as darkly
shaded as the reality. No Catholic could in conI science tell all that is handed down in clerical circles
with regard to the relations of Manning, Newman,
Ward, the Jesuits, &c. And although the author
has made a generous concession in the cause of hisI torical truth, the public have not had the full benefit
I of his sincerity. If the book could have been pubI lished in its original form, it would have been much
more interesting, but after spending two years in
purgatorial flames as it did, we must take it with
’ discretion. Some of my colleagues were intimate with
the author’s brother, and gave us continual reports
of the painful progress of the work. About two
I years before its appearance we were told that it was
j finished, and some very spicy letters and anecdotes
' were promised. Then there were rumours of war;
Ithe defenders of Manning, the supporters of Ward,
the Jesuits, and others threatened legal action, and
I the work was much “ bowdlerised.” On the whole,
1 the impression of those who seemed to be in the secret
i was that Newman had been treated by all parties in
J a manner that dare not be made public, and that
■ there were documents kept back which would throw
much discredit upon all other prominent Catholics of
| the period. We must not suppose, however, that
’ Newman was the meek victim of all this intrigue.
| Bishop Paterson, who knew him well, once described
if | him in my presence as “ a tiger by nature, an angel
& B by grace.”
However undesirable such a state of things may
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OTHER ORDERS
be, it is no other than any disinterested person would
expect. The Church cannot change its character in
a day, and its past history, like the history of every
priesthood under the sun, is throughout marred by
such weaknesses. The life of Cardinal Pie in France,
though written by a Catholic for Catholics, gives one
the same impression; the relations of the Irish pre
lates (one of whom is “ primate of Ireland,” and
another “ primate of all Ireland,”) and of the American
prelates are quite analogous; and Rome itself is a
school of diplomacy and intrigue of no gentle charac
ter. Such things are inevitable, and it is a clumsy
device to attempt to conceal them and support the
idea that ecclesiastical dignitaries are only guided by
preternatural influences.
The condition of Catholicism in London is a matter
of anxious discussion, even in clerical circles. As will
be explained subsequently, grave doubts are expressed
as to whether the Church is making any progress at
all in England, and especially in London. Catholic
journals are not unlike Egyptian monuments; they
write large (and in good round numbers) the con
quests of their Church, but they do not see the need
for chronicling its losses. Of converted Anglican
ministers they speak with warmth and eloquence; of
seceding priests they are silent—until some incident
brings them into public notice, when they publish a
series of reckless attacks on them and refuse to insert
their explanations. Once or twice, however, notices
of meetings have crept in at which the opinion has
been maintained by priests that the Church is really
losing, instead of making that miraculous progress
which the average layman believes. Great numbers
�OTHER ORDERS
187
of Catholics imagine that as soon as the Church of
England is disestablished 1 and thus thrown directly
upon the support of the people it will vanish almost
immediately. I once heard Bishop Paterson explain
that it was undesirable to work for disestablishment
just yet, because we Catholics really had not nearly
sufficient accommodation for the vast flood of converts
that would ensue; we should be quite disorganised.
In point of fact there should be now about a quarter
of a million Catholics in London, whereas the Daily
Nezes census shows that only 90,000 attend church,
and the total number cannot therefore be more than
120,000. Throughout England the ratio of the
Catholic population is about 1 in 20, but it is much
higher in Lancashire, much lower in London and other
places. In Cardinal Manning’s time the figures were
vague and disputable. When Cardinal Vaughan came
down in a hurricane of zeal a census was made of the
archdiocese; but the exact figures only established the
truth of the pessimistic theory. It wras thought that
Catholicism did not really know its strength, and that
it would be well to proclaim its formidable statistics
to the world; but when the result of the census was
known, it was whispered indeed from priest to priest,
but with a caution that the cardinal did not wish to
see it in print.
I have not seen the exact figures—I do not suppose
they ever passed the archbishop’s study in writing—■
but I was informed by reliable priests that out of the
small Catholic population of London between 70,000
1 A Catholic is bound in conscience to desire—to work for, if
possible—the disestablishment of the Anglican Church: then he is
equally bound to work for the establishment of his own.
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OTHER ORDERS
and 80,000 never went near a church—had practic
ally abandoned the Church. I have explained that
the positive ceremonial obligations (to hear mass) of
a Catholic are so grave that a continued neglect of
them puts a man outside the pale of the Church.
Most priests can ascertain with some confidence how
many nominal Catholics there are in their district—
that is to say, how many ought to be Catholics by
parentage, baptism, education, &c. By subtracting
from this the average number of attendances at mass
on Sunday (an obligatory service) they should have
the number of renegades. So, also, the priest can
make a minimum calculation from his school-children
—multiply the number of children by five, and you
have the population (though in some places many
Catholic children attend Board Schools); and the
number of marriages affords a maximum indication.
Disagreeable as the general statement is, a few
details will show that it must be rather under than
over the truth. The priest, as a rule, likes to give as
roseate an account as possible of his flock, so that in
the aggregate there is probably a great loss in point
of accuracy. In the parish of Canning Town in East
London there are about 6000 nominal Catholics; 5000
of these never come near the church. I was dining
with F. Hazel the day the form to be filled arrived,
and saw him write it. We measured the church and
found that, filling the doorsteps and arch ledges, it
would not contain more than 400; certainly not a
thousand, mostly children, came to mass on Sundays,
and Easter confessions were proportionate. A question
was asked, How many of your youths (15-21) attend
their duties? About five per cent, was the answer.
�OTHER ORDERS
189
The income of the parish was deplorable; the vast
territory it embraces is full of poor Irish families
who live less religiously and not more virtuously than
pagans.
At Barking there are more than 200 children in
the schools, and the number is not at all complete,
and there are not more than fifty adults who attend
church; at Grays there is the same condition. A
few years ago a zealous priest, F. Gordon Thompson,
determined to start a mission in a neglected part of
East London—Bow Common ; his aim was necessarily
small, he could only hope to take care of the children
of nominal Catholics. In the first three streets he
visited he found 120 such children, and could go no
further; their parents he could not attempt to gather.
He told me that there were several other localities in
East London in precisely the same condition. In fact,
every parish in East London counts at least hundreds
of drifted Catholics. The circumstance is by no means
confined to poor districts, but it is more noticeable
in them; ecclesiastics are naturally slow to undertake
and prosecute such unremunerative toil.
In the light of these details it will not be wondered
that there is so great a leakage from the Church that
the “ converts ” do not nearly fill the vacant space.1
I have thought for many years, and have been confirmed in the opinion by many colleagues, that for
1 I have since made careful research into the matter, and more
than established the truth of this. My conclusions are given in an
article in the National Review for August 1901, and especially in
my “ Decay of the Church of Rome ” (1909), where I have shown
that the Church of Rome has lost at least two million and a
quarter followers in England alone during the nineteenth century.
Third edition.
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OTHER ORDERS
the last twenty years at least the Church of Rome
has made no progress in England, but has probably
lost in numbers, taking into account, of course, the
increase of a generation, The Church has made a
considerable number of converts, and it would be
foolish to question the earnestness of a large propor
tion of them. At the same time the majority of them
are of such a class that the change has no deep
religious significance. There are thousands of ordinary
people whose only convictions, such as they are, regard
certain fundamental points of Christianity, and who
are drawn into one or other sect by the merest accident
•—by contact with a zealous or particularly affable
proselytiser, by the influence of relatives, by kindness,
taste, and a host of non-religious considerations. In
fact it is only too clear (and not unnatural) that many
associate with the Church of Rome out of purely
aesthetic considerations. It is well known that many
of the much vaunted converts of Farm Street and of
Brompton are simply aesthetes, who are attracted by
the sensuous character of the services.
Matrimonial considerations are also very powerful
agents in the cause of the Church. Many Catholic
priests and families insist upon “ conversion ” before
admitting a non-Catholic to matrimonial relation.
The only “ convert ” I am responsible for was a young
lady who was engaged to be married to a Catholic;
she drank in my instructions like water, never find
ing the slightest intellectual difficulty; and a few
years afterwards, being jilted by him, she happily
returned to Anglicanism with the same facility. One
of my colleagues was summoned to attend a Catholic
who was seriously ill. The wife met him at the door,
�OTHER ORDERS
191
tai and asked him to “ be careful, because her husband
J was only a marriage-convert.” When inter-marriage
Jis allowed, the Church exacts several promises in her
i!favour; all children of the marriage must be brought
l III up Catholics, the non-Catholic partner must promise
i at not to interfere in any way with the religion of the
! Catholic parent and children—and then the Catholic
is separately bound to do all in his or her power to
convert the other.
Schools, too, are proselytising agencies. In board
ing-schools kept by nuns, to which Protestant girls
J are frequently sent, it is regarded as a sacred duty to
»q influence the children as much as possible, no matter
tljwhat promises are made to the parents. Elementary
,d public schools are not only the most effective guardians
J of their own children, but also help to extend Catholic
.^influence. Like the consideration which has been pre>i|viously mentioned, it is not one to which the clergy
iggive political prominence, but it is certainly an
jbimportant item in their secret programme.
�CHAPTER X
COUNTRY
MINISTRY
After four years’ experience of the life which has
been described in the preceding pages, I was not un
willing to find some means of escape. Besides the
uncongenial environment in which I found myself, my
religious troubles had increased every year, until at
length I found myself consciously speculating on the
possibility of being ultimately forced to secede. The
prospect was naturally very painful and alarming, and
I resolved to use every honourable means to avert it.
However, in the increasing cares of the ministry I
could not secure the necessary time for sustained
study. I was relieved from monastic duties, and also
from parochial work, on account of my professorship :
I never visited or received visitors until the last six
months of my monastic career. Still, as preacher,
confessor, instructor, and professor, I was continually
distracted and failing in health, and I eagerly grasped
an opportunity of retiring from London.
The authorities of our province had at length
decided to take action for the improvement of our
studies, and F. David was directed to found a new
college for the preparatory studies. He had a large
but vague idea that the college was ultimately to be
192
�COUNTRY MINISTRY
193
connected with Oxford University, and sent down a X
friar of high reputation for economy to make inquiries
in that region. However, no land could be obtained
at their price nearer than Buckingham, and there the
friar established himself.
The friar lived in the vicinity during the progress
of the building, which was erected principally on
borrowed funds, as is usual with Roman Catholic in
stitutions. Knowing that the financial prospects of
the college were precarious, the good friar set himself
to live with great economy and store up a little against
the opening of the establishment. He had an excel
lent reputation for economy already : he knew all the
halfpenny ’buses in London, and patronised shops
where a cup of tea could be had for a halfpenny.
However, he surpassed himself at Buckingham. He
read by the light of a street lamp which shone in at
his window (thus saving the cost of oil), had no
servant, and achieved the fabulous feat of living on
sixpence per day 1 during a long period. Being forced
at length to keep a lay-brother he chose a poor little
ascetic who, he knew, was only too eager to find a
superior who would allow him to starve himself on
orthodox principles.
When at length it was deemed expedient to remove
the zealous friar to another part of England, he had
saved the sum of <£100. This he left to his successor,
who, accordingly, in recording his disappearance in the
“ Annals ” of the new college, added that he deserved
great praise for the efficient state in which he left the
mission. But the newcomer had quite a different
1 The diet was bread, beer and coffee, and tinned meat. Foi
feast-days he used a special meat which cost a penny per tin more.
�194
COUNTRY MINISTRY
theory of life. He agreed with Francis of Assisi that
it was irreverent to make provision for the morrow;
and so he made himself comfortable in the little
cottage they had rented, and religiously trusted to
Providence for the future of the college. The income
was also doubled through a kind of chaplaincy to the
Comte de Paris which he undertook, yet when I suc
ceeded him my legacy consisted mainly of wine and
spirit bills (paid) and empty bottles.
In the meantime the councillors were again at
loggerheads over the choice of a rector. F. David
had asked me to volunteer for the post, and, for the
reasons already given, and from a sincere desire to
help in reforming our studies, I did so. Subsequent
proceedings, however, disgusted me to such an extent
that for a time I refused to take it, and several
authorities, knowing that I would now have to work
in the face of much intrigue and secret opposition,
wished to save me from it. I was finally appointed,
and entered upon my duty willingly and with earnest
and honest purpose. I had incurred the bitter but
secret hostility of those who were ostensibly respons
ible for my financial success; I knew that the province
was almost universally hostile to the new foundation;
my parish, of some twelve miles in extent, contained
only three poor Catholics; and I had eight pupils who
paid between them the collective sum of <£80 per
annum. I had now entered the troubled waters of
ecclesiastical intrigue, and I give a few details in
illustration of that interesting experience.
Immediately after my arrival the cabinet ministers
of the fraternity—who had prudently sent me a ten
pound note in advance—came to the college to hold a
�COUNTRY MINISTRY
195
two days’ conference. During those two d«iys the
little college resounded with loud but, unhappily, in
articulate discourse. When it was over I demanded
instructions from the provincial, a worthy but obtuse
old friar, who, by some curious freak of diplomacy,
had been pushed into the highest position. He blandly
replied that he had no instructions for me. I (aged
twenty-seven) was to be chief professor and rector,
superior of the house, instructor of the lay-brothers,
parish priest—everything, in short; with carte blanche
to make any regulations, programme of study, or
domestic discipline that I desired. I was even free
to adopt or not the “ closure ” (excluding ladies). I
then turned to the delicate financial question, and was
promptly assured that the whole of this responsibility
had been undertaken by one of the definitors. I
afterwards ascertained that neither the provincial nor
the other councillors had any idea of the financial con
dition of the institution. I warned him that the
definitor in question was known to be anxious for my
ruin and humiliation (for my spiritual good), and that
the others could not shift their responsibility. He
smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and departed. I never
saw him again.
Under these auspicious circumstances I opened the
college of St. Bernardine, a large and handsome build
ing, in spacious grounds just outside Buckingham, in
October 1895. During the five months I remained
there I received no help from the friar of whom they
had spoken; at the end of the time he stood in my
debt. I knew that he had another and more docile
candidate waiting for the rectorship, and that he had
openly expressed his intention of letting me “ sink.”
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COUNTRY MINISTRY
However, other friars came to my assistance, and I
left the college comparatively prosperous when I
abandoned it.
I had one associate in teaching, a young and kindly
but ignorant priest, so that a curious assortment of
classes fell to my lot. I taught Latin grammar,
French, Euclid, algebra, physics, and a little Greek.
And the difficulty of educating the boys was increased
by my complete ignorance of the term they were to
remain under me. I remonstrated with the authorities
in vain; they were in utter discord themselves, and
left everything to chance. Some of them hoped that
the institution would fail. To enliven still further
the monotony of our country life there was a revolt of
the two servants or lay-brothers, occasioned by my
checking their beer accounts. They were both older
than myself, selfish, unsympathetic, and impatient
of discipline. The authorities refused to remove
them.
At the same time the bishop of the diocese was
piteously calling my attention to the condition of the
district, and putting a new charge on my shoulders.
There was evidently more duplicity on this point. I
was informed that there was no parish attached to
the college; the bishop understood that there was,
and had promised me a map of it. It mattered little,
for the “ parish *’ would consist of an enormous extent
of territory containing three Catholics known and three
or four suspected. The town of Buckingham (con
taining 3000 inhabitants) boasts of one Roman Catholic,
who, with rustic diplomacy, attended early service at
the parish church and mass afterwards at the college.
He was my gardener. The whole diocese of North
�COUNTRY MINISTRY
197
ampton is a spiritual desert to the Catholic mind. It
is the most extensive in England, yet contains only
a few thousand Catholics.
At Buckingham I was expected to re-kindle the
light of the ancient faith in a very short time. My
predecessors had left glowing accounts of the ripeness
of the harvest. But I soon found that the easy
tolerance, if not cordiality, of the townsfolk had quite
a different meaning. The presence of the French
soi-disant royal family had done much to remove the
unreasonable prejudice against Catholics which is
found in many agricultural districts. Stowe House
had been the chief support of the little town; and
when the Orleanist family departed, after the death
of the Count, the town was prepared to receive with
open arms any institution that would help to fill the
void in its commerce. The college was built just at
that moment, and as my colleagues predicted for it
a rapid and unlimited growth, it was warmly wel
comed by the inhabitants, who, no doubt, religiously
steeled their hearts at the same time against its assumed
proselytising purpose. In fact, I found that one or
two men who had been noted by my predecessors as
likely to prove the first and easiest converts were con
firmed agnostics who had keenly enjoyed the simplicity
of my predecessors. It was soon felt that I was not
of a proselytising disposition—apart from the insecurity
of my own position, I am afraid that I never sufficiently
realised the gravity of the condition of our Anglican
neighbours—and the college worked in complete
harmony with the Protestant clergy and laity of the
vicinity.
Of my own diocesan colleagues I hardly made the
H
•
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COUNTRY MINISTRY
acquaintance. The nearest priest of my own diocese
was at a distance of twelve miles to the south; the
next, fourteen miles to the north; and there, as else
where, the secular clergy do not fraternise with monks.
I was now, however, bound to put in an appearance
at the casuistry conferences which are held periodic
ally, as has been explained. A diocese is divided into
deaneries, and the rectors are summoned every month
to a conference at the dean’s residence. A programme
is printed for each year in which a casus—an incident
for moral diagnosis and prescription—is appointed for
each conference; a few questions are added which
serve to elicit the principles of casuistry on which the
“ case ” must be solved. A priest is appointed to
read the case, solve it, and answer the questions at
each meeting; all are then invited by the dean or
president to express their opinions in turn, and, as the
casus is usually very complicated, a long discussion
generally follows.1 Nearly every point in casuistry is
disputed, and arguments are abundant in the modern
Latin manuals—Lehmkuhl, Ballerini, Palmieri, &c.
The final decision rests with the president.
A conference in a populous diocese is a very exciting
ceremony; rival schools of theology are represented,
1 The casus are always in Latin : the following may serve as
a specimen :—Titius steals a watch from the person of a cleric in
church. This he sells to Caius, and nothing further is heard of
him. The priest at length identifies his watch in the possession of
Caius and claims it, satisfactorily proving it to be his property.
Caius refuses to return the watch until his money is returned and
the thief cannot be traced.
Q. 1. How many kinds of sacrilege are there ?
Q. 2. How many sins did Titius commit ?
Q. 3. How is the case to be solved ?
Such a case would provoke hours of controversy.
�COUNTRY MINISTRY
199
young priests are pitted against old ones, and the
more ambitious are eager to make an impression. But
at Northampton our conference was very tame. Only
t ten priests could be assembled out of a very wide
territory, and they were far from being brilliant theo
logians. A desultory and not very instructive con
versation ensued after the case had been read, and in
the middle of it the bell rang for lunch, which seemed,
of the two, to be the more important function for
which we were convened.
The life of a priest in a country parish is usually
very dull and monotonous; in our diocese it was not
unlike the life of a foreign missionary, so few Catholics
there were in the vast territory. I had one parishioner
in the town, a poor ignorant creature whose faith was
very closely connected with his works; another at a
distance of four miles, who was a doubtful acquisition
to the Church; a third, five miles away, who patiently
submitted to being called a Catholic; and a fourth, or
rather an excellent family, about eight miles away,
who had been effectually scared from us by my prede
cessors. The three or four mythical Catholic harvest
I men and washerwomen, whom a diocesan tradition
& located somewhere within the limits of my twelve-mile
district, I never met in the flesh. Most of the other
priests in the diocese had rather more souls to care
af for, but rarely sufficient to provide a maintenance.
SThey were poor, and could not travel much; they had
few parishioners with whom they could have congenial
intercourse; they were widely separated from each
other, and had neither books nor inclination to study.
The life of an Anglican clergyman in a small country
parish is not one to be envied: a priest has the
1
H 2
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COUNTRY MINISTRY
additional disadvantage of no family, and usually
hostile neighbours.
When I had at length introduced a certain amount
of method into the college and of discipline into my
small community, my thoughts reverted to the per
sonal object I had in view in leaving London. Surprise
is often expressed that the number of seceders from
the Roman Catholic priesthood is not higher. Apart
from the fact that few people know the number of
seceders, as will appear presently, a little reflection
on two points, which I have already adduced, will
help to explain the matter. In the first place, the
philosophical and theological studies of the priest have
been stunted, one-sided, and superficial. Very few
of the clergy have continued the work at a university,
and even there the studies would again be narrow and
superficial. They plunge into active parochial work
immediately after their ordination; they have no
stimulus to, and little continuous time for, study—
except a little casuistry—while, on the other hand,
there is ample opportunity and pressing invitation to
dissipate their time and wits in agreeable trivialities.
Under such circumstances they feel disposed to regard
Wellhausen and Kuenen (or even Sayce and Cheyne),
Huxley and Spencer, White and Draper, and even
Protestant divines, as so many literary hedgehogs.
Their scholastic system was plausible enough when the
professor urged it upon them, and they give no
further thought to the subject. Add to this the fact
that most of them are Irish, and the buoyant Celtic
temperament does not take religious doubt very
seriously; no one knows into what depths of study
or seas of trouble it may lead. In the educated lay-
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201
x | man that temperament is sceptical enough, though it
i i is a careless, lighthearted scepticism, not obtrusive and
not very consistent; in the priest the same disposition
11 leads to a natural reluctance to take any steps that
may involve a violent dislocation, and carries with it a
habit of deprecating a Quixotic effort to attain mathenj matical precision and consistency of thought.
And if it happens that doubts do enter into the
minds of the clergy (and in familiar intercourse with
them one soon finds that they are not uncommon—1 I have sometimes heard priests openly express the
CT most cynical scepticism), what time has the ordinary
$ priest to make a sincere and protracted study of his
<) opinions? With all my privileges and opportunities
il for study, it cost me the better part of ten years of
ct constant reading and thought to come to a final and
ct reliable decision. The fact that the actual seceders
dj from the Church are usually men who have had
special opportunity and a marked disposition for study
si is significant enough; the fact that few emerge from
I| the ordinary ranks of the clergy with convictions firm
!1 enough to face the painful struggle of secession should
)fl not be surprising. Active external occupation banishes
» doubt from consciousness. To deliberately resort to it
oj for that purpose would be dishonest; few men would
uj subscribe to the Catholic rule, that doubt must be
suppressed at once, yet it is the ordinary fate of the
I clergyman. I experienced a relief myself during the
initial labours for my college, but once my work
dropped into some kind of routine, the old questions
reappeared, and I determined to answer them, cost
what it might.
My doubts were of a philosophical and fundamental
I
1
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character. I had felt that, until the basic truths of
religion were firmly assented to, the Anglican con
troversy had little interest for me, and even the biblical
question was of secondary importance. Accordingly
most of my time from my first introduction to philo
sophy was spent, directly or indirectly, in investigating
the fundamental problems. I had read all the litera
ture which could possibly be of use to me in forming
my judgment, and I had been guided (as far as he
could do so) by a man who is thought most competent
for that purpose. All that remained was to survey
the evidence as it had accumulated in my memory, and
form a severe and well-weighed decision upon it. I
drew up on paper the points round which my doubts
centred, and added from memory all the arguments I
had met in my protracted search. I was not at all
influenced by hostile writers, of whom I had read very
little, and I had never discussed the questions with
any non-Catholic. The sole question was, Is the evi
dence I have collected satisfactory or not? During
the Christmas vacation I settled resolutely to my task,
and uninterruptedly, all day and half the night, I
went solemnly back over the ground of my studies.
Point by point the structure of argument yielded
under the pressure. Before many days a heavy and
benumbing consciousness weighed upon me that I was
drifting out into the mist and the unknown sea. And
it was on Christmas morning, 1895, after I had cele
brated three masses, while the bells of the parish
church were ringing out the Christ-message of peace,
that, with a great pain, I found myself far out from
the familiar land—homelessly, aimlessly drifting. But
the bells were right, after all; from that hour I have
�COUNTRY MINISTRY
203
been wholly free from the nightmare of doubt that
had lain on me for ten years.
The literature that I had studied during the preced
ing years was principally Latin and French. I had,,
naturally, looked for evidence in the vast arsenal of
Catholic apologetics, and though my study has been
greatly extended since, I am not sure that any dia
lectically firmer evidence is available. The Kantist and;
Hegelian philosophies, and all that is grounded on;
either or both, Green, Fiske, Lotze, Royce, Caird, have?
left me untouched. The philosophy of the Scotch
school, from Reid to Hamilton, is only plausible in so*
far as it is Aristotelic, and therefore a repetition of
the scholastic system. Martineau also is unwittingly
scholastic in his better passages, and he is too much
disposed to that “ extra-rational ” proof which ap
pealed to Mr. Romanes in his later years : for my part,
I would not take a single serious step in this life on
extra-rational proof, and I fail to see why it is a surer
guide to the next. Thus I came to attach most im
portance to the schoolmen and the writers who adapt
their principles to modern thought. I studied with
extreme care St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, Scotus,
Suarez, Vasquez, Pontius, Herinx, and a host of other
veterans; also an infinity of smaller modern writers*
Tongiorgi, Sanseverino, Lepidi, Pesch, Moigno,
Zigliara, Rosmini, Lacordaire, Monsabre, Zahn, Het
tinger, &c.
Amongst English Catholic literature there was littleto be read. In my younger days I had been taught
to shelter myself under the authority of the great
Newman: it was a very few years before I found that
that was rather a compromising position for a philo
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sopher. There is an old adage in the schools that “ in
philosophy an authority is worth just as much as his
arguments, and no more.” Newman is the last guide
in the world to choose in philosophical matters. The
key to his line of thought is found in the inscription
(epitaph, one feels tempted to say) of his one philo
sophical work, “ The Grammar of Assent ”—a text
from St. Ambrose, “ Not by logic hath it pleased God
to save His people.” Newman was penetrated with
that edifying sentiment, hence it is not surprising to
find how faithfully he acts upon it in constructing the
existence of God and the divinity of Christ. His one
witness to God’s existence is conscience (he says in
one of his sermons that without it he would be an
atheist), and under his ceaseless attentions conscience
becomes a faculty which few ordinary human beings
will recognise. His treatment of it is anything but
scientific; it is highly imaginative and grossly anthropo
morphic. The text from St. Ambrose is principally
intended as a gauntlet for his rival, Dr. Ward; still,
it is true that Newman had a profound contempt for
metaphysics, and, like most people who much despise
it, had no knowledge whatever of that science. It is
usually assumed that Newman was a traditionalist,1
but his poetical and unscientific method seems rather
attributable to a wholesome dread of Kant; not that
he shows evidence of intimate acquaintance with
Kant’s Critique, but he seems to have been vaguely
convinced that Kant had undermined all metaphysical
1 Traditionalism was an important heresy within the bounds
of the Church, which was effectually extinguished. It reprobated
entirely the use of reason in supra-sensible matters and advocated
authority as the sole guide.
�COUNTRY MINISTRY
205
research, and his own splendid literary power enabled
him to make a plausible defence of his opinions with
out the aid of philosophy. He is obviously no guide
for a serious scientific mind.
His rival, Dr. Ward, also a prominent figure in the
Oxford Movement, was the very antithesis of New
man. Newman used to speak contemptuously of the
“ dry bones ” of Ward’s logic, and evidently con
sidered that his own works clothed them and made
them attractive. Ward was an able dialectician, a
subtle metaphysician, and a vigorous writer. His
“ Philosophy of Theism ” is the best English defence
of the scholastic philosophy, but is incomplete. J. S.
Mill was leading him to the critical points of the
system in a famous controversy, but it ended pre
maturely with Mill’s death.
Dr. Mivart was certainly the most influential writer
on the Catholic side of his day, and the most competent
to discuss the eternal problems in the light in which
they presented themselves to the nineteenth century.
Issuing, as he did, from the Darwinian school, it is
natural to find in him a breadth of view and serious
ness of treatment that distinguish his works from those
of clerical apologists. But Mivart was no meta
physician ; hence his psychological criticism of Dar
winism—his chief original contribution—rests on the
enumeration of striking points of difference between
animal and human faculties which are losing their
force with every advance of science, and may yet be
fully harmonised. On other points, such as the free
dom of the will, the evolution of ethics, and the origin
of the universe, he is extremely feeble; and he has a
disposition to waste his strength upon the criticism
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•of accidental phases and features of monism and
•agnosticism rather than upon their essential destruc
tiveness. He himself unconsciously gave me the key
to his position some time after I left the Church. In
a genial talk at the Oriental Club he admitted that he
•had little or no belief in even the most distinctive
•dogmas of the Church. He literally laughed at the
■doctrine of the miraculous birth of Christ. “ Do they
really teach that in the seminaries? ” he asked. What
the limits of his scepticism were he seemed hardly to
.know himself. Nor was this a mere failure of his
later years; it was a mature and resolute attitude.
Mivart was then (two years before his death) in full
•vigour of mind and will. Yet I hasten to add that his
position was perfectly honest, and I appreciated it, as
he appreciated mine. He thought the Church of
Rome the greatest spiritual force in existence, and so
he would remain in it and help to remove the stress
it lays on belief. There are still many like him in
the Church, even amongst the clergy; there are many
in every Church to-day. But such a position accounts
for the weakness of his arguments on specific doctrines.
Of the Jesuit writers and their series of volumes on
‘scholastic philosophy I have already spoken. Father
■Clarke and Father Maher are able and informed
writers. They have passed some sound criticism on
certain aspects of opposing systems, but they condemn
themselves to futility by their Quixotic defence of the
•arguments of St. Thomas and the medieval philosophy.
'Of the Jesuit popular writers it is difficult to speak
with politeness. Mr. Lilly belongs to the Platonic or
•sentimental group of apologists. Of Father Zahm
•and other lingering representatives of the school for
�COUNTRY MINISTRY
207
harmonising religion and science little need be said
beyond recalling the fate of their predecessors. Car
dinal Manning’s essay in apologetics hardly calls for
mention. He was a man of action, not of speculation
—certainly not a philosopher. His cast of mind is
well illustrated by his words to one who was urging
certain scientific statements in conflict with Genesis;
without listening to them he blandly replied, like the
Anglican bishop whom Mr. Stead consulted about the
statements of the higher critics: “I don’t believe
them.”
I had now exhausted every possible means of con
firming myself in my position, and failed to do so.
Apart from the fact that at that time it seemed to
me that the loss of a belief in immortality made life
irremediably insipid, I had fearful practical difficulties
to expect if I seceded. I had every prospect of suc
cess in my position, or, if I preferred, I could have
passed to the ranks of the secular clergy without diffi
culty. I consulted many friends and strangers, and I
was confirmed in my resolution to terminate my sacer
dotal career, allowing a few weeks for possible change
of thought. As the manner of my secession curiously
illustrates certain features of Roman Catholic methods
and the general question of secession, I describe it at
some length in the following chapter.
�CHAPTER XI
SECESSION
The Catholic layman has usually a fixed belief in
the absolute integrity of his priesthood. He may
entertain a suspicion of avarice, or indolence, or
worldliness with regard to certain individuals, but in
point of faith and morality he is quite convinced of
the invulnerability of his pastors. At wide intervals
a few may be found who are acquainted with the fact
of a secession, but the report is usually confined with
great care to the locality, and the Catholic press—
proof against all the ordinary temptations of the
journalist, when the honour of the Church is at stake
carefully abstains from disseminating the unwelcome
news. Thus there are few laymen who know of more
than one secession, and who are prepared to admit
the possibility of a serious and conscientious withdrawal
from their communion. Indeed, there are few priests
who know that there have been more than a very
few secessions from their ranks, so carefully are such
events concealed wherever it is possible.
The secrecy is, of course, not the effect of accident,
for such incidents are not devoid of public interest,
and are matters of very deep concern to the Catholic
body. The Roman Church claims such a monopoly
of demonstrative evidence that it receives a check when
208
�SECESSION
209
its credentials are rejected by one who is so familiar
with them; it is—or would be, if it were frankly
admitted—a flat contradiction of their persistent teach
ing that their claims only need to be studied to be
admitted. Hence the ecclesiastical policy is to conceal
a secession, if possible, and, when it is made public,
to represent it as dishonest and immoral. My own
position would not for a moment be admitted to be
bona fide. The gentler of my colleagues seem to
think that a “ light ” has been taken from me for
some inscrutable reason, whilst others have circulated
various hypotheses in explanation, such as pride of
judgment, the inebriation of premature honours, &c.
But of some of my fellow-seceders I had heard, before
I left the Church, the grossest and most calumnious
stories circulated; pure and malicious fabrications they
were, simply intended to throw dust in the eyes of
the laity and to make secession still more painful. The
majority of priests, when questioned by Catholics about
a secession, will simply shake their heads and mutter
the usual phrase: “ Wine and women.”
But in the first instance every effort is made to
keep secession secret, even from clerics. I have
mentioned a case in the note on page 60 which is, I
think, known only to a small number of ecclesiastics;
the dignitary in question had not discharged any public
function for some years, hence his disappearance was
unnoticed. I elicited the fact with some difficulty,
and was earnestly begged not to divulge it further.
On another occasion at Forest Gate, I was asked to
accompany a canon, who was giving a mission there
at the time, to a certain address in the district.
Noticing an air of secrecy about the visit, and a desire
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SECESSION
on the part of the good canon that I should remain
outside, I entered the house with him, and found that
it was occupied by an “ apostate ” priest. So much I
learned by accident, but neither the canon nor my own
colleagues would give me the slightest information
about him. I never heard of him before or since,
and know nothing of his character: I merely mention
the incident as an illustration of the concealment of
secessions.
And not only is silence enjoined, but deliberate
falsehoods are told with regard to seceders. One of
our superiors at Forest Gate seceded or “ apostatised.”
My colleagues deliberately told our parishioners that
he had gone on the foreign missions—some of them,
under pressure, giving details as to his destination;
though they knew that he had only retired to Southendon-Sea with the contents of the fraternal purse. I
OA1J.
efPIajned that ^ese are not looked upon
as falsehoods by Catholic theologians. The case given in the text
is a more direct deception than usual; generally they are quibbles
and equivocations which are covered by their remarkably elastic
principles of mental reserve and of the necessity of avoiding scandal.
Here is another illustration
.
I was informed one day at Forest Gate that one of my students
had lodged a complaint against me with certain higher superiors,
lhe accusation was entirely erroneous ; the student had been de
ceived by another, and I desired to undeceive him by explaining
1 accosted him immediately, and asked him if he had been com
plaining about me. He not only emphatically denied it, but
endeavoured, by his manner, to give me the impression that it was
the last thing in the world he would dream of. When I told him
of the superior’s words, he coolly replied that I had no right to
question him, so he was at liberty to deny it. He was a welleducated ma.n of thirty, the son of an Anglican minister, and,
before he joined us, a man of honour and courage. He had been
instructed to act as he did by the priests (hostile to me) with
whom he had lodged the accusation.
�SECESSION
211
was myself informed for a week that he had gone
on the foreign missions, so that I could be relied
upon not to spoil the story. I believe that even the
cardinal was ignorant of the event, as a year afterwards
his brother made inquiries of me as to the fate of the
friar in question, of which he evidently knew nothing.
In these ways is the fiction of the preternatural
integrity of the Catholic clergy maintained. How
many priests have seceded from the Church in England
it is impossible to say, but they are certainly more
numerous than is usually supposed. They mingle
quietly with the crowd, and rarely even come to know
each other.1 Many of them, such as Dr. Washington
Sullivan, Dr. Klein, Dr. Wells, Mr. Addis, Mr.
Hutton, Mr. Law, Mr. Galton, Mr. Sydney, or
Mr. Hargrave, are men of scholarly attainments, and
of high repute in the various bodies with which they
have associated.
If it is thought that the number is not large in
proportion to the number of priests in England, it must
be remembered that their education, literary acquire
ments, and subsequent occupation are not of a nature
to unsettle their minds very seriously. But a still
more serious circumstance is the peculiarly painful
nature of the breach with the Church of Rome. A
1 In the first edition I said that I was “ acquainted with a
dozen, but there may be a greater number.” By this time (1903)
I have heard of from forty to fifty secessions of priests in this
generation in England. I published some research into the point
in the National Review for April 1902. A few weeks afterwards a
further score of names, hitherto unknown to me, appeared in an
ecclesiastical column, and I have heard others since. I will only
say here that my own fraternity—and I know no reason for holding
it to be exceptional—lost twelve per cent, of its priests by secession
within my recollection. Second edition.
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SECESSION
breach with any lifelong communion is attended with
much pain, and this is greater in the case of the
minister of religion who finds himself impelled to that
violent wrench of the affections which conscience
occasionally dictates. He has formed definite habits
of thought and life and innumerable attachments, and
the severing of these is accompanied with a pain akin
to the physical pain of dislocation and the wrenching
asunder of nerves and fibres. In the Church of Rome,
at least, secession means farewell to the past—farewell
to whatever honour, whatever esteem and affection,
may have been gained by a life of industry and merit.
The decree, of the Church goes forth against the
‘ apostate.” He is excommunicated—cursed in this
life and the next and socially ostracised, if not
slandered. The many, the great crowd of admirers,
listen to every idle tale that is hatched against him;
the few, whose moral and humane instincts are too
deep to be thus perverted, can but offer a distant and
stealthy sympathy. He is cast out to recommence
life, socially and financially, in middle age; perhaps
he is homeless, friendless, and resourceless. A descrip
tion of my own experience of the ordeal may be
instructive.
When I was forced at length to acknowledge that I
had lost all faith in my religious profession, I thought
to avail myself of my position as superior to enter
into secular life with more facility. I revealed my
state of mind to several non-Catholic acquaintances—it
would have been fatal to my plans and quite useless
to reveal it to a Catholic—and they agreed that I must
withdraw, after a short time for reflection; only one
man, a prominent public man in London, thought that
�SECESSION
218
I should be justified in remaining at my post.1 I
began, therefore, to make inquiries and preparations
for a new departure. In the meantime I continued to
fulfil my duty to the college conscientiously—as a
matter of common honesty, and in order to give no
ground for subsequent calumny.
For the same reason I resolved to take no money
from the institution, though I felt that I should have
been justified in doing so to some extent. When the
superior of a monastery with which I was connected
left its walls, he took <£50 with him “as a temporary
loan ”; that circumstance did not excite any par
ticular discussion, and certainly there was no question
of prosecution for theft. Another friar ran away
with about £200. My own case, however, was of
quite a different character, and would be treated with
a very different policy. The two friars were not
genuine seceders from the Church. The second was
clearly a case of wanton revolt against discipline; the
first was rather doubtful—he returned to penance after
a fruitless effort to find secular employment. In both
cases it was evidently the policy of the fraternity to
conceal the misdemeanour from the laity. These
two remained priests, and for the credit of the Church
and the prestige of its clergy their faults must be
concealed at all costs. But when a priest really secedes
from the Church the opposite policy is naturally
followed; for the credit of the Church and the con
fusion of its enemies the seceder must be placed in as
unfavourable a light as possible. I was too well
acquainted with esoteric ecclesiastical teaching to be
unprepared, so I determined to give them no handle.
1 That was the opinion of the late Mr. Stead.
Third edition.
�214
SECESSION
Studies were conducted with perfect regularity; dis
cipline was so severe that my inferiors chafed under
it; my accounts were balanced almost from day to
day.
At length, I was urgently entreated by a lady at
Forest Gate to take her into my confidence, for it
was seen that I was in great trouble. She was a clever,
well-educated person with whom I was particularly
friendly, and I told her of my intention, exacting
strict secrecy, and intimating that a revelation would
do me much injury, and that nothing could now detain
me. I got an hysterical reply imploring me to remain
in the Church, and saying that, in case of refusal, I
should hear no more from her. She had been my
kindest and closest friend in the Church of Rome;
but she kept her word, handed my letter to my
colleagues, and, so far as I know, she has never cared
to learn a word further about the fortunes and bitter
struggles of “ the apostate.”
A council of the fraternal cabinet was summoned
immediately at Manchester, and Father David
obtained discretionary power to act. It was certainly
the intention of my friend, and possibly of the
authorities, that Father David should induce me to
communicate my difficulties and endeavour to remove
them. He himself can hardly have expected that, as
his guidance had been exhausted years before. On
the night of his arrival he chatted amiably enough
with me over the usual glass of wine, but as soon as
he had closed the bank account in the morning, he
curtly informed me that I was deposed from my
position, and ordered to retire to the friary at
Chilworth, in Surrey.
�SECESSION
215
This friary is in a very secluded locality, and
banishment to it was a recognised penal procedure.
It is the novitiate of the fraternity, and in it I should
be compelled to occupy all my time in formal religious
exercises, and should be entirely cut off from the
outside world, besides being expected to put my con
fidence in a superior who knew nothing of philosophy,
and who would much rather burn an agnostic at the
stake than argue with him. It would have been utterly
useless for me to go there, now that my mind was
firmly convinced. I preferred to remain and com
mence my new career with sympathetic friends. To
avoid unpleasantness, however, I said nothing of my
intention, and prepared to leave the college about the
time of the departure of the train; but when formally
asked if I intended to take the train, I refused to
say. Meantime I had packed up my books, &c., and
sent them to a friend’s house. I balanced my books,
and handed the surplus money to Father David, who
was good enough to offer me the fraternal kiss at my
departure; I declined it. I thus turned my back
for ever, as I imagined, on monasticism, and hastened
down to meet one or two kind and sympathetic
friends.
The following morning I strolled down to my
friend’s office, and was surprised to find him closeted
with a friar. It was one of my rebellious lay-brothers
(though he had obtained an interview under a priest’s
name) who had brought a letter from the college. The
letter was to acquaint my friend with the fact that
a certain Mr. McCabe, who had been left in “ tem
porary ” charge of the college, had absconded with a
quantity of valuable property belonging thereto; that
�216
SECESSION
the said stolen property was understood to be on his
premises; and that he was informed, in a friendly
way, that the matter was in the hands of the police.
The writer signed himself M.A., though he had no
degree in arts. He might contend that he was a
“ missionary apostolic.” As a commentary on the
letter, the friar gave my friend a long and interesting
critique of my public character and mental capacity,
and was turned out of the office. As it was impossible
to get immediate legal advice we decided to await
developments.
In point of fact, I knew there were a few books
amongst my own, overlooked in the hurry of departure,
which did belong to the college. I had fortunately
already told my friend of this, and we intended to
return them. But the complaint of my colleagues was
not on this ground at all. Although they did not
communicate with me on the subject—if they had done
so the same arrangement would have been made
without police-intervention—it appears that they
claimed everything I had removed, and even the
clothes I wore, which they expected me to ask of
them as an alms. The claim was ostensibly based
on my vow of poverty or abdication of the right of
property. The fact that the college was just as
incapable of ownership as I (on their peculiar theory)
was ignored, and the new rector, Father David,
claimed them in the name of the college. They were
books and instruments (especially a telescope) which
friends had given me on various occasions (every friar
accumulates a quantity of such presents, which remain
his, for all practical purposes). Legally (for canon
law is happily not authoritative in England) they were
�SECESSION
217
my property, and I had no hesitation in thinking
myself morally justified in retaining them after my
conscientious labours, and especially since most of
the donors were hardly aware of the college’s existence,
and certainly meant the gifts to be personal.
In the afternoon the police-sergeant appeared and
claimed the property which had been “ stolen from
St. Bernardine’s College.” I believe that his proceed
ings were entirely illegal, though I was unfortunately
not sure of it at the time. However, we disputed the
ownership of the property, and he at once retreated.
Then, in order to avoid litigation, I promised to
surrender a large number of books if Father David
would come to claim them. Father David came, again
bringing, to the increasing astonishment of the little
town, the representative of law and order. We effected
a rough division of the books, and the telescope was
referred to the donor, who awarded it to me. The
next day, wearied to death and not a little alarmed,
I returned even the small sum of money I had taken
for travelling expenses, and faced the world without
a penny or the immediate prospect of earning one. It
was a sensation with which I was to become more or
less familiar. But I had narrowly escaped an igno
minious position, which would have increased a thou
sand-fold the difficulty of entering upon a new career.
That was the aim of my colleagues.
Then came the painful desertion of all my late
co-religionists. Even some to whom I was deeply
attached wrote harsh and bitter letters to me; they
were taught as a matter of religious duty to regard
a secession in a moral light, and not as a change of
convictions. Of the effect on the wider circle of
�218
SECESSION
acquaintances made in the course of ministry I have
given one painful illustration, and will give another,
as the truth is all but incredible. I knew what to
expect, yet was loth to admit it myself without a
struggle. So I singled out one layman of exceptional
education and mature age, with whom I had been
familiar for some time, and who, only two weeks
previously, had spoken to me in terms of high esteem
and affection. I wrote merely to ask him to suspend
his judgment until I could send a full explanation of
my action. He replied at once:—
Dear Father Antony,—I am deeply pained to
find you have fled from the harvest field and become
a scatterer—of what type remains to be seen. It is
not for me to reproach you, Father Antony—the
worm of conscience will do that efficiently, God knows
—but it is necessary I should answer your last letter
at once in order to prove my position and give no
countenance to yours. * You ask me to suspend judg
ment on you, which means that I should pass judgment
on Father David forthwith and dub him slanderer, at
the bidding of one who has obviously betrayed a sacred
trust.
“ With reference to your Upton sermon it is true
I suggested its publication for the benefit of your
mission. Unsuspicious of heterodoxy I failed at first
to catch its true import, but quiet reflection after
wards revealed it to me as a subtle attack on Chris
tianity itself, through the doctrine of evolution as
applied to morals and religion.1 How in the face of
He refers to the sermon mentioned on p. 82 ; there were just
two lines in it on the “evolution of morals and religion,” and they
�SECESSION
219
this you can still talk of your ‘ religious opinions ’ is
inexplicable, surely? I can just conceive you as an
agnostic with a shred of honesty remaining—but as
any other odd fish—No! However it may be, God
save you from the lowest depths of unbelief! We
know too well the evolution of the apostate.
“Yet I desire to speak without bitterness [?] and
shall think of you in sorrow only. If at any future
time you think I can give you one helpful word, write
to me, and believe me now to remain in simple truth,
yours sincerely.”
The writer of this letter is considered to be unusu
ally well informed in philosophical matters. I had,
therefore, thought it possible that he would be able
to regard my secession in an intellectual light. After
such perverse misunderstanding and harsh and insulting
language from him I was constrained to abandon all
hope of sympathy from Catholics. Of the 3000 people
of the congregation to which I was attached, as priest
or student, for ten years, and from whom I experienced
nothing but deep respect as long as I was with them,
not a soul has ever written to relieve my distress with
a single word of interest or concern. One only of them
has spoken to me since my secession—one who stopped
me in the street to ask “ if I was not afraid that the
ground would open under my feet.” One only of
were orthodox. The writer it was who came to thank me for the
sermon—a most unusual proceeding—and ask for its publication.
He repeated his praise and his request twenty-four hours afterwards.
It was a plea for the better education of the clergy, and, although it
hit my own colleagues in a tender spot (and on that very account
so much gratified the laity) they congratulated me on it without a
word against its orthodoxy.
�220
SECESSION
my late colleagues has ever written or said a sym
pathetic word to me. At the time of my secession
he wrote me a letter in which the effect of the system
is again visible, pitifully obscuring the kind and
humane temper of the writer. It concluded
“ And now having made my protest, let me say,
my dear Father, that you were quite right in thinking
that I am your sincere friend and brother. . . . You
will never find any friends so true as the old ones [?],
and it is to be regretted that you did not, in. the dark
hours of doubt and temptation, seek help from those
whose prudence and experience might have saved you
from wrecking your life by this false step. Vae soli.
You did not have recourse to those whom you were
bound to consult, but relied upon yourself; or, if you
took counsel, it was rather with unbelievers than with
those of the Faith and of the Order.1
You know well that other and greater intellects
than yours have examined the same questions more
deeply than you can possibly have done, and have
come to an opposite conclusion ” [the writer, as is
usual, disregards the fact that, in this century, the
number of authorities against him is equally high and
brilliant, at least J ; and this ought to have made you
distrust your own judgment, doubt the infallibility of
your own lights, and feel there was much you have
1 The reader is already aware that both these statements are
absolutely inaccurate. I never took counsel with an unbeliever,
whereas for eight years I took counsel with the most competent
friar we had, until his counsel was threadbare. But my corre
spondent, F. Bede, was disappointed that I had not consulted him.
The reason was that, although I had and have the highest possible
regard for his character, he had no knowledge whatever of science
or philosophy.
�SECESSION
221
not been able to see, which, if you could see, would
lead you the opposite way. I fear that this pride
may have contributed to bring about the withdrawal
of the light. What may also have helped is that
bitterness of spirit you have sometimes manifested
towards others, which is not according to the dictates
of charity. Add to that a want of respect for those
in authority, and you have the factors which may
have helped to bring this chastisement from God. I
do not judge you; you must know your own con
science, but I feel I ought to tell you what appears
to me as likely to have been the cause of your mis
fortune. ... As it is, I can only pray earnestly to
God to give you light and grace to see the truth and
submit to it, and to beg our Holy Father not to cast
you off. . . . That shall be my constant prayer, and
one that I confidently hope will sooner or later be
heard.—Believe me, my dear Father, very sorrowfully,
but very sincerely, yours in Christ.”
Here, at last, a kindly and humane feeling reveals
itself, but how hardly it struggles through the narrow
bonds of the dogmatic sense 1 Like the preceding
letter, but much less harshly, it persists in considering
my action in a purely moral light. The writer cannot
entertain the possibility of my being honestly com
pelled by my studies to secede; though he has since,
I am glad to say, expressed an entirely just conception
of my position. One curious effect of his dogmatic
view is seen in his effort to sum up my faults—and he
knew me well. My “ pride ” of judgment is, I trust,
excusable; I was bound to form an opinion. The
charge of disrespect to authority and sarcasm in inter
�222
SECESSION
course with my fellows, which I must fully admit,
will be understood in the light of preceding chapters.
I confess that I have taken some complacency in my
moral character after that summary of it by my
advocatus diaboli. But it is pitiful to see that a clever,
experienced, and humane priest can entertain the
thought that a man will be damned eternally for such
trivialities. His whole attitude is, as in the preceding
case, a significant effect of the system; and it is only
as effects and illustrations of that system that I offer
these details about my secession.
It would be useless to describe all the incidents that
arose at the separation; they were wearisome and
painful repetitions of the same unfortunate spirit.
During my clerical days I had attracted some suspicion
by defending the possibility of honest secession from
the Church, and especially of bona fide scepticism; it
was now my turn to be sacrificed to the system which
I had resented. It has been explained that the Church
is prepared to go to any length to prevent scandal, and
the recognition by the laity of an honourable secession
of one of the clergy would be a serious scandal; hence
little scruple is shown by priests in discussing the
character of a former colleague. In my own case I
believe that nothing very offensive has been invented.1
I must add, with reluctance, and only because it is a material
fact in regard to the Roman system, that, as the years passed and
1 began to write critical works, the same vile calumnies were circulated about me by the clergy as about all other seceding priests.
These things are carefully kept out of print, so that one has no
reJPe(~y j but I have had inquiries about them from all parts
of the English-speaking world. The chief and most flagrant aim
is to connect my secession with my marriage. The Catholic lavman will not trouble to glance at “ Who’s Who ? ” from which lie
would at once learn that I did not marry until three years and a
�SECESSION
223
The favourite hypothesis seems to be that indiscreet
flattery and premature honours have unfortunately
deranged my intelligence—discipline, of course, re
quiring the usual excommunication and social ostracism.
Those of my acquaintances who cannot convince them
selves of my mental derangement are offered the grim
alternative of regarding me as having “ obviously
betrayed a sacred trust ” (to quote my former friend).
Only my own immediate family circle and one other
family, out of a wide circle of friends, seem to regard
me still as a rational and honest human being. As
far as I can gather, the majority of my earlier friends
would have preferred me—whatever my frame of mind
—to remain at their altars. There are many priests
who do so.
Some such violent disruption from the past is the lot
of every seceder from Rome. Add to it the practical
difficulty of recommencing life in mature age, and some
idea will be formed of one great force that helps to
preserve the integrity of the Catholic priesthood.
_ _________ *
___________
_
half after my secession. I was unaware, until two years after I
had left the Church, even of the existence of the lady whom I
eventually married. The whole of these legends are remarkable
for their absolutely reckless mendacity. Third edition.
�CHAPTER XII
CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
Before I proceed to summarise the information regard
ing monastic life which is dispersed through the pre
ceding chapters, and to make it the ground of an
opinion, it will be well to enlarge and supplement it
as far as possible. However interesting these details
may be in themselves, they would throw little light
on the general condition of monasticism if it could
be thought that they only illustrated the life of one
particular order, and still less if they were due to the
abnormal circumstances in which one small branch of
that order chances to find itself. On so narrow a base
only a very restricted opinion could be reared. No
fault, indeed, is more frequently committed by English
and American writers on the Church of Rome than
this of undue generalisation. It is often forgotten that
the Roman Church in England is, after all, merely
a large and active mission in a foreign land. Hence
many writers fail to correct the insularity of their
experience, and thus have not a due sense of the real
proportions of sects and their institutions on the great
world-stage. They likewise fail to make allowance for
the peculiar effect of a missionary status. To escape
this fallacy the preceding description of monasticism
224
�CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
225
in England, illustrated copiously from the life of the
Grey Friars, needs collateral support from other
countries or national “ provinces ” of that order.
One other province has been described already
at some length. The Belgian province, it must be
remembered, is in an entirely different condition from
the English province. It labours under no financial
difficulties (the seven monasteries of the English friars
bear a collective debt of about £50,000), it has no
scarcity of vocations, it suffers not the slightest civic
or legislative interference with its manner of life. It
may be taken as a typical branch of modern monas
ticism, and is claimed to be such by its adherents.
Yet although it differs considerably in literal fulfilment
of the Franciscan rule, in formal discipline and ritual,
it will be recognised from the contents of Chapter VII.
that it agrees entirely with the English province in
the features which are important to the philosophical
observer. On the whole, its life is sordid and
hypocritical.
A slight allusion has also been made to the condition
of the Franciscan Order in Ireland. So unsatisfactory
fs it, from a monastic point of view, that the Roman
authorities for many years were bent on extinguishing
it. Ireland, one of the most Catholic countries in the
civilised world, is the richest possible soil for monas
ticism ; men who lead the lives of the medieval monks
will receive from its peasantry the deep reverence and
hospitality of the medieval world. Yet the Irish
province was, at the time I left the Franciscan Order,
one of its most enfeebled branches. During the years
of persecution the scattered friars naturally discarded
every monastic feature from their lives, and no amount
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CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
of pressure from Rome had been able to reform them.
I hey individually possessed money (thus ignoring the
first principle of the Franciscan rule), wore boots and
stockings, rarely donned their habits, had secular
servants, and were guilty of many other condemned
practices. But in the last few years the province has
been restored to a moderate regularity, and is now a
little better disciplined than the English province.
Another flourishing branch of the order is found
in Holland. Although it is in an “ heretical ” country
it has full civic liberty and is generously patronised;
hence it has grown into a powerful body. During
my sojourn in Belgium I gathered that it fell far
short of the high standard of the Flemish province,
and the fact seemed to be generally confirmed. But
shortly after my return to England I received a
curious confiimation of the opinion. We received
a small pamphlet, written in Latin (for it was not
intended to reach the eyes of the laity), having for its
theme the condition of the Dutch Franciscan pro
vince. It was signed by a Dutch friar, who declared
that he was (and had been for some years) incar
cerated by his colleagues because he would not keep
silence; he had written the pamphlet in his room of
detention, and managed to have it conveyed to friends
in the outer world. He declared that the province
was deeply corrupted; that asceticism was almost un
known, and a gross sensualism pervaded their ranks—
even mentioning isolated cases of friars being brought
home to the monastery “ theologically drunk,” with
the aid of police-stretchers. He further declared that
the superiors of the monasteries bribed their provincial
to overlook the state of things, and that the province
�CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
227
secured tranquillity by sending large sums of money
to the Roman authorities for their new international
college. The pamphlet was clearly not the composi
tion of an insane person, and none of our friars called
its accuracy into question. It must be remembered
that this pamphlet was written by a Franciscan priest
solely for the perusal of other Franciscan priests.
Again, therefore, we meet the same unfavourable moral
and intellectual features, much more accentuated than
even in the Irish province.
The other branches of the order are only known
to me by conversation with isolated members. The
circumstances of the friars in the United States are
entirely similar to those of the English friars, and
their condition is closely analogous, if not a little less
ascetic. The South American friars, I gathered from
one of them whom I knew, urgently needed reform.
The friars of Spain are fairly well known since the
opening up of the Spanish colonies to civilisation.
The German provinces seem to be slightly better—
a little more industrious and studious, as would be
expected—but, on the whole, do not differ materially
from their Belgian neighbours. The French friars
were very little higher in the spiritual scale, as a rule,
than the Belgians, taking into account the enormous
difference of temperament. France will not be much
the poorer for their loss. The Italian friars, as a
rule, maintain a more rigorous discipline, and are less
material than their northern brethren; but they are
very generally idle, quarrelsome, ignorant, and am
bitious of office. There are, it need hardly be said,
fervent individual monks everywhere, and many fer
vent communities in Italy and Spain. For my purpose
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CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
I must give the broad features. I must say that,
where the profession of asceticism is not a sham,
it can point only to a mechanical and unspiritual
discipline.
I have, in the ninth chapter, said enough about
other religious orders to show that they are in an
analogous condition. Where the rule of life is not
very ascetical, it is observed; where, as in all the
older orders, there is a profession of austerity, the
practice is not in accord with the profession. It is
hardly likely that Rome would tolerate an unusual
corruption on the part of one particular order. In
spite of the great diversity in their aims and charac
ters, the same forces are at work in each. In fact,
the various monastic congregations have so far lost
sight of the special purposes for which they were
founded that, especially in England and the United
States, they differ from the ordinary clergy in little
more than dress and community life and ceremonies.
The orders which, like the Franciscan, were founded
for the purpose of caring for the poor, and embodying
voluntary poverty in their own lives, are found to be
continually seeking a higher social level; vying with
each other for the patronage of the rich, and always
choosing a middle class in preference to a poor con
gregation. The Dominican order was intended to be
an “ Order of Friars Preachers,” but it now has no
more claim to that title than the other semi-monastic
and semi-secular congregations. Carmelites, Servites,
Marists, and Oblates were founded in order to increase
the cult of the mother of Christ; Jesuits for the fight
against heresy and the instruction of the young; Pas
sionists to spread devotion to the Passion. In all of
�CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
229
them the original object has dropped very much out
of sight, and there is a very close resemblance of life
and activity. It is said that there has been serious
question at Rome of suppressing the majority of them,
and reducing the number to about four, of different
types, which would suffice for vocations of all
complexions.
We are now in a position to answer with some
degree of justice the often repeated question : What
is the ethical significance and the ethical value of
modern monasticism? The slightest reflection on the
origin of the monastic bodies will make it clear that
a high degree of spirituality and a keen faith in the
supernatural are necessary in the earnest votary of
monasticism. The orders have been founded by men
of an abnormally neurotic and spiritual temperament,
men who were capable of almost any ascetical excesses.
Extraordinary actions were their ordinary stimulant,
and they devoted themselves with ardour to that
ascetical rigour of life which the Christian Church
has, from the earliest stages, derived from the teaching
of its founder. It is clear that Christ did lay great
stress on the merit of self-denial; but it seems equally
clear that he did not contemplate the system of
eremitical and cenobitic life which commenced in the
Thebaid a few centuries after his death, and which is
Still rigorously presented in the life of the Carthusians,
and less rigorously in that of the Trappists. However
that may be, St. Bernard, St. Bruno, St. Francis,
St. Dominic, and the other founders, translated literally
into their own lives, under the influence of an excep
tionally fervid religious emotion, the principles of
I
�230
CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
Christian ethics, as they were universally expounded
up to the fifteenth century.
In an age when it was thought that one man
could expiate the sins and purchase the pleasures of
another, these saints became centres of great public
interest and attracted many disciples. Then, in an
evil hour, they drew up certain rules of life, which
were only slightly modified versions of their own
extraordinary lives, and bade their followers bind
themselves by the most solemn and indissoluble
obligation to their observance. Such rules could only
be observed by men who shared the same exalted
spiritual temper and imagination; and one needs little
knowledge of life to understand how very scarce such
men are, and how great an error it is to suppose that
any large body of men would observe such rules with
fidelity. In the Middle Ages faith was not overcast
by scientific, historical, and philosophical controversies,
and tradition was a paramount authority. Men were
not only chronologically nearer to the great drama of
the foundation of Christianity, but they accepted the
traditional version with unquestioning confidence.
However, even in the Middle Ages, monasticism
was no purer an institution than it is now. Soon
after the foundation of the several orders there begins
the long history of corruptions, reforms, and schisms
inside the order, and of papal and episcopal fulminations and historical impeachments from without.
Long before the death of Francis of Assisi his order
was deeply corrupted; indeed, his own primitive com
panions had made him tear up, or had torn up for him,
the first version of his rule, and it was only by the
intrigue of certain patrons at Rome that he secured
�CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
231
~ "I
8
W
fl' F i
T
the papal assent to his second rule. And scarcely
had the supreme command passed, during Francis’s
lifetime, into the hands of Fr. Elias, than a powerful
party of moderates arose, and dissension, intrigue,
and schism threw the entire body into a fever of
agitation. Elias was a clever and ambitious friar, who
had a much wider acquaintance with human nature
and much less ascetical fervour than Francis. The
manner of life which he advocated was, like that of
modern monks, much more sensible; his error was,
also like that of the moderns, to cling to the original
profession. And that struggle of human nature
against the unnatural standard of life it had some
how adopted has never ceased. The many branches
<1 of the Franciscan Order, Capuchins, Recollects, ReVi formed, Conventuals, and Observants, mark so many
f| different schisms over the perpetual quarrel; yet, at
if the present day, they are all once more on a common
level. And, apart from this internal evidence, secular
history gives abundant proof of the periods of deep
fl degradation into which the orders of monks have
periodically fallen.; if secular historians are not trusted,
a a judicious selection of papal decrees and episcopal
'al letters would place the fact beyond controversy.
Hence it is only natural to expect that, in these
uHdays of less luminous and tranquil faith and less
fervid imagination, the spirit of monasticism will be
sal less potent than ever; the more so as a large section
i^of Christianity has now repudiated the ascetical ideal
a entirely, and emphatically dissociated it from the
£ teaching of Christ. Protestantism first fell upon
u monasticism, flail in hand, for its corruption, and
a pearly extinguished it; then it sought theological
I 2
�232
CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
justification, and convinced itself that monasticism
was unscriptural. Although there have been many
vain attempts in modern days to reanimate it, the
vast majority of non-Catholics persist in regarding
monasticism as founded on an exegetical error and
humanly unjustifiable; and that conviction, together
with the causes that produced it or occasioned its
formation, has re-acted on the old Church. The
mental attitude which in former ages passed at once
and instinctively from deep fervour to great ascetical
rigour is rarely found to-day amongst educated
people. Not only is faith less confident, but the
growth of the moral sense has affected the tradition.
It is now thought an unworthy conception of God
that he should be held to look down with com
placency on a race of “ self-tormentors ” and should
promise rewards for the sacrifice of the gifts he has
put before us. And the growing sense of the unity
of human nature has made it no longer possible to
suppose that we may enfeeble “ the flesh ” yet
strengthen the spirit. Capacity for work is placed
higher than bloodless debility. To face life manfully
is held to be nobler than to shun it.
The description I have given of modern monastic
life shows that all these changes of the spirit of the
world have penetrated into the cloister. The idyllic
life of the monk, a life of prayer and toil and un
worldliness or other-worldliness, does not exist to any I
great extent outside the pages of Catholic apologists
and a few non-Catholic poets and novelists. The
forms of monasticism remain, but the spirit is almost
gone from them. One is forcibly reminded of that
passage of Carlyle where he speaks of institutions as
�CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
233
fair masks under which, instead of fair faces, one
catches a glimpse of shuddering corruption. Not
that monasticism, apart from its high profession, is an
object of special moral reprobation; its fault, its title
to contempt, lies rather in its continued profession of
an ideal from which it has hopelessly fallen, and in
its constant effort to hide that discrepancy.
There are, of course, isolated members who are
deeply corrupted in monasteries and nunneries, as in
all other spheres; there are also many individuals of
unusually exalted character. But the great majority
of the inmates of monastic institutions may be
divided, as is clear from the preceding, into two
categories. One is the category of those who are
religiously inclined, but whose whole merit consists
in the equivocal virtue of having bound themselves
to a certain system of religious services, through which
they pass mechanically and with much resignation,
and which they alleviate by as much harmless
pleasure and distraction as they can procure. The
other category, and, perhaps, the larger one, consists
of those who seem to have exhausted their moral
heroism in the taking of the vows; for the rest of
their lives (and one of the most remarkable features
of monks of all classes is the anxiety they show to
prolong their “ earthly exile ”) they chafe under the
discipline they have undertaken, modify and withdraw
from it as much as possible, and add to it as much
“ worldly ” pleasure as circumstances permit. Both
categories lead lives of ordinary morality—but only
ordinary, so that the garments of the saints sit very
incongruously on their shoulders. They seem to
appreciate the good things of this life as keenly as
�234
CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
ordinary mortals do, and shrink from death as naively
as if death meant annihilation instead of entrance into
Paradise.
Thus, on the one hand, certain anti-papal lecturers
err in representing monasticism, as a body, as an
institution of a particularly dark character; on the
other hand, the belief of the average Catholic layman
that it is an institution of unusual merit—that con
vents are “ the lightning conductors of divine wrath
from the cities,” &c.—is pitifully incorrect. Monas
ticism has suffered a luxurious overgrowth of sensuous
ness. This is partly due to the idleness, and partly
to the vow of celibacy, of the monks. I have said
enough of their idleness, which is one of the most
constant features of their life in Catholic countries.
Their religious ceremonies do not afford serious occupa
tion of mind. They never undertake manual labour,
and they study little. The amount of work they
are entrusted with does not give occupation to half
the community. Hence results much idleness; and
idleness is, as St. Francis told them, “ the devil’s
pillow.”
Then there is the absence of contact (entire absence
in Catholic countries) with the sex which is, by instinct
and education, more refined, and exercises a refining
influence. In the absence of that influence a natural
masculine tendency to coarseness develops freely,
unless it receives a check in deep spirituality, which
cannot be said to be frequently the case. In point
of fact, most of the founders of orders seem to have
appreciated that influence very sensibly. St. Augus
tine, of course, in his saintly days, does not, for
obvious reasons; but St. Benedict had his Scholastica,
�CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
235
St. Francis his Clare, St. Francis de Sales his Jeanne
Franfoise, and even the grim St. Peter of Alcantara
had his Teresa. Their modern disciples have also
many “ spiritual ” friendships, but the fact is unable
to counterbalance the effect of their celibate home
life. Their intercourse with women, in the face of
their ascetical teaching, is necessarily either very
limited or hypocritical.
Thus it is that, wherever there is not deep piety,
we find a selfish individualism, which is the root of
all the undignified intrigue, meanness, and dissension
that have been described. Thus it is also that there
is a morbid craving for indulgence in food and drink,
making a mockery of their long fasts and abstinences.
In the midst of a long fast they will celebrate an
accidental feast-day most luxuriously, and at the close
of the fast have quite a gastronomic saturnalia. Still
it must be said that, whilst there is more drinking
than is supposed, there is little drunkenness. There
is usually a constant and liberal supply of drink, if
the convent is in good circumstances, but excess is
rare; it is, however, not treated seriously unless it
has become public.
A third effect of this pious exclusion of women is
seen in the tone of their conversation; it is too
frequently of an unpleasant character—not immoral,
rarely suggestive, but often coarse and malodorous.
Tales which the better class of Catholic laymen would
not suffer to be told in their presence, and which
are more fitting for such books as La Terre and
L’Assommoir, are frequently told in clerical, and
especially monastic, circles.
On the point of immorality in the specific sense I
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CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
must endeavour to formulate an opinion. My ex
perience has been wide, though not of long duration,
so that I could not rebut an opposite and more
damaging statement of experience. Yet I am con
vinced there has been much exaggeration in this
respect. The evidence of the majority of “ escaped ”
monks and nuns seems to me unreliable. But even
if all their tales were true, it would only prove that,
as everybody expects, there are many isolated cases
of immorality. It is improper to extend the charge
to the whole body. It can only be said that these
cases are numerous. There can be nothing very
startling in that statement. I have no doubt it would
be less true of the clergy than of an ordinary body
of men if their lives were healthier. But as long
as they are indiscriminately and prematurely bound
to celibacy, and to a life which is so productive of
egoism, sensuousness, and indolence, it is the only
possible condition for them.
The same must be said of the vow of celibacy of
the secular clergy. In theory it is admirable for the
ecclesiastical purpose, and it is very graceful to con
template from the standpoint of Christian asceticism.
In practice it is a deplorable blunder, and leads to
much subterfuge and hypocrisy. Like monasticism,
it would probably not be accepted by one-half their
number if they were not involved in an irrevocable
engagement to it before they properly understand it.
Like monasticism, it will probably disappear, as a
universal law, when the Church of Rome is awakened
at length from her conservative lethargy with the din
and roar of a great battle in her ears.
Finally, an answer is also ready to that other
�CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
237
question which is not infrequently heard in these
days: What is the relation of the monastic orders
to Socialism ? Socialising Christians, or Christian
Socialists, frequently hold up the monastic orders as
embodiments of a true social spirit. The argument
rests, of course, on a very superficial analogy; there is
really no parallel between monasticism and Socialism.
On the contrary, they are at the very opposite poles
of economics. Monasticism, in the first place (except
the modified monasticism of the Jesuits), does not
counsel a community of goods; neither in individual
nor in common does it permit ownership. But it
parts company with Socialism very emphatically when
it goes on to impose extraordinary limits on pro
duction. Socialism urges a common use of the con
veniences produced, and urges the production of as
many as possible. And lest it should seem that
monasticism at least sympathises with the Socialists
of simpler life, such as Mr. E. Carpenter, it must be
remembered that it limits production on an exactly
opposite principle. Mr. Carpenter thinks simplicity
conducive to comfort and happiness; monasticism
trusts that it is productive of discomfort and mortifica
tion. In fine, it wishes its votaries to be uncomfort
able in this world, which is the very antithesis of the
Socialistic aim.
In a minor degree its celibacy is anti-socialistic;
whatever relation of the sexes the Socialist may advo
cate, he certainly advocates some form of intimate
relation. And the Socialist would not for a moment
sanction the withdrawal of a large number of citizens
from every civic duty on the plea that they were more
interested in another world. He would not exempt a
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CRITIQUE OF MONASTICISM
large number of able-bodied men from labour on the
plea that they were “ waterspouts of divine grace ” or
“ lightning conductors of divine wrath ” for their sin
ful brethren. He would be impatient of all indolence,
and mendicancy, and parasitism of any complexion.
However, the parallel has never been very seriously
entertained, and does not merit further criticism.
Monasticism has neither interest nor advantage for
the modern world; it is an enfeebled and corrupted
survival of an institution whose congenial environ
ment seems to have disappeared, and it is only main
tained by the scandalous practice of enticing or
permitting boys to undertake life-long obligations of
a most serious character. Even in the stern monas
teries of the Carthusians, where it still retains its full
rigour of ascetism and solitude, it loses the sympathy
of the modern world; merit is now thought to consist
in the fulfilment of the whole duty of man, in works
that produce visible fruit, and that tend to remove
the actual evils of life. But, for the majority of the
monastic bodies, with their indolent withdrawal from
life’s difficulties and duties, without any real compen
sating virtue, or with their pitiful compromise between
external occupation and their antiquated theories of
detachment, one cannot but feel a certain contempt.
At the best, a monk would merely have the merit of
making himself a part of a great penitential machine.
As it is, his profession of extraordinary virtue and
unworldliness is an insincere formality.
�CHAPTER XIII
THE CHURCH OF ROME
There is at the present time a profound struggle in
progress over fundamental religious questions. Dur
ing three centuries Europe has resounded with the
din, and even been watered with the blood, of con
flicting sects. At length the sections of Christianity
have been distracted from their civil war by the
advent of a common enemy—anti-sacerdotalism, if not
a yet more revolutionary force that has been called
naturalism—and they are eager to unite under a com
mon banner against it. No one who is at all familiar
with modern literature can ignore that struggle. Dur
ing the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the number
of powerful writers and thinkers who have withstood
the traditional religious authority in England, France,
and Germany, is deeply significant. There is in our
day a comparative lull in the storm of controversy—
a comparative dearth of eminent thinkers on both sides
—but one still finds unmistakable traces of the conflict
in every page of every branch of literature. A great
number of influential writers advocate one or other
form of naturalism; it is hardly too much to say that
the greater number of the eminent exponents of
literature, science, and art depart in some measure
from the orthodox path. It is usually said that women
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THE CHURCH OF ROME
are the more reliable support of clericalism. We have
at the present day in England a number of brilliant
women writers, but though few of them (for reasons
which may be left to the psychologist) profess extreme
naturalism, very few of them adhere strictly to the
orthodox sacerdotal institutions. The issue of the
struggle is, therefore, the object of much anxious
speculation.
The place which the Church of Rome is destined
to occupy in this struggle is a matter of much inter
est, and it is usually expected that it will be a very
prominent position. The Church itself, of course, with
that buoyant confidence which is one of the most
patent symptoms of its “ perennial youth,” predicts
the ultimate absorption of all other forms of Chris
tianity into itself, and proclaims that the final conflict
will be between Rome and Rationalism. And Roman
Catholics boast, with much truth, that their prediction
is confirmed by many independent observers; Macau
lay’s vision of the undying glory of the Papacy rising
through the mists of future ages over the ruins of
England (and, presumably, Anglicanism) finds many
sympathisers. Mr. H. G. Wells has lent the force of
his expert prophetic faculty recently to the “ anticipa
tion ” that Catholicism will outlive Protestantism.
But it is not usually noticed that there is a great
difference in the ground of the prediction in the two
cases. Rome prides herself on the intellectual value
of her credentials, and thinks that time is sure to
bring about their universal acceptance. On the other
hand, those non-Catholic writers who talk of an ulti
mate struggle between Rome and Rationalism are under
the impression that Rome does not appeal to reason
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
241
at all. They divide men into two categories—rational
and extra-rational—and think that the final trial of
strength will be between reason and authority, which
they identify with Rome. There is a curious mis
understanding on both sides. Roman theologians per
versely represent Rationalists as men who reject
mysteries, miracles, &c., on the mere ground that they
are supra-rational, and without reference to their
credentials; and most Rationalists are under the impres
sion that Rome professes an irrational method, rebukes
and demands the blind submission of reason, instead of
offering it satisfactory evidence, and preaches authority
from first to last. Under that impression it is not
surprising that the Church of Rome is selected as the
fittest to survive of the Christian sects. But the
impression is wrong.
Just as the Rationalist does not reject supra-rational
theorems if they are not contra-rational, and if there
is satisfactory evidence in their favour, so neither
does the theologian reject the demands of reason for
logical satisfaction. The Catholic scheme claims to
be pre-eminently logical, and does precisely appeal
to the intellect of the inquirer; indeed, it is taught
that the “ convert ” from Rationalism must have a
natural rational certitude before he can receive the
“ light of faith.” The system has been described in
an earlier chapter, but the process would be of this
character. The inquirer (if beginning from scepticism)
would be offered rational evidence of the existence
and personality of God, and (usually, though not neces
sarily) of the immortality of the soul; if that evidence
did not satisfy him there would be no further pro
gress. If convinced on those points he would be
�242
THE CHURCH OF ROME
offered evidence, still of a purely rational character,
of the divinity of Christ and Christianity, and of the
authenticity of the Scriptures. Then he would be led,
on historical grounds, to accept the divine institution
of the Church of Rome, its infallible magisterium
and its indispensable ministerium, and the prerogatives
of its supreme pastor. He is now prepared to accept
statements, logically, on authority, and the rest of
the dogmas are, consequently, proved from Scripture,
tradition, and the authority of the Church.
But even here reason is not abandoned; not only is
it continually sought to confirm statements by rational
and historical analogies, but it is admitted as a prin
ciple that every dogma must meet the negative test
of reason. If any dogma contains a single proposition
which offends against reason the whole system must be
rejected. That is the teaching of the Church. Hence
much ingenuity is shown in averting the rationalistic
criticism of such thorny dogmas as the Trinity and the
Eucharist, it is claimed that the accusation of absurdity
is disproved, and therefore reason may confidently
take them on authority. And again, when it is said
that there is a living infallible magisterium in the
Church, this must be accepted in a very narrow sense.
The overwhelming majority of the bulls, decrees,
encyclicals, &c., which the Popes have issued, have
only a disciplinary effect. It is piously believed by
many that Providence takes a minor interest in them;
but most priests take little notice of them, and the
doctrine of infallibility has been carefully drawn up
not to include them. The great dogma simply
amounts to this, that the Pope (or the Church) can
teach no new doctrine, but he has special guidance
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
243
in his solemn declarations (which are few and far
between) that certain doctrines are contained in the
deposit of revelation. There have only been two such
definitions in the nineteenth century. Neither Leo
XIII. nor Pius X. has given any. Hence it will be
understood how great an error those Protestants make
who go over to Rome for the sake of its infallible
voice (as if they were to have an infallible Times at
breakfast every morning), and also how untrue it is
that Rome is the antithesis, the professed opponent,
of reason, and only preaches submission.
No, the Church of Rome does not profess to be the
refuge of the timid and the sentimental in a subver
sive age. Its strength must be sought in its distinctive
methods and institutions, not in a position that would
make it the centre of all forces opposed to Rationalism.
These advantages have been described in the course
of my narrative. In the first place, it has a very
superior organisation to that of any other Christian
sect, or any other religion whatever. Its constitution
embodies all the several advantages of an elective
monarchy and an oligarchy (indeed canonists dispute
whether it is to be called monarchic or oligarchic);
and at the same time it escapes the instability incident
on democratic forms by dogmatically dissociating its
power from the civil power and claiming a supernatural
source for it. Its hierarchy, of which the centre is
a figure about whom a vague supernatural halo is set,
and who is now always a commanding and venerable
personage, lends a rigid unity to its 200,000,000 adher
ents. Rome, the heir of the tact, ambition, and
vigour of the Caesars, the richest treasury of art, and
a veritable hive of lawyers and diplomatists, controls
�244
THE CHURCH OF ROME
and utilises the talent, the ambition, and the jealousy
or its great sacerdotal army, and with easy confidence
commands the attention of the civilised world.
k.,Thenrthe comPleteness, the unity, and the plausi
bility of its theological system must be considered,
rrom the days of St. John Damascene until the sixteenth century almost all the talent of the civilised
world has contributed to the formation of that system •
it is a truism to say that it is plausible. Enduring
almost unchanged through ten centuries, and eliciting
the veneration of almost the entire intellectual world,
it presents an imposing contrast to the theologies of
more recent growth. Moreover, even in recent times
it las been accepted by many great writers who have
left the impress of their genius upon it, and accom
modated it to minds of every cast.
And side by side with the elaboration of its own
system must be classed an instrument which it uses
very adroitly for the same purpose, the Index Expurgatonus, or list of condemned books. In England and
America there is little explicit mention of the Index
for economical reasons, but every Catholic is given
very clearly to understand the depravity of reading
books against faith or morals.” The restriction is
cleverly represented to be a moral, not a disciplinary
prescription, and thus the end of the Index is practic
ally achieved without mentioning the odious word.
Non-Catholics are gravely reminded that it is ethically
imperative to study both sides of every religious
question. Catholics are told in the same breath that
it is sinful for them to read the works of opponents,
because they are already in possession of the truth
and must not run the risk of losing it.
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
245
At the same time Catholics are indulged to some
extent in their wayward anxiety to know what oppon
ents are saying by having their objections formulated
for them in their own apologetical literature—with
satisfactory solutions appended. Here again the
peculiarity of the Catholic controversial method tells
in its immediate favour. As one would expect, most
of the objections have been carefully prepared for the
express purpose of refutation. No Catholic writer
ever gives an accurate version of hostile criticism.
Newman is usually said to be the most satisfactory in
this respect. In fact it is claimed that he formulates
the opinion of an adversary more lucidly than the
original writer. But take, for instance, the exposition
of Gibbon’s five causes of the spread of Christianity in
the appendix to the “ Grammar of Assent ” and com
pare it with the classical chapter of Gibbon. It is
utterly inaccurate and unworthy. And not only are
the opinions of critics garbled and mutilated, but their
personal characters are too lightly aspersed. Anglicans
are allowed some precarious hope of ultimate salvation.
But when we come to deeper sceptics the credit of
bona fides is stopped. All the theological manuals
grossly affirm that there is no such thing as honest
agnosticism, and it is firm Catholic doctrine that none
but a believer in personal theism can ever enter heaven.
Thus the most puerile stories—as that Julian died cry
ing out, “ Vicisti, Galilaee,” and that Voltaire died
raving for a priest, and so on—are generally accepted;
and the most dishonourable motives are imputed to the
bnemies of the Church. If a modern Inferno were
written it would describe a brilliant literary circle.
So also the results of philosophical, historical, and
�246
THE CHURCH OF ROME
scientific research are accommodated to pious purposes.
For several years geology and palaeontology suffered
great torture at the hands of Genesiac interpreters;
history and archaeology and philology then yielded
marvellously convenient results; ethnology was racked
to support a biblical chronology which is now aban
doned ; even chemistry, embryology, psychophysics,
and a host of innocent sciences were pressed into
service and pressed out of shape in the process.
Of another institution which the Church formerly
used for the same high purpose of guarding its flock
against intellectual wolves—the Inquisition—little need
be said. If it were truly a dead and discarded pro
ceeding, like persecution on the Protestant side, it
would not merit notice; it seems unprofitable to
reproach the Church of Rome continually with the
many and dark sins of the past of which it has really
repented. However, it is not at all clear that the
Church has repented of this particular outrage upon
morals and humanity. The principles on which the
Inquisition was founded are still part of the Church’s
teaching; and if it were possible to conceive a return
of the ecclesiastical supremacy of former days, there
is little doubt that the same policy would be urged.
Happily for many of us, civil governments are be
coming more and more reluctant to be guided by
ecclesiastical principles and wishes in the discharge of
their function to the community. Logical and candid
writers like Dr. Ward admit this. It is said that
he found Huxley once examining his premises, and
was asked by him “ where he kept his stake for*
heretics! ”
A second great source of strength in the Roman
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
247
Church is its impressive use of aesthetic agencies. . The
subject has been treated already, and hardly needs to
be enlarged on. In Protestant countries, where the
reaction against Roman corruption has reduced the
worship to a state of spiritual nudity, this attraction
of the Catholic services is very powerful. A com
parison of the percentage of converts in various
parishes with the sensuous attractiveness of their
services would yield interesting results.
Other forces which are peculiarly at work in the
Church of Rome can only be briefly mentioned. Its
vast and imposing diplomatic body of legates, &c.,
and its incessant political intrigue, have no parallel
in any other religion; nor has the great wealth it
gathers every year by means of an organised collec
tion throughout the world. Owing to its profound
antiquity and its comprehensive range it can enumer
ate a long series of humanitarian works which have
been done by men who happened to be ecclesiastics;
these become an imposing record of the Church’s
wondrous benefits to humanity in art, science,
sociology, and philanthropy. So even in ethics the
Church of Rome professes a more effective promotion
of the welfare of humanity than other Churches,
though in this department its claim of special power
does not seem difficult to impugn on the test of fruits.
Such would seem to be the peculiar strength of the
Church of Rome in the religious struggle, as distin
guished from all other Christian sects. The influences
at work for its extension and consolidation are un
doubtedly effective, but side by side with them it has
many characteristic weaknesses which seem to give
less assurance of its fabled immortality. In the first
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THE CHURCH OF ROME
place, seeing that it does not shrink from and repudiate
the rational criterion which the new-born age is
applying to every existing institution, its very vast
ness is a source of danger; it presents a broader front
to the keen rationalistic attack. If the mysterious
dogmas which are common to all Christian sects invite
criticism, nothing is gained in point of security by
adding to them that microcosm of miracles—Transubstantiation—or the seven sacraments, or the vaguely
floating tradition of an Immaculate Conception. Then,
too, the Church of Rome is so dogmatic in its teaching,
and has so frequently to abandon very positive posi
tions. In other sects the privilege of private judgment
and the absence of an authoritative magisterium give
greater elasticity under hostile pressure.
Again the ideal of a higher life which the Church
of Rome puts forward brings it into conflict with
modern moralists. Self-torment will never again be
recognised by the world at large as the supreme virtue,
yet the saints of the Roman calendar are honoured
principally for that practice. One of the most recent
models that the Church has raised up for the venera
tion of humanity, Benedict Joseph Labre, shows the
exemplary record of having avoided labour and lived
by mendicancy, and having deliberately cultivated the
most filthy habits. Usefulness to humanity is now
held to be the highest virtue, and the Church pays
little heed to that in canonisation. In fact, the very
essence of its ethical teaching is entirely at variance
with modern views. It teaches conformity with an
external standard (about which there are innumerable
controversies) and this for the sake of conciliating a
Supreme Being and escaping his presumed vindictive
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
249
ness. There is a growing tendency to regard actions
that spring from such motives as non-ethical.
In fine, the very methods from which its strength
is now derived will one day prove grievous sources
of offence, for the simple reason that they are incon
sistent with its real function as a purely religious
organism. Diplomatic intrigue and the exercise of a
purely temporal power may serve for the moment to
extend and strengthen its influence; but they are
agencies of a very questionable character in the hands
of a spiritual body, and have more than once inspired
an effective protest against Rome. And it need hardly
be said that its literary exclusiveness, its Index, its
tyranny, its wilful calumniation of great opponents
and distortion of their criticisms, are very vulnerable
parts of its system. As yet they are effective methods
of preserving the integrity of the Church. But in the
better educated nations they are already being dis
carded. Laymen are now taking the polemical work
on their own shouldersj and interpreting the strictures
of theologians at their own discretion. The result will
be an impatient rejection of the literary restrictions
which have so long insulted their intelligence and
moral courage.
Such, then, are the strength and the weakness re
spectively of the Church of Rome in the present stage
of its conflict. During its protracted existence it has
! encountered and triumphed over many kinds of opposi| tion. It emerged victorious from its secular struggle
| with polytheistic Rome and with the destructive neoI Hellenism of Alexandria; it met confidently and rose
upon the flood of barbarism that poured out over
I Southern Europe; it guided its fortunes safely through
g
a
I
�250
THE CHURCH OF ROME
the age of iron that followed, and then controlled the
fierce intellectual activity of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries; it subdued and repressed the Renaissance
and almost compensated its losses in the great Re
formation. But the Church has never had so varied
and so powerful a host of adversaries to encounter as
it has at the present day. Apart altogether from the
rival Christian sects—and in point of fact these seem
more disposed to friendly alliance with it than to a
continued conflict—the number of opposing forces of
every character, intellectual, ethical, political, and
aesthetical, is a matter of grave consideration.
In the first place, there is Rationalism—taking the
term in its broad sense so as to include not only
“ naturalism,” but also that attenuated theism which
rejects orthodox Christianity in virtue of the results
of the Higher Criticism. In that sense the term does
not designate a single and homogeneous system, but a
huge collection of distinct and militant bodies—
Materialism, Agnosticism, Positivism, Pantheism,
Secularism, Theism, and Unitarianism. They may
all be safely grouped under the banner of anti-sacer
dotalism, and described as a formidable intellectual
movement directed against orthodox Christianity in
general and the Church of Rome in particular, the
most dogmatic, conservative, and unyielding section
of Christianity, led by the most powerful and most
skilfully organised priesthood the world has ever seen.
Non-Catholic sects have no stereotyped profession;
they yield and adapt themselves to pressure, as is so
well illustrated in Mr. Mallock’s “ New Republic.”
The revolutionary movement finds its chief antagonist
in the Church of Rome, which wages with it appar
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
251
ently a guerre a outrance. How extensive that move
ment is—embracing, as it does, all who accept the
results of philosophical, scientific, historical, and bibli
cal criticism—and how powerfully represented in every
branch of literature, is too well known and too fre
quently pointed out by clerical writers themselves to
need enlarging upon.
Then there is a distinctively modern force of an
ethical character which militates against the authority
of the Church. In the United States, England, and
Germany especially, a number of Ethical Societies
have been founded and propagated with much zeal.
They do not profess hostility to ecclesiastical institu
tions, but the mere fact that they advocate the trans
ference of ethical life to a non-theological basis marks
them out as enemies. The Church of Rome, in par
ticular, regards herself as the only effective guardian
of morality, and the ethical function of its priests is
their most prominent service. It will never submit
to the transfer of ethical interests to a secular institu
tion ; otherwise it would be reduced to the condition
of the Greek or Roman priesthood—a condition which
would not last long in modern times. Yet the Ethical
Societies rapidly grow in importance.
In the political world the Church has met with
harsh treatment from time immemorial, and its own
diplomatic power has grown keen in the long contest.
But the political anti-clerical movement of modern
times is in a very different position from the violent
movements of that character which are dispersed
throughout history. Until the last century the anti
clerical politician or diplomatist had no great antitheological system to fall back upon. Now, the large
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THE CHURCH OF ROME
body who are ever ready to spring up in reaction
against the Church’s political encroachments have a
powerful philosophy to appeal to. Formerly the
Church’s troubles generally came from a few sceptical
individuals; now they spring from large political
bodies, such as the Liberals of Spain and Belgium,
the Libres-Penseurs of France, and the Freemasons
of Italy. To the same great force must be added
(from the present point of view) a new and anxiously
regarded power—Socialism. The Church is very
sensible of approaching danger from this quarter; and
therefore, instead of its traditional practice of fiercely
opposing every new movement, we find it attempting
a compromise by patronising “ Christian Socialism.”
This sociological force does not spend much time in
discussing the Church’s credentials. The thinkers of
the modern world, it says, are fairly divided about the
religious problem, and that problem has, under their
attentions, assumed portentous dimensions; hence we
busy people must be content with a mild scepticism,
and if the Church crosses our path in reforming this
world so much the worse for it.
A fourth influence of a less tangible and definable
character may be set down under the head of Erotism.
It may be thought that this is no new danger, but the
world-old revolt of human nature against Christian
ethics. But there are two considerations which make
that influence present rather a new aspect. The first
is the enfeeblement of the popular faith in the super
natural. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and eighteenth
centuries were marked by great outbreaks of that
influence, or by the spread of public immorality; but
a keen faith still lurked in the popular mind, and the
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
253
Church could successfully appeal to it. A Savonarola
could meet and stem a veritable tide of Hellenism.
In the present division of the world of thought, and
seeing the imposing opposition to ecclesiastical teach
ing, that simple faith must be, and is, deeply affected;
and erotism gains proportionately in power and
stability. The second consideration is that this erot
ism, or revolt against traditional ethics, has become
speculative and ratiocinative, and seeks to organise its
votaries and systematise its protest. What is called
literary decadence is, perhaps, midway between
practical and organised immorality ; it is a great literary
power, very widespread in France, and on the increase
in England and Germany. The free-love movement
has also assumed important proportions, and counts
some eminent literary exponents. There is, further,
an aesthetic and Hellenistic school which will prove a
serious adversary of traditional ethics. In practice it
adheres to a severe Puritanism; in theory it is revolu
tionary. It cherishes the higher Greek ideal of love
(as found in Plato); venerates the writings of Whit
man, Nietzsche, and Carpenter; has all the fervour of
youth and the fanaticism of ascetics.
Such are the forces which the Church of Rome finds
opposed to it at the beginning of the twentieth century.
I hesitate to enter on the path of prophecy, but a few
observations may be offered as to the direction in which
we may seek development. In the first place, I wholly
dissent from Mr. H. G. Wells when he anticipates “ a
great revival of Catholicism,” and thinks it will out
live Protestantism. The Protestant or Puritan religious
temperament is as natural and enduring as the Catholic
or Ritualist. I do not believe either will survive the
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THE CHURCH OF ROME
other, though the Protestant sects are likely to relax
the sternness of their exclusion of the ministry of art
from the temple. And from what I have already said
in this chapter it will be clear that I do not accept
the current rationalistic feeling that Rome will survive
because of its doctrine of authority.
But so shrewd and informed an observer as Mr.
Wells has probably built on existing movements rather
than on theories, and here, it seems to me, he has
really even less support. There is every indication
that the Church of Rome has reached, and is already
falling away from, its high-water mark. Germany is
perhaps the only country where the Church has made
genuine progress in the last few decades 1; and against
this must be put the “ away from Rome ” movement
in Austria, the secession of many hundreds of priests
and a corresponding number of the laity to the
evangelical movement in France, and heavy losses in
the industrial northern provinces of Italy and Spain
and all over Belgium. But observers are misled chiefly
by the apparent advance of Roman Catholicism in the
English-speaking world. One might almost dismiss
that phenomenon with one word—the Irish dispersion.
The population of Ireland should be to-day, if it had
had a normal growth, about 17,000,000. It is actually
less than four millions and a half. The missing twelve
millions, mostly Roman Catholics, are in England,
Australia, and the United States. If the Roman
1 Again I must make a correction; and it is singular to note
that, wherever I erred in the first edition, I erred in favour of the
Church. I have shown in my ‘ ‘ Decay of the Church ofRome ” that it
is, on the confession of its own clergy, losing ground all over the
world. It has lost a hundred million followers in a hundred years.
Third edition.
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
255
Church in England had retained the population it had
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as well
as the million of Irish immigrants, it should have to
day, apart from any conversions, about 2,500,000 souls.
I have proved (National Review, August 1901) that it
has not more than 1,250,000. In other words, its
losses are enormously larger than its gains. What I
have said of Catholicism in London and the provinces
will confirm this. I will add one other illustration.
There is a long strip of the Lancashire coast called
the Fylde which curiously retained the faith down to
the nineteenth century. But I was told a few years ago
by a priest who has worked for years in that district
that the old Catholic families are falling away to-day
in a remarkable manner. The last census taken in
Australia pointed to a distinct decrease of Catholicism
in that country. Recent inquiries in New York have
put that city on a level with London; against the great
parade of wealthy converts must be put immense losses
amongst the poor Irish and their descendants. The
overwhelming majority of the 12,000,000 Irish who
are missing from their country to-day are in the
United States; and they have made mixed marriages,
under the usual stringent conditions, on every side.
To these must be added a great immigration of Italian
and German Catholics. With these elements the ap
parent growth of Catholicism in the States is easily
explained. I will add one further observation on
Catholicism in France. It is acknowledged that French
men do not favour the Church. But when we remem
ber that the Church forbids the use of contraceptives
iunder pain of mortal sin, and then find the French
[population so long nearly stationary, and learn that
Kb
RE8»'
d
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THE CHURCH OF ROME
there are in France only some 200,000 women with
more than six children, we are forced to question
the authority of the Church even over the women.
Thus on patient consideration of the condition
of each country the proud Catholic claim of having
250,000,000 followers collapses like an inflated bladder.
The area of the Church’s influence is shrinking
yearly.
In former ages it compensated home losses by mis
sionary conquests; its actual paltry missionary profits
are little more than financial transactions. I have
spoken with missionaries from every one of the great
fields, and they all confirm the opinion. On public
platforms, of course, they deliver optimistic speeches,
at the end of which a collection is made; but in the
genial atmosphere of the sitting-room afterwards they
unbend, and unequivocally represent “ conversions ”
of natives as money matters.
And when we turn to consider the movements of
thought within the Church we seem to have another
indication of the coming development. If we cannot
admit either that Catholicism will in time absorb its
rivals, or will itself be superseded by them, there is
only one alternative. Its distinctive features will
gradually disappear, its rigid walls will cyumble away,
until at length it pours its historic stream of spiritual
effort into the broad unsectarian spirit of a later day.
By its distinctive features I do not understand the
famous “ four notes of the true Church—unity, holi
ness, universality, and apostolicity ”—which are in no
sense distinctive of the Church of Rome to-day. Its
characteristics are rather—asceticism, excessive dog
matism, elaborate ritual, and the Papacy. It seems
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
257
to me that these features are visibly altering, and that
we may confidently look forward to their complete
disappearance or transformation.
If one thing may be claimed to be established in
the preceding chapters it is that the ascetic spirit is
rapidly decaying in the Church of Rome. Here and
there a group of Carthusian monks 1 cling more or less
to the medieval idea, but throughout the monastic
world generally voluntary austerities are no longer
' practised, and the austerities enjoined by rule are
evaded, or compensated, as much as possible. When
this is true of the monks it is superfluous to discuss
the laity. The law of abstinence from flesh-meat on
certain days, the only ascetic practice now imposed
on them, is relaxing year by year. Before the century
is out Rome, too, will have quietly abandoned the
ascetic ideal. The decay of the dogmatic feeling
amongst Roman Catholics is less patent, but hardly less
real. Beneath the outward uniformity, which the
Vatican is still able to exact or to persuade, there is
the same difference of thought and feeling as in every
other sect. A considerable number of cases have
lately come to my knowledge of priests who are quite
as liberal as Dr. Mivart; in some cases as sceptical
as myself. They intend to remain in the Church,
and work for the removal of the emphasis from belief
to conduct. The twentieth century will witness most
considerable modifications in this respect. As the
1 I have repeatedly spoken of the asceticism of the Carthusian
monks. It is only fair to the reader to say that this is not beyond
. question. A friend of mine told me of certain personal experi
ences at the Grande Chartreuse in France, which made it clear that
at least a good part of the monks were far from ascetic. Third
edition.
�258
THE CHURCH OF ROME
Catholic ritual is only the artistic presentment of its
doctrines some changes in this are bound to ensue,
but—as we see so well in the decay of the old Roman
religion—forms and ceremonies may long survive the
beliefs that originally inspired them. There will also
be a ritual advance in the other Christian Churches,
so that here, too, the distinguishing feature tends to
disappear. Before many decades Latin will cease to
be the universal liturgical language; though in such
forms as the mass—a symbolic sacrifice which the
people only witness—it may remain indefinitely. And
the Papacy will be proportionately modified. In the
coming age of increasing centralisation and organisa
tion it is not at all likely that the Roman Catholics
will part with their magnificent polity. But the
Vatican will see strange changes. For a time the
aesthetic sense will persuade the new Catholicism to
tolerate the glitter and the stage-lightning of the
papal court. But it will gradually approximate to
the model of the actual Free Church organisation.
The president of the Church Catholic in the year 2000
will have as little resemblance to Leo XIII. in his
Sedia gestatoria as the president of the German
Republic of that date will have to William II.
To conclude by borrowing a fine metaphor from
Mr. Wells; it would be hazardous to say when the
Catholics may be expected finally to extinguish the
sectarian lantern by which they have so long guided
the steps of men. The day is fast breaking, and one
by one the old lights will disappear. But if our social
evolution is to be unequal—if we are content to leave
vast areas such as the workers, or women, in mental
obscurity—Catholicism may last indefinitely. If the
�THE CHURCH OF ROME
259
new light is to penetrate to every part of our social
structure, it cannot be many centuries before the last
faint flicker of the historic lamp will die out, nay,
will even be voluntarily extinguished in the blaze of
the coming day.
THE END
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Victorian Blogging
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Twelve years in a monastery
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Edition: Third and revised ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: ix, 11-259 p. : ill. (port.) ; 16 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints (New series)
Series number: No. 51
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. First published, London: Smith, Elder, 1897. Publisher's advertisements inside front cover, and inside and on back cover. List of works by, or translated by, McCabe on preliminary pages.
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McCabe, Joseph [1867-1955]
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1912
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N458
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Catholic Church
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Joseph McCabe
Monasticism and Religious Orders
NSS
Roman Catholic Church
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PDF Text
Text
POPEDOM
THE ROMAN EMPIRE
IN ITS
SECOND ZPHA.SE;
NO
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN IMPERIAL
PAPAL ROME.
ROME
AND
AMERICAN NATIONALITY IN DANGER.
BY
Pro!. .1. K PETKES.
“ And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman
was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold
and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand,
full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon
her forehead was a name written: Mystery, Babylon the great, the
mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the.
woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus. ’’ (Apoc. xvii.)
‘ ‘ And in her was found the blood of prophets, and saints, and
of all that were slain upon earth.” (Apoc. xvih, 24.)
ST. LOUIS, MO.:
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�SCRIPTURAL VIEW
W THE
RO M AlLOHVBaH; ‘
I
There is in the second chapter pf Daniel
a great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in
a vision, and thus described by Daniel ( ” Thou,
O king, sawest, and beheld a great image.
This image, whose brightness was excellent,
stood before thee; and the form thereof was
terrible. This image’s head was of line gold,
his breast and arms of silver, his belly and
thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part
of iron and part of clay. Thon sawest till
that a stone was cut out without hands, which
smote the image upon his feet, which were
of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the
silver, and the gold, broken to pieces, together,
and became like the chaff of the summer
threshing floors; and the wind carried them
�4
away, that no place was found fur them; and
the stone that smote the image became a great
mountain, and filled the whole earth.”
In explaining this image, Daniel says that
it is the representation of four great monarchies
or kingdoms which should rule successively
over the earth, and that, in the end of the fourth
or last monarchy, God would set upon earth a
kingdom (represented by the stone) which
should break to pieces all these, fill the whole
earth, and abide for ever and ever.
It is nniversally admitted, by both Protestant
and Romanist expositors, that these five mon
archies are:
(1) The Bab;^Ionian kingdom, represented
by the head of gold.
(2) The kingdom of the Medes and Per
sians, represented by tire breast and arms of
silver.
(3) The Grecian kingdom, represented by
the bellv and thighs of brass.
(4) The Roman empire, represented by the
legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay.
(o) The kingdom of Jesus Christ, repre
sented by the stone.
So far we are fully agreed. But the Roman
church, and most of the Protestant churches
�5
say that the stone smote tlie image 1872 years
>igo, when Jesus was born, and that henceforth
the kingdom of Jesus Christ is set upon earth.
But is it so ? Let us see.
As Philip, I might say instantlht |-If it be
so, “Shew it to us, and it sufficeth us;” fol? a
kingdom which is to be set under l;he whole
lieaven and to fill the whole earth, with a king
whom, when he comes, every 63/stall see;, a
Being who shall destroy the man of sin with
the brightness of his presence, and before whom
all creation shall clap for joy, verily/ verily, I
say such a kingdom must be visible/-and if
-already set up, the “ shew it to us” should be
the best and only answer to such a ridiculous
assertion. But, for argument’s sake, let us show
by the text that they are deceived and deceiving
others.
As the legs of iron and the feet of iron and
clay span the whole length of the Roman
empire, and as it is when it would have reached
the feet that the kingdom of Jesus Christ was
to be set up, let us read what Daniel says about
it: “ The fourth kingdom shall be as strong as
iron, forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and
subduethall things; and as iron breaketh all
these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And
�whereas tliou sawest the feet and toes, part of
potter’s clay and part of iron, the. kingdom
shall he divided ‘ but there shall be in it of
the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou
sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And
as the toes of the feet were part of iron and
part of clay, so the kingdom (the Roman empire
divided) shall be partly strong and partly
broken. And whereas tliou sawest iron mixed
with miry clay, they (the kingdoms of the
Roman empire divided) shall mingle them
selves with the seed of men ; but they shall not
cleave one to anotuer, as iron is wot mixed with
clay. And in the days of these kings (the
kings of the kingdom divided) .shall the God
of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never
be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left
to other people, but shall break in pieces and'
consume all these kingdoms (the kingdoms of
the Roman empire divided), and it shall stand
forever.”
From this explanation, it is evident (1) that
the Roman empire was to have two phases or
periods; that during its first phase, it should be
undivided and strong as iron (as represented by
the legs of iron); and that during its second
phase, it should de divided into two kingdoms
�7
(the one represented by the iron, and the other
by the clay) which would intermingle with the
seed of men, but without cleaving one to
another; that is, two kingdoms ill one, each
having its own rulers^ its own government/ its
own officers, its own citizens, its oWft laws; and
both ruling over the same countries simultane
ously; and (2) that, since the Stone emote the
image not upon his leg^ but upon big feet, the
kingdom of Christ was to be set up when the
Roman empire should be divided into the two
kingdoms we have just explained.
But, as there are ten toes in the feet, the
question may be asked : la each of the two
kingdoms formed of but one or of many king
doms ? There is nothing here that can help us
to answer that question ; but if we turn to the
seventh chapter of Daniel, where these same
four great kingdoms are represented by four
beasts, the fourth being the representation of the
Roman empire, we will find the question
answered.
II
After this I saw in the night visions, and
behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible,
and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron
teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, andr
stamped the residue with the feet of it, and was
�8
L*
diverse from all the beasts that were before it,
and it had ten horns. I considered the horns,
and behold, there came up among them another
little horn before whom there were three of the
first horns plucked up by the roots; and, behold,
in this horn were eyes, like the eyes of man,
and a mouth speaking great things. I beheld
till the thrones were cast down, and the An
cient of days did sit, whose garment was white
as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure
wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and
liis wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream
issued and came forth from before him, thou
sand thousands ministered unto him, and ten
thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The judgment was set, and the books were
opened. I beheld then, because of the voice
of the great words which the horn spake, I
beheld even till the beast was slain, and his bodydestroyed and given to the burning flame.... I
saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like
the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,
and came to the Ancient of days, and they
brought him near before him. And there was
given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom,
that all people, nations, and languages, should
serve him. His dominion is an everlasting do
�9
minion, which shall not pass away, and his
kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. I,
Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of
my body, and the visions of my head troubled
me. I came near unto one of them thagg stood
by, and asked him the truth of all this. So. he
told me, and made me know the inte»iEta^ion
of the things (saying): These great beafts,
which are four, are four kings, which shall arise
out of the earth. But the saints of,the Most
High shall take the kingdom, and possess the
kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. Then
1 would know the truth of the fourth beast,
which was diverse from all the others, exceeding'
dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nailsof brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and
stamped the residue with his feet; and of the
ten horns that were in his head, and of the oth
er which came up, and before whom three fell;,
even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth
that spake very great things, whose look wasmore stout than his fellows^ I beheld, and the
same horn made war with the saints, and pre
vailed against them until the Ancient of days
came, and judgment was given to the saints of
the Most High ; and the time came that the
saints possessed the kingdom. Tims he said :
�10
The fourth beast (the Roman empire) shall be
the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be
diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the
whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break
it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this
kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and
another shall rise after them ; and he shall be
diverse from the first (ten), and he shall subdue
three kings (of the ten). And he shall speak
great words against the Most High, and think
to change times and laws; and they (the saints)
shall be given into his hand until a time and
timesand the dividing of time (1260 years.) But
the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away
his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto
the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and
the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole
heaven shall be given to the people of the saints
-of the Most High, whose kingdom is an ever
lasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve
and obey him.”
Here again, we see plainly (1) that the Ro
man empire was to have two phases or periods;
that, during its second phase, it should be
divided into two kingdoms: the one (the iron of
the feet) headed by ten kings (the ten horns)
arisen out of the Roman empire ; the other (the
�11
clay of the feet) headed by the little horn ;
(2) that the kingdom of the ten' kingsa should
be the Roman element (iron), while the king
dom of the little horn should be a foreign ele
ment (clay) which, min®
with the RonBh
element, should form the nda Roman ggjpire;
(3) that it is the little horn that should bear
supreme rule over it; aii^ (4) that the king
dom of Christ was to be set upflnot in the
days of the ancient Roman empire, but in
the days of the new one, in the days of the ten
kings and the little horn, even when this should
speak great words against God: “I beheld,
then, because of the voice of the great words
which the horn spake, I beheld even till the beast
was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to
the burning flame.”
Now, I ask: (1) According to these scrip
tures, vyas the kingdom of Christ to be set
up when the Roman empire should be undivided
or divided ? Certainly, when it should be
divided. (2) Was the Roman empire divided
when Jesus Christ was born ? Certainly not. Any
one who-has some knowledge of the history,
either profane or sacred, knows that, when
Jesus was born, the Roman empire was un
divided, with but one head whose title was:
'
�12
The Emperor and Supreme Pontiff of the
Romans {Romanorum Imperator et Summus
Pontifex}; which title shows obviously that
the kingdom was not then divided into two
kingdoms quite diverse from each other, one
secular, and the other ecclesiastical. But, to
cut short, Jesus Christ himself, the king of
the kingdom to be set up, will shut the mouth
of any one on this point. Asked by Pilate if
Ide was the King of the Jews, lie answered :
“ I am, but my kingdom is not of this time”
(the Greek word is not kosmos, which means
world in the sense of earth, planet, but
aiwn, which means world in the sense of time,
age—seculum in Latin).
Since, then, Christ himself has said that
He did not set up his kingdom when he came,
what are we to think of the Pope who says :
“I am the vicar of Christ;” and of the church
which he made, which says: “I am the king
dom of Christ?” AVell, they are liars and de
ceivers; and it is written : “Liars shall not in
herit the kingdom of heaven.” (1) I know the
Roman church’s seat is in Rome, whore she is
represented (Apoc. 17) as a “ a woman set upon
a scarlet colored beast (the Roman empire) ar
rayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
'
!
�13
/
with gold and precious stones and pearls, hav
ing a golden cup in her hand full of abomina
tions and filthiness of her fornicatioit with this
name written on her forehead:, ‘ Mystery,
Babylon the great, thermoIhereof harlots and
abominations.” Can such a filthy thing be the
kingdom of Christ? (2) I kno^the pope
says : “ 1 am the vicar of Christ^ but Chrisfr
has said: “My kingdom is mot of this Wrld
(lime). Of what Christ is he the vigar, then,
since there is no room here for a vicar of Christ ?
Certainly not the Christ of the Bible. (3) I
know also most of the Protestant churches say:
The kingdom of Christ is C4in our heart,” or
“in heaven.” But hear the word of God:
“The greatness of the kingdoms under (not
in) the whole heaven shall be given to the peo
ple of the saints of the Most High; it . . . shall
fill the- whole earth.” Of two tilings One:
either the heart of those protestants is not a
human heart ; for how to put in the heart of
a man a kingdom which is to fill the whole
earth? or their kingdom is not the kingdom of
Christ spoken of in the Bible. (4) 1 know the
church of Home commands to pray, and the
Protestant churches pray (at least, as fafas I
know, don’t fprbid) the Lord’s prayer. But, if
�14
the one be the kingdom of lieaven, and the
others have that kingdom in their heart, what
do they pray for, when they say : Thy Icingdo m tome ?
These little remarks, backed by the plain and
incontestable texts of the Scriptures, show con
clusively that the kingdom of Christ is not vet
set upon earth, and that the one fancied by either
'Protestants or Romanists is nothing but a no
tion, not to say a humbug or a farce.
Therefore, the book of Daniel stating plainly
that it is when the Roman empire is swaying
its iron scepter overthe earth, that the kingdom
of Christ should be set up; and having proved
beyond dispute that it was not set up in the
days of the ancient Roman empire, neither
since, it follows necessarily that the Roman em
pire is still standing up, in its second phase.
But where is it? exclaims one; for all I know
of, is that there is a city by the name of Rome,
which once was the queen of the world (so I
am told), but now a very poor thing which,
kept under as a slave by the pope and the seven
catholic kings, has remained many centuries
without any earthly ruler or government. Is
that poor relict the Roman empire you speak
of?----- Here it is
�15
(N. B.—The ten kings shall- hate the whore,,
and shall make her desolate and naked, and
shall eat her, flesh, and burn her with Are.
—(Apoc. 17-16.----To the memorable dateflf ’89 niaTSWissigiietl
the time appointed by God for the Wgthfinng of
the Boman church’s sorrows^ Tn fintejirf the
kings’ ami Jesuits’ endeavors to raise lieiwq*
anew, she has been impotent raMetriew freia
the blow France, one of the seven heads of the
Roman empire, dealt to her then. The turningof the kings against her has been going on
since, and is still going on ; they have amide
and still make her desolatS but notBiaked as
yet; neither have they eaten her flesh gW burn
ed her with fire, in fulfilment of the will of
God; the kings’ work'is yet incomplete; and
this is the reason why, in explaining the second
phase of the Roman empire, I will explain it as
it was before ’89. For instance, suppose I
write : “ The pope exercises all the power of
the kings in their sight”; the most polite Cath
olic will say: ‘‘That’s untrue, sir, and the
proof is that the pope is king Emmanuel’s
prisoner.” Hence the necessity of this notice.)
�Id
III
THE SEVEN HEADS OF TILE ROMAN EMPIRE IN ITS
SECOND
PHASE.
“ And I stood upon the sand of the sea,
und saw a beast rise up out of the sea, hav
ing seven heads and ten horns, and upon his
horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the
name of blasphemy.
2. And the beast which I saw was like
a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a
bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion.
And the dragon (Satan) gave him his power,
and his seat, and great authority
3. And I saw one of his heads as it were
wounded to death; but his deadly wound was
healed ; and all the world wondered after the
beast (this healing is yet in the future).
4. And they worshipped the dragon which
gave power unto the beast, and they worship
ped the beast, saying,, who is like unto the
beast? who is able to make war with him?
5. And there was given unto him a mouth
speaking great things and blasphemies: and
power was given unto him to continue fortytwo months.
6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy
�17
against God, to blaspheme his name, his tab
ernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7. And it was given unto him to make war
with the saints, and to overcome them I and
power was given him overall kindreds, and
tongues and nations.
»
8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall
worship him, whose names are not Written in
the book of the Lamblslain from the founda
tion of the world.
9. If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10. He that leadeth into captivity, shall go
into captivity; he that killeth with the sword,
must be killed with the sword. Here is the
patience and the faith of the saints. (Apoc.
XIII.)
That this beast is identical with th® Roman
beast of Daniel vn, is plain from the fact that
(1) both come up from the sea; (2) both have
ten horns; (3) both make war with the saints
and overcome them.; (4) both speak against
God and blaspheme his name.
We have seen in Daniel ii that the Roman
empire, in its second phase, should be divided
into two kingdoms, represented by the feet of
iron and clay. The beast before us repre2
�18
seats the iron kingdom, that is, the kingdom
composed of the Roman element.
The ten crowned horns are the ten toes
of Nebuchadnezzar’s image (Daniel ii); also
the ten kings who should rise out of the Ro
man empire (Dan. in.); and also the ten kings
who should receive power one hour with the
beast (the Roman empire in its second phase)
and give it their power and their strength,
and make war with the Lamb (Apoc. xvn: 12,
LB, 14,). At the start there were ten kings,
but the little horn (with eyes like the eyes
of man, and speaking great words against God)
having- soon after subdued three of them to
form what was called the u papal or church’s
states” Jhiow united to Italy), their number
was then reduced to seven : France, Spain and
Austria are certainly three of them ; and Bel
gium, Portugal, Bavaria and Italy, probably,
the other four; were he willing, the Pope
could tell which they are.
The seven heads with the name of blasphe
my, are seven of the ten kings invested with
the leadership of the iron-kingdom. They arc
the representatives of the seven heads of the
ancient empire, and form collectively its eighth
head or new form.
�1!)
IV.
•
THE TWO-IIOENED LAMB---- TIIJJ UTILE llORX'.
(“ I considered the horns, anx^beholdShere
came up among them anther Kttle horn, be
fore whom there were tlirel fcf Aegl-st, horns
plucked up by the roots; Bi«behold, Mthis
horn were eyes like the eyes oifetan, and a
mouth speaking great things. 1, I l^hcSknd
the same horn made warafrith the saints, and
prevailed against them’*.. But the Judgment
shall sit, and they shall take away his domi
nion, to consume, and tofeesmy Wnnfa,the
end.” (Daniel vn:ted etc.)
11. “And I behel® anothe^Eeast Smiim
up out of the earth (he gas Eready in exist
ence as a bishop); and he had two horns like
a lamb (everywhere in the Bible a Iamb sym
bolizes Jesus Christ; so the maw, personized
here by a lamb, was to show himself as Christ
or his representative), and he spake as a
dragon, (look at it.)
12. And he exer.ciseth all the poicer of the
first beast (the beast described above) before
him (they are contemporaneous; he is the little
horn which sprang up among the ten), and
Causeth the earth and them which dwell therein
�20
to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound
was healed, (this is yet in the future.)
13. And he doth great wonders, so that he
makes fire come down from heaven on the earth
in the sight of men.
14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the
earth by those miracles which he had power to
do in the sight of-the beast, saying to them that
dwell on the earth, that they should make an
image, to the beast which had the wound by the
sword, and did live.
15. And he had power to give life unto the
image of the beast, that.the image of the beast
should both speak, and cause that as many
as would not worship the image of the
beast should be killed, (exactly the antetype of
Nebuchadnezzar’s image; and, if .the man
who made that living image in the likeness of
the ancient empire, was not changed into a
beast, as Nebuchadnezzar was, it is not that he
was in the least better than he, but because be
ing about to exercise all the power of the Ro
man empire, in its second phase, it was necessa
ry that he should have a man’s brain to rule it
according to the dragon’s.inspirations. But his
fate “ the lake of tire and brimstone,” which
r
�21
awaits him, is not better than Nebuchadnez
zar’s).
16. And he eauseth all, both small and great,
rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark
in their right hand, or in their foreheads;
17. And that no man might buyhor sell
(that is, make a living)! save he that have
the mark or the namj of the beast, or !he
number of his name (the right hand being fig
uratively used to represent action, and the
forehead to represent the Z/ttmy/i/, the mean
ing of this mark is, that this beast catteeth
all men to do or to believe as he commands,
and that no man might make his living or
save his life, except that he
as
he commands to do or to beli« e).
18. Ilere is wisdom. Let him that hath
understanding count the nunaber of the beast;
for it is the number of a man ; and his num
ber is six hundred three score and six=66G.
(Apoc. xin).
II. D.s and Reverend orthodox (sic) min
isters contend that the name of the beast is
to be found in the Greek, because (they say)
the Apocalypse was written in that tongue.
1 dare say that the name of the beast is not
to be found in the Greek, for these two very
�22
simple reasons : (1) Is it not natural that the
name of a man should be found in the lan
guage spoken by that man ? I think it is.
Now, the text says that the beast made an
image to the ancient Roman empire, whose
language was the Latin, and that he rules su
premely over the new Roman empire, whose
official language is the Latin, as every one
knows. What was the language spoken by
the image of the Roman empire in the recent
ecumenical council held in Rome? Was it
not the Latin ? Therefore, the name of the
beast must be found in the Latin. (2) God
says: “Come out of Babylon, my people, that
ye be not partakers of her sins, and that yo
receive not of her plagues ... If any man wor
ship the beast and his image, and receive his
mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the
same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of
God, and he shall be tormented with fire and
brimstone . . . And they have no rest day nor '
night, who worship the beast and his image,
and whosoever receivetli the mark of his name.”
Now, if' God command his people to come
out of Babylon, and warn all men, with ter
rible threatenings, not to' receive the mark of
the name of the beast, whose number is 666,
�23
does it not follow necessarily that Ais name
must be sucli that all may know it easily?
But, how can all know it, if it is to be found in
the Greek, which is neither spoken nor the
official language of any£jriiler whatever ? No,
the name of the beast cannot, must; not be
found in the Greek, but in the Bmo'uao’e
with which the beast signs his nameKSiich
is engraved with golden letters upon the
frontispiece of the Vatican : FJCarJflLLl
Del (066), the Vicar of the Son of God.
This is the title, the name! of the Pope,
and every one may know it, and ought to
know.
So far, we have seen the Representation of
the iron-kingdom, one of the two kingdoms
which should form the Roman empire, in its
second phase; we know also who is that little
horn which had eyes like the eyes of man,
and a mouth speaking great words against God ;
who is that lamb with two horns, but speak
ing as a Satan ; who is that man who made
an image which should both -speak, and cause
that as many as would not ’worship the image
should be killed ...!!! (Oh, St. Bartholomew!)
“And in her was found the blood of prophets
and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the
�24
eartli.” (Apoc. xvm: 24.) This is the his
tory of Popedom written beforehand by the
hand of God. Let ns see that image, the claykingdom.
V.
THE BEAST THAT WAS, IS NOT, AND YET IS.
“And there came one of the seven angels
which had the seven vials, and talked with
me, saying mito me: Come hither, I will
shew unto thee the judgment of the great
whore that sitteth upon many waters;
2. With whom the kings of the earth have
committed fornication, and the inhabitants of
the earth have been made drunk with the
wine of her fornication.
3. So he carried me away in the spirit into
the wilderness. And I saw a woman sit upon
a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blas
phemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4. And the woman was arrayed in purple
and scarlet color, and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls, having a golden
cup in her hand, full of abominations and
filthiness of her fornication,
5. And upon her forehead a name written:
Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of har
lots and the abominations of the earth.
�25
6. And I saw a woman drunk with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the
martyrs of Jesus, and when I saw ler, I won
dered with great wonder®
7. And the angel said unto naf^ AV 1 lerefoi'e
didst thou marvel ? I will tell thee the mys
tery of the woman and of the»as®iaS carrieth
her which hath the seven heads and the ten
horns.
8. The beast that thou sawest ze-t/s and A
not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit, and ger into perdition ; and the|| that
dwell upon the earth shall wonder, whose
names were not written inftlie bwk of life
from the foundation of the worlflphen they
behold the beast that was, ™ nza and yet is.
9. And here is the mind whicli hath wis
dom : The seven heads are seven mountains,.
On which the woman sitteth.
10. And there are seven kings: five are
fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come;
and when he cometh, lie must continue a short
space.
11. And the beast that AVAS, and IS NO1\
even lie is the eighth, and is of the seven, and
goeth into perdition.
12. And the ten horns are ten kings, 'which
�26
have received no kingdom as yet. but receive
power as kings one hour with the beast (the
eighth head).
13. Tiiese have one mind, and shall give their
power unto the beast (the eighth head).
14. They shall make war with the Lamb
(Jesus Christ), and the Lamb shall overcome
them ; for he is the Lord of lords, and the-King
of kings; and they that are with him are called,
and chosen, and faithful.
15. And he said unto me : The waters which
thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peo
ples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
16. And the ten horns which thou sawest
upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and
shall make her desolate and naked, and shall
eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
17. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil
his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom
unto the beast, until the words of God shall be
fulfilled.
18. And the woman, which thou sawest, is
the great, city which reigneth over the kings of
the earth.” (Apoc. xvii.)
Had not this beast ten horns and seven heads,
as the beast of Apoc. xui which, I have said,
is a representation of the iron-kingdom of the
�27
&
present Roman empire, verse 18th, alone would
be an evident proof that it represents the
Roman empire; for, when John wrote this
verse, Rome was the only ciay whichlRigned
over the kings of the earth. But, what does
that beast, which carries a worn aw represent?
It represents nothing less than
1. The Babylonian kingdom in its two
phases.
2. The Roman empire in its two phases—oj
in othe^ words,
* 1. Babylon and Rome, the queens of the
world (the first phase of both kingdoms).
2. Nebuchadnezzar’s and the Rope’s images,
the queens and the idols of the world (the
second phase of both kingdoms).
The angel said to John : £; I will tell thee
the mystery of the woman and of the beast
which carrieth her: The beast that thou saw,
cst was, and 7s not; arid shall ascend out of
the bottomless pit....... And they that dwell on
the earth shall wonder, when they behold the
beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
According to these statements, it is certain
(1) that this beast had existed formerly, and
had had two different phases; (2) that it had
^revived already in the Roman empire, in its
�9*3
40
<
♦
first phase; and (3) that it should revive
therein, in its second phase. Whither are
we to go to find the beast that was ? The
woman answers: To Babylon.
No one, who has read carefully only the first
chapters of Daniel, can fail to perceive that the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar had two very distinct
phases; the first ending, and the second com
mencing, at the setting up of his golden image.
In the first period of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar
is mainly a great and proud conqueror; but, in
the second period, he is a man entirely addicted
to religion ; a man whose arrogance, fanaticism,
and cruelty were never excelled by any man,
except by his antetype, the Pope of Rome. In
„ proof, let us read some verses of Daniel’s third
chapter:
“ Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image
of gold, whose height was three score cubits
and the breadth thereof was six cubits; he
. set it up in the plain of Dura, in the pro
vince of Babylon. And then (all the officers,
governors and peoples of his realm being
gathered together there) a herald cried aloud :
To yon it is commanded, O people, nations,
and tongues, that at what time ye hear the
sound of the cornet, flute, liavp, sackbut, psal-
�29
tery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall
down and worship the golden image that
Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up; and
whoso falleth not down and worshipped], shall
the same hour be cast into the midsSof a burn
ing fieryfurnace.
Twelve months after, as he walked in the
palace of the kingdom^M Babylon, the king
spake, and said : Is not this great Babylon,
that 1 have built for the house of the king
dom, by the might of my power, and for the
honor of my Majesty ? While the word was
in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from
heaven, saying: O king Nebuchadnezzar, to
thee it is spoken : The kingdom is departed
from thee. They slia.1 drive thee from men,
and thy dwelling shall be witBlie beasts of the
field, and seven times shall pas.. over thee.”
The same hour Nebuchadnezzar was changed
into a beast, driven from men, and remained
so seven years, during which the golden im
age continued to be worship] ed, Babylon re
mained without a ruler, and the kings, Nebu
chadnezzar’s prisoners, having become wor
shippers of the golden image, were allowed to
retake their thrones, conditioned that they give
their strength and power to promote the wor
�30
ship of the golden image, and prevent any
revolt or undertaking against Babylon, during
the seven years of Nebuchadnezzar’s illness.
Now, let us see liow far these two features of
the two kingdoms are represented in the bea<t
1 icfore us.
FIRST PHASE---- THE BEAST THAT WAS AND IS.
1. “ The beast is scarlet colored.” All the high
dignitaries of Babylon and Rome were array
ed iii scarlet, when officiating.
2. “The beast has ten horns, uncroicned.”
They are the ten kings conquered by Babylon
and by Rome.
3. “The beast has seven heads.” They are the
seven forms of government, Babylon and Rome
had had from their origin to their second
phase, the sixth (the imperial) being then in
existence, and the seventh, yet to come, in the
Roman empire.
4. “The seven heads are seven mountains, on
which the woman sitteth.” Babylon was set
on seven hills as well as Rome.
5. The woman—Babylon and Rome. Phy
sically, politically and religiously, Babylon was
a perfect resemblance of Rome.
6. “ The waters where the woman sitteth.”
�31
They are peoples, multitudes, nations* J and
tongues, which Babylon and Roma devoured,
trod down and brake, in pieces.^
SECOND PHASE—THE BEAST THAT
IVSWaNdIIS
NOT.
The second phase of NebSchajM^ijrTwign
was not yet in the Roman empire when John
wrote the Apocalypse it was to be BUhe
only, when the sixth head (theKmperial go
vernment), which was then, and the seventh,
which was to come, should, b^Jdleil Nev
ertheless, it is represented here beforehand :
for verse Sth says : The beast th^jz/mi^ saw
est was, and is not; and verse llthEfays: The
beast that icas, and is not, even he is the
eighth head: that is, the eighth form, the
second phase of the Roman- empire. So that,
the beast which stands before us, is, without
undergoing any change, the representation at
once of the two phases, both of the Babylo
nian kingdom, and of the Roman empire; no
difference between Imperial Rome and Papal
Rome. IIow are we to explain it ? I have
explained the beast that was and is, i. e. the
Babylonian kingdom and the Roman empire,
as they were before the setting up of Nebu-
�■cbadnezzar’s image and the Pope’s image.
Now, if we suppose—which is a reality—that
the woman, instead of representing Rome and
Babylon, represents both the golden image of
Nebuchadnezzar and the living image of the
Pope; the Babylonian idol and the Roman
goddess, or, in other words, Papal Rome in
stead of Imperial Rome, the same beast, which
represents the first phase of both kingdoms,
will also represent the second phase of both.
1. “The beast is scarlet colored.” All the
high attendants of the golden image wore,
and all the high officials of the Pope’s image
wear, the purple and scarlet color.
2. “ The beast has ten horns, uncrowned.”
They are the ten kings conquered by Rome
and Babylon, who, having recovered their lib
erty, became worshippers of the golden image
■and of the Pope’s image, were, as such, re
conquered by them, and held as their slaves.
3. “ The beast has seven heads.” They are
the seven forms of government Babylon and
Rome had, but risen again on the first beast
ot Apoc. xiii to be collectively the eighth
head of the new empire ; but, being worship
pers of the Pope’s image, they are worse than
fallen..
�,4. “The seven heads arc seven mountains on,
which the woman sitteth.’■ The golden image
and the Pope’s image,, being respectively the
image of Babylon and Rome, both sit on se
ven hills.
5. “ The woman.”—As 1 have said, she repre
sents Nebuchadnezzar’s image and the Pope’s
image. Physically, politically and religiously,
both are alike: both are arrayed in purple
and scarlet color, decked with gold and pre!
cious stones and pearls; both wan^to be the
idol of the world ; both lust after blood. The
only difference is that one “can both speak,
and cause” that as many as will not worship
the Pope’s image, be killed ; while the other
cannot.
6. “The waters where the woman sitteth.”—
They are peoples, multitudes, nations and
tongues, which the attendants of the golden
image devoured, trod down, and brake in
pieces, and which the Pope’s image devoured
and devours, trod and treads down, broke and
breaks in pieces.What is, then, that image which the Pope
made to the Roman empire, deadly wounded,
and yet alive? It is something so vile that
(rod represents it with miry clay, of which
3 V
�:u
ineir have made a queen and a goddess. It is
the clay kingdom, the Roman church, which,
mingling with the zron-kingdom of the ten
kings, form together the second phase of t-he
Homan empire, now known as Papacy, Pa
pally or Popedom. As this image was made
in the likeness of the ancient empire, and m>
one is a fit judge of an image, who does not
know the thing it reproduces, I ought to give
here in detail the constitution of the empire;
hut die limits of a tract forbid me to do so.
Wherefore. I will give here only the chief
features of it with their correspondents in the
image.
THE EMl’IUK.
1. Rome—She was the centre,
the house of the empire, the
<juc-en ot the world,- and reign
ed over the kings of the earth.
2. The Emperor—Romanorum
Jmperator et Summus Pontifex,
was his title. He was the Em
peror and supreme Pontiff of
the Romans. The State and
the religion of the state were
ruled then by one man; they
were not divided, as now, into
two kingdoms, called the State
and the Church ; and, besides,
the State had the lead on re
ligion, which was subordinate
to the State. The Pontificate
was then a secondary thing;
the head of the empire w*as
known chiefly as Emperor, and
not as Pontiff.
THE IMAGE.
1. The Roman Church—She is
i the centre, the house of the rei ligion of that named the queen
i ot the world, and reigns over
; the kings of the earth.
J 2. The Pope—Vicariw filii
j Dei is his title. He claims to
i be the vicar of Jesus Christ,
i and, as such, the right to an
universal dominion, Were his
title genuine, his claims would
be tindisputable; lor Jesus
Christ is not only the High
Priest, but also the Great king;
but his, unfortunately, being’ a
number one counterfeit, and
having but the spirit of Satan,
instead of the spirit of Christ,
to overcome his foes, he needs
the sword of the ten kings.
Wherefore they agreed, gave
him their power, and acknowl
edged him as their head, and
I the supreme ruler over the Ro' man empire, called now-a-days
�.
I Popedom. So that, he is rfe
[facto, not de jure, the Emperor
; and supreme Pont,iff of the Ro< 'V4'1’ ' * •■•-•’■•-■•*•'*■ i mans. The reason which pre.r?.
\
! vents people from seeing how
j rd possibly Popedom can be the
*i- >5 1 ...... ; Rom in wnpire in its second
F] phase, is that the State and-the
i religion, which formerly were
■ : ruledifhy one man (the Ernpe■
>*• / • ♦
•
i ror), form »ow two distinct
' r*:: * '■ > . -'- y *
? kingdoms, one headed by seven
■ kings, and the oilier, by one
; (the Pope), who bears supreme
: rule over both with the sainllv
I names of Vicar of Christ, His
: Holiness, the Holy Father who
’
•
|begot a church called the Holy
i Mother. Now, people itecus• :■
I tomed to see much, very much
i uncleanness and unholiness in
•
I'their governors, »ant good
spectach s to see in th* Holy
i Father, hand in hand with the
Holy Mol her i the .-nprwn? ruler
, i ©f the Roman empire.
3, Roman Citizenship—There \ 3. Roman Church Membership
were hut two ways to be a Ro- • —There are btrt two ways to
man citizen : 1st, bv birth ; 2d, • be a member of the Roman
by purchase.
'
. church: 1st, by will; 2d, by
_ '
; the Pope’s mark.
4. Classification of Citizens—: 4. Classification of the Church' »
There Were three classes or or- ' Members— There are three classders : 1st, the patrician order; : es or orders: 1, the cardinal’s
2d, the equestrian order; 3d, ‘order; 2, thebishops and arch
ilie plebeian order. The two bishops; 3, the curates, vicars,
first composed the aristocracy or and chaplains: The two first;
nobility; the third, the com-' orders compose the high clergy,
mon people.
and the third, the lower clergy.
f>. The Senate—It was exclu- I 5. The College of Cardinals—
sively composed of patricians. It is exclusively composed of
i cardinals.
6. “ Whoever is not a Roman i 6. “ Whoever is not a Roman
citizen is a barbarian, who, as I Catholic is a heretic, who, as
such, has no right to life, and ! such, has no right to life, and
with whom any Roman may i with whom any catholic may
deal as he pleases,” was the | deal as he phases,” is the
sanguinary maxim deeply rooted | bloody maxim deeply rooted in
in the mind and in the laws of | the mind and in the canons of
the Roman people.
i the Roman church.
7. “Rome is bound to war' 7. “The Roman church is
as Jong as there are barbarian I bound to war and send out her
people standing up, ” was an- ' propagandists in the countries
other bloody maxim of Rome. i of the heretics to. operate revoI lutions and overthrow tbeir
i governments, as long as there
'suT’jf?
‘
fli...
■■■
,
•
’
.
•'••■■■Vs.
�8. The Roman Slaves—They
were the conquered people who',
to save their lives, were bound
to receive the mart of bondage
with a hot iron on their shoul
ders. They and their progeny
were sold at auction to the Ro
man people) and their owners
could do with them according
to their will.
9. The Countries Conquered by
Rome—They; were divided into
provinces, tribes, wards (cu
riae), centuries, decuries, and
the natives, now reduced to
slavery, had to till the ground,
ere-while theirs, and to do all
kind of hard work to provide
lor the legions sent to watch
over them, and to furnish to
the lusts and rapacities of the
proconsuls, questors, military
tribunes, centurions, decnrions, and of the legists and
school-masters, sent by Rome
to inculcate to the poor slaves
her tongue, religion, laws and
customs.
10. The Emperor’s Ambassa
dors.—Legaii.
11. The Religion of Rome—
Paganism.
12. The Language of RomeThe Latin.
is a single one which does opt
worship her,” is another bloody
maxim of the Roman church.'
8. The Roman Church’s Slaves
—They are the faithful, who,
to save their lives, were bound
to receive the mark of the Pope
(the lamb beast, Apoc. xi«)
in their foreheads, or in thenright hand, that is, bound to
believe or do according to the
Pope’s will. They and their
progeny are bound not only to
worship his church, but to fur
nish her with gold, silver, pre
cious stones, pearls, line linen,
purple, silk, scarlet, horses,
chariots, etc., etc.
9. The Countries Conquered by
the Roman Church—They aredivided into provinces, diocceses, parishes, and annexes; and
the faithful have to till the
ground, and do all kind of hard
work to provide for the armies
standing to watch over them,
and prevent any attempt of
theirs for the recovery of their
liberty; and to furnish to the
lusts and rapacities of the car
dinals, bishops, archbishops,
curates, vicars, chaplains: and
of the Jesuits and all kind of
monastical teachers, sent by
the Roman church to iuculcate
to her worshippers her tongue,
her religion, her canons and
customs, and to be sicut cadavera (as corpses).
10. The Pope’s Ambassadors—
Legates, Nuncios.
11. The Religion of the Roman
Church—Paganism, "called Ca
tholicism.
12. The Language of the Ro
man Church—The Latin.
These are the main features of the harlot
which the Pope made in the likeness of the
Roman empire, 'to be the queen and goddess
of the world. This is the church which, with
the criminal assistance of the seven heads of
the present Roman empire has killed and
�37
•burned alive, by the millions, people who
would, not worship her, and devoured, and
^trodden down her worshippers, by thousands of
millions, during these long 126*0 years
!
“ And in her was found the blood of pro
phets, and of saints, and of all that were
slain upon the earth.” (Apoe. xvm, 24.)
American citizens, if I recall to your mind
the word of General LafayetH to General
Washington: "Beware of the Catholicsf
will say: uWc can’t-help it; we are a free
’country, and the Catholics have here the same
rights as other people.” Let me tell you a
word: Suppose that France, or Spain, or
Austria, would send here 20,000 soldiers com
manded by their able officers;
that this
little army would be incessantly debauching
the American soldiers, enlisting them into
their ranks, and receiving every year from
their own country great reinforcements, with
the avowed purpose of conquering you as soon
as they got the power to do so, would you
say : “We can't help it ?” I know you wouldn’t,
and I. hear you screaming
Sir, rather than
to allow such a thing we would light to the
last drop of our blood.’4 AV ell, the case is
just the same, if not worse. You have already,
implanted -on your soil, about 7,000,000
of people who have the mark of the Pope.
They want to get you and your beautiful
land* under the dominion of Popedom, They
are well disciplined, with shrewd and skillful
captains, colonels, and generals at their head,
�38
accompanied by their usual train of male and
female legists and school-matters, to teach you?
children to hate von (heretics), to abhor every
one and every thing which has not a catholic
scent, and to take fancy to their paganism,
whose pompousness and commodities arc so
attractive to the inflammable imagination of
the youth, and of the beautiful woman who,
chancing to have a husband not very amiable
(and how many such husbands!!), goes and
makes confession of her weakness at the feet
of a man who, having no wife, is all candy,
and gives her the very consolations she
needs. Thus, they are incessantly recruiting
soldiers from among your people,* receive
from the fatherland new recruits which maw
be counted every year by the hundreds of
thousands; and they will increase, increase,
increase their army till they get strength
enough to control your country ; and then,
adieu to your free institutions, either civil,
political, or religious ! Do not say, because
you see no swords nor muskets in their hands,
a there is no danger’' : Dome conquered bv
the sword, but the Itoman church conquers bv
* Interviewed by the St. Louis Democrat reporter, a few days
before these leaves went to print, Bishop Ryan said : We are
making a great many converts here. We have 300 priests in Eng
land who were formerly Protestant clergymen-; and we have quite,
a number here (clergymen, of course, since, he adds). Archbish
op Bayley, of Baltimore, was a Protestant minister.—Q. You are
making a good many converts in the South ? Yes, said the Bish
op, and in the North, too, and in the East and the West (good
news, reporter). The Pope is very well disposed toward Anu rica !
Said the violator of the amenities of social life (Pshaw ! ’
Of
course he is ; and were he not, your sycophancies could not fail to
effect that result.)
�39
•her propaganda, until she gets- a majority or
a government of her worshippeis; then she
•uses the sword and the flames against the
residue of heretics ; then. .. . sauce qui pent.!
Again, remember the man who, pitying a
bcnumed viper, took it in his bosom, carrying
his death about himself. Awake and look
mil !
AL word to the Sceptics—1 have just explain
ed the history of the Roman empire in its
two phases, written long beforehand, even at
......least one thousand' years before its second
phase, Popedom. Now, I ask youij Had we
not tiiis prophetic writ, could you, with all
your wisdom and transcendent faculties, have
ever imagined that this Roman churchws^ in
all. respects, the exact reproductionBof the an
cient'Roman empire ? That she is nothing
else than a grotesque and diabolic imitation
of Christ’s kingdom, fashioned jtal the Roman
empire, swaying her iron sceptre over the earth
as a goddess, devouring and treading down
peoples, multitudes and nations, and killing
■whomsoever will not worship lier|l Could you
ever have imagined that, had we i»t this holy
writ ? And if you could not, with that abomi
nation in your sight, nor^an^ man, of all who
have seen it these 1200 years, could, how could
Daniel and John, had they not been inspired,
have imagined it, they who lived so many hun
dred years before that harlot sat upon the Ro
man empire? Wherefore, be wise; and if you
wish people to believe that you are not entirely
�40
devoid ol sense, do not say any more that the
Bible was written by uninspired men; for, when
you say so, you blaspheme against the Holy
Ghost, and that is a sin which shall not be for
given in this world, nor in the world to come.
Qtws dii perdere volunt, Slullos faciunt—
Politicians, statesmen, editors, ministers and
priests, all have been puzzled to find out the
reason why France was so awfully beaten bv
Prussia, but with no success. Had they read
the Bible (the confirmer and rectifier of tlie pro
fane history), they would have found there the
true reason for it. As I have said. France ful
filled the will of God when she rose as one man
in ’89, and made her great revolution against
the whore; but she retraced, her steps in ’53,
when that man, whose name is Napoleon III,
sent troops to restore the Holy father to Rome
and protect his Holy mother, and kept thorn
there 17 years. Then God’s patience tired out,
rmd lie crazed him and his compeers so, that
they provoked to war the Teutonic lion, who
camo with the whip, and renewed, on a larger
>cale, with France the work done with Austria
in ’GG. So God compelled him to recall his
troops. This resistence of the French govern
ment.to the will of God was the true and only
cause of the ruin and humiliation of France;
and the same fate awaits all the Catholic States
which will not revolt against the whore, make
her desolate and nakedj'eat her flesh, and burn
her with fire.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Popedom. The Roman Empire in the second phase: no difference between imperial Rome and papal Rome. American nationality in danger
Creator
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Peters, J.P.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: St Louis
Collation: 40 p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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J.W. McIntyre
Date
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1872
Identifier
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G5232
Subject
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Papacy
Catholic Church
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Popedom. The Roman Empire in the second phase: no difference between imperial Rome and papal Rome. American nationality in danger), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Holy Roman Empire-History
Roman Catholic Church