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

Again the reservation of the cup to the sacrificing priest, an admitted innovation and exercise of authority, is one for which I can see no adequate reason. And though the doctrine of concomitancy seems involved in that of the Real Presence, and I, for one, should recoil with horror from the thought that almost every one in the Latin Communion has been for ages deprived of the participation of the chief Sacrament, and though one may allow that this custom was very prevalent before it was enacted, and arose out of reverence, and renders the administration of the Sacrament much easier, still I cannot reconcile myself to the necessity of it. Granting that power exists in the Church to order it in case of necessity, wherein lies that necessity? In case of a reconciliation this point must surely be granted, as it was granted to the grand Duke of Bavaria, though he was induced not to avail himself of the grant.

Preachers in the Roman Church use no book: it seems the people would not tolerate a written discourse. The result is, that sermons are much more rhetorical, and rather appeal to the affections and feelings than to the understanding. The French mind certainly would not endure the sort of cut and dried essay which is often given in England; yet an appreciation of logical order and sound reasoning is the very characteristic of the French mind. More southern nations would still less enter into the style of preaching in vogue with ourselves. I think it is a grave question whether the faculty of expressing one's thoughts in public without book should not be made a part of every priest's education. The ancient Fathers all did so. Is not our own the only portion of the Church where a contrary practice prevails? And dangerous as it would be for the generality of Anglican priests to attempt to speak on grave points of doctrine without their book before them, yet surely by a special education the power may be acquired to combine accuracy of thought with readiness of expression. Orthodoxy has no natural connexion with a written sermon. At least the power of illustrating any given subject without book is a precious means of influence. And what is the priest without influence?

No more interesting spectacle is there in the world, to my eyes, than the aspect and attitude of the French Church. Fifty years after such an overthrow as no other Church ever survived, behold forty thousand priests at work, under eighty bishops, in the great task of winning back their country to the faith. Despoiled of all territorial power, of all political authority as priests, of the possession even in fee of a single church, parsonage, or palace; reduced to a state of even apostolical poverty, and receiving a miserable salary paid as to merchants' clerks by the government; with a temporal power jealous of all spiritual influence, and the whole mind of the nation infected with infidelity – year after year they are winning ground, they are making themselves felt; they present a front before which even the tyranny of centralisation pauses in its career, counts ever and anon the cost of the conflict, and recoils from its aggression. In the very midst of the corruptions of Paris we are told that fifty thousand converts, the pure gold of the Church, exist as a centre which is ever drawing more around them. Infidelity itself talks of the religious movement, and fears it, and would fain expel its most tried and valorous champions – two hundred destitute men, who begin their profession by the renunciation of their goods. How is all this done? What power is this which makes its way against such tremendous odds? If any fact was ever patent in history, it is this – let us not be ashamed to own it – it is the power of the Cross. The bishop, residing in a palace which he has not the funds even to keep in repair, with a smaller income than a little tradesman or a country attorney, has no other channel for his cares and affections than those five hundred priests, who, with the pay of day-labourers, yet charged with the intimate knowledge and perilous guidance of souls, look up to him as their head and support, their defender and champion. And in every village there is one at least, linked to earth but by a spiritual tie, a member of a great hierarchy, through whom the Redeemer rules visibly on the earth. He is cut off from almost all participation of temporal things, but the larger is his portion of things spiritual: he reflects, in his degree, the true Melchizedek. Removed from us but by a narrow strait we see bishops at 400l. a year, archbishops at 600l., bound to celibacy, truly ruling their clergy, serrying their ranks against the enemy, and fearing nothing, were it but that they have nothing to lose; standing, where the bishop ought to stand, in the first ranks against the attacks of infidelity.

There, again, the priest detached from all human ties, representing in his life already that state where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, in his spiritual character greater than all other men, in his temporal condition lower than most.

Consider now the duties and habits of our own Church, in its present practical working, by the side of this of France. In the one, every bishop and priest offers daily the tremendous Sacrifice. Daily he has to appear in that most awful presence, where nothing unclean can stand: daily he is armed against those spiritual conflicts, for himself and others, which he has to undergo, receiving "the holy Bread of eternal life and the Cup of everlasting salvation." In the other, the priest at rare intervals, in the vast majority of instances only once a month, approaches the Source of life and health. But what is the inward condition under which each approaches it? The one is under complete spiritual guidance, taught, as a first element of spiritual life, that constant and rigorous self-examination must be practised, and for every sin willingly committed after baptism penance be undergone and confession made: the other, left to himself in that work most perilous to human frailty, the conduct of one's own spiritual state; nor, again, that thus left to himself, he can work by a chart in which the hidden shoals are pointed out, and his progress noted. All, on the contrary, in this inward life, so unspeakably important, is left a blank. How can he guide others who has never been taught to guide himself, or submit himself to another's guidance? For as to the duties of the priest, in these two Churches – in the one, the very main duty, which is far more important than all others, is the secret guiding of consciences, laden with guilt and in various degrees of purification: all public ministrations are immensely inferior in importance to this. Whereas in the other Church, it is these public ministrations which alone exist in any degree of efficiency. Not one Anglican priest in a hundred has ever been called to receive a confession, or unfold the terms of reconciliation to a guilty soul. Indeed so much is this the case, that the notion of the priest in most parishes is extinct: it is the minister and the preacher who have taken his place. Again, in the one Church a compact body of doctrine and a line of preaching are set forth in the catechismus ad parochos: in the other, it frequently happens that two adjoining priests are at issue on the very first principles of Christian doctrine; whether, for instance, there be or be not a Christian priesthood; whether there be or be not grace in the sacraments. Again, in the one Church, for the more devoted spirits religious orders and councils of perfection exist, and celibacy is the condition of all superior spiritual vocations; in the other it is yet in practice doubtful, whether councils of perfection are not inventions of the Evil One, and whether the putting forth of celibacy as meritorious be not an infringement of the one Sacrifice offered on the Cross.

Perhaps this contrast might be carried farther, but it is an unpleasant task to show how Anglicanism (meaning by that expression not the real system of the prayer-book, but that which has practically forced its way to a great extent into the pale of the English Church,) is gold largely mingled with earthly alloy. A divine work is at present interfered with by commixture of an heretical element, leaving us only a fervent hope and prayer, that by the long suffering mercy of God a seed may still remain, which in due time by most unambiguous works of love shall prove its identity with the ancient Church of the Island of Saints, and become one fold under one Shepherd.

"Christ only, of God's messengers to man,Finished the work of grace which He began.List, Christian warrior, thou whose soul is fainTo rid thy mother of her present chain; —Christ will unloose His Church; yea, even nowBegins the work, and thouShalt spend in it thy strength, but, ere He save,Thy lot shall be the grave."

The work of educating the French clergy is largely in the hands of the Congregation of S. Sulpice, a celibate body of course, and whose members are not paid, but merely clothed and boarded. They necessarily teach one uniform dogma, that is, within that sufficiently wide range of doctrine on which the Church has set her immutable seal. More than this, they impress one uniform sacerdotal mould and type, and exercise one discipline on all committed to them. It results, of course, that all who go forth from them, passing through their various public and private scrutinies, are trained and practised combatants to the extent to which their teaching goes. More yet than this; a severe ascetic and self-denying character is from the beginning attached to the sacerdotal life; they take the Apostle literally, "no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life;" parents who consent to their children entering into the priesthood think and speak of it as "a sacrifice;" those who look forward to it have it so set before them, and can count the cost before they take the first step. Few situations to which they can afterwards be called require the exercise of greater self-denial than has been expected from them from the first. Does not this point out to us the quarter from which a reform among ourselves must proceed? Surely before the laity can become sound churchmen, the priesthood must be uniformly taught; "the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth." But High Church and Low Church, not to mention the interminable shapes of distinction in individual minds between and beyond them, are utterly incompatible with each other. After the dogma of the Trinity they part company. Until then the Anglican Church teaches her priests an uniform dogma, and moulds them in a severe and uniform discipline, she cannot hope for any other fate, than that her bosom should be rent with interminable heresies and divisions. The existence of the Séminaires, and the order of S. Sulpice, is a reform in the Roman Church. Are we never to reform? Not by introducing novelties, but by recurring to ancient practices. The continual encroachment of the world upon the Church rendered it necessary to promote Seminaries as places of spiritual retreat for candidates for Holy Orders; and when, as a consequence of the Revolution, the course of study in the university became quite secularised, it became also necessary to detach the candidates altogether from that course, and to provide all that was requisite for instruction as well as for inward discipline within the walls of the Séminaire. This, as to instruction, is not completely done yet. But it is in course of doing. Now does not that necessity which sprung up in the French Church exist just as much among ourselves? Are our Universities at present a fit school for preparing men for a life of the utmost patience, self-denial, and humiliation? Is the sacerdotal type impressed there at all? Is anything like an uniform dogma known? Is it not precisely there that moral control is relaxed, and habits of indulgence are commonly introduced? Is there any attempt made to form the inward life, and discern a man's vocation? Oh, is it not the severest censure of our Universities even to mention such things? And without any special training, without any knowledge of his inward state, the young man who has been accustomed to unrestricted company, to studies almost exclusively classical or mathematical, to every kind of worldly amusement and sport, or to travel at the time of life most perilous to innocence, is taken and made a priest of, and sent to the "Cure of Souls," in a parish. Can any state of deeper practical corruption than this be well imagined? Or any system more thoroughly opposed to that pursued in the Church, which is proverbially mentioned among us as "corrupt?"

Surely the establishment of a system of "Séminaires" among ourselves, a course of close and effective moral discipline for the candidates for orders, and the inculcation of one uniform dogma, must precede any real change for the better among us. God grant that such a change may come!

Another evil has arisen from this absence of a fixed type in the clergy, and of a dogmatic standard in our Church. Both in France and England the State has seized upon that most precious prerogative of the Church – the nomination of her chief pastors: both in France and England the State has ceased to be either Catholic or Christian. Perilous then at the best it is, that a power not necessarily religious should take to itself the choice of those who are to fill the Apostolic Chairs. But this peril is so far lessened in France that the State must at least appoint one who has had a priest's education, has been moulded by the great Christian mother into the character first of her child and then of her minister, and, whatever his other qualifications be, will acknowledge her in her true unearthly character of the spouse of Christ, and defend her privileges before all things. This is the Church's guarantee in France, – not a sufficient one – but something. And, moreover, lest this character should by possibility be wanting in any nominee, power is reserved to the Apostolic See to refuse institution to such a one. But in England, – in this miserable diversity of belief in the bosom of the Church herself, this utter absence of dogmatic teaching, – the State may select at its pleasure the Erastian, the Latitudinarian, the Sabellian, the Low Churchman – the man, in short, that it wants for its own evil designs against the Church, and place him in a position where he commands the obedience of the Church's children. A fatal power, of which we are suffering the results.

On one more point there is a striking contrast. In the French Church there are special communities, as we have seen, (les Pères Lazaristes, les Missions Etrangères, &c.) for instructing those who are willing to give themselves to missionary work. In their institutions the bent of the mind, the special aptitude for so pre-eminently difficult a work, the vocation, in short, of these candidates is carefully attended to: those who have been themselves engaged in missionary work, and have the advantage of experience, direct their studies and discipline: none but those who are most single-minded and unreserved in their devotion are allowed to undertake the work of an apostle. On our part, what sort of labourers, – how grounded, disciplined, and tried, – have we been sending forth to be the Church's forlorn hope in her assaults on the strongholds of heathenism? Men who found difficulty in being employed in England from defective education or other causes: men who looked to get their 300l. a-year, and marry upon their missionaryship: or again, Lutherans from Basle, smuggled into the garb of English churchmen through the Church Missionary Society: nay, till very lately, a number of our missionaries have had no orders!!

At "Les Missions Etrangères," to inspirit the zeal of the students, they have brought back to them the bones and relics of those who have suffered for Christ in foreign lands. There have been such in China, within the last few years, men who, if now living, would only be entering on the middle period of life. And not long ago there were two missionaries in that country who were condemned to death. One was executed; the other was saved by the accidental coming of a French frigate off the coast the very morning of his execution. He returned to France, and when he came to "Les Missions Etrangères" he was shown, among other relics, the bones of his companion, with whom he had so nearly suffered. His fortitude forsook him at the sight; he could hardly support himself, and cried, "Ah! why did that unhappy frigate appear? But for that my bones would now be here, and my soul had been in heaven."

And now, as we leave the French Church, let us glance a moment at that whole community of which it is but one, though an important member. My whole design in the foregoing pages has been to bring before sincere and candid minds facts which otherwise might not be presented to their notice. Facts have an objective existence; if we shut our eyes to them they do not cease to be. The sun shines, though we are blind to its rays. Wisdom utters her voice in the streets, though none listen to her. Now incomparably the most important facts in the Roman Church are those which concern not merely a member of it, but the whole Communion: e. g. its extent, its doctrine, its internal discipline, its vital principle, and its generative and expansive power. If under these heads we consider the Roman Church, taking it merely as a fact, like the British monarchy, is it too much to say, that no work of art, no discovery of genius, no scheme of philosophy, physical or metaphysical, earthly or heavenly, no history of human deeds in doing or in suffering, no political constitution, no scientific confederacy, no association of monarchs or of peoples, no past or present civilisation, nothing about which men have wearied themselves in research and discussion, is so worthy of patient thought and humble consideration as is that Communion. The following are a few reasons for the above observation: – 1. The Roman Catholic hierarchy depends on the Pope as its centre of unity, and as the divinely-appointed Head of the Church on earth. From him all its bishops receive canonical institution, that is, the grant of spiritual jurisdiction. Accordingly, they sign themselves Bishops "by the mercy of God, and the grace of the Holy Apostolic See." What, then, is their number, and into how many countries do they extend? The following is as near an approximation to the truth as I can make.

Here, then, is one spiritual empire, stretching over all the continents of the earth, entering into so many various nations utterly different in manners, language, origin and temper. This empire, though outnumbered in some few of these nations by other Christian Communions, yet has no one other set over against it, equally wide-spread, united, and claiming like it universality. And its functions, though necessarily exercised in this world, sometimes in friendship with, sometimes in opposition to, the civil power, have to do exclusively with man's relations to the unseen world. So that it is strictly in this aspect a "kingdom of heaven" on earth, whose several members hold together by their common union with one chief.

2. But further, this hierarchy, thus numerous, thus widely spread, and thus united, are in possession of a vast body of doctrine, which they maintain to have descended to them from our Lord through His Apostles. This body of doctrine is uniform, coherent, systematic, forming a whole which comprehends all the relations of man to God from the formation of the first man to the general judgment of the world. These bishops, and the priests under them, are not in the habit of disputing what this body of doctrine is: for, as to all that concerns the Christian life, it has long ago been clearly defined and established. In the long course of eighteen hundred years disputes about it have indeed arisen: they have then been terminated by common consent: individuals who took a different view about them from the whole body have been obliged to leave it, and the truth has only come out the more sharply defined from these contests. Moreover, as this doctrine claims to be revealed, and as all revelation must be partial, as a light shining amid darkness, penetrating it indeed on all sides, but leaving indefinite spaces beyond unillumined, there are a multitude of questions more or less touching on this doctrine, yet not comprehended in it, or decided by it. Only enough is, by the consent of all members of this hierarchy, decided, so as to leave the Christian in no doubt as to any point concerning his salvation, or as to any practical means of obtaining it. There is no split in this doctrine, dividing its professors into separate camps: no internal opposition of principles reproduced in external divisions. It is one logical whole. If fresh doubts as to any point not yet decided be raised by the ever-active intellect of man, then the hierarchy, either collectively or by tacit adherence to the voice of its chief, declares and decides the point mooted. This body of doctrine, thus possessed and taught by this hierarchy, is termed the Faith, and it is necessary for every simple member of the Communion to hold and believe it. It is clear that no such body of doctrine could exist without a power coexisting at all times to declare what does or does not belong to it: for were it simply written in a book, interminable disputes would arise as to the meaning of the book. Just as the English law, the work of ages, exists in a great number of volumes, but requires no less for its practical daily working the decision of a supreme judicial authority. The sovereign declares in his courts of justice what is the law: the Church declares in her court what is the Faith. This in civil matters, is government; in spiritual, it is infallibility: without it, in the state there would be no one authority, in the Church no one Belief: this would be dissolved in anarchy, and that distracted by heresy.

3. But thirdly, this great spiritual empire, with an hierarchy thus widely extended yet thus closely united, and a code of belief at once so large and so definite, erects its tribunal for the heart and conscience of every one belonging to it. In virtue of certain words spoken by its divine Founder to His Apostles, it intervenes as a living power between man and his God, exercises the most special authority of its Head, and retains or remits sins in His name. It does not recoil before the pride, the self-will, the independence of human nature, but grasps it in its inmost recesses, and compels it to hear on earth the voice of the Judge of quick and dead. The authority it claims is so vast, so fearful, so incalculably important to those who live under it, so beyond the natural powers of man to exercise, that it is manifestly either divine or diabolical. For hundreds of years it has formed the subject of numberless reproaches directed against this empire by those who belong not to it: yet it subsists still: there is no sign of its being surrendered or modified. It subsists under all forms of civil government, absolute or constitutional monarchies, or wild democracies, whose very symbol is the entire independence of the human will. And what is remarkable, the most devoted and saintly men who have lived under this spiritual empire, and whose lives were a continued sacrifice of their own leisure, toil, sufferings, and will to God, have been most zealous to uphold, and most skilful to exercise, this tribunal over the consciences of men. It has been now for many generations the chosen taunt of the unbeliever, and the constant practice of the saint.

4. But further, this empire dares to offer up the dearest affections of the natural man to the more uninterrupted service of God. It requires of all those whom it employs in the office of teaching a surrender of the liberty to engage in those ties which the Gospel itself seeks, not to proscribe, but to sanctify. Thus the Communion, which honours marriage as a sacrament, requires of all members of its hierarchy, down to the subdeacon inclusively, to abstain from it. It regards them as the militia of the Church; and "no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life." Multitudes there are besides, both of men and women, who accept not only this condition, but voluntarily embrace the vows of poverty and obedience in addition. To all these this spiritual empire promises one only compensation, great indeed, but received by faith alone; that, in proportion as they surrender all delight arising from the creature, and bring their will into subjection to another, the larger shall be their inheritance in the Creator; the more absolute the union of their will with His. And on this super-human life, founded in self-renunciation, and supported by Divine love, all great works in the Roman Communion depend. Not only is it the condition of the whole hierarchy, of all who have the Church's commission publicly to teach her belief, but the task of education, from the highest to the lowest classes, and the manifold labours of charity for the sick and poor, are all committed to those who give this proof of the sincerity of their vocation.