but merely ordered us to be ready. Some thought that the world would have seven ages, but St. Augustin reproved them, saying, if after seven thousand years that day would come, every man might easily know the time by simply counting years. How then explain the text, Quod nec Filius hoc novit * ?'” So far from sanctioning the lamentations of those who are exclusive admirers of former times, Catholicism does not want to recall the past; it wishes to create the future, which has always been the object of its mission.

Doubtless not to tolerate the existence of monasteries, of associations for a holy object, of houses of peace, and order, and sanctity, which are, as we have seen, nearly coeval with Christianity, would be the same thing as not to tolerate the Catholic religion; or to profess to tolerate monasteries, and to subject them to laws which contradict the object, and means, and poetry of their existence, would be to add hypocrisy, and injustice, and even illegality, to oppression; since, according to the maxim of the Pandects, "Quando lex alíquid concedit, concedere videtur et id sine quo res ipsa esse non potest." Doubtless to seek a progressive development of social happiness or of the faculties of man by abolishing such institutions, from thinking that they can account for the present state of Italy, for example, would be flying in the face of historical facts; since, as the admirable author of Tancred remarks, three centuries ago, when all these influences of Catholicity were much more powerful, Italy was the soul of Europe. Doubtless, too, whatever may be the modifications or the changes which time may bring about in the circumstances of Christian institutions, the monastery, under some form and with some limitations or other, will continue to exist, since its foundations may be truly said to rest on the holy mountains-"fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis." Eliminate all such visible traces of the fountain-head of theology, and of the thought of the eternal years, and then, as a great writer says, with a different allusion, all things go to decay; genius leaves the temple to haunt the senate, or the market; literature becomes frivolous; science is cold; the eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds; the virtues of its soul decline— cheerfulness, susceptibility of simple pleasures, energy of will, inviolable faith in friendship, cordial affection for others, frankness,-every thing of that sort gives way and perishes. No holy thought in all that heart. Nothing but wandering frailties, wild as the wind, and blind as death or ignorance, inhabit there. Then, too, all things else participate in the change. Men only laugh at nature's "holy countenance;" old age is without honour; society lives to trifles; and when men die, no one ever

Epist. Apologetica.

after mentions them. Accordingly, if you look around, you may be able, perhaps, to observe what an English statesman now terms the growing melancholy of enlightened Europe; and in its destruction of what it had inherited from the elder world may be discerned the cause of its discontent and its perplexity. Its wisest heads may therefore cast a sorrowful look back upon the celestial privileges and wonderful prerogatives disclosed in the pages of its past history. But Catholicism, for all that, we are assured, is tied down to no Procrustean bed, nor left inextricably dependent on the permanence of things that belong more to antiquarian studies than to religion. "I have never disputed," says one of its most eloquent admirers, "about either names or habits; but I say that we have need of friendly against hostile associations." "There is no end," says a great writer, "to which your practical faculty can aim, so sacred or so large, that if pursued for itself will not at last become carrion and an offence. The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal-the end must be one inapprehensible to the senses, then will it be deifying." This, after all, and not the exterior form, not the building, or the habit, or the name, or the letter of the rule, is what constitutes the attraction of the monastic life, the ideal of which is every where as an eternal desire; and how wonderful is its charm! Truly, for the whole world it is a mountain air; it is the embalmer of the common and universal atmosphere. Respecting this essential and truly central foundation, Catholicism, we may be sure, will stand ever firm; but for the rest, no doubt it will prove what it has always been in every preceding age-namely, like nature itself, yielding, and endowed with infinite powers of modification and self-adjustment; saying, when invited to play the orator, "What our destinies have ruled out in their books we must not search, but kneel to." In that magnificent vision which Socrates describes at the end of the Republic, he says that Lachesis sung the past, Clotho the present, and Atropos the future *. Catholicism confines no one to the past, however they may admire its peculiar attribute. It inspires men with a love for what is good present around them, and with hope and contentment when they contemplate what may be in store for their posterity. We know not what will come, yet let us be the prophets of love. As the face of the earth changes with the seasons, so does Catholicism's advancing spirit "create its ornaments along its path, and carry with it the beauty that it visits; drawing around its way charming faces and warm hearts, and wise discourse, and heroic actions." It seems to have much less at heart the immutability of dresses, of styles of architecture, or of rules to

* Lib. x.

govern an order, than the progress of love, "the one remedy for all ills, the panacea of nature." There appears every reason to feel assured that it would meet, not coldly speculate on, the tendency of our age to extol kindness, and to denounce every thing contrary to it-distrust, selfishness, and oppression; that it would encourage, not discountenance, the hope of a happier period, when love would be more powerful on earth; when the higher and lower classes would be more united in feelings, sentiments, affections; when all might have avowed friends in a class of society different from their own; that it would sanction our hope that perhaps we shall attain to this state of things some day; that the good time is not past, but coming. Before this morn may on the world arise, charity, which becks our ready minds to fellowship divine, mildness, obedience, the three things most insisted on in the New Testament, are the things which it pronounces to be at the bottom of all perfection-the object of all the precepts and of all the counsels. It seems to repeat, as from its own knowledge, what is said around it now with emphasis, that "so much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he." Behold the clear religion of Heaven! This appears to be what it has always taught; this is what it seems aware has been pronounced from on high in the apostolic definition of pure religion; and happily for the consolation, and edification, and direction of the human race, it appears to acknowledge no other test of its own vitality in any heart. Where, then, do you find impervious thickets now remaining near this road to prevent you from advancing to it? Or do you ask what is written on this last directing board? Read it yourself, by looking at the men of every banner opposed to Catholicism, when called upon to reform, or modify, or change what they had chosen or wished to blazon upon their own. Read it by comparing and judging on what side is the quiet confidence, the spirit of large concession, the desire to conciliate by giving up all that can be given up; in other words, the moderation and charity that only Truth inspires.

CHAPTER V.

THE ROAD OF OLD AGE.

TREAKS of golden light seen through distant openings in the foliage, and a certain cooler and less confined air under the trees around us, indicate that we are getting near the western extremity of this great forest, through which, from its eastern corner, we have been so long journeying.

"Still round the centre circling, so our path

Has led us, that toward the sunset now

Direct we travel."

Lifting both hands against our front, we interpose them as a screen that may protect our vision from such gorgeous superflux of light. The leafy labyrinth, where in general from year to year the eagle and the crow see no intruder-the noon-day darkness-the deep, unbroken echoes-all that is past. We are in the purlieus of the wood, and the richly-glowing sky that pierces at intervals amidst the leaves gives note of day's departure, and of the approaching termination of these forest wanderings, symbolical of our course through life; for old age, as the ancients said, is like the sunset peeping into a wood and showing light, towards which we walk through winding alleys. Empedocles called it ἑσπέραν βίου, and Aristotle, δυσμάς βίου *, which expression Plato adopts in his laws, saying ἡμεῖς δ' ἐν δυσμαῖς τοῦ βίου. We set out, like the Tuscan painter, Cristofano Gherardi, in one of his great compositions significant of the seven ages of man, with the story of infancy; and then we saw, as it were, nurses holding children in their arms. Boyhood and youth next followed, with all the attributes of those who are on those smiling roads. Manhood introduced us to a variety of graver topics, from social and political interests, from magistracy and war, from thrones and altars, from sins and sufferings, to the moral and religious differences that exist in the world. We touched on policy and religion, earthly ambition, and holy penitence; and

Poet. 21.

now the Road of Age receives us, leading us to the last of all the journeys in which we wear these habiliments of mortality.

The road before us winds through ancient trees, where the oak and fir seem to be less living columns than the ruins of the trees of another period of the world, the pines being bearded with hoary moss, yet touched with grace by the violets at their feet. Huge rocks peep out from the deep beds of withered leaves that lie beneath the oaks. The title of the road seems to have taken all courage from the poet, who probably was not prepared for the smiling scenes which it unfolds farther on, and who describes this place, mournfully relating how he went

"Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
Of the wild babbling rivulet, and how
The forest's solemn canopies were changed
For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.

Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed
The struggling brook: tall spires of windlestræ
Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,
And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines,
Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots
The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,
Yet ghastly; for, as past years flew away,
The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
And white; and where irradiate dewy eyes
Had shone, gleam stony orbs: so from his steps
Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
Of the green groves."

Nevertheless, dear companion, we need not turn away downhearted at the prospect of what is awaiting us. Come, who does not like the evening side of the forest, the road that is lighted by the setting sun? Who does not feel the charm of its golden hues? Are they not as beautiful as those of the morning? Well, then, let us take courage, and perhaps somewhat analogous to these agreeable impressions will be experienced here. "There is an ethical character," says a great writer," which so penetrates the bone and marrow of nature as to seem the end for which it was made. All the facts in natural history, taken by themselves, are barren like a single sex. But marry it to human history, and it is full of life. Linnæus and Buffon's volumes are only catalogues of facts; but the most trivial of these facts, applied to the illustration of a fact in intellectual philosophy, or in any way associated to human nature, affects us in the most lively manner." The observations which are suggested when entering upon the present road supply an instance, for on all sides here we can see how close is the analogy between the necessities of trees and men.