Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847

"As a thanksgiving for the two miraculous cures worked on the 9th and 12th of last May before the shrine of S. Vincent, a general communion shall take place in each house on the day fixed by the Sister serving it."

In concluding this subject I must add that I by no means sought for such facts as these cures – they came in my way while engaged in other inquiries: I did not think it fit or honest to turn away from them so coming, but endeavoured to ascertain the truth by every means in my power. I now set them forth with the evidence which I was able to collect about them. I am also bound to say that, since I have come to the knowledge of these cures, I have been informed, on the best authority, of two results, approaching at least to the same miraculous character, following immediately from the reception of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. These occurred very lately in the Anglican communion.

Saturday, August 12. – I had heard so much of the grandeur of Bourges Cathedral, and the beauty of its windows, that I determined to judge for myself. So this morning left by the 8 A.M. train for Orléans and Bourges. Up to Etampes the country is pleasing and broken in parts. From thence to the forest of Orléans is an immense plain, rich in produce, but treeless, dull, and flat as a pancake. From Orléans to Vierzon is another immense plain, desert, sandy, and solitary; after this the country improves to Bourges. Visited the cathedral at Orléans: the western front is fine, well arranged, and forming a somewhat striking unity; but the interior is bare, poor, and most displeasing to the eye, which is pained at so bad an imitation of Gothic. As soon as I reached Bourges I went to the cathedral: the west front, in spite of its five deeply recessed portals, the central one of which is very beautiful, sadly disappointed me – it is totally deficient in unity, and will bear no comparison with that of Amiens, not to mention Reims. The towers are positively ugly; the worst effect being produced by buttresses, which protrude in the most inelegant shape, their strength not at all veiled by ornaments. The interior is very grand: it is peculiar in having no transept, but double aisles continued throughout, the nearest of which to the centre is of inordinate height. Round the choir the huge lancet windows, crowned with roses, are of great beauty; but unfortunately they are not complete, as at Chartres, with the effect of which I do not think Bourges will bear a comparison. The pillars, of which there are twelve on each side from the west front to the apse of the choir, are cylinders with eight engaged columns; they look lighter than those of Amiens and Reims, and very lofty from the height of the first aisle, which must be seventy feet, and has a triforium like the centre. Grand, however, as Bourges is in some respects, I should not put it in the first rank of churches, with Amiens, Milan, Cologne, Reims, and St. Ouen. It is in the first style, like Chartres. The apse has none of the magic lightness of Amiens, Cologne, or St. Ouen. From the north tower is an immense view over the country, which has some eminences, but not strongly marked features.

In the streets nothing but soldiers or national guards are to be seen. It would appear that the purpose for which men are sent into the world is to bear arms. There could not be a heavier condemnation of the Republic than the outward aspect of society. There was, however, a special cause for this. Three hundred, I believe, of the national guard at Paris had come to visit their brethren at Bourges, and were to be entertained at dinner the next day in the garden of the archevêché, on which the state, with its usual insulting dealing towards the Church, has laid its hands from the time of the first revolution. So likewise, it has robbed the church at Bourges of the grand séminaire, an immense building, and turned it into barracks.

Sunday, August 13. – Was at a Low Mass and part of the High Mass in the cathedral. A great number of soldiers, guards, and country people enter in, and lounge and sit about, without a very religious demeanour. Called at one at the Séminaire, with a letter for the Supérieur, M. l'Abbé Ruel. He talked with me some time, and then sent one of the séminarists and a priest to show me about Bourges. He inquired of the state of things in England; our studies at Oxford. I lamented our state of separation: if the religious feeling of England were united with the Roman Church, the world might be converted. In any case, the state of separation itself was most disastrous to both sides; it wasted the life of the Church. If the truth was altogether with them, as they asserted, then, of course, our loss was fatal indeed; but even then the Roman Church in the loss of England had suffered her right hand to be cut off. Whether we were with her or against her would make all the difference in her conflict with the world. He assented, and observed that England had been the island of saints. I afterwards remarked that my attention had been particularly drawn to the Roman Primacy. He said the disputes as to the Gallican liberties had fallen to the ground; but I thought he intimated that the Gallican feeling was not extinct. Whatever the theory might be, the sway of the Roman See was, in reality, very gentle. It felt its way beforehand, and only acted according to the spirit of the Church. I said my great difficulty was, that all history was for Gallicanism, while the Ultramontane theory was evidently the only entire and consistent one, which would bear out all the acts of Rome. I asked if the revolution had produced any change at Bourges. He said, none at all. Louis Philippe had fallen because he had sunk into general contempt – he had become esteemed "un homme d'argent." The priest and séminariste conducted me to the house in which Louis XI. is said to have been born, but the present walls are evidently of the Renaissance. It is occupied by a small sisterhood. We went also through the Hotel de Ville, the house of Jacques Cœur, and to the cathedral. There is a very fine crypt under the choir and its aisles. Bourges has little interesting save its Cathedral. The climate is damp and unhealthy, from the marshes near. I left by the last train in the evening, at eight o'clock, and slept at Orleans.

Monday, August 14. – Left Orleans at 7, Paris by 11. Left it at 7 for Amiens: we went through a most violent thunder storm about half way.

Tuesday, August 15. – At the cathedral during part of one High Mass, and the whole of the second, when the bishop officiated pontifically, and gave afterwards the Papal Benediction. It was nearly full of people. I never felt the superiority of this building more than to-day; the interior is pre-eminent for unity, simplicity, and grandeur. I was sorry to miss the vespers and sermon at three; but I left to reach Boulogne in time for the packet, and got to Folkstone shortly after eleven.

CONCLUSION

There are certain doctrines in the Roman Catholic Church, which are brought into such prominence in practice, and are in their own nature so very powerful, that they make that faith appear in its actual exercise quite another thing from the faith prevailing among ourselves, although there be really no essential difference between the true mind of the English, and that of the Roman Church. I say the true mind, that which forms the basis of the Prayer Book; that of which the Prayer Book faithfully carried out would be the verbal developement. Whether the true ἠθος of the English Church will ever prevail actually within her, cast out the puritan virus, and collect and animate the whole body of Catholic truth which her formularies still contain, remains yet to be seen.

In the meantime I am greatly struck with the power exercised in the Roman Church by the great dogma of the Real Presence. It is the centre and life of the whole. It is the secret support of the priest's painful self-denying mission; by it mainly the religious orders maintain themselves; the warmest, deepest, lowliest, most triumphant and enraptured feelings surround it: the nun that adores in silence for hours together, one from the other taking up that solitary awful watch in the immediate presence of the King of Kings; the crowd of worshippers that kneel at the blessed yet fearful moment when earth and heaven are united by the coming down of the mystical Bridegroom into the tabernacle of His Church; the pious soul that not once or twice but many times during the day humbles itself before Him; the congregations which close the day by their direct homage to Him, as present to the three-fold nature of man, body, soul, and spirit; all these attest the deep practical import which the dogma of the Real Presence exerts on the Catholic mind. Are not their churches holier to the believing soul, than was the temple of Jerusalem when the visible glory of the Lord descended on it? For does not the single lamp burning before the shrine indicate a Presence inexpressibly more condescending, gracious, and exalting to man? In Catholic countries the offering of direct adoration, the contemplation of the mind absorbed in the abyss of the Incarnation, never ceases one instant of the day or night. It is the response of the redeemed heart for ever making to Him, "Who when He took upon Him to deliver man did not abhor the Virgin's womb." When I contrast this with – what is still too common in this country, though happily growing less so daily – the beggarly deal or oak table covered with worm-eaten cloth, or left bare in its misery – with the deserted or pew-encumbered chancel, from which every feeling of reverence seems for ages to have departed – or with the pert enclosure domineered over by reading-desk and pulpit, and commanded all round by galleries: and on which, perhaps once a month, the highest mystery of the faith is commemorated among us, I do not wonder at the Roman Catholic, who regards the English Church as a sheer apostacy, a recoil from all that is controlling, ennobling, and transcendental in faith to a blank gulf of unbelief.

The very existence of the Roman priest, the compensation for all he does or suffers, depends on that half-hour of the day when he meets his Lord. What an inexpressible privilege to have been preserved to, nay, almost enjoined upon, all her ministers. And how could the monk and the nun live but on the continual food of the Holy Eucharist, and the steadfast contemplation of the Incarnation? England has banished the monk and the nun, and popularly, in spite of her formularies, accounts the priesthood more than half a heresy; she has no provision among her institutions for the Christian Brother and the Sister of Charity, though her poor are perishing for lack of the bread of heaven, and her sick dying in uninstructed heathenism, and her young carried about with every blast of doctrine, ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. And together with those self-denying orders, which bear witness to the exuberant life welling forth out of the depth of the Church of Christ, England has banished the dogma of the Real Presence, not indeed from her theory, but still from being that vital and pervading practical truth which should animate and reward the labours of every day, and turn into consolation all the sorrows of humanity.

O that the Spirit of God might breathe the life of every day's practical action into those ancient Catholic formularies which are at present a reproach to our degeneracy! O that our deep and large chancels of old time, the figure of our buried Lord's sepulchre, might once more be the Bridechamber, where the risen Saviour descending should hold daily communing with His Church!

Most intimately connected with the dogma of the Incarnation, and its symbol, the Real Presence, is that of the Intercession of all Saints, especially of the Blessed Mother of God: nay, this may be said to be the continuation and carrying out of the Real Presence, so that wherever that is truly and heartfully believed, this will be, within due bounds, cherished and practised. For the truth that our Lord has assumed our flesh, and communicates that flesh to His true believers, leads directly to the faith that they who are departed and at rest with Him, and delivered from all stain of sin, do indeed "live and reign" with Him, and have power with God. And if this be true of the least saint, who by the mercy of God has been thought worthy of the Beatific Presence, in how much higher a degree is it true of Her, to whom by the assumption of her pure flesh Christ was brought so inconceivably near? And shall not we who are engaged in so weary a conflict call upon all saints, and Her especially, to aid and befriend us? "O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever!" Yea, praise Him, and magnify Him, by praying and interceding for us, who, high as ye are, and low as we, you exalted to glory, and we buffeted by the flesh, and led into error in the spirit, are yet your brethren by virtue of the Flesh and Blood of the Incarnate God, which made you what you are, which is the earnest to us of being one day what you are. Praise and magnify the common Lord who bought us, by supplicating larger supplies of His grace on us His suffering members. And may not we ask you, who dwell in sight of the Eternal Throne, but who once, like ourselves, bore the burden and heat of the day in this earthly wilderness, may we not ask you to turn your regards on us, to intercede for us before Him, whose members you are in glory, and we in trial? Of the redeemed family one part is with God and one on earth. Is there to be no communion between them, when one part most needs the aid of the other? Is this derogating from the glory of Christ? What a strange perversion of error which can so esteem it! Surely it is a sense, a spiritual touch, as it were, of the "cloud of witnesses," which inspirits Catholic hearts to win the battle, which enables the most lonely to feel that he is not alone, that he is encompassed and aided by heavenly hosts. Accordingly the intercession of saints, especially of the Blessed Virgin Mother, is a living truth in Catholic countries: it accompanies the doctrine of the Real Presence, and works in subservience to it. Doubtless where the former is not vividly held, the latter will be repudiated, and, perhaps, counted idolatrous. It would, indeed, be wholly out of proportion with the cold creed of the Unitarian or the Sectary: it might lead those to fall down and worship at the feet of a servant who did not behold in that servant the one image of the Lord, the seal and impress of the only Begotten, which claims all glory for the Lord of glory.

And a concomitant of the true doctrine of the priesthood is that system of confession which is the nerve and sinew of religion in Catholic countries. The English prayer-book says of every individual priest, "whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained." Here is the whole Catholic doctrine stated. Now this the Roman Church not only says, but acts upon. And its strength lies, accordingly, not in anything that meets the eye, gorgeous cope, or chasuble, or procession, or majestic ceremonies symbolising awful doctrines; not in anything that meets the ear, whether chanted psalm, or litany, or sermon touching the feelings, or subduing the understanding; though all these it has, its strength lies deeper in the hidden tribunal of conscience. The good Christian is not he who attends mass or sermon, but he who keeps his conscience clean from the attacks of sin, who, overtaken in a fault, has straightway indignation upon himself, and submits himself to the discipline which Christ has appointed for restoring him. The efficacy of the pastor must entirely depend on the knowledge of his people's state, and his power to correct their sins, and to guide them in their penitence. How he can possibly have this knowledge, or power, or guide them at all without special confession, I see not: nor how he can ever exercise the power conveyed to him at his ordination, and lodged by Christ in His Church for ever. This is the true bond between the pastor and his flock: the true maintainer of discipline, and instrument of restoration. Accordingly, in Catholic countries, we see the priest truly respected, cherished, and obeyed by his flock, however much he may earn the dislike and suspicion of the worldly and unconverted: in Protestant countries we see the pastoral office a nonentity; the shepherd of his flock is virtually a preacher of sermons. He knows the plague is ravaging them, but they will not bear the touch of his hand: he must see them perish one by one, but they will not let him help them: when mortification has begun, then he is called in to witness a hopeless dissolution, or to speak peace, peace, where there is no peace.

The dogma of the Incarnation and the Real Presence has again the closest affinity with that of the Priesthood. Christ is present in His Church, for the Priest in the tribunal of penitence is as God Himself. How vain, how worse than blasphemous, would be the attempt to absolve from sin, – surely the maddest infringement of Divine Power which mortal ever imagined, – had not He, the partner of our flesh and blood, said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained;" and "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." No blasphemy can approach the Church's blasphemy, if it be not God's truth; and if it be, so deeply touching the secret springs of discipline, in what state is a branch of the Church of Christ, which utterly neglects this truth in practice, and allows it with impunity to be denied, and derided, and calumniated? Whose children from their infancy have scarcely ever heard it? Whose full-grown men turn from it in all the hardness of rebellious manhood? And if it be what it is, either a Divine Power, or a diabolic deceit, can that be at once the Gospel, which has it and which has it not?

Here then, again, we have no new thing to take up with, but simply to practise what we already solemnly profess.

Thus the perpetual recurrence to the doctrine of the Real Presence, the prominence given to the Intercession of Saints, especially of the Blessed Virgin, and the real putting forth of apostolic power in the tribunal of penitence, are striking features in the Roman Communion. By these she proves that she has living power as a portion of Christ's Church, by living upon and dealing with the most awful powers: as she holds the true doctrine, "Believe that this is so, because I say it, and I say it because it has come to me from Christ through His Apostles," so she exhibits the convincing proof of her mission: "Believe that I am the Church, for behold me exercising the supernatural powers of the Church." This is that inward proof which convinces, which is nothing technical, merely intellectual, or matter of argument, but like St. Augustine's "Securè judicat orbis terrarum," – "A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." And the Anglican portion must prove, in act as well as in theory, her identity with this of Rome, from whom she has her succession, and with that other great Oriental Communion, the joint-witness herein of Catholic truth and practice. Her prayer-book has the deepest accordance with the Catholic system. Will she in act continue to put a false interpretation on the words of her own formularies, or will she read them practically in the sense of those from whom she took them?

Among minor things, which yet we have suffered loss and harm in giving up, may be reckoned the custom of crossing with holy water on entering a church, with hearts as directed, full of reverend thoughts, and of "trust in the merits of Jesus Christ," and the custom of bowing on passing the altar. It is sad to contrast the manner in which English abroad and at home enter the House of God with the reverence shown by the right-minded in Catholic communities. A still more to be regretted omission is that of the Crucifix, which might, with much edification, appear prominently at least in one part of the church, over the rood-screen or over the altar. How often, in France or Italy, passing some retired village, or at a turn in the road, may one admire a Crucifix, large as life, sanctifying the village green, or making a shrine of some leafy recess? How often does the tedious ascent of a hill bring to mind, by its wayside memorials, the hill of scorn up which He, our only hope, slowly toiled in suffering? Is it not a tenderness to the tired wayfaring man to bring before his thoughts the very form of Him in whom all labour is made sweet? Who that has climbed the rocky stairs of the S. Gothard pass has not felt refreshed and inspirited by the Cross crowning the heights which look down on the last valley of the Italian side? As the way before him becomes narrower and steeper, frowning in arid desolation, and shut in as it seems on all sides, that Cross is to Christian thought a sign and token, that through the sternest valley and up the hardest height there is yet a way, though we see not our path before us. In faith the traveller goes on till height after height is won, and terrace after terrace surmounted, and the one road opens before him. Shall then the English labourer, doomed beyond most others to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water, be deprived of the aid of those symbols which shall tell him that this too may be made the way of salvation? Has his duller eye and less imaginative thought less need of the painting and the sculpture to inform them? Has he become more reverential since remembrances of his Saviour have been put out of his sight? Does his bearing in the House of God show a more chastened and humbled spirit of contrition since the Rood has been taken from before his eyes on which the God-Man was portrayed in suffering? What! – are those who deem it almost the whole of religion to put forward continually the sacrifice of the Cross, consistent in removing carefully out of sight the visible representation of that sacrifice? Is every memorial of our redemption to be scrupulously swept away from the face of the country? – nay, even from the interior of our churches? Out upon that detestable puritanism, devoid alike of heart and imagination, which has so successfully laboured to take away from England – once pre-eminently the isle of faith and love – every outward characteristic of a Christian land. I am, with shame, obliged to feel and confess that a pious Roman Catholic, coming to England, so far from being touched by the purity of our faith, or the warmth of our love, would probably be shocked at every step by a subtle irreverence, which has affected our whole tone of thought and mode of action in holy things. It is become the atmosphere which we breathe, by which even the instinct of the true Christian mind is so deadened, that it cannot be aware, without going out of it, how much we have lost

On the other hand, there are parts of the Roman discipline which have struck me very unfavourably. First, the employment of the Latin language in all the administration of sacraments, and in most of the public services. That in the middle ages, before modern languages had attained order, consistency, and beauty, and while they still appeared mere hewings of Latin by the barbaric sword, ecclesiastics should have been unwilling to desecrate, as it were, so solemn a service as the Mass, by rendering it into misshapen ever-changing sounds, I can well conceive. But this state of things has long passed away: nor can I imagine how a devout population can endure to have the Psalms of David chanted, and the most holy and most beautiful form of words which ever was put together, recited in a tongue they understand not. Even those who can fully enter into the stateliness and imperishable beauty of the Latin tongue must surely feel it a grievous disadvantage, that devotions, which should carry the whole heart with them, are not presented through the medium of that mother tongue, the accents of which speak to every man's heart by the force of a thousand nameless associations, as those of no other tongue can. How, indeed, in country parishes, where there is little music, interest can be kept up in the services, I do not understand. It is true the Sacrifice of the Mass does not depend on the language by enunciating which it is consummated; but was that sublime harmony of thoughts and words the most elevating intended to be inaudible? For even at a Low Mass, when I had the book before me, and the officiating priest at the distance of ten feet, the whole Canon of the Mass was inaudible. In a chanted Mass it is out of the question distinguishing any words. I should feel this more than I can express. Besides that it gives scoffers the pretext of saying that the Roman Church aims at making her services a mere spectacle, or mainly a spectacle, – an infamous calumny indeed, but which this unhappy locking up her praises and prayers in the Latin tongue tends to substantiate. Sure I am that if the Anglo-German race be ever restored to the communion of the Latin Church, as I fervently pray that mercy may be reserved for them by God, this custom as regards them must be changed. It is a matter of discipline, merely, of course; or, whatever I might be tempted to think of it, I should not so speak.