The Roman Gathering [pp. 191-200]

The Roman Gathlering.
of the friendless and the helper of
the helpless, pleading with divine
eloquence, and laboring with divine
power for the outcast and the poor,
never and nowhere sanctioned the
spirit of insurrection, but enjoined
obedience as one of the main duties
of life. Hence, it has come about,
by one of those sublime mysteries,
which prove the divine origin of
Christianity, that the greatest revolution which has ever taken place
in religious belief and in civil society
in all their bearings, has been effected by the teachings, by the life and
death of one who by no word or
deed ever assailed authority itself or
incited resistance to it.
Beauty and order being the same
thing, and religious truth being the
beauty of holiness, Christ, who was
truth in person, must have made his
church the friend and upholder of all
beauty and order; and so it has
proved for eighteen hundred years.
The church has been the celestial
crucible in which whatever of human
art or invention had within it the
essential attributes of higher and spiritual goodness has been purified
and adapted to the service of religion. Has poetry sought to please
the imaginations of men? the church
of Christ unfolded before her the
annals of Christianity, with her grand
central sacrifice of infinite love, and
all her demonstrations of heroic suffering and courageous faith; and
poetry drew holier inspiration from
the view, and incited men by higher
motives to a higher life. Have painting and sculpture sought to represent
objects of refining grace and sublimity? the church of Christ persuaded
them to look into the records of the
Christian past, and there they found
treasures of beauty and splendor, devotion and martyrdom, whose wealth
of illustration as examples; incentives,
and memorials, art has not exhausted
for centuries, and will never exhaust.
Christian history is the inexhaustible
quarry of whatever is most noble
and heroic in man, purified by the
grace of God. Has architecture
sought to invest stone with the attributes of spiritual and intellectual
grace? the church of God has so
portrayed before her the sublimities
of the Christian faith, that she knelt
at her feet in veneration, and thenceforth consecrated herself to build
enduring structures, which, the more
they show of human power and skill,
the more they persuade men to the
worship of God. Has eloquence
sought to nerve men for the grand
conflicts of life? the church of Christ
has touched the lips of eloquence
with living fire from her altar, until
have sprung forth words that flamed
with love to man and love to God.
Has music sought to weave her entrancing spells around the ear and
heart and soul? the church of Christ
has breathed into music her own
divine being, until the music of the
church seems like beatific worship,
and worship on earth like beatific
music.
As in these respects, so in others,
the church has made a holy conquest
of whatever is noblest among the endowments of men. In speaking of
Catholic history, even from the secular
point of view, it may be justly said,
that nowhere else has there been
such wonderful discernment of the
various capacities of the human mind,
and of their various adaptations.
Tenacious of the truth and of all its
prerogatives, the Catholic Church
has, nevertheless, allowed a wide
liberty of thought. That the Catholic Church has narrowed the understandings of men, is a singular charge
to make in the face of the schools of
Catholic philosophy, in which men of
varying mental structure, training, or
habits of thought, have had full, free
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