island of saints and scholars." Departing from Erin with a company of monks Columbanus traversed France and part of Germany, founding monasteries as memorials of his labors at Luxeuil and other places, until he settled in Bobbio, the last and most famous of his religious houses. For his monks Columbanus wrote a Rule which was widely adopted in the monasteries of the West, becoming, indeed, so extensively followed, that for a time it was an open question whether Benedict or Columbanus would be recognized as the chief monastic legislator of Europe. But Columbanus' Rule was too austere to predominate over the gentler and wiser code of the great patriarch of Monte Cassino. It might have been tolerable to the fierce Irish temperament of those heroic days, but, in the nature of things, it was not capable of providing a permanent basis for the cenobitical life, which, like every other life, must make some concessions to human limitations. Columbanus made none; and neither old age nor sickness was a reason for exempting any of his monks from the rigid prescriptions of his Rule, or from the lashes on the bare back that were the penalty of infringing them. But of more practical importance for us is the private character of Columbanus. Herein it is that he is needed as a model for us. He was brave; and along with his eminent sanctity he possessed a fearlessness in expressing his opinions, whether to kings or popes, for which the world would be better if it prevailed to-day. Pusillanimity in presence of the great, and silence in presence of abuses-how many disasters in Church and State have they not caused! How many are they still destined to cause! May the magnificent figure of this old Irish monk do something to inspire in us an apostolic intrepidity when conscience says that we ought to act and to speak! May his sublime words, "si tollis libertatem, tollis dignitatem,” "if you destroy a man's liberty, you destroy his dignity," ring loud in modern ears and summon modern men to higher paths! Read this man's life and learn the lesson of it, is our counsel. We need it, and it will do us good. As for the Abbé Martin's execution of his task, it is very creditably done indeed. He gives us an excellent picture of the times, and is evidently in love with the great character of whom he writes. Perhaps we could wish for somewhat wider information as to the historic importance of Columbanus' Rule, and of his great foundation, Bobbio; but, considering that this volume is restricted to less than two hundred pages, we must admit that it contains about as much, both as to matter and spirit, as we could reasonably expect. THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK By Abbe Hemmer. We venture to say that the Catholics of France, clerical and lay, will receive no advice better worth following, in their present and approaching trials, than is contained in M. l'Abbé Hemmer's recent brochure.* M. Hemmer looks the breaking of the Concordat straight in the face as an inevitable event, and turns his attention to the consequent difficulties which the Church in France must meet, and in what spirit it ought to meet them. He is no lover of the Concordat. It has deprived the French clergy of liberty. It has made them mere functionaries. It has paralyzed their free action and their personal initiative. It has obscured their sacred character as priests with the rags of state officialism. But on the other hand, says M. Hemmer, let us not be blind to the dark days in store for French Catholicity when the final separation comes. Granted that priests and bishops will then be free, many of them will also be brought to utmost penury. Already it is common for the thrifty peasant to grumble at paying marriage or burial fees once or twice in a lifetime. How shall he be trained to contribute constantly, when his pastor's support is left completely to his generosity? Hard times will fall upon many a diocese, and probably more than one curé, shut up in some mountain hamlet or scattered village, will have added to the grievous burden of friendless loneliness which is now his portion, the sharper pains of hunger. But, says our author, if the French clergy meet the situation. wisely, the time of suffering will be foreshortened, and out of misery will come greater good. If, however, they meet it unwisely, the road ahead will end in ruin. How shall the Church of France face her crisis with prudence? The Abbé Hemmer gives this answer. In the first place lay co-operation must be earnestly cultivated and loyally and squarely accepted. We Americans are so happily situated *Politique Religieuse et Séparation. Par l'Abbé Hippolyte Hemmer. Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils. in this respect that we wonder at the need of such a recommendation. But we must remember that in France priest and people unfortunately are not so near together as we see them here. In fact a large number of French ecclesiastics are terrified at the thought of a live laity. They would actually prefer them dead. This type of the cleric shudders to day at the ghost of laicisme, as a few years ago every individual hair upon his head stood up before the spectre of Américanisme. And of course if this feeble, futile, feminine folly keeps up and spreads about, it will be sad for Catholicity in France. But it cannot keep up nor spread about. The inherent sanity of human nature must prevent it. In the second place, says this brilliant little book, the clergy must beware of becoming a caste with narrow little interests of their own, and with an ignorant mépris of all other human concerns. Vigorous social activity and an earnest mingling with their flocks in every legitimate exercise of zeal and good will, should be the programme of priests and bishops from now on. In the third place the French Catholics are warned against forming a political party, as some of them have proposed doing. Prosperity for the Church will come from saving souls with single-minded disinterestedness, not from fiddling with politics. That will lead to destruction. And finally, says our author, liberty must be protected. Fairness in the election of bishops, due recourse for those who suffer from the exaggerations of authority, openness, honor, and candor in ecclesiastical affairs, must be guaranteed in order to ensure the well-being of the Church and to win to its support the public respect and benevolence of which it is now deprived. All honor to brave and loyal men like M. Hemmer, who thus give utterance to the silent thoughts of many thousands! To such men great credit will be due when final success comes after many reverses. For final success must come. We cannot doubt it, even though we are unable to forget the mournful history of French Catholicity for the past three-quarters of a century. Now that the ultimate disaster threatens, we are sure that the vast resources of faith and piety within the Church in France, will provide a refuge from it, and will furnish a foundation for better days to come. PERSONAL RECOLLEC TIONS. By Vicomte de Meaux. The Vicomte de Meaux has written an interesting and valuable volume on the history of France, from the close of the FrancoPrussian war to 1877. While the work consists of souvenirs, personal recollections, and such matters of public policy as the author himself had a share in, nevertheless it gives us a pretty full account of French government during those six years, for the reason that the Vicomte de Meaux was one of the foremost figures in France under the presidencies of Thiers and MacMahon, and was intimately connected with every interest, foreign or domestic, which then preoccupied his country. No need to say what momentous years those were for France. Years they were in which the ancient nation, from which so much of modern civilization has come, emerged from one great disaster only to plunge headlong into another and a greater. With a rapidity which made the world wonder, and caused her victorious enemy to fear, France recovered from the shock of her humiliating defeat by Germany, rearranged her finances, reorganized her army, and bore herself with as much dignity as a new republic as ever she had boasted as an ancient monarchy. It was renascence, new life, and every lover of democracy rejoiced. But the shadow of death was on her even from the beginning; and it was the shadow of the blackest and most hopeless of deaths, the death of faith, and with faith, of purity and every other foundation of a State. It is unutterably sorrowful to behold the beginnings of that religious persecution which has brought France so low. There was no sign of it at first. The national assembly of 1871 opened with prayer, and ordered public prayers for the country's restoration. The great Bishop of Orleans, Dupanloup, was a member of the assembly, and was listened to with a feeling nearer to love than mere respect. It seemed as though the nation had fixed its eyes Godward, and was destined to have its bruises healed by the oil and wine of her traditional Catholicity. But then came the dreadful cleavage between the people and their faith. The cry of clericalism was raised and exploited by cunning demagogues; the claim that the Church was scheming for the monarchy and hostile to the republic was * Souvenirs Politiques—1871–1877. Par le Vicomte de Meaux. Paris: Plon-Nourrit et Cie. dinned systematically into the ears of the electorate, until suspicion turned to hatred, and hatred to a savage resolution to destroy. And the misery is that Catholics laid themselves open to such attacks. They did hold aloof from their country's interests; they attempted unwisely to fling France into the Italian quarrel, although they knew that the instant a French army set foot upon the march for Pius IX.'s relief, Germany would fling her irresistible battalions across the frontier and complete the ruin half accomplished at Metz, Sedan, and before the fortifications of Paris; and finally, these Catholics, for whose folly it is hard to find a fitting epithet, turned upon their own brethren and struck down the hands that were strongest to save them. The mischief, the havoc that an intemperate press can bring about, and that unwise leaders, episcopal, sacerdotal, and lay, can carry to the point of irreparable disaster, may be seen with sorrowful vividness in the France of the seventies and eighties. May all the rest of the world, may France herself, profit by the lesson ! All this M. le Vicomte tells quietly, modestly, and with some degree of completeness. His attitude throughout is very noble. He grieves for the blunders of his own party; and he is burdened with sorrow at seeing how terrible is the issue which has been reached under Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes, and Rouvier. His work is a real contribution to a great period of modern history. INFALLIBILITY. Our readers may remember that several months ago we ago we gave a favorable notice of M. Paul Viollet's pamphlet on the limits of Papal Infallibility and on the authority of the Syllabus. The author of that treatise, a veteran professor of Canon Law, was led to undertake his task by the conviction, which thousands share with him, that many people are kept from the Catholic Church because they have an unduly exaggerated idea of the authority of the Church's rulers. His purpose was to set such people right. And so he wrote his little work, which is a mine of erudition and is loyally Catholic throughout. He was attacked of course. The best of men will differ in matters of theology; it is a science famous for its "controvertiturs." And now he issues another pamphlet in answer to his critics. *Infaillibilité et Syllabus. Réponse aux Etudes." Par Paul Viollet. Paris: Roger et Chernoviz. " |