supplicium pro Christi nomine pertulerunt *, if there were indulgences for all who repeated certain prayers, on hearing the great bell of the cathedral of Grenada tolled every afternoon at three o'clock, in memory of the deliverance of that city from the Moors, that being the hour when the Cardinal, Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, planted the cross on the highest tower of the Alhambra, while the Count of Tendilla displayed the kingly banner of Castille, and Don Gutierre de Cardenas that of St. Iago, while Ferdinand and Isabella sunk upon their knees, exclaiming, Non nobis, Domine, sed tibi sit gloria, on which spot a chapel was immediately erected, which stands to the present day,-the one motive by which these and a thousand other similar exercises were converted into channels of heavenly grace, was charity, the union of the soul with God, or, in other words, the love of God and the love of man. Separate from this principle, many of these acts may indeed seem trifling and inconsiderable, but as Hugo of St. Victor says, "in parvo opere magna devotio potest esse t." A pilgrim at least will be little disposed to cavil here, who remembers what fervent devotion was excited in his breast, when at Rome and elsewhere he visited such places, when he kissed the cross upon the gates of St. Paul and of St. Lorenzo-when he ascended upon his knees those mystic steps which recall the passion of the man-God-when he saw lifted over him that rod of discipline at the threshold of the holy Apostles-when he drank from the fountains at the Salvian waters where the chosen One received his crown. There is, one might say, transferring the poet's image to express higher things, a tide in the spiritual affairs of men, which when taken at the flood, leads on to paradise; omitted, all the voyage of their life seems left unprotected by influence divine; we must take the current of justice, as of human felicity, when it serves, or lose our ventures, for, as Cardan saith, nostra omnia momentanea sunt. Moments there are in life, especially in its early years, when from the presence of such objects as recall the mind to a sense of religion, to a memory of all that the divine Jesus suffered, and of all that his saints in successive

* Aringhi Rom. Subter. 232.

Hug. S. Vict. De Sacramentis, Pars XIV. 3.

ages have endured, men, the most cold and thoughtless, feel suddenly inflamed with a seraphic ardour of spirit, to love and serve God with all their heart, and all their mind, and all their strength, and are ready to exclaim with a most generous passion, though we should die with thee, yet will we not betray thee in any wise. Oh heavens! were man but constant, he were perfect; that one error fills him with faults, and makes him run through all sins. Now, the object of these indulgences was to make him, in regard to these impressions, constant; it was to multiply and protract these blessed intervals; to make, as it were, the time of flood in the soul recur at short intervals, in order that he might have many ventures, many periods of excitement; it was to give him habits of making acts of faith, hope, and charity, so that at length, from many repetitions and returns, becoming constant, he might attain to the perfection and immortal felicity of his nature. The exercises to which indulgences were attached, were generally such as of all others in the moral order that can be conceived, are most worthy of an immortal intelligence. There were indulgences attached to the daily recital of the Trisagion and Gloria Patri*, to making acts of faith, hope, and charity, to praying for the exaltation of the church, the peace and concord of Christian princes, and the extirpation of error ‡, to the invocation of the holy name of Jesus, to the examination of conscience, to the conversion of sinners in withdrawing them from immorality, heresy, blasphemy, detraction, or calumny, to the reconcilement of enemies, to the showing reverence to Christ's blessed mother, to meditation on the cross, or visiting the stations, to prayer in memory of our Lord's crucifixion on Fridays, at three o'clock §, to spending the three hours of agony on Good Friday in prayer or meditation, to visiting devoutly, with proper dispositions, the seven churches of Rome ||, to the recitation of the Angelus, or the Regina Caeli three times every day T, to the sanctification of the month of May by devoting it to the contemplation of the graces of Mary, to the recitation of the prose stabat mater* to receiving communion on the

festival of St. Louis Gonzagua, the patron of youth *, to the instruction of others in mental prayer †, or in the Christian doctrine, to performing the works of mercy, nourishing three poor persons in honour of the holy family, to the visiting of hospitals, or houses of refuge, to the visitation of prisoners, to the enabling of the poor to marry, to wearing medals, or crucifixes, or chaplets, that had been given to one's self, which had touched the holy places, or the relics of the holy land §, to a good preparation for death, to an act of resignation daily renewed j. Are these exercises trivial and ridiculous? Is the hope of grace, upon condition of performing them with the dispositions implied, unjust or inconsistent with the wisdom of God, that learned men of the modern discipline should place the Apostolic Brief, confining it in their cabinets of curiosities amidst the idols of Egypt, to be displayed before the white, upturned wondering eyes of fools, that fall back as if afraid to gaze upon it? Truly, that indulgences should furnish mirth in the circle of libertines, or in the school of those sophists who have an exchequer of words, and no other treasure to give their followers, will surprise no one; but, setting aside all theological argument, he that cannot discern the force and facility which they yield to virtue, whatever diplomas he may have taken out, or whatever academic walks he may have haunted, methinks should not be chronicled for wise.

CHAPTER IX.

We have seen the heroic and supernatural character of the Catholic morality, but there are still many remarkable points of difference distinguishing it from the system

Bened. XIII.
Clement XII.

+ Bened. XIV.
§ Innocent XI.

| Vide Manuel des Dévotions et Indulgencees autorisées par le Saint Siège.

of human philosophers, and from that of the modern societies in general, of which I have not yet given an historical illustration. To contrast the manners of the Christian republic in its happiest ages, with those of the ancient world, would be a still less subtle exercise than tracing the contrast between the Gospel and the philosophic writings of the Gentiles. To review the heathen manners falls not to our province; and that writer may indeed be an object of compassion who is condemned to approach a subject so horrible and so revolting. More. over, there can be but few who need being reminded in general of the revolution which had been wrought in the law and practice of manners by the Redeemer. It confers no benefit, methinks, to compose a picture in hard prominent outlines, or abounding in sharp transitions from light to shadow. It may be left to others, therefore, to represent the contrast between classic and sacred Italy— between the times which beheld by luxury more than Roman conquests, and those when Sybaris was an episcopal see, and Capua a nurse of martyrs. But in answer to those who represent the highest justice and perfect morality, as independent of Catholic manners, fain would I something say. The moral teachers of antiquity are painted by each other with such precision, that we can hardly feel at a loss respecting the character which should be ascribed to them. Who of them, asks Cicero, regards his discipline not as an ostentation of science, but as a law of life? Some are addicted to such levity and boasting, that it would be better for them never to have learned aught. Some are greedy of money; others of glory; many are the slaves of lust, so that their discourse differs prodigiously from their life *. In the most exquisite of all the Platonic writings we have the same contrast to the severity of Catholic manners in the language of Agatho's philosophic guests, who allude with such effrontery to their yesterday's debauch, desiring now one and all, that there may be a temperate meeting and no drunkenness, particularly as they have not yet recovered from the effects of their last banquet, agreeing that they should now only drink for pleasure, and not to intoxication t. Nepos, writing to Cicero, says, "So far am I from regarding philosophy as the mistress of life, + Plato, Symposium, cap. 4.

Tuscul. II. 4.

and the source of happy life, that I think no men have such need of masters to instruct them in living, as the greatest part of those who are occupied in their disputations; for I see that the men who prescribe rules of continence and modesty most artfully in the school, live devoted to all kinds of lust. Seneca was of the same opinion, and Cicero repeatedly shows that the men who had any virtue in Greece and Rome were not formed by the discipline of philosophy, but by following ancient traditions." S. Clemens Alexandrinus presses hard upon the heathen philosophers, reminding them of the manners of their own heroic models. "Phoenix," saith he, "was the tutor of Achilles, and Adrastus of the sons of Croesus, Leonidas of Alexander, and Nausithous of Philip. Phoenix was abandoned to the love of women; Adrastus was a run-away; Leonidas did not subdue the pride of the Macedonians, nor did Nausithous cure the drunkard of Pella. The Thracian Zopurus was not able to restrain the licentiousness of Alcibiades; and Sikinnus, the tutor of Themistocles' sons, used to be caught dancing the Satyr's dance *." Socrates and Glaucus agree with the opinion so eloquently proclaimed by modern statesmen and legislators, that a man will do many things while alone, which he would not dare to do if any eyes were upon him, and which he would not tolerate in any one else; and that he will differ greatly when alone in secret, and when he is exposed to the view of other men t. "Who ascribed the highest authority to the Roman senate?" asks an orator who carried his love of heathen antiquity to extravagance. "He who stript it of all. Who consulted the Chaldeans and the Magi? The same man who banished them from the city. The same was cruel, and in semblance kind, grasping, and able to pass for liberal. He built temples, and he laughed at religion; he rejected aliens, and he despised his country; he did not approve of fraud in an enemy, without which he never approached either friend or foe. But a man, wholly wicked, is never without an appearance of virtuet." Varro thought it necessary to deceive the multitude, and leave it in the superstition of the civil theology; and St. Augustin exclaims, "Spectacles of turpitude and

Clemens Alex. Pæd. Lib. I. c. 7.
Plato, de Repub. Lib. X.
Heinsii Orat. XVII.