IV.

Let us not lose sight of our argument. We were seeking a practical and popular way to solve the great problems of our destiny, and we have proven that human science alone is unequal to this task. We have seen that there is only one way for man to attain this end, that satisfactory solutions can only be derived from faith, that wonderful gift which under the authority of a superhuman witness makes us believe with certitude things which neither the eyes of the body nor the eyes of the mind could immediately comprehend. Has the witness which lies at the foundation of Christian convictions the wished-for authority? In other words, is it truly divine? We believe that we have established it, and the most hasty reading of a single page of the Bible will demonstrate it far more clearly than we have done. See also the admirable harmony of the Christian system, and the responses, as clear as they are sublime, it gives to questions so long unanswerable. It is by its capacity to penetrate mysteries to read the invisible, to explain the obscure, not less than by its miraculous victory, that Christianity demonstrates both the true character of its origin and the sincerity of its divine Founder.

We remember on this subject some moving sentences that we will be permitted to quote. They are from an author who recently received an eloquent tribute of regrets and praises, and who, for the past twenty years, has been remembered with grief by all the friends of sound philosophy. In a well-known lecture, when considering these same problems of human destiny, M. Jouffroy spoke thus:

"There is a little book that is taught to children, and upon which they are questioned in the church. Read this little book, which is the catechism. You will find in it a solution of all the questions I have asked--of all, without an exception. Ask a Christian the origin of the human race, what is its destiny, and how it can attain it, and he can answer you. Ask that poor child, who has scarcely thought of life and its duties, why he is here below, what will become of him after death, and he will make a sublime answer which he may not fully comprehend, but which is not the less admirable. Ask him how the world was created and for what end; why God has put animals and plants upon it; how the world was peopled, if by one family or by several; why men speak different languages, why they suffer, why they combat, and how all these things will end; and he knows it all. {474} Origin of the world, origin of man, questions about the different races, destiny of man in this life and in the other, relation of man to God, duties of man toward his fellow-men, rights of man over creation, he is ignorant of none of these things; and as he becomes matured, he will not hesitate to take advantage of his natural and political rights, for he knows the rights of the people, for these come, or, as it were, flow of themselves, from Christianity. This is what I call a great religion. I recognize by this sign that it leaves none of the questions which interest humanity without an answer." [Footnote 102]

[Footnote 102: _Mélanges Philosophiques_, par M. Th. Jouffroy. Vol. i. 1833, p. 470.]

We love to read again these words of a master and a friend, who in his youth was nourished with Christian truths, and who, perhaps, would have tasted them again if the trials of life had been prolonged for him. Without doubt, it is necessary to avoid indorsing opinions which are no longer our own sentiments; but certainly it can be permitted to preserve a faithful and complete remembrance of their spirit. Even at the time when M. Jouffroy doubted, when he left his pen and told us with assurance how Christian dogmas would die, there would have been but very little necessary to teach him to his cost how they perpetuate themselves! Faith has its evil days; its ranks seem decimated and its army dissolved, but it can never perish. In order to replace deserters, to recruit its strength unceasingly, has it not the sorrows and miseries of this world, the need of prayer, and the thirst of hope?

Let us leave this sweet and profound thinker whose brilliant career we love to trace; let us return to that great and firm soul who now engages our attention, and to whom we are attached by so many friendly ties and remembrances. Without having followed him step by step, we have not lost sight of him. We have taken a hasty glance at his work in trying to express its spirit. We must now return to each of these meditations in detail. What things have escaped us! What brilliant passages, what keen observations, what profound thoughts! At most, we have only taken account of that part of the book where the limits of science, the belief in the supernatural, and especially the marvellous harmony between Christian dogmas and religious problems, that are innate to man, are treated with so much wisdom and authority. That which M. Jouffroy, in the remarks we have quoted, indicates in a single glance, M. Guizot establishes with convincing arguments by comparing each dogma with the natural problem to which it corresponds. No one has yet so accurately explained the harmonious relation of these questions and these answers. There are two _morceaux_ which demand particular attention: they are the two _meditations_ on the revelation and inspiration of the holy books. There are here ideas and distinctions of rare sagacity which point out what justly belongs to human ignorance, without allowing the reality of inspiration of the Bible to suffer the slightest suspicion. But the chief triumph of this work, that which gives it at once its most charming color and its sweetest perfume, are the last two meditations, _God according to the Bible, Jesus Christ according to the Gospels_.

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These two pictures are in as different styles as the subjects they contrast. Nothing could be bolder, more striking, more truly Biblical, than the portrait of the God of the Hebrews; of that God "who has no biography, no personal events," to whom nothing happens, with whom nothing changes, always and invariably the same, immutable in the midst of diversity and of universal movement. "I am he who is." He has nothing else to say of himself; it is his definition, his history. No one can know more of him, even as no one can see him. And if he were visible, what a misfortune! His glance is death. Between him and man what an abyss!

It is a long distance to traverse between such a God and the God of the New Testament--from Jehovah to Jesus Christ. What novelty, what a transformation! The solitary God goes out from his unity; he completes everything, yet remains himself; the provoked God lays aside his anger, he is affected, he is pacified, he becomes gentle, he gives man his love, he loves him enough to redeem his fault with his Son's blood, that is, with his own blood. It is this victim, this Son, obedient even unto death, that M. Guizot endeavors to paint for us. Sublime portrait, attempted many times, but always in vain! Shall we say that he has succeeded in this impossible task? No; but he has made a most happy effort. He makes us pass successively before his divine model, by showing the attitudes, if we may be allowed the expression, which enable us to see the most touching aspects of this incomparable figure. Sometimes he places him amid his disciples only, that chosen and well-loved flock; sometimes in the Jewish crowd in the Temple, at the foot of the mountain, or on the border of the lake; sometimes among the fishermen or the sedate matrons; sometimes with artless children. In each of these pictures, he gathers, he brings together, he animates by reuniting them, the scattered characteristics of Jesus Christ. His sober and guarded style, powerful in its reasoning, brilliant in its contests, seems to be enriched with new chords by the contact with so much sympathy and tender love. It is not only the impassioned eloquence, but it is a kind of emotion, more sweet and more penetrating, that you feel while reading his thoroughly Christian pages.

We understand the happy effect that this book has already produced upon certain souls. Its influence, however, cannot descend to the masses. Its tone, its style, its thoughts, have not aspired to popular success; but from the middling classes and the higher circles of society, how many drifting souls there are to whom this unexpected guide will lend a timely aid! Such a Christian as he is must work this kind of cure. He is not the man of the workmen; he has neither gown nor cassock. It is a spontaneous tribute to the faith, and more than this, for it declares that he too has known and vanquished the anxieties of doubt. Every one, then, can do as he has done. No one fears to follow the steps of a man who occupies such a position in the empire of thought, who has given such proofs of liberty of spirit and of deep wisdom. It is not a slight rebuke to certain intelligent but careless Catholics to see such an example of submission and faith come from a Protestant.

There is yet a greater and more general service that these _Meditations_ seem to have fulfilled. During the eight or ten months since they were published, the tone of antichristian polemics has been much depressed. One would have expected a manifestation of rage, but there has been nothing of the kind. {476} The most vehement critics are reserved, and their attacks have principally consisted in silence. Hence a sort of momentary lull. Many causes, without doubt, contributed in advance to this result, if it were only the excess of the attack and the impertinence of certain assailants; but the book, or to speak more properly, the action of M. Guizot, has, in our opinion, its own good part in this work. So clear and vigorous a profession of faith could not be lightly attacked. In order to answer a man who frankly calls himself a Christian, it would be necessary to have resolved and to declare openly that one is antichristian; but those who are, no longer care to acknowledge it. It is well known that our day is pleased with half-tints; it has a taste for shadows, and is always ready to strike its flag when it sees an opponent's colors. Christianity itself gathers some profit from the little noise that is made about these _Meditations_. It is not the least reward of their author. May he continue in the same tone, compelling his adversaries to persevere in their silence. He will embarrass them more and more, while he will always add fresh courage and power to those who are sustaining the good cause.

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Saint Mary Magdalen.

From The Latin Of Petrarch.

The following lines were written by the great Italian poet, Petrarch, on the occasion of a visit to Sainte-Baume, near Marseilles, where tradition points out the tomb of Saint Mary Magdalen. He inscribed them on the grotto, in which she is said to have passed the last thirty years of her life.

Dulcis amica Dei, lacrymis inflectere nostris, Atque meas attende preces, nostraeque saluti Consule: namque potes. Neque enim tibi tangere frustra Permissum, gemituque pedes perfundere sacros, Et nitidis siccare comis, ferre oscula plantis, Inque caput Domini pretiosos spargere odores. Nec tibi congressus primos a morte resurgens Et voces audire suas et membra videre, Immortale decus lumenque habitura per aevum, Nequicquam dedit aetherei rex Christus Olympi. Viderat ille cruci haerentem, nee dira paventem Judaicae tormenta manus, turbaeque furentis Jurgia et insultus, aequantes verbera linguas; Sed maestam intrepidamque simul, digitisque cruentos Tractantem clavos, implentem vulnera fletu, Pectora tundentem violentis candida pugnis, Vellentem flavos manibus sine more capillos. Viderat haec, inquam, dum pectora fida suorura Diffugerent pellente metu. Memor ergo revisit

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Te primam ante alios; tibi se priùs obtulit uni. Te quoque, digressus terris ad astra reversus, Bis tria lustra, cibi nunquàm mortalis egentem Rupe sub hâc aluit, tarn longo tempore solis Divinis contenta epulis et rore salubri Haec domus antra tibi stillantibus humida saxis, Horrifico tenebrosa situ, tecta aurea regum, Delicias omnes ac ditia vicerat arva. Hìc inclusa libens, longis vestita capillis, Veste carens aliâ, ter denos passa decembres Diceris, hìc non fracta gelu nec victa pavore. Namque famem, frigus, durum quoque saxa cubile Dulcia fecit amor spesque alto pectore fixa. Hìc hominum non visa oculis, stipata catervis Angelicis, septemque die subvecta per horas, Coelestes audire choros alterna canentes Carmina, corporeo de carcere digna fuisti.

Translation.

Sweet friend of God! my tears attend, Hark to me suppliant and defend-- O thou, all-potent to befriend!

Not vain that care thou didst accord-- Thy hands, uplifted o'er thy Lord, Upon his head sweet odors poured,

And touched his feet with unguents rare-- The kiss of love imprinted there-- And wiped them with thy beauteous hair.

Not vain, when he in majesty Rose up from death, 'twas given to thee The first to meet, to hear, to see.

This glory did the Lord divine, The Christ august, to thee assign, Made this unending splendor thine.

Unto his cross he saw thee cling, Unawed by threat and buffeting-- The taunts the furious rabble fling;

For him he saw thee lashed with scorn, Yet clasping, faithful and forlorn, Those feet with nails now pierced and torn.

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He watched thy tear-drenched face below-- Thy bosom stricken in thy woe-- Thy long fair hair's dishevelled flow.

All this he saw, while from his side His other loved ones scattered wide, And left alone their Crucified.

'Twas therefore, mindful of those sighs, He, deigning from the tomb to rise, Sought his first welcome from thine eyes.

And heavenward when from earth he sped, Through thrice ten years for thee here spread A feast by angels ministered.

This rugged cave obscure and lone, Black rock-dews dripping down the stone. For thee a regal palace shone.

No fields with harvest wealth besprent Accord such manna as was sent; Thy needs did heavenly gifts content.

Here through December's frost and sleet. Thy long hair, falling to thy feet. Enrobed thee in a robe complete.

No fear appalled; love made thee bold; Love sweetened sufferings manifold. The rock, the hunger, and the cold.

Here, hid from mortal eyes, to be Cheered with celestial company. Angelic bands encompassed thee.

And still a dweller in our sphere. Seven hours each day rapt hence, thine ear The alternate choirs of heaven could hear.

C. E. R

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Glimpses Of Tuscany.

Santa Maria Del Fiore--The Duomo.