Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847. Allies Thomas William

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СКАЧАТЬ of liturgies, he remarked spontaneously, how those of the East were full of addresses to the Blessed Virgin: half or a third of every page was devoted to her. They went before the Roman Church in that respect. When the Council of Ephesus gave her the title of 'Mother of God,' there were public rejoicings throughout the city in consequence. He did not seem to like admitting that the prayers of St. Ephrem to the Blessed Virgin were not authentic; said it was his style. (Morris tells me the style of his Syriac works is very different from that of his Greek, and the matter much deeper.) At parting he expressed a wish, that if we came to Paris again, we would come and see him. We took a look at the beautiful chapel of the Sœurs Garde-Malades, with fresh admiration of it. We had expressed a wish to M. D'Alzon to see some sackcloth and instruments of penitence; so he took us to a house of Carmelite nuns of St. Therèse, near the Luxembourg: one of them conversed behind the grille and curtain, which was quite impervious to the sight on both sides. It is part of their special duty to pray for the conversion of Protestants. These Carmelites discipline themselves every Friday. The sister showed us some of their instruments of discipline; corporal austerities, however, by all that we could learn, are not common, nor are they generally allowed by confessors, partly that the health of few will allow of them; partly, there is a danger of pride thence arising.

      Wednesday, July 16. – M. D'Alzon came and breakfasted with us, and afterwards took us to the establishment of the Frères Chrétiens, Rue du Faubourg St. Martin, 165., where the Supérieur Général, Frère Philippe, received us. There was little to see in the house, as they expected the Strasburg railway would come through them and drive them away. He said the number of brethren altogether was 4000; of pupils under them, adult and children, 198,000: they increase yearly. They were almost dispersed at the first revolution, but returned again through Cardinal Fesch, who found four of the brethren, who had taken refuge at Lyons, and brought them to Paris. Frère Philippe is very plain and homely: his picture, by Horace Vernet, has made a great sensation here.

      M. D'Alzon then took me to a house of priests in the Rue de la Planche. I had a long talk with two of them. The first was a confessor to a penitentiary, in which eighty women are received at the cost of the city of Paris. His account of their penitence was touching. It is rare that any leave them without being thoroughly changed, provided they stay long enough. But the picture which he gave of the depravity general in Paris on this head was frightful. It is a wonderful spectacle, the close contact into which the most sublime self-devotion and the most abandoned sensuality are brought in this great city; on the one hand, consider the daily prayers and mortifications, and works of charity of those Carmelites, who are ever engaged in interceding for the conversion of sinners; of those nuns of the Adoration, who are ever contemplating the most wonderful of mysteries; of those Ladies of the Assumption, who dedicate the talents and accomplishments God has given them, under the vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, to the direct furtherance of his kingdom; of those solitary and homeless priests – without father and without mother, without ties of family or worldly possessions, truly after the order of Melchisedec – who are ever offering the most holy Sacrifice, and building up the mystical body: on the other hand, think of that gulph of libertinage and selfishness, which is ever swallowing fresh victims – hearts young and unsuspicious, warm and confiding – polluting body and soul with the dregs of uncleanness, and hurrying them away too often into the presence of the Judge. No tale of misery ever told in fiction surpasses that which is daily enacting in Paris again and again. Amid such things we live, and truly we have need both to pray ourselves, and to call upon all spirits of the just made perfect to intercede for us and for our brethren. And yet it is the same flesh and blood – the same body, soul, and spirit – the same man, which is thus fearfully working for the devil, or thus heroically fighting for God. O mystery of the grace of God and of the human will, which is past finding out!

      In the evening we visited, for a short time, the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, which is sumptuously decorated inside with paintings all over; it has a double row of pillars each side. The subjects seem chosen with great judgment, and the legends are more truly Catholic than one often sees. The expense of this church must have been enormous. We also looked into La Madeleine – very beautiful indeed it is, and as grand as the Grecian style can be, but it furnishes one with the best proof that such is not the proper style for a church.

       Thursday; July 17. – We looked into La Madeleine again, at the Messe du midi. Its sumptuousness is astonishing. If, however, it were not safer to admire than to criticise in such cases, one might observe how vast a space is lost in the walls and arrangements of the interior, the breadth which strikes the eye being only fifty feet, while the real breadth of the side walls is at least eighty. Its architecture seems the inversion of that of St. Ouen or Amiens, inasmuch as it makes the least effect out of the greatest means, while the other makes the greatest effect out of the least means; all seems aerial and heaven-pointing in the one style; while the other seems unable, with its vast bulk, to rise from the earth, and perpetually crosses the eye with its horizontal lines – faithful images both of the religions they represent.

      We found l'Abbé Ratisbonne at home, and had a long talk with him. I mentioned to him the objectionable words addressed to the Blessed Virgin, which I had seen at Montmartre and in the little book; he made the usual excuse that such things are not done by authority, and also that the French language was weak, and so, in expressing heavenly affections, it might so happen that they used words which, in strictness of speech, were too strong, but the conventional use of which formed their exculpation. Thus it was common to say of a very fine picture, 'quel adorable tableau,' and so the word 'infiniment;' but these applied to the Blessed Virgin in strictness of speech become objectionable. Much therefore must be allowed to the weakness and indistinctness of human language, on the one hand, and to the fervour of filial love longing to pour itself forth, on the other. 'We are children of God,' he said; 'we speak to him as children, not as wise men; we ask the indulgence given to infants.' And so again, as respects the Blessed Virgin. He said he had been converted from Judaism at twenty-three, had seen much of Protestants before that time, but their prayers and their whole style of thinking had disgusted him; he had never been at all drawn to them. He had been a priest ten years, and was now forty-two. We had much talk on the Anglo-Roman controversy. I said, we thought ourselves Catholics already, that we had been born and bred in the English Church, which was to us the portal of that great building of the Catholic Church. He approved of that metaphor, which served to give him a better notion of our position than anything else we said, though, like every other Roman Catholic, he could not admit for a moment that we were in the Church. He said, a Protestant minister, an optician, had expressed to him his belief in the efficacy of prayers for the dead, which appeared to him under this image: it was as if a number of figures were thrown into the shade, out of the sun's rays; while between them and the sun are other figures who enjoy his full light: these, like certain glasses, reflect that light upon the figures in the shade. Thus it is that the prayers of the blessed especially succour the faithful dead. He had often used this image in sermons. I pressed him with the existence of the Greek Church, on the one hand, and the acknowledged developement of Papal power, on the other; but no Roman Catholic ever hesitates to excommunicate individual or church which is not de facto united to the Roman See; unity with them is indeed a first principle – a sublime and true belief in itself, though perhaps certain facts may modify the application of it. He said he had thought continually of us since our visit, and had the greatest esteem for us, that he had prayed for us daily, as he did for England; that fair England, if she could be again, as she once was, the Island of Saints – what a means for the conversion of others! At our parting, he begged our prayers for himself. I said, if I came again to Paris, I should hope to be allowed to see him again. Our conversation was so disjointed that I can remember but little of it, but it turned on the offences which alienated us from them. He denied repeatedly the thought of adoring the Blessed Virgin. He had moved his lodgings to the Rue du Regard, 14., in order to overlook a house and garden opposite, in which were lodged a female community of converts from Judaism, over whom he watched. The Supérieure was with him when we came. He spoke of our silence as to the Blessed Virgin and all saints; that we made a wall of separation between them and us, whereas the whole Church was one, vividly affected with the joys and sorrows of its several members. M. tried to show that, in the present state of things, silence might conceal very СКАЧАТЬ