give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood." 1

He proceeds to that hymn of the nations saluting the advent of Christianity. "Many peoples shall go and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge the gentiles, and rebuke many peoples." 2

CHAPTER XXII

DEFINITIONS AND NOTIONS

BENJAMIN. So you land religion and faith in law? ST. VICTOR. That will suit you, will it not? Moses began his great canticle of benediction on the people of Israel by blessing the God of Israel for having given them a law: "In His right hand a fiery law; He hath loved His people." It is the unique privilege of man to be directed, and to direct himself accordingly, to receive the law and to observe it, to enjoy the privilege of guidance and to make the return of obedience. In matters of truth and morality this guidance is already written from everlasting in the divine law of the eternal mind; and it is communicated by natural light as a law to the mirror of man's mind in time. Even things inferior to man are governed by law; but they are fixed by it. Man fixes himself according to his law. Common sense agrees here with the Psalmist in considering it a blessing of natural providence that God has not left man without the witness of a divine law presented for his acceptance: "The Lord is sweet and righteous; therefore He will give a law to sinners in the way. He will guide the mild in judgment; He will teach the meek His ways.

2

In this sense, those pagan philosophers whom I stigmatized as poachers on Christianity may be understood to endorse and appraise the sanctity and blessedness of law. Seneca says: "We are born in a kingdom; to obey God is freedom." Epictetus puts

it thus: "Dare to look up to God and say, Use me in future for what Thou wilt. I am of the same mind with Thee. I am Thine. I repine at none of Thy decrees. Lead where Thou wilt." And the philosopher probes the very quick of the question when he says of the direction, line, guidance which men follow, that it is the only thing of consequence amid the bagatelles of life; for it is the game we play, not the things we play with, that makes for happiness or misery. Says Epictetus: As children play with oyster-shells, caring little about the shells, but much about the game, so let your philosopher, the ideal Cynic, care nothing about the subject-matter which he deals with in life, but ever so much about the game, and his conduct therein. Then, he exclaims, what tyrants, what guards or swords of theirs will cause him a flutter of fear!

This sounds like the fundamental consideration of Christian asceticism, or the Spiritual Exercises on the use of creatures. And it is all a commentary on what man is made for, the necessity of reaching it, and the way of doing it, by the observance of divine and natural law. As no man is a democrat before God, he must take life on the terms on which it is offered, given and received. You know what the democratic principle is?

BENJAMIN. At least it means no autocracy.

ST. VICTOR. Some one has just said that it means much more than that. He says, the democratic principle consists in a "refusal to submit to any nonelected authority, religious or political." According to this view, since so many have not elected God to be the religious authority over them in heaven, and do not accord Him the power to institute any delegated authority on earth, it would follow that they may go their way through life without honouring or

obeying either God or His Church. As one refined conscience put it recently, on the subject of making some profession in matter of religion, that "it hurt his conscience," quoth he, so a great many fine persons' consciences would actually be hurt, if they acknowledged and gave honour to God. But don't you see the very essence of religion is the profession of inferiority and submission and obedience to His will and law? It is the first attitude which the creature takes up towards God, and it abides as the last throughout all existence—if unwillingly, so much the worse for the unwilling, irreligious or infidel subject. How did you define religion before?

BENJAMIN. We agreed that it was the virtue which has the honour of God for its object, worshipping Him with correct doctrine about Him in the mind, and with proper acts commanded by the will.

ST. VICTOR. What we heard of the primitive religions, and the residue of original worship found to be extant among them, furnishes an excellent directive guide in discerning the essentials of religion. There are all those manifestations of submission and homage to the Divine Majesty which are implied in the prayer of adoration, in that of thanksgiving, in the prayer also of petition, which goes most commonly by the simple name of prayer, and in that of satisfaction for shortcomings and sin. This last kind of prayer is identified largely with its chief act, that of sacrifice and oblation under any form of reconciliation and making peace with God. The spirit of worship inclining the will to give God His honour due, inclines it also to control everything else that is in man, directing all to the same purpose: "Whether you eat or drink or whatever else you do, do all to the

glory of God." This is the complete idea of religion. BENJAMIN. You seem to bring all knowledge and virtue under the surveillance and command of religion.

ST. VICTOR. Yes, whatever the mind knows can be directed to the worship and honour of God; notably all knowledge of the truth about Him. All the ways of acquiring that truth can be directed to His worship; especially the exercise of faith in God's word, when He speaks. The acceptance of divine revelation is the first step to all else in religion; for if you believe not God to whom shall you go? "Lord, Thou hast the words of eternal life." 2 Then, for this faith and for all its works in virtue, without which faith is dead, the same spirit of religion ordains the acceptance of divine institutions, that is, the Church and her Sacraments, and all that her authority ordains, in ordinances, rites and liturgy generally. Not only any act which we perform can be directed to God's honour as an exercise of worship, but any and all the virtues, intellectual in the mind, or moral in the will itself, can be controlled and employed the same way. This we have just noted in the matter of faith, which is an intellectual exercise of activity, in act and permanent habit. The same we see in the works of mercy, which are moral acts of the will proceeding from their respective habits or virtues-liberality, humility, charity, and the like. So St. James calls these controlled virtues by the simple name of religion, saying: "Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless in their tribulations, and to keep one's self unspotted from the world." 3

*

*

11 Cor. 10. 31.

2 John 6. 69.

3 James 1. 27.