BENJAMIN. Studied ignorance should not be charged, I presume, on our enlightened days. ST. VICTOR. Of course not! any more than the ignorance which never defines what it is talking about, and never explains its terms. You should have added this as a fourth way of passing off disputable propositions, that of never saying and not knowing what precisely they mean. And so you come to what is called now the "symbolism" of Sacred Scripture; that everything is symbolic there; it conveys, they say, "an ancient and symbolic" story; it is "mythical," "romantic"; the Christianity prevalent so far is "historic" in the sense of being founded on this "story," ancient and symbolic. Meanwhile, says Modernism, if religion is alive, everything must go shifting in it; and the Infinite, it affirms, is positively honoured when you affirm contradictories about it; and your science about things is live and energetic when it is contradicting itself right and left. In fact, it has been said repeatedly, that it is a true mark of genius to be inconsistent and self-contradictory, warring with oneself. The Wise man speaks of "the great war of ignorance, " which has of course its privileges and immunities. For there is nothing you cannot be or cannot do if you are ignorant enough. You can break all the commandments of nature, God, and man. Hence Socrates considered that all sin and crime was only an ignorance. You see where the charm lies of developing it into a cult, and getting rid of a Personal God. Only that then it has ceased to be ignorance. And, not only the Agnosticism which ignores a Personal God, but the "romanticism" and "mysticism," which elaborately set up sentiment and emo 1 Wisd. 14. 22. tion as the whole of religion, are a fine art developed for throwing dust in the eyes of all and sundry. It is not to be denied that there are more kinds than one of mysticism. There is that of the dazzling light in which the Divinity lives, and in which our intelligence is dazed and blinded as in a dark night. There is the mysticism of sin and hell, where the "eye is stopped up," like Balaam's,' but not by the light of God. However, the religion which belongs to practical life, as a doctrine and a virtue, cannot be called "mysticism," except for a purpose which is not disguised, that of enveloping Christianity in a cloud of verbiage which comprises also paganism, Mahomedanism, Buddhism, fetichism. For, in all these, the fashion is to talk of "mystics." The terms, 'mysticism," 'sentimentalism,' 'emotionalism," serve as a common denominator for all these exhibitions of religious feeling. And Christianity, being wrapped up with them, disappears as a mere item to be discarded with the rest of the bundle. 1 Numb. 24. 3. CHAPTER XVI SENTIMENT BENJAMIN. You said religion was a science and an art; that is, a doctrine and a virtue, a way of thinking and a way of living. But doctrine is dry. Art is equally so. What has become of sentiment, which you seem to run down? Where is the feeling which we associate with religion? Where the devotion? ST. VICTOR. The driest virtue, which conveys no suggestion of a sentiment, can still be devout, and perfectly so. For substantially devotion consists in attaching the mind and heart to God.1 Substantive virtue consists precisely in cleaving to God, and doing so in all weathers, however high may be the cost of doing without the comfort of accidentals. These can always be added as supplements, in the same way as Caleb answered the complaint of his daughter, who said on her marriage day that he had given her only a southern and dry land; whereupon he gave her the upper and the nether watery ground.' Spiritual writers have seen in this incident a picture of sentiment and its well-springs being added to solid devotion. Indeed, the degree of a soul's attachment to God may be intense, and yet be without any consciousness of feeling. It does not depend upon any flowering of sentiment, nor on the south wind which blows perfumes through the garden of the soul, and makes the aromatical spices flow. These sentimental or emotional phases depend 2 Josue 15. 19. 1 Ps. 72. 28. upon contingent factors of times and seasons, as most religious persons experience at the recurrence of great festivals. They depend upon personal elements, as of a lively susceptibility. The fine toning of the soul may be so responsive, that, as I think St. Teresa said of her own expansive sentiment, any one could purchase her affections with a fig. This shows how there are limiting factors, such as a cold and reasoning temperament, or the pinched-up condition of a critical mind, or the timorous shrinking of a scrupulous heart. Then there are always those wasting factors of imperfect or bad habits, which use up and abuse the beautiful sentimentality of the human heart, or at least neutralize it, making it dull to the inspirations of high truth, sodden to the impressions of lofty virtue, and responsive only to the commonest calls of sense and practical life. * * BENJAMIN. Well, we covet fruits, and don't want all roots. ST. VICTOR. Possibly some people want fruits whether there are roots or not-like the cut flowers which will be dead to-morrow morning. BENJAMIN. We ought to be human, and not philosophers, to freeze and be frozen, becoming not merely inhuman but possibly inhumane. Even faith, which you perch so high, glistering so cold, has a sentiment in it. We never believe unless there is a wish to believe. There is sentiment at the very root of faith divine. ST. VICTOR. I do not see why a wish should be called a sentiment, or need be accompanied by a sentiment, at least of the pleasurable kind. A woman may wish many things for her son or husband in the matter of education or promotion, and yet her heart-strings may be twitched at the prospect of having in consequence to do without his presence at home. If a person wishes to do his duty, to know the true faith, and knowing it to accept it, and meanwhile foresees that in accepting the Word of God he has to forfeit his prestige in the world, resign his position, his income, maintenance for himself, for his wife and family, and, notwithstanding all this, he still persists in following the dominant attraction of divine grace, which has filled heaven with martyrs from the arena of tears and blood, I doubt whether there is much glow of sentiment in the contemplation of all that! "I have only eleven objections more," said one who was on the verge of entering the Church-"I mean my wife and ten children!" BENJAMIN. HOW sad! Yet God who gives the mouths gives the bread. ST. VICTOR. Yes, but along with the judgment and sentence which such lofty devotion passes on the world, there can scarcely be much overflow of sentiment to make the sacrifice pleasant—the sacrifice of going forth and becoming an exile and a stranger, leaving the cozy corner of friends and acquaintance, and passing out into God's wide, wide world! You may have noticed how the cool resignation and cold determination of Christians in resigning all they had, and life itself, has been quite an element in the history of persecution; it has been a constant irritant to persecutors and robbers. Idolaters and infidels have winced before their victim: "He hath become the censurer of our thoughts," said they; "Let us examine him by outrages and tortures." During 300 years at the beginning, almost all over the world at one time or 1 Wisd. 2. 14, 19. |