II
Then He opened their understanding. - Saint Luke
O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us! - Burns
Fas est et ab hoste doceri. - Ovid
Readers familiar with the Summa of Saint Thomas will perhaps recall an interesting little Article of the Second Part, in which he proposes the question: "Do men ever hate the truth?" and another Article, farther along, in which he discusses the problem: "Is mental blindness a sin?" In the course of the great Doctor's arguments, he reminds us that, though men naturally love the truth, there are times when they hate it; as, for instance, when a man wishes that certain events had never taken place, when he longs to be ignorant of a law which binds his conscience unpleasantly, when he desires that a false opinion of his own merits should prevail. Thus to elevate our selfish interests above our love of truth, to shut our eyes to principles and to distract our attention from facts, in order that we may enjoy a fictitious freedom from moral restraint, is, Saint Thomas teaches, a sin.
These statements suggest food for meditation. We are so apt to evade the practical application of such doctrine as this; so slow to hunt down various faults against truth which are as much more common than ordinary lies as they are less-palpable and less conscious. The obvious untruth is universally condemned. To go back on our promise, to bear false witness, to deny what we have affirmed, to falsify accounts, to betray a trust; these things the private and the public conscience alike anathematize. But there are finer and more subtle sins against truth. There are shrinkings and hesitatings, dodgings and evadings, unreasonable questionings, unfair doubtings, and obstinate stiflings of the still small voice - all in the interests of selfishness and ease; and concerning these conscience is not always sensitive nor condemnation general. Seldom do we find a pure-hearted and constant follower of holy truth, a man who postpones all other ambitions to the quest of her, who turns loyally aside from the common ways when her footprints lead in another direction, who worships at her shrine unfalteringly, though the multitude scoff and enemies jibe and friends dissuade. For to do all this is painful. There may be unwelcome facts which threaten to destroy our peace of mind; half-hidden faults which cost us much to face and recognize; claims upon our time and attention which custom and inclination bid us disallow. There may be duties only dimly perceived, opportunities barely suggested, possibilities which we can easily construe into unrealities. Who has the heroism to follow the track of truth through all those devious ways? Diogenes, with his lantern, might easily find an honest man among us, if respect for the rights of property were alone in question; but the search would be far more difficult, were the philosopher looking for an open mind.
For this is the ideal, "An Open Mind": one that never offers obstruction to truth; that throws wide the door at the first sound of her imperious knock; that contemplates her unflinchingly, whether there be a smile or a frown upon her brow. It is a high ideal and few dare attempt it; a hard saying which few are willing to hear. Yet the love and the faithful pursuit of this ideal are surely among the qualifications of the perfect man. The bearing of our Savior's teaching on this point should not be lost on us. We ought to grow more appreciative of the sacredness of truth in the measure that we become "followers of the word." The richer coloring and the finer shade which a response to divine revelation is supposed to add to the natural man should be manifested in a keener sense and a more loyal obedience with regard to the slightest behests of truth.
We do not forget how common is the accusation against religion that preconception and party interest and the necessities of argument play havoc with the believer's sense of truth; and, insofar as that charge is based upon fact, we hope that our minds may be opened to see. For the moment, however, we are less concerned to discuss the comparative virtue of believer and unbeliever, than to examine into considerations which all of us alike should ponder, since all alike have need of tireless vigilance and constant alertness in order to lay hold of those saving truths which fall daily from the lips of enemy and of friend, and which plead with us to revise our opinions and to change our ways.
Heine, having described Gottingen as surrounded by a cordon of police, goes on to say that it was no harder for a student to get out of the university than for an idea to get in. Such a condition is more or less typical of men and of institutions. Minds tend to crystallize; and ordinarily we allow the process to continue without interference, forgetting that, with minds as well as with bodies, movement is existence and to live is to change. Consulting the petty interests of the present by shutting out the tide of immigration, we debar ourselves from all share in the wider, richer life of the world at large - as if the life of man or nation could always be renewed and recruited from within. Like unwelcome aliens, new ideas protest in vain against the rigors of our Exclusion Act; we, like short-sighted governments, insist on regarding every foreigner as an undesirable citizen. He is not to the manner born; he does not fit in with prevalent customs; he will not take for granted all that we have been used to assume; he criticizes our ways and speaks of methods which are better. So a suicidal policy is desperately maintained; and the intruding man or idea is kept out for the sake of domestic convenience. We have decided upon the facts of a case, or we have at last succeeded in getting our philosophy all nicely arranged; and we take it very ill of any bothersome new notion to come along and try to introduce a change.
A story tells of the magistrate who heard only the plaintiff's testimony and then at once decided the case "lest he should be confused by hearing the other side." There is more than a jest in the tale; it comes near to describing the common attitude of men who regard their first judgments as final and all their opinions as beyond amendment. Wonderful, indeed, is the adamantine firmness with which the modern commercial trust resists every attempt of the small producer to obtain a foothold in preempted territory; yet no combination is closer than that formed in the brain against the new idea. The prejudiced mind does not ask, Is it true? nor consider, Is resistance wise? It is enough that the novel views do not harmonize with the old. Propose to a man a notion which obviously will require time and effort in order to be fitted into his present state of mind. Instantly there will be opposition. Not that this is anything but natural; not that we could get along as well in the practical affairs of life, were we not endowed with an instinctive and, on the whole, most profitable conservatism! But since a new idea is usually at a disadvantage, love of truth and real desire for knowledge will make us extremely careful to win due control over a tendency calculated to hinder our mental growth and to dim our sense of actual conditions. The law forbids a man to be judge in his own trial; it aims to compose a jury of entirely disinterested persons; but here, in the inner court, the rulings come from the party who is the most prejudiced, or at least the most interested, of all. It need hardly be said then that, unless we master our primary instincts and form the habit of judging truth apart from its bearing upon self, we shall dwell in a fairyland of unrealities and lead lives far less actual than those impersonated on the dramatic stage. To be in touch with reality one must, by ceaseless diligence, maintain an open mind.
This is not a defense of inconstancy, nor an excuse for fickle judgments; it is simply a plea for reasonableness. As we learn from the Nichomachean Ethics: "The reasonable (continent) man, while he does not veer about under the influence of emotion and desire, does remain movable. It is easy to persuade him on occasion; but the obstinate person resists the persuasions of reason." It is reasonable, then, to recognize the high probability that, in many instances, our opinion will be wrong; to appreciate the perverse tendency of our snap judgments. Since we are always inclined to believe our own plans wise, our motives pure, our actions right, an effort is needed to counter-balance this predisposition. Such effort is the price a man must pay for an open mind.
Improvement, as a result of criticism passed upon our work and behavior, is the first fruit. of open-mindedness. To a man who will heed disagreeable truth, and accept the assistance of friends brave enough to wound his vanity, kindly criticism can be of great use. It helps him to correct defects, to acquire virtue, to grow in amiability, efficiency, and general happiness. There are persons, however, to whom not even the dearest and most trusted friend dare utter a word of reproach or correction. Right or wrong, their critics always meet a storm of recrimination and dispute. If we happen to belong to this unfortunate type, well may we pray for "the giftie" which will show us how we seem to others. The awakening will be beneficial, though it will certainly not be pleasant. Few experiences are less agreeable than suddenly to recognize the fact that we have been escaping well-merited criticism because our friends would not venture to wound a self-esteem which they knew to be inordinate. So humiliating is such a discovery that, under the first sting of it, we are apt to turn with chiding words on the friend who has spared us, forgetting that years of experience have taught him how useless it was to name our plainest faults, forgetting the dismantled affections and the wrecks of friendships strewn along our course, due to warnings we resented and criticisms we obstinately disregarded; for, despite our loud profession of love for truth, we do, in desire and in deed, betray what with our lips we honor.
To make use of criticism skillfully and sympathetically administered is, as a matter of fact, not a rare or an heroic accomplishment. A harder lesson to learn is, how to make use of rough, unfriendly censure. This achievement seems, indeed, to be quite beyond the power of weaklings and to require a more rugged determination and a stronger good sense than most of us display in the work of self-improvement.
"Fas est et ab hoste doceri,"
sang the old poet wisely and convincingly. We have much to learn from our enemies, not only in the strategy of war, but in the campaigns of conscience too. Commonly, however, we feel that we may fairly enough be allowed to dismiss the criticism as soon as we have shown the critic to be an enemy - as though an enemy were not likely to be as keenly alive to our weaknesses as he is blind to our virtues. The fact is that, if we have a defect, the man who dislikes us most will be the one to perceive it first. Under the smart of his accusation, or the sting of his sarcasm, we are tempted to soothe our feelings with the consolations of well-meaning friends; but the part of wisdom would be to cut away the possible basis of future accusations. So far as character and virtue go, what matters it if there is some bitterness, some exaggeration, in the words of those who hold us up to ridicule and shame? That which really signifies is the grain of truth in the load of misrepresentation. Seek that; and when found, consume and digest and assimilate it. Bitter though it be, it is wholesome. Let us do as "Sludge" professed to do:
"Take the fact, the grain of gold,
And throw away the dirty rest of life."
Religion, of course, if it has any meaning for us at all, should aid us to face our faults and defects with an open mind and to accept, at the very least, such corrections as are well-grounded. The old ideals of humility and patience and self-denial and obedience, therefore, throw flashes of light across the path wherein we walk. The man who takes the Gospel seriously, and endeavors to impress deeply on his mind the lessons taught by our Lord's example, will find much wisdom come to him from his moments of silent meditation. Without excessive introspection, and without exaggerated self-depreciation, he may by frequent examination of conscience gain no little strength and clearness of vision. And if occasionally he refreshes his memory about the saints, by dipping into their lives; if he takes a lesson now and again in the Catholic principles of spirituality; if, at intervals, he follows the exercises of a retreat; best of all, if he goes regularly and earnestly to confession; he will, other things being equal, surely grow much more open-minded with regard to his faults than the man who does none of these things.
Study, in so far as it enlightens the mind and corrects prevalent misunderstandings, also helps us to grow out of our primitive attachment to appearances and first impressions, and trains us to welcome unexpected truths. It is characteristic of a cultivated man to be capable of adaptation, as it is in consequence of having been adaptable that he has acquired culture. In a special and peculiar way should open-mindedness be characteristic of the man who has learned from psychology the various illusions to which the mind is subject. Familiarity with the different forms of normal and abnormal hallucination diminishes the obstinacy and the extravagance of our self-confidence. The student discovers that in many ways nature has been imposing upon him: both his eyes are partly blind, though he never knew it; a thing will be cold to one hand and warm to another; any sort of blow on the optic nerve causes him to see light; two steel-points will be felt as single or as double, according to the part of the skin with which they are put in contact; sensations of color and form are discovered to be largely clever guesses and skillful interpretations forging their own letters of credit in accord with universal custom. It is the student's business to investigate and, as far as he can, to explain these and a hundred other common errors; and while he ponders them he gradually becomes less dogged in the conviction that first impressions are generally beyond the need of correction and reversal.
The investigator of mental habits and vagaries, the study of our slavery to chance influences, the appreciation of human knowledge as largely relative and hypothetical - all go to make a man humble with regard to his own opinions, and patient with regard to those of others. What psychology does on the subjective side, history does on the objective; that science reveals man's limitations, this reveals the world's. When one has grown used to contemplating cycles of time, to measuring the lives of races, to studying the development of civilizations, to tracing the reign of historical law and the periodic recurrence of seemingly unique phenomena, he has already begun to be healed of his narrowness. There is so much to be learned from a knowledge of the origins of things. Comparison of times and of institutions teaches such startling facts. The emptiness of momentary success; the inexorable - working of eternal hidden forces; the supremacy of tendencies which men commonly despise - to have studied the play of these elemental facts in the life of humanity is to have grown beyond the mental stature of a child. Therefore history - and above all comparative history - is a veritable priestess of truth. Nothing human can impress upon us a better sense of proportion than to see the generations succeed one another, each to bequeath new idols to a posterity which pulls them rudely down and erects others of its own. When we have counted the figures in a long procession of nations, and have marked how inevitably each one of them falls under the same old delusion with regard to the divine origin and the eternal necessity of its customs and institutions, we are forever afterward less apt to be dogmatic, more ready to be open-minded, with regard to the inherent sacredness of our own.
In short, any kind of mental development, any growth of the soul, tends in some wise to broaden the sweep of our vision, to open the mind. Worldly experience does it; love does it; study and meditation - each in its own fashion - have the same effect, if other things are equal. The old are supposed to gather wisdom with the passing of years; in the same measure is it true that the mature become more patient of differences and more open of mind than the headstrong and impetuous youth. The lover is open-minded because teachable - at least by the beloved. The soul of the mother has one more entrance than the soul of the childless. Part of the sinner's trouble is the narrowness of his view; at the moment of temptation, the evil thing seems to be all-important for his happiness; it is big enough to cover the whole field of vision - because his field of vision is very narrow and limited. Whereas the saint, who sees with far-sighted and eternal eyes, is aware of a world of considerations and mighty truths unsuspected by lesser men. He is open of mind in this and in other ways; and says with the Psalmist:
"Ambulavi in latitudine:
Quia mandata tua exquisivi."
Though what has been said about the tendency of all development to enlarge and open the mind is true, other tendencies, as a matter of fact, may counterbalance this, or even make the individual narrower and less open than he was in a previous stage. But this much, at least, is sure, that all of us need to be more open-minded than we are, and readier for the correction of our faults or our opinions; and again, that many means are available for our improvement. To make use of these means is an obvious duty, to neglect them a fatal mistake. We may not realize this fully now; but we shall sooner or later. For somehow and somewhere, the soul must learn heartily to love the truth, ere ever it can dwell with joy in the bosom of God.
II
We can do nothing against the truth. - Saint Paul
Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie. - Herbert
May truth shine out, stand ever before us. - Browning
Keeping in view both the general power of emotion to sway the judgment and the peculiar intensity of religious feelings, we are not surprised to find open-mindedness - that is, the disposition to allow full value to criticism - less prominent among believers than among other men. If there is a man who bares his soul to every argument, who faces willingly every fact, who displays no prejudice in discussion and no hesitation in drawing conclusions, the chances are that he is one of those who sit apart,
"Holding no form of creed
But contemplating all."
The believer, on the other hand, is proverbially disposed to betray his prejudices during the very first moment of a dispute, and to give less than adequate consideration to the difficulties urged by his opponent.
Now, if it were necessary to choose between the two alternatives, bigotry might, indeed, be regarded as preferable to indifference; as the passionate prejudice of the patriot is a lovelier ideal than the cold aloofness of the man who never says: "This is my own, my native land." But, in fact, it is not necessary to choose between faith and open-mindedness. We can be fair and honest without abandoning our religion, as we can be fair and honest without renouncing our civil allegiance. To attain due balance of mind will, no doubt, require considerable labor; but for the sake of our own character, for the good of humanity, and for the cause of religion, such an effort is well worth making.
The recent trend of history gives us an opportunity of viewing some of the relations between prejudice and religious belief. It shows that, in general, people have been steadily growing more tolerant. At the same time, it shows that the fierce fanaticism displayed in the old religious wars and persecutions was the outcome of an enthusiasm and devotedness far more intense than anything to be encountered at present. In comparison with our own, those days were "the ages of faith." They were likewise characterized by less readiness to examine into evidence pro and con, and by less willingness to admit that the denial of a doctrine may be made in perfectly good conscience. Nowadays the prevalent temper is liberal; creeds and confessions in the religious order are revised almost as easily as scientific theories; and, by common consent, to ignore obtainable evidence is to commit the unpardonable sin. And - we must add - doctrinal indifference is now the fashion; unbelief advances pari passu with the spirit of fair play. We begin with admiring the objectivity and fine critical temper of men who discuss, without any show of passion, such subjects as the connection between religious phenomena and mental aberration, the authenticity of the accepted sources of revelation, the comparative moral value of Mohammedanism and Christianity, the influence of Buddhistic teaching upon the Gospel. But before we have gone very far, it transpires plainly enough that, like Gallio, who "cared for none of these things," the speaker or the writer is, in religion, a mere dilettante, willing for the moment to assume any standpoint, to start from any given premise, to conduct a methodic doubt to any extreme. "It's all in the point of view" is, perhaps, the most characteristic phrase on the lips of the tolerant and indifferent man; he is ready to look at the chess-board one way and call it white, or another way and call it black:
"Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur."
There are some observers of this condition of things who regard the connection between open-mindedness and irreligion as essential; who say that the believer dare not expose his soul to the influence of the evidence presented by the free-thinker; who affirm that religious convictions are the result of auto-hypnotism, and incompatible with pure-hearted devotion to truth. So, too, many Christians confess to an insuperable horror for the methods of the open court. They set no limit to the dangers arising out of contact with unbelievers; they deprecate impartial examination of difficulties; they see in critical methods the entering wedge of atheism. If extremists, they go even to the length of placing all their religious opinions on practically the same level and of endeavoring to cover them all with the same mantle of finality. To question a received tradition, to cross-examine witnesses for the faith, to summon a pious belief before the bar of history - these are regarded as the prolegomena to apostasy.
Now, it should not be said that this view is wholly unreasonable, since, in fact, the believer cannot afford to be absolutely indifferent. The methods of physics and mathematics are out of place in the establishment of religious convictions; uncontrolled criticism would very soon give the death-blow to faith. In the constructing of the foundations of belief, our admirations, our affections, our "will to believe," are of great importance. We do not depend exclusively on analysis and demonstration; we do not proportion each assent to the exact logical force of the argument supporting it; we do not surrender a conviction every time we meet with an unanswered objection. Motives too fine and subtle to be set in the frame of syllogism deserve weighty consideration; and the logic of the heart gives conclusions more recondite, but no less valid, than those mathematically demonstrated from evident premisses. Moreover, authority may outweigh numerous difficulties, counterbalance solid arguments, and decide for us many a controversy. As the Catholic believes that there has been established a divine power for the infallible communication of religious truth to all the world and to every generation, it is not to be expected that he will so far depart from the reverence due to authority as to set aside its decisions for the sake of contrary objections which are not demonstrated. Supposing that he has reasons to look upon a proposition as divinely guaranteed, then not all the difficulties in the world avail to make the suspension of his assent a requirement of honesty.
This, however, renders the problem harder rather than easier. For there is a whole field of views and opinions which, though confirmed by no divine guarantee, yet seem to be harmonious with, and more or less clearly suggested by, truths authoritatively defined. And with regard to these, what course should the believer pursue? If he abides strictly by the evidence, then he is accepting, to a certain extent, the canon of the rationalists, and is going a little distance in their company. If he holds to strictly traditional opinions, he must sometimes incline toward what is, in the light of late developments, an evident absurdity.
To be guided always by reason, or always by authority, would be a simple affair; but when neither reason alone, nor authority alone, introduces us to the whole truth, the mind is in a very perplexing situation. On either hand are the opposite extremes of rationalism and superstition. The one unduly exaggerates the function of reason - as if nothing but reason were needed; the other unduly exaggerates the - function of authority - as if authority alone sufficed. The partisans of each side are wresting an essentially true principle to their own confusion; and if the rationalistic unbeliever deprives himself of a great treasure of instruction, it is no less obvious that the credulous or superstitious mind often arrays itself amid the enemies of the truth.
Now this the Catholic must learn: that authority has rather to control the activity of pure reason than to dispense men from the duty of thinking and deciding for themselves. It no more destroys the proper function of the private judgment than it destroys the function of the private conscience. Its office is to guide and assist both to a certain extent, and afterwards to leave them to find the way and bear the burden themselves. 'Though reason alone is inadequate, this does not justify us in setting it aside altogether; neither does the fact of cur faith's being built upon revelation imply that all our inferences and deductions are infallibly true, or that all our customs and institutions are divinely established, or that all our instructors speak with the same finality. "Are all - apostles? Are all prophets? Are all doctors?" Must we not rather observe a certain discrimination and consult a certain sense of proportion? Within its own realm, where reason is ruler and judge, we must pay all due respect to argument, we must listen heedfully to the suggestions of common sense. If, in obedience to a superstitious prejudice, we refuse to open our minds to the light, if we fail to foster each little seed of evidence, we shall hardly deserve to be looked upon as the good and faithful servants of truth.
In our own small way most of us find out soon enough that scarcely anything is easier to abuse than the divinely efficient but divinely delicate instrument of authority. And if called upon to employ authority in the enlightenment of minds, or in the control of wills, we quickly discover that it is tar from being an easily wielded club to beat personality into submission. The self-restraint and penetrating insight required of those to whom the exercise of authority has been entrusted are so great, indeed, that their position really demands a degree of virtue little short of heroic - one reason why men should bear with their shortcomings and make allowance for their failures.
It follows, then, that we Catholics have to guard against the defects of our qualities. The possession of certainty and authority may easily tend to render us bigoted and despotic. It may dispose us to minimize the rights of the individual reason and the individual will, to confuse assumptions with arguments, to mistake tyranny for persuasion. There is both a time to speak and a time to be silent, an hour for discussion and an hour for attention. Docile Christians and obedient Catholics still retain the natural human repugnance for mental blindness and spiritual slavery. Though loyal and reverent in the highest degree, they yet cherish freedom of will and openness of mind. The love of the Gospel accords perfectly with the love of liberty and the love of truth. These points, then, are to be remembered: that the deposit of revelation does not yield up an answer to all the questions put by restless ingenuity; that inerrancy cannot attach to all our opinions; that authority will never attempt to do the work of our personal intelligence; and that rational criticism of the proof is perfectly compatible with reverent acceptance of the conclusion. There are numerous problems which must always remain problems, because not within the competency of authority to solve. And when disagreement occurs in matters which authority does not decide, then, whether the field of dispute be philosophy or history or economics, "both sides should show themselves willing to meet, willing to consult, and anxious each to treat the other reasonably and fairly, each to look at the other side of the case and to do the other justice."
To draw the line of demarcation is not easy. We cannot always predict beforehand upon what things authority will or will not pronounce; as we cannot say beforehand exactly what can or cannot happen by the operation of the laws of nature. But as we say of somethings that they are possible, and of others that they, are impossible to natural human powers, so, too, we may say of some questions that they are within, and of others that they are outside the province of infallible jurisdiction; and of others again that they are of questionable character, that their relation to the teaching power is still undetermined. We must beware of lumping together all opinions which go by the name of " Catholic"; of making all alike part and parcel of the faith delivered to the saints; of asserting that religion bids us close our minds to further consideration of such or such a question. Were we to make agreement in every minor detail a test of orthodoxy and a badge of piety, our policy would soon reveal the suicidal principle involved. Some who have been brought up in the straitest traditions, and who have been given to understand that every "Catholic" notion is unquestionable, finally arrive at the conclusion that there is really no such thing as an infallible authority. It would seem worth while to ask if the false impression of the content of faith originally conveyed to these minds, may not have contributed to the fatal result; if the over-pious instructor of the child may not have to bear some responsibility for the impious attitude of the man.
We are all disposed to be too exclusive and too final. It is, therefore, instructive to note the difference in this respect between the action of the Church and the action of the individual Catholic. Curiously enough the same Church which bears the imputation of being rigidly exclusive is also reproached with being fickle and crafty and diplomatic, because ever ready to receive light from all quarters, and to adapt her policy to changed conditions. The truth seems to be that she partakes of both the constant and the variable elements. Firm in her attachment to the past and its deposit of truth, she has also, on occasions, shown herself to be capable of making most generous concessions to the needs of the time. One does not have to go back very far in her history, or to dive very deep beneath the surface of events, in order to find instances of this which would seem incredible to many a simple mind engaged in defending as eternally immutable all the disciplinary routine and all the speculative details to which it has been accustomed. Seen even in outline, the history of the Church furnishes evidence that she possesses a spirit quite unlike the petty temper which is ever ready to dictate a speedy way of dealing with troublesome objectors.
Men will grow in wisdom and in truth when they learn to correct their narrowness by the pattern of the Church's divinely large and divinely patient disposition. If one has a too sharply defined conception of what can and what cannot happen, then the study of Church history will help to cure his precocious dogmatism. If one habitually entertains suspicions of all accounts which represent another Christian age as very different from our own, then a reading of old records will give rise to new sentiments. And this shows us why the historian is usually differentiated from other men by his breadth of view. It is because his acquaintance with the secrets of the past keeps him from entangling himself in preoccupations about the future. The common man, more sure of his ground, rushes in where scholars fear to tread. He views new ideas with alarm; he is set against the possibility of development and the expediency of change. Unconsciously he has fostered so strong a prejudice against the likelihood of alterations of Catholic view or Catholic practice, in the past or in the future, that he holds out against most respectable evidence, and perhaps even ventures to condemn, in the name of faith, such theories as seem to be "disturbing."
That this is the tendency of the average believer can scarcely be denied; though it is indeed often controlled by a juster appreciation of things. Most of us uphold as necessary and immutable many details which have no essential connection with revealed doctrine and to which the pronouncements of authority really give no sort of guarantee. The pressing issue is not whether our views are true or false, but whether or not our attitude tends to bring discredit on the faith. The questions to put to ourselves are these: Do we reject over hastily such evidence as tells against us? Do we give a cold welcome to unpleasant discoveries? Do we refuse to lift our anathemas until overwhelming proof shows that we have been fulminating against a myth? If we thus persecute the truth, then, no matter what may be our motive, we shall have to suffer the penalty of intellectual dishonesty. It is because familiarity with ecclesiastical history helps to prevent this sin that the study is so good a discipline. What it teaches us of the Church reveals a personality, a temper, and a method greater and more illuminative than those of any man or any nation. Directly or indirectly, as the case may be, by recording the success or the defeat of human diplomacy, by telling the triumph of the truth or the utter failure of mendacity, church history gives us many a lasting lesson on the value of open-mindedness.
One of the things we perceive as we read history is that an inordinate attachment to details as essential parts of the changeless faith is in great measure responsible for the schisms which, from time to time, have rent the Church, and for the lamentably slow progress of various movements for reunion initiated outside the pale or within. For a moment such agitations stir the Christian body; then, having encountered some deep-rooted prejudice, they quiet down and die out. Too few souls are ready to take the path pointed out by sage or saint. It would be an educative exercise for us, therefore, to go over the long list of compromises recorded in history as effected or as suggested, and to measure the comparative generosity of our own spirit by the willingness we feel to sacrifice accidentals Perhaps many would experience an uncontrollable tendency to stick at little things, even though the salvation of multitudes were at stake. Few would manifest the qualities which mark out the great statesman or the great missionary, as distinct from the crowd, by the nobility of his spirit and the breadth of his views. And the difference would come largely from the fact that, by stern necessity or by long experience, the big-hearted men have been taught, as we have not, to discriminate between what is vital and what is unimportant. We are of the crowd; and most men, it would seem, must first grow used to things before being able to appreciate them justly. Doubtless Saints. Cyril and Methodius would never have dreamed of so revolutionary a plan as a change in the language of the Catholic liturgy had they always lived in the one diocese, been inoculated with the provincial spirit, and contemplated the needs of the Slavonians impersonally and from afar. And when the Jesuit missionaries in China dressed themselves as mandarins, they gave proof of having broadened out under a unique experience; for at home they would probably never have imagined so strange a method of procedure to be a good and wise way for a Christian priest to go about the evangelization of a heathen land.
Strangely rare is the mind which can hold a just balance in comparing essentials and accidentals. Rare, too, is the faculty of examining proof objectively and of judging cases impersonally. Having small reason to believe that we are different from the majority of men, we should take account of this fact, lest we reject truth by an unconscious bias toward cherished theories and familiar notions. To give an instance: Suppose we were to hear it brought forward as an argument against the Immaculate Conception that Saints Cyril and Basil accused the Blessed Virgin of sinning by want of faith and that Saint Chrysostom charged her with pride. Would we not be likely to deny the statement, simply because it told against a Catholic thesis? Or suppose that, to support his criticism of Catholic modes of worship, a Protestant were to state that during the first five Christian centuries the use of the crucifix was unknown! Would we be perfectly fair and open-minded? Or would we not, in this case and in similar cases, deny the allegations at once, as if loyalty called upon us to answer with heat, and as if it were an irreligious thing to attend to the evidence and to that alone? Probably we should so act. But it would be a mistake; and in the long run, that kind of mistake has done much harm, There are so many masked errors which profess to be connected with the faith; there are so many prejudices entrenched behind a show of piety; and there is so much pseudo-science claiming the protection of religion, that imprudent zeal has often become a serious obstacle to the progress of truth. Unless wary of invoking the aid of religion in the support of a personal, or a partisan, or a national interest, we run the risk of opposing truth in the name of God.
Had the Christians of earlier times been as narrow as we, they would in all probability have condemned any man found predicting that the laity were one day to be deprived of the use of the cup at Communion. They would have thought it impossible that baptism by immersion was to become the distinctive mark of an heretical sect, subjected for this practice to the ridicule of many an orthodox Catholic. They would have indignantly denied that the taking of interest would ever be universally sanctioned and practiced in the Church. Another instance - the present organized form of canonization and of ecclesiastical preferment is so different from the democratic fashion of other days, that the average Catholic of either time would in all probability be quick to deny that the method to which he was unaccustomed ever did or ever could prevail. Again, it is very probable that the attachment to existing customs is strong enough to make ordinary Catholics rather uneasy when first told that infants used to be given Holy Communion, and that the laity were once allowed to receive the Sacred Host in their hands and to reserve it in their rooms at home. There is, however, no real reason for uneasiness over these or even much greater changes in ecclesiastical discipline.
The instances cited illustrate the general tendency of prepossession to lead minds away from the pursuit of truth. The failure to appreciate things in true proportion is due to a blind conservatism which holds the mind's eye tightly shut, and insists on laying out, in accord with its own preconceptions, a whole world of unknown and unexplained facts. A delusion which seems to be a sort of illegitimate offspring of faith bids men desperately defend every old position and obstinately set face against every new idea. See its influence in the current Scripture controversy, record of the infinite travail with which truth is brought to the birth. See it in the depreciation of the methods of the new psychology. See it in the slow progress toward recognition of the science of comparative religion. See it in the denial or concealment of most instructive words and incidents dug up out of the rich soil of patristic literature. See it in the stir caused by the publications of Lagrange on the Old Testament, Duchesne on national legends, Delehaye on the lives of the saints, Hemmer on popular devotions. Or finally, see it in the general reluctance to concede such facts as Newman makes mention of in the following passage: "The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasion with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holy days and seasons; use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the Host, images at a later date, perhaps, the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church."
We should, indeed, be cautious about adopting novelties, but we ought also to be cautious about condemning them. It does religion little good to be heard time after time on the wrong side of debated questions; nor does it mend matters very much to bestow a belated Imprimatur on ideas which have won their way in spite of censure and interdict. Certain affairs are whispered about in such mysterious wise that the propaganda of them seems to be fraught with some dire and dreadful consequence to religion; whereas a calm analysis of the situation would show that the triumph of the new views could never amount to anything more than a lasting rebuke of the bigotry which masquerades as an ally of faith.
The plain inference is that we need to grow more open-minded. In matters falling outside the domain of faith, and to a certain extent in our conceptions of the teachings of faith, we must be prepared for possible developments. We must also be prepared to find that in a number of theological disputes the advantage rests with the other side; and that in some respects our critics are occasionally justified. It is truly a pity when the interests of charity are set beneath those of party; and when victory in a controversy is sought more eagerly than truth. The truth will, of course, prevail at last, no matter how strenuously opposed; but perhaps the day of its triumph will also be the day of our punishment. Strong words with regard to our defects in these matters were written a while ago by Father Cuthbert, the Capuchin: "The very freedom of thought fostered by Protestantism, which for so long was the greatest danger to the Catholic faith, now bids fair to infuse new life into Catholic theology. Original theological thought is not abundant among us at the present time. We have so accustomed ourselves to draw upon the labors ot those who have gone before us, that we have in great measure ceased to think for ourselves. We quote texts instead of exercising our own minds. In a word, theology with us has become stereotyped. . . . Catholic dogma is receiving outside the Church such thorough and original treatment, as it has not experienced since the golden age of scholasticism. . . . If the Protestant world is becoming more Catholic in temper and thought it is owing more to their own religious thinkers than to ourselves."
That is a good way to face unpleasant facts or humiliating discoveries. We should not make up our minds beforehand that a monopoly of truth and virtue has been established among us. Once and for all let us be convinced that it is a poor tribute to Christ to defend Him with a lie; and that it must be a sad reflection on the Church's power to purify the human soul, if her children are not more than ordinarily devoted to the sacred interests of truth. The Apostle who sank into the waves because his trust had failed, and the disciples who cowered timidly under the onset of the storm, find many to imitate them in their weakness, but few to follow their sublime example of confidence after having been endued with power from on high. "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" is a reproach deserved by every zealous controversialist who becomes too solicitous about the success of his defense to remain scrupulously truthful in the presentation of his arguments. To triumph quickly over the enemies of the Cross is sometimes our supreme ambition. A harder and a holier ideal requires that we suffer the assault of the powers of darkness, yet go on trusting nevertheless. This is a more heroic test than the call to assent to evident conclusions; it develops higher qualities than the following of a captain who is ever visibly victorious. Loyalty would be too easy a thing, were our courage not severely tested, and its moral worth would inevitably be small. And, in any event, burying our heads in the sand is a poor way to deliver ourselves from difficulties. Ultimately these must be met and faced in all their strength, the only question being whether we shall encounter them with suspicious or with open minds. Let us, then, beware of the tendency to deny facts for the reason that they upset our arguments, to ignore truth whenever its aspect is disagreeable.
At first it may seem like a very "conservative" process to enter an a priori denial of all hostile criticism, and to cite an easily-invoked authority in condemnation of every puzzling argument. But there is danger that such policy will prove to be anything but conservative in the long run; that the day will dawn when those who now sit docile under our teaching will remember of it only our hasty condemnations. It is an awful thing recklessly to inform a man that there is necessary opposition between his opinion and the faith of the Church. In fact, it is an awful thing to make any rash statement about the content of the Church's teaching. Some one pays the price of this rashness, sooner or later. At the hour when a student opens the Grammar of Assent and laughs at himself for ever having believed the details of the scholastic philosophy to be akin to revelation, he is apt to experience a permanent weakening of his confidence in the magisterium. If he has been taught to repudiate as incredible the cavils of his Protestant playfellows against the least virtuous occupants of the Chair of Peter, he will suffer when he finds out such things as are faithfully set down by Pastor and by Barry. If staggered by an atheist's revelation of unimportant facts that might have been found in the pages of the Bollandists, he may consent to surrender essential parts of his religious heritage. And if there ever comes a crucial moment, when it seems to him as if he has been all his life reverently accepting myths and fables, when he remembers with bitterness that the name of religion has often been invoked to sanction the inculcation of absurdities, then his world will perhaps go upside down. Nor are the suppositions just made altogether imaginary. There are thousands upon thousands of earnest men and women whose hearts have been sickened and whose consciences have been troubled by irresponsible definitions of "what Catholics must believe."
Some souls never recover from shocks which in the beginning were perfectly gratuitous, and in the event are seen to have been "all a mistake." Censure these souls as weak, if you will; but acknowledge that the responsibility is not theirs alone. If children grow up with crippled faith and weakened trust, their instructors are probably to blame for it in part. If there come upon us the epidemic of religious decay, which the less hopeful men are now predicting, then the fault of causing it must lie largely at the door of all who force the acceptance of views possessing the guarantee only of prejudice or, at most, of probability. If we keep the facts concealed as long as possible, how can we wonder that the pupil comes to be: habitually suspicious of us; that he imagines we are always attempting to deceive him " for his own good"? Nemo me impune lacessit, is the perennial challenge of truth. To those who maltreat her is dealt out retribution, slow, perhaps, but certain - in this instance the demoralization of the souls upon whom the hopes of the future must be built.
So open-mindedness is not only right; it is expedient too. To rely upon the truth is safer than to depend upon a lie. Salvation will come from the facing of facts rather than from the endeavor to ignore or to refute them.
"Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie,"
wrote Herbert; and ages before him another had written:
"Non eget Deus mendacio nostro."
Theoretically we see, and in the abstract we approve, these principles. It is not plain, however, that in actual conduct many of us are willing to take the risk of living up to them.
We have all heard much of "the will to believe"; possibly we have begun to understand that in matters of religion it is indispensable. But we must not, therefore, forget the value of "the will to be true." The pia credulitas of the disciple is certainly one of the dearest possessions of his soul; yet it should not be suffered utterly to exhaust his mental activity or entirely to supplant his devotion to the pursuit of facts. Briefly, together with the wish to believe, he must also cherish the fortis affectus veritatis, which might perhaps be freely translated as "an open mind."
III
To open their eyes that they may be converted. - The Acts of the Apostles
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side. - Lowell
Having admitted that the profession of the Catholic faith does not necessarily imply the possession of an open mind, we may now, with good grace, go on to consider certain faults of people outside the Church. Less by way of passing judgment than by way of suggestion, we shall note both the nature of these offenses and the lines along which improvement can be made. Nor need our suggestions appear untimely, even though the present generation has, to a very remarkable extent, emancipated itself from prejudices and dishonesties prevalent at an earlier date. Granted that there has seldom existed a nation readier than our own to listen to the presentation of Catholic claims, and that there is no place upon earth where the Church has a fairer chance to make converts than in this land of ours; yet, even here, there is still room for improvement. Non-Catholics often display characteristics which form a serious obstacle to the progress of the truth; prejudice still keeps possession of many minds; multitudes are sluggish in responding to the behests of conscience; frequently there is manifested an ingrained reluctance to go strictly by evidence in matters of controversy. Hence, having considered our own shortcomings, it seems proper that we should devote a few words to the shortcomings of our neighbors.
Every one is aware that for some people there could scarcely be conceived a harder duty than that of patiently studying and openly accepting the teachings of the Catholic Church. Menacing phantoms warn a man not to persist in his search for the facts; human ties of every kind detain him in the state of belief or unbelief to which he has been accustomed. The example of the crowd, the wish to preserve reputation, the love of personal comfort, the affection of friends, the traditions of race and family, the revolt of judgment and temper - these, and perhaps still more intimate motives, play upon the will with a force calculated to overcome any ordinary powers of resistance. And finally there is the inevitable temptation to defer action and to re-examine arguments endlessly. If, despite these obstacles, a man becomes a convert from genuine conviction; if he withstands the influence of disposition, training, and habit; if he overcomes that last foe of duty, self-distrust; then we may regard him as a noble example of open-mindedness.
When a man has made public profession of certain principles and convictions, it is no small thing for him to own that he has been wrong. "Lord! what wilt Thou have me to do?" was the instant answer of Saul to the constraining voice at the gate of Damascus; but to few does a divine voice speak, and to few are supernatural evidences granted. The many go through a long and painful contest with indecision. They question the call to repudiate what they are under solemn pledges to uphold. Through some such test must every convert pass, so long as Providence places truth at the end of the path of renunciation and makes faith the reward of suffering bravely borne. The fact that in our own day so great a multitude has been ready to venture upon this path and to face this suffering, would seem to prove that, with all its lack of idealism, our generation is neither irredeemably selfish nor hopelessly corrupt.
We must not forget, then, that open-mindedness usually involves heroic virtue on the part of a convert to the Catholic faith. No one can deny that the saying is a hard one. Nevertheless, we would here insist upon the principle that in this, as in all other affairs, a man is bound to make whatever sacrifices fidelity to the truth may entail. First and foremost in the moral life comes the obligation to fulfill the divine commandments written by the God of nature on the human heart; and among these is the law of truth. We have a higher destiny than to satisfy our selfish inclinations. We are created to obey the will of another, rather than our own. No matter how clever may be the excuses self-love invents, they will never be strong enough to withstand the fierce testing to which the God of truth will one day submit them. The main issue is plain: Are we seeking the whole truth, or not? Those who do not seek it with the ardor of lovers can hardly hope to look upon the face of their Creator or to be admitted to the pure-hearted company of the saints. Once we find a clew to the teaching of God, we must follow it. There can be no drawing back under penalty of moral disaster. We may be tempted to devote the time and the energy entrusted us to other ends; we may desire to wrap our talent in a napkin and store it quietly away; we may wish to linger and temporize until some pleasant change comes over the spirit of our convictions. But all the while we dally and procrastinate we are weighing self against God; and too long a delay must inevitably mean that the heavenly vision will pass away, never again to be vouchsafed us.
Here, then, the non-Catholic may find matter for self-examination: Is my attitude toward the claims of the Church determined by right or by wrong motives? In other words, do not other considerations than the legitimate pros and cons play too important a part in the forming of my judgment; and do not other aims besides the quest of holiness absorb too much of my attention?
Take, for instance, the matter of intellectual and social culture. Now learning and refinement are all very well in their way; they are good gifts of God; they are valuable adornments of truth. But, however high they rank, they are not criteria of revelation. The mental acumen, the scholarship, the fine polish of a religious teacher cannot be regarded as final tests of his doctrine. It may very well happen - in fact, we shall be quite within the bounds of truth in saying it often happens - that the possessor of a brilliant and highly cultivated mind is offered the opportunity of receiving instruction at the hands of an apostolic messenger who, in every human quality, is immeasurably his inferior. Under these circumstances there will naturally be a strong temptation to shrink away from the duty of listening to such a teacher; and the temptation is not always earnestly resisted. To yield, however, is plainly to prefer the human before the divine, to set pleasure above duty, and to sin against the truth.
The temptations of controversy dig another pitfall for the feet of the unwary. Not to take advantage of an adversary, despite our chance to score against him, is to exercise a very extraordinary degree of self-restraint. Yet the interests of truth require that we resist loyally every such temptation. How rarely it is resisted can be seen by all who watch the course of current controversy; and how difficult resistance is, they know who have subdued the vicious inclination to argue for the sake of victory. Though few may follow this ideal of perfect honesty, it is morally imperative. Sins against it will be punished with inability to see the truth which one may, to some extent, really desire, and for which one may shave searched long, though not faithfully nor unselfishly enough. For truth is the reward of following the light, not the prize of stratagem and deceit. To seek for truth is far different from submitting to an ordeal, the outcome of which depends on the dexterity and strength of one's champion. The conclusion of an honest discussion should be a summary of all the facts presented or suggested by both sides, not a judgment on the comparative ability of two debaters. The result should have nothing to do with the chance circumstances that this or that pair of disputants has been matched. Despite our sympathies we should be ready to develop the imperfect arguments brought forth by either party; and to put into telling shape the considerations which have lost force through imperfect presentation.
Another opportunity for the practice of open-mindedness arises from the common expectation that truth and virtue will always be found together; for this anticipation begets a prejudice against doctrines supported by men who are not distinguished for holiness of life. But though, as a general rule, we can arrive at the true by tracing out the good, this clew cannot always be relied upon. For the sake of gathering the grains of wheat we may have to delve into most unlovely heaps of chaff. The representatives of truth at times are far from being models of virtue. By way of illustration, we may refer to the difficulty caused by the scandals of Christianity, as set forth in the pages of a recent writer: "Even if we remove the mountainous accumulation of fables, false judgments, blind prejudice, and malignant calumny, there still remains, alas! a second mountain of scandalous fact, beginning with what we read in the pages of the New Testament, such as the many failings of the Corinthian converts or the tepid Church of Laodicea; and discernible century after century. So, for example, the worldly Christians whose portraiture is to be found in The Shepherd of Hermas, during the time of peace before the persecution of Decius, and then in natural sequence a multitude of defections; again, a hundred years later, the influx of laxity after the age of persecutions had ended; those unworthy members of the Church who almost made the great Saint Ambrose lose heart, and who clung so fast to pagan licentiousness, that in Africa the rude Vandal conquerors were astonished at the spectacle of vice; then later the scandalous errors of the two great Christian states, the Frankish and the Byzantine; the popes of the tenth century mere puppets of the factious Roman nobles; the sad moral condition even among the pious Anglo-Saxons of the laicized monasteries before the reforms of Saint Dunstan; the concubinage of the clergy before the reforms of Gregory VII (Hildebrand); the heaven-defying court of William Rufus; the unchristian hatreds and homicides of later mediaeval Italy; the life and surroundings of Alexander VI, and the licentiousness of the Italian Renaissance; the forlorn state of the archdiocese of Milan when Saint Charles Borromeo took possession; the antagonism of rival orders in the face of a common foe, with such disastrous results, for example, in England and Japan; the heartrending testimony of missionaries that the scandalous lives of Christians are the greatest of all obstacles to the spread of the faith. Even in lesser things there appears a continuity of abuse, and we might think the Fathers were living in the days of Chaucer, when Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory of Nyssa bear witness to the abuses mingled with the use of pilgrimages, and when Saint Chrysostom rebukes the superstitious use of amulets in Antioch and Constantinople, though himself enthusiastic in the rightful veneration of the relics of the martyrs and the wood of the Holy Cross. . . . Indeed the narrative may be woven by so skillful a hand that, without straying from the nominal truth, the history of the Church may be made to appear a chronicle of scandals."
The author proceeds to show that, despite all these unpleasant features, the Church is still worthy of the attribute of holy. "These very scandals, if once again we look below the surface of things to the depths, if we seek the testimony not of partial but of total facts, if we remember our theological principles - these very scandals in the Church are a witness to her divinity. . . . The Church must indeed pay the penalty for her title of Catholic Whatever else she may be, she must remain the Church not only of the ill-mannered and coarse-minded, but of the criminal and the outcast. . . . She must journey through the centuries, bearing as the heaviest of her trials and the greatest hindrance to her success, the daily shame of her unworthy members, and be well content if she can save at their death those who have been a disgrace to her during their life."
Reflection will, indeed, make it clear that religious truth, like other divine gifts, may be at times in the hands of wicked husbandmen and faithless stewards; but reflection is not likely to suggest itself to any but the most earnest seekers. The devoted follower of truth alone will take the trouble to study out this aspect of the situation, and to find the viewpoint which enables him to overlook all objections. In the face of moral weakness or vice on the part of the messengers of the faith, the convert's quest must truly be a hard one; and only on condition of being gifted with a high degree of courage and a most ardent love of truth can he hope to bring it to a successful termination. It is in part because most questioners fall short of ideal single-heartedness, that missionaries must spend so much time in answering objections based upon scandals, distressing enough, to be sure, but really not affecting the issue under consideration.
When a high-souled convert, or prospective convert, meets with some such painful obstacle to progress, all the strength of inclination and emotion is engaged against the cause of Catholicism. It may be the shock of discovering wickedness in high places; it may be the treachery of one who has accidentally been associated with the presentation of the truths of faith in a particular locality; it may be a display of moral depravity by some one who ranks among "distinguished recent converts." Now, no one can be blind to the fact that these circumstances extenuate the error in the cases where the individual judgment is prejudiced finally against the truth. Yet it is possible for minds to rise superior to such considerations, as was done in a notable recent instance, when the vile behavior of a prominent convert toward the wife whom he had first influenced toward the Church did not in the least affect her appreciation of the faith which the Church taught her. Unfortunately, though, such loyalty is something of an exception. The rule is that people are determined by the accidents of these cases. They heed the promptings of emotion. They have not been trained to support principles for their own sake and without further question; so they lack the strength necessary for the following of the naked truth.
Another tendency which does much to keep men alienated from Catholicism is the disposition to cling blindly to old traditions, whether authenticated or not. The cultivation of open-mindedness is the sure road to freedom from this bondage. In proportion as the love of truth is developed in the soul, ancient calumnies will lose their power; for love of truth leads men to struggle against mental inertia and forbids them to repose supinely in the shade of accepted opinions. This development is much needed by the average man who is loth to disturb his own social or domestic peace by the introduction of new views and policies, and who thinks what was true enough for the father true enough for the son. Dante compares the multitude to blind persons with their hands upon the shoulders of others equally blind, falling into the ditch of false opinion and unable to escape. "They are like sheep, rather than men - sono da chiamare pecore, e non uomini." A means to counterbalance this tendency and to correct the errors which result from it will be found in that open-mindedness which has helped us to so much of the best we possess in the way of knowledge and power.
The man who contemplates Catholicism from without is also severely tested when he discovers a more or less prevalent tendency to superstition among Catholics. Newman, in his Ninth Lecture on Difficulties Felt by Anglicans, sets forth this difficulty in almost startling strength. It is based on the reproach "that Catholics, whether in the North or the South, in the Middle Ages or in modern times, exhibit the combined and contrary faults of profaneness and superstition. There is a bold, shallow, hard, indelicate way among them of speaking of even points of faith, which is, to use studiously mild language, utterly out of taste, and indescribably offensive to any person of ordinary refinement. They are rude where they should be reverent, jocose where they should be grave, and loquacious where they should be silent. The most sacred feelings, the most august doctrines, are glibly enunciated in the shape of some short and smart theological formula; purgatory, hell, and the evil spirit, are a sort of household words upon their tongue; the most solemn duties, such as confession, or saying office, whether as spoken of or as performed, have a business-like air and a mechanical action about them, quite inconsistent with their real nature. Religion is made both free and easy, and yet is formal. Superstitions and false miracles are at once preached, assented to, and laughed at, till one really does not know what is believed and what is not, or whether anything is believed at all. The saints are lauded yet affronted. Take medieval England or France, or modern Belgium or Italy, it is all the same; you have your Boy-bishop at Salisbury, your Lord of Misrule at Rheims, and at Sens your Feast of Asses. Whether in the South now, or in the North formerly, you have the excesses of your Carnival. Legends, such as that of Saint Dunstan's fight with the author of all evil at Glastonbury, are popular in Germany, in Spain, in Scotland, and in Italy; while in Naples or in Seville your populations rise in periodical fury against the celestial patrons whom they ordinarily worship. . . . Such is the charge brought against the Catholic Church. . . .
"Hence, the strange stories of highwaymen and brigands devout to the Madonna. And, their wishes leading to belief, they begin to circulate stories of her much-coveted compassion. towards impenitent offenders; and these stories, fostered by the circumstances of the day, and confused with others similar but not impossible, for a time are in repute. Thus, the Blessed Virgin has been reported to deliver the reprobate from hell, and to transfer them to purgatory; and absolutely to secure from perdition all who are devout to her, repentance not being contemplated as the means. Or men have thought, by means of some sacred relic, to be secured from death in their perilous and guilty expeditions. So, in the Middle Ages, great men could not go out to hunt without hearing Mass, but were content that the priest should mutilate it and worse, to bring it within limits. Similar phenomena occur in the history of chivalry; the tournaments were held in defiance of the excommunications of the Church, yet were conducted with a show of devotion; ordeals, again, were even religious rites, yet in like manner undergone in the face of the Church's prohibition. - We know the dissolute character of the mediaeval knights and of the troubadours; yet, that dissoluteness, which would lead Protestant poets and travellers to scoff at religion, led them, not to deny revealed truth, but to combine it with their own wild and extravagant profession. The knight swore before Almighty God, His Blessed Mother, and - the ladies; the troubadour offered tapers, and paid for Masses, for his success in some lawless attachment; and the object of it, in turn, painted her votary under the figure of some saint. . . . The crusaders had faith sufficient to bind them to a perilous pilgrimage and warfare; they kept the Friday's abstinence, and planted the tents of their mistresses within the shadow of the pavilion of the glorious Saint Louis. There are other pilgrimages besides military ones, and other religious journeys besides the march on Jerusalem; but the character of all of them is pretty much the same, as Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory Nyssen bear witness in the first. age of the Church, It is a mixed multitude, some members of it most holy, perhaps even saints; others penitent sinners; but others, again, a mixture of pilgrim and beggar, or pilgrim and robber; or half gypsy, or three-quarters boon companion, or at least, with nothing saintly, and little religious about them. . . .
"You enter into one of the churches close upon the scene of festivity, and you turn your eyes to a confessional. The penitents are crowding for admission, and they seem to have no shame, or solemnity, or reserve about the errand on which they are come; till at length, on a penitent's turning from the grate, one tall woman, bolder than a score of men, darts forward from a distance into the place he has vacated, to the disappointment of the many who have waited longer than she. . . . You turn away half-satisfied, and what do you see? There is a feeble old woman, who first genuflects before the Blessed Sacrament, and then steals her neighbor's handkerchief, or prayer book, who is intent on his devotions. . . . You come out again and mix in the idle and dissipated throng, and you fall in with a man in a palmer's dress, selling false relics, and a credulous circle of customers buying them as greedily as though they were the supposed French laces and India silks of a peddler's basket. One simple soul has bought of him a cure for the rheumatism or ague, the use of which might form a case of conscience. It is said to be a relic of Saint Cuthbert, but only has virtue at sunrise, and when applied with three crosses to the head, arms, and feet. You pass on, and encounter a rude son of the Church, more like a showman than a religious, recounting to the gaping multitude some tale of a vision of the invisible world seen by Brother Augustine of the Friars Minor, or by a holy Jesuit preacher who died in the odor of sanctity, and sending round his bag to collect pence for the souls in purgatory; or of some appearance of our Lady (the like of which has really been before and since), but on no authority except popular report, and in no shape but that which popular caprice has given it."
Probably no one will ask for a stronger indictment than the foregoing. Yet the Cardinal's luminous discussion of the objection enables the man of average intelligence to see that this ugly array of facts does not discredit the claim of the Church to be divine in origin and in doctrine. On the contrary, it rather constitutes "the very phenomenon which must necessarily result from a revelation of divine truth falling upon the human mind in its present existing state of ignorance and moral feebleness." And, indeed, no religion which takes vital hold of the popular feelings and imagination can fail to be tinged with something of superstition in the minds of the vulgar. The adequacy of this answer will be perceived by many who would not be broad and patient and just enough to seek of their own accord for a similar explanation of the disagreeable superstitions which they daily encounter. When a Newman appears and smooths away the difficulty, they are honest enough to accept the explanation. But should he not appear, they will let themselves be deprived of a great gift which might be theirs, were they to correct their prejudices and to control their emotions more heroically.
We may conclude these reflections on open-mindedness, with the affirmation that it is a quality indispensable to the ideal man or woman; that it is far too rare; that it can be, and should be, developed by patient striving. Much courage will, of course, be required, for it takes a high form of bravery to walk in faith and hope amid such specters as the enemy of truth is constantly summoning up to frighten men away from the paths of simplicity and honesty. Threats will crowd in upon us, misunderstandings multiply, the pleading of well-intentioned but faint-hearted friends become hard to resist. We shall seem to have no light but conscience, and no aid but God. Yet all will go well if, in the spirit of Paracelsus, we keep our course:
"I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first,
I ask not."
Meanwhile it affords us no small consolation to know that all trials endured in the service of truth will help to clear that inner sight wherewith we must in eternity view the beauty of the face of God. This same fact intimates to us the reason why men must progress toward the truth by struggling with temptation, by resisting the solicitations of selfishness, and by toiling wearily along the path of duty.
Our love of truth must be stronger than common affections; for it leads not toward comfort but sacrifice, and promises us scorn in the place of honor. The man who treads truth's narrow path is being prepared for the highest and the holiest life; and when he reaches. the object of his seeking he will already have achieved some measure of nobility by his constant struggle against the lower tendencies of nature. It does not seem strange, then, that so often the only road which leads to faith is the road of the Holy Cross; nor that acceptance of the moral ideals of Christ and the Church must accompany every serious effort to acquire the fullness of Christian revelation. As inside the fold the self-denying saint is led into light and knowledge denied to lesser men, so the seeker outside is assisted or abandoned accordingly as he does or does not show himself ready, for the sake of truth, to renounce what is attractive and to embrace what is repugnant. Without calculation he must follow the lead of the Spirit.
"Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead is all her seamen know."
Devotion to the Holy Spirit of Truth should be cultivated by all who hope to become open of mind. This devotion will necessarily include a readiness to make sacrifices for the sake of truth; and opportunities for such sacrifices none of us will lack. To hold no private interest superior to the duty of seeking the truth; to ask for no dispensation and to invent no excuse to relieve us from the obligation of using all the light we may receive - this is an essential part of devotion to the Holy Spirit. No matter what we have thought or professed or done in the past, the summons of truth must find us ever ready to acknowledge, to alter, to amend. If certainty of anything is granted to us here upon earth, of this we are sure - that God never approves and man never profits by a sin.
To see light, that is to react against the stimulus of rays which fall upon the retina, is less a virtue than a mechanical, or physiological, necessity. But to hold the eyes open when they are tired, to strain them when the light is dim, to peer about and search eagerly for truth which we are aware will make us uncomfortable - this is to serve the cause of virtue and to obey the law of God. It is the requirement of the ideal. We may often fall short of it in practice, but at least let us recognize it interiorly as sacred and divine; let us be filled with shame when we fail to embrace it in effort and intention.
The foregoing considerations upon the virtue of open-mindedness may, at least, serve to suggest a topic for study. Let each reasonable man see to it that he possesses sufficient humility to use criticisms passed upon his character or his work. Let each Catholic make sure that in discussions he is ever upon the side of truth, irrespective of his sympathy and his inclination. Let each possible convert stamp upon his soul the ambition to be honest and pure-hearted and brave. Let him frown down calumny, fearlessly correct misunderstanding, and cultivate the good-will which disdains suspicion. And if the time should ever come when reason suggests that the old prejudices are baseless, and observation intimates that Catholicism is divine in its quality, and conscience whispers that investigation, or maybe submission, is a duty, then let there be, upon his part, no shrinking, no evasion, no postponement.
- text taken from The Sacrament of Duty by Father Joseph McSorley, C.S.P.