The Catholic World Volume I Part 107

V.

But, to see the poor darling go limping for miles To read books to sick people!--and just of an age When girls learn the meaning of ribbons and smiles,-- Makes me feel like a squirrel that turns in a cage.

The more I push thinking, the more I resolve: I never get further:--and as to her face, It starts up when near on my puzzle I solve, And says, "This crush'd body seems such a sad case."

VI.

Not that she's for complaining: she reads to earn pence; And from those who can't pay, simple thanks are enough.

Does she leave lamentation for chaps without sense?

Howsoever, she's made up of wonderful stuff.

Ay, the soul in her body must be a stout cord; She sings little hymns at the close of the day, Though she has but three fingers to lift to the Lord, And only one leg to kneel down with to pray.

VII.

What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear, If there's law above all? Answer that if you can!

Irreligious I'm not; but I look on this sphere As a place where a man should just think like a man.

It isn't fair dealing! But, contrariwise, Do bullets in battle the wicked select?

Why, then it's all chance-work! And yet, in her eyes, She hold's a fixed something by which I am check'd.

VIII.

Yonder ribbon of suns.h.i.+ne aslope on the wall, If you eye it a minute, 'll have the same look: So kind! and so merciful! G.o.d of us all!

It's the very same lesson we get from thy book.

Then is life but a trial? Is that what is meant?

Some must toil, and some perish, for others below: The injustice to each spreads a common content; Ay! I've lost it again, for it can't be quite so.

IX.

She's the victim of fools: that seems nearer the mark.

On earth there are engines and numerous fools.

Why the Lord can permit them, we're still in the dark; He does, and in some sort of way they're his tools.

It's a roundabout way, with respect let me add, If Molly goes crippled that we may be taught: But, perhaps, it's the only way, though it's so bad; In that case we'll bow down our heads, as we ought.

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X.

But the worst of _me_ is, that when I bow my head, I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust, And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, instead Of humble acceptance: for, question I must!

Here's a creature made carefully--carefully made Put together with craft, and then stampt on, and why?

The answer seems nowhere: it's discord that's play'd.

The sky's a blue dis.h.!.+--an implacable sky!

XI.

Stop a moment. I seize an idea from the pit.

They tell us that discord, though discord, alone, Can be harmony when the notes properly fit: Am I judging all things from a single false tone?

Is the universe one immense organ, that rolls From devils to angels? I'm blind with the sight.

It pours such a splendor on heaps of poor souls!

Suppose I try kneeling with Molly to-night.

GEORGE MEREDITH.

Translated from Der Katholik.

THE TWO SIDES OF CATHOLICISM.

[Third and concluding Article.]

IV. THE HEART OF THE CHURCH.

Christ approves himself as the head of the Church inasmuch as her individual members are subject to his guidance, and live and move in him. [Footnote 151] This protracted influence of Christ is exercised by means of an innate harmonizing and vivifying principle of the Church. We have arrived at the heart of the Church. Our ancient theology bestows this epithet on the Holy Ghost. [Footnote 152] The Church receives the Holy Ghost through Christ. Such is the doctrine of Scripture, clearly expressed. Jesus promises his disciples to send them after his departure the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, in whom they will find a compensation for the Master. For it is the function of the Spirit to testify of Christ, and to bring all things to the remembrance of the Church, whatsoever Jesus has said. Thus are all things taught unto the Church. This efficacy, which has the glory of Christ for its aim, the Holy Ghost derives from the fulness of Christ's G.o.dhead, _de meo accipiet._ The Holy Ghost was not given until after Jesus was glorified. Christ being exalted, and having received the Holy Ghost promised of the Father, sheds forth the Spirit upon the Church. Even the prior inspiration of the apostles was the result of an act of Christ. Jesus breathed on them and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.

[Footnote 151: St. Thomas, iii. 93, a. 6.]

[Footnote 152: _Ibid, a. 1, ad. S: Caput habet manifestam eminentiam respectu caeterorum exteriorum membrorum; sed cor habet quandam influentiam occultam. Et ideo cordi comparatur Spiritus sanctus, qui invisibiliter ecclesiam viviflcat et unit._]

The Spirit acts as the heart of the Church under the control and influence of the head. The fundamental theological reason of this is not difficult of demonstration. The external relations {742} of the several divine persons, or their relations to the works of G.o.d, such as the one just described of the Holy Ghost to the Church, are intimately connected with the intro-divine relations of the members of the most Holy Trinity to each other. It is in this sense that Holy Writ makes mention of a _mission_ of the Son and of the Spirit. The expression implies that the person concerning whom it is used, occupies toward the remaining divine persons a position admitting of the giving of a mission by them or one of them, that is to say, of a particular work done by the one by the power and at the delegation of the other. For one person of the Trinity to act in a mission, therefore, it is requisite that the power and the will to act must emanate from the person conferring the mission. Thus Jesus says that his doctrine is not his own, but the doctrine of him by whom he was sent. But one person of the Trinity can be a recipient from another in so far only as the recipient issues from the giver for ever and ever, or only in respect of the eternal procession. It follows that a divine person can receive a mission only in emanating from another, that is to say, none but the _personae productae_, the Son and the Holy Ghost, can be sent; while, on the other hand, only the _personae producentes_, the Father and the Son, can confer a mission. Hence the fundamental reason why the sway of the Spirit in the Church is exercised under the influence of Christ, is to be found in the manner of the eternal procession, _i.e._, in the coming of the Spirit from the Father and the Son.

The essence of Christianity consists in spiritual intercourse and spiritual influence. As distinguished from the old covenant, the characteristic of the New Testament dispensation consists in this: that it is done by the agency of the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven. The Spirit of Christ was in the prophets; but the same Spirit manifests a new activity since the mission from heaven. When the apostle desires to make the true foundation of faith clear to the Galatians, he contents himself with asking them whence they had received the Spirit? By its descent the blessing of Abraham came on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, in fulfilment of the prophecies.

The pouring out of the Holy Ghost is the crowning work of Christ's mediation.

But what is the badge of this more profuse dispensation of the Spirit, thus recognized in Scripture as the peculiar mark of Christianity?

Under the ancient covenant, answers St. Gregory of n.a.z.iance, the Holy Ghost was present only by its efficacy ([Greek text]); now it abides among us [Greek text] _i.e._, in its essence, or _substantialiter_, as our theologians phrase it. The efficacy of the Spirit in the prophets is described by St. Cyril of Alexandria as a mere irradiation [[Greek text]]; they received only the effulgence of the light, as those who follow a torch-bearer [[Greek text]]; while the Spirit in proper person enters into the souls of those who believe in Christ, and dwells therein [Greek text]. It is only since the ascension of Christ that the inhabitation of the Spirit in the souls of men has reached its completion as [Greek text]. This is the reason a.s.signed by St.

Cyril for the declaration of the Lord that he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist, than whom there hath not risen a greater among them that are born of women. He interprets the kingdom of heaven here referred to to be the impartment [Greek text] of the Holy Ghost. From this interpretation he deduces the reason wherefore the humblest citizen of the kingdom of heaven is above the Baptist. For the latter is born of woman, the former of G.o.d.

In consequence of this regeneration we are partakers of the divine nature, which St. Cyril interprets to mean neither more nor less than the dwelling of the Holy Ghost in our souls. [Footnote 153 ]

[Footnote 153: _Comment, in Joann. Evangel._, lib. 5. _Oper Lutet_, 1638, A. IV., p. 474 et seq. ]

As the head of the Church, the Son {743} of man, being lifted up from the earth, draws all men unto him. The Scripture concludes the narration of the miraculous events of the first Christian Pa.s.sover and of their immediate results with the remark that the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved. Therefore, immediately after the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, began the daily increase of the Church through the fructifying influence of the grace of its head. They were multiplied in proportion as they walked in the comfort, the [Greek text], of the Holy Ghost. By one Spirit the Church of Christ is baptized into one body, which Spirit overflows it and saturates it with its essence. In him we were sealed as the possession of Christ, and we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us. On being received into the Church the members are built into an edifice, the foundation of which has its cornerstone in Christ. By this incorporation they are united into a mansion of G.o.d in the Spirit. In so far as we are joined unto the Lord we are one spirit with him, and our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost.

On account of its intimate relations with Christ, the Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ. Even the Lord himself is directly called the Spirit. By him, the Spirit of the Lord, we are transformed into his image, the image the Lord. Thereby the Spirit evinces itself the principle of our liberty.

The main result of the action of the Spirit in the Church is, therefore, the union of the latter and of her individual members with Christ, the Christ who is within us. The union between Christ and the Church is effected by the Spirit, who acts as the connecting link, while Christ himself is the efficient cause of the union, in so far as he sends his Spirit to accomplish it. How, then, is the inhabitation of the Spirit, which is identical with that of Christ, in the Church brought about? The answer to this question involves results decisive of the present investigation.

If the Church were an unattained ideal, according to the Protestant acceptation, the promise of Christ to be with his followers even unto the end of the world would admit of no more profound interpretation than that, after his personal departure, the Lord would continue to occupy the minds of his disciples, thus giving their thoughts a right direction through all time. The presence of Christ in the visible Church would no longer be vouchsafed by a _substantial_ pledge, making the repletion of the Church with Christ, which is the ideal of that inst.i.tution, a historical reality even at the present day, in so far as the pledge is actually present. If, on the other hand, the latter view is the only scriptural one, then the true Church is not to be handed over exclusively to the future and to the realm of ideas. She is herself within the sphere of reality, she belongs to the living present, if the inmost principle of her being is even now actually at work, as a gift coeval with her establishment, not the mere object of search and speculation.

The idea of Catholicism presupposes one thing more. Such a principle dwelling in the Church as a reality must necessarily exercise its functions in a single individual image only. Both of these positions are the necessary results of the teachings of Holy Writ.

The Scriptures describe the Holy Ghost, by whom the love of G.o.d is shed abroad in our hearts, as something conferred upon us, _per spiritum sanctum qui datus est n.o.bis_. In the capacity of abiding in our souls as something bestowed upon us, as _donum_, the fathers distinguish a personal attribute of the Holy Ghost, having its foundation in the peculiar manner of its eternal emanation from the Father and Son. This emanation is wrought as a common infusion of being from Father and Son, as an intro-divine overflowing of love.

[Footnote 154] Together {744} with the Holy Ghost that is given unto us, that is to say, by means of the love shed abroad in our hearts through him, the two other persons of the Trinity likewise come and take up their abode within our souls. The unity of the three divine persons is not only the antetype of the unity of the Church, but is at the same time its fundamental principle. In his high sacerdotal invocation the Lord prays that all those who believe through the word may be one, even as the Father is in him and he in the Father; and that we may be one in the Father and the Son, _ut et ipsi eis nolis unum sint_. The unity of the Father and the Son, who take up their abode within us simultaneously with the Holy Ghost, is the foundation of our own ecclesiastical unity. There is the fundamental, the ultimate principle of Catholicism. In it, through the Holy Ghost, we have a fellows.h.i.+p with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

[Footnote 154: _St. Augustinus, de Trinit._, lib. v., cap. 14: _Exiit enim non quomodo natus, sed quomodo datus; et ideo non dicitur filius._ Cap. 15: _Quia sic procedebat ut esset donabile, jam donum erat et antequam esset cui daretur_. Cap. 11: _Spiritus sanctus ineffabilis est quaedam Patris Filiique communio... . hoc ipse proprie dicitur, quod illi communiter: quia et Pater spiritus et Filius spiritus et Pater sanctus et Filius sanctus. Ut ergo ex nomine, quod utrique convenit, utriusque communio significetur, vocatur donum amborum Spiritus sanctus._]

The other functions ascribed to the Spirit by Holy Writ are also of such a nature as to constrain us to a.s.sume that the essence of the true Church is a reality even at this day. By the Holy Ghost we receive even now an earnest of the inheritance in store for us. Its testimony a.s.sures us that we are the children of G.o.d. We have become such even now, and through him. We are born of the Spirit. The renewal accomplished by him is a bath of regeneration, the putting on of a new man. In the hearts of believers he is a well of water springing up into everlasting life. In this sense our justification may be regarded as a glorification in the germ. Christ has anointed the Church with a chrism which abides and exerts itself in her as a permanent teacher.

It is an entire misapprehension of the creative power of Christianity to ascribe to the Spirit of Christ which governs the Church no more profitable efficacy than the barren, resultless chase of an ideal which constantly eludes realization. The very idea that a law of steady development is to be traced in Christianity itself, this very favorite view of all the advocates of an ideal Church, ought to have led to a more profound appreciation of the essence and history of the Church. If the Church is to undergo a development, the realization of her ideal should not be postponed to the end of time. What is its course in history? This point is decisive of our position respecting the ideal Church.