CHAPTER XV.

MORE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ROMANIZING PARTY-THE ECCLESIOLOGISTS.

THE object of the movement, then, is to bring the English church once more into subjection to Rome. The means by which this "blessed work" is to be effected is the gradual, but "thorough Romanizing" of all our habits of thinking and devotion. Sacramental confession, monasticism, the Romish doctrine of the Eucharist and the atonement, and relics, and purgatory, and holy virginity;—the propagation of these and similar errors and superstitions is the quiet occupation of themselves with present duties, recommended to Mr. Newman's friends. Everything must proceed in an orderly and settled method. Nothing is to be done hastily; no one putting himself or the party into a false position, and thus, by following Mr. Newman's very original recipe for repentance,-undoing sins in the order in which they have been committed,—it will be found that "Catholics get to Rome at last, in spite of wind and tide."

Just now, however, the Ecclesiologists seem to give Mr. Newman some trouble, and he appears to apprehend that his youthful disciples are in danger of stopping short in their Romeward progress, and resting satisfied with the symbolism of chasubles and encaustic tiles, instead of submitting to sacra

mental confession and "the pursuit of holy virginity." The passage here alluded to occurs towards the conclusion of the Life of St. Wilfrid, and, besides the exposition it gives of "present duties," its spirit and temper are so remarkable, that, although it is rather long, I think it will be desirable to transcribe it, and I hope the reader will ponder over its contents, which deserve to be seriously considered on more accounts than one.

What do men mean, when they call the thousand and one vestiges of better times, visible in England, lingering relics of catholicism? What lingers in them or about them? What truth, what helpfulness, what holiness? If they be relics, where is their virtue? Whom have they healed? What have they wrought? When will people understand how unreal all such language is? Poetry is not catholicism, though catholicism is deeply and essentially poetical; and when a thing has become beautiful in the eyes of an antiquary it has ceased to be useful: its beauty consists in its being something which men cannot work with. A broken choir in a woody dell,—if it be sweet to the eyes and not bitter in the thoughts,—if it soothes, but humbles not, what is it but a mischievous thing over which it were well to invoke a railroad, or any other devastating change. Let us be men, and not dreamers: one cannot dream in religion without profaning it. When men strive about the decorations of the altar, and the lights, and the rood-screen, and the credence, and the piscina, and the sedilia, and the postures here and the postures there, and the people are not first diligently instructed in the holy mysteries, or brought to realize the Presence and the Sacrifice, no less than the commemorative Sacrament, what is it all but puerility, raised into the wretched dignity of profaneness by the awfulness of the

subject matter? Is there not already very visible mischief in the architectural pedantry displayed here and there, and the grotesque earnestness about petty trivialities, and the stupid reverence for the formal past? Altars are the playthings of nineteenth century societies, and we are taught that the church cannot change, modify, or amplify her worship: she is, so we learn, a thing of a past century, not a life of all centuries; and there is abusive wrangling and peevish sarcasm, while men are striving to force some favourite antiquated clothing of their own over the majestic figure of true, solid, abiding catholicism. It is downright wickedness to be going thus a-mumming (a buffoonery, doubtless correct enough out of some mediæval costume book) when we should be doing plain work for our age, and our neighbours. But sentiment is easier than action, and an embroidered frontal a prettier thing than an ill-furnished house and spare table, yet, after all, it is not so striking: and a wan face gives more force. to a sacred rite, than an accurately clipped stole, or a handsomely swelling chasuble. The world was once taught by a holy man that there was nothing merely external in Christianity; the value of its forms consists in their being the truthful expressions of inwardly existing convictions; and what convictions of the English poor, who come unconfessed to the Blessed Sacrifice, does all this modern ancientness of vestment and adorning express? Children are fond of playing at funerals; it is touching to see nature's fears so working at that innocent age: whereas to see grown-up children, book in hand, playing at mass, putting ornament before truth, suffocating the inward by the outward, bewildering the poor instead of leading them, revelling in catholic sentiment instead of offering the acceptable sacrifice of hardship and austerity,— this is a fearful, indeed a sickening development of the peculiar iniquity of the times, a master-piece of Satan's craft. This is not the way to become Catholic again; it

is only a profaner kind of Protestantism than any we have seen hitherto. Austerity is the mother of beauty; only so is beauty legitimately born. A hard life-that is the impressive thing when its secrets escape here and therc, at this time and at that time, as they are sure to do, however humble and given to concealment the penitent may be. A gentle yet manly inroad into modern effeminacies, simplicity of furniture, plainness of living, largeness of alms, a mingling with the poor, something of monastic discipline in households, the self-denying observance of seasons, somewhat of seclusion, silence, and spiritual retreat:— these should come first. When they have wrought their proper miracles, then will come the beauty and the poetry of catholic ages; and that will be soon enough for them to come. It sounds poetical when we hear of the Saint's sackcloth beneath his regal or pontifical attire: do we find it hard to be fully possessed with catholic truth when we worship in a square chapel, with sash-windows and a plastered ceiling? If it be so, what manner of catholics are we? Verily not such as wore sackcloth in times of old, and went bravely through trouble confessing Christ. While the regulated fast, and the morning meditation, and the systematic examinations of conscience are irksome restraints, under which men fret and grow restive; it is dangerous, indeed, that they should be indulging in the gorgeous chancel and the dim aisle, the storied window and the chequered floor, or even the subdued and helpful excitement of the holy chant. Let us not travel too quickly on this road, though it be a very good road to be travelling, so long as it runs parallel with improved practice, or rather some little behind it, so as to be safer for self-regulated penitents, which most of us seem wilfully determined to remain. And there is yet another more excellent way of advancing the catholic cause, which the young would do well to look to who require some field for their zeal, and are turning it into the poetry of religion.

What poetry more sweet, and yet withal more awfully real -indeed, hourly realized by the sensible cuttings of the very Cross-than the pursuit of Holy Virginity? What is the building of a cathedral to the consecration of a living body? What is the sacrifice of money to the oblation of an undivided heart? What are the troubles and the pains of life to the struggles of the sealed affections, struggles which come never to the surface, plaints which have no audience, sorrows which cannot ask for sympathy, and haply joys of which it is, but a weak thing to say that they are not fathomable? What, O young men and maidens! what is more like an actual, protracted, life-long Crucifixion, than the preservation of Holy Virginity, while every action of your gentle lives sings, like our sweet Lady, a perpetual Magnificat ?—Ibid. 205—208.

There is one thought that has oppressed my mind, while considering the tone of this and similar passages, which, I fear, it is by no means easy to convey to my reader, without greater length of explanation than can be attempted here. I refer particularly to the latter part of this extract, where the author has indulged in such extravagant and scarcely intelligible language regarding virginity. And what I mean is this-that besides the plain and obvious danger to be apprehended from such fanatical language, and generally from setting young people talking, or employing their imaginations continually on such a subject-besides this danger, there is another to be dreaded, scarcely less injurious to the church. And that is, the great probability that Mr. Newman's extravagancies will bring into suspicion and discredit a class of persons which has always