gible, and owes all its proselytes to the propensity so common among men to mistake distinct images for clear conceptions, and, vice versa, to reject as inconceivable whatever from its own nature is unimaginable. How wanting in penetration and logic are narrow minds! This is what Mme. Swetchine used to remark. Of some, indeed, Coleridge says, that the sense of understanding them must be given, not acquired; but to demand that is asking rather too much from any one; for, in fact, as he concludes, a revelation unconfirmed by miracles, and a faith not commanded by the conscience, a philosopher may venture to pass by, without suspecting himself of any irreligious tendency. Education, he remarks, consists in educing the faculties, and forming the habits; but who can wonder at the scarcity of such examples as the instance we are considering, when it is supposed to be the mere imparting of knowledge with a tacit understanding that there is no exclusive truth in any particular form of Christianity? Such a writer can be cited the more willingly as being at all events no partial or prejudiced witness; and he goes on to say, "I do not hesitate to declare, that whether I consider the nature of the discipline adopted, or the plan of poisoning young minds with a sort of potential infidelity under the 'liberal idea' of teaching those points only of religious faith in which all denominations agree, I cannot but denounce those schools as pernicious beyond all power of compensation by the acquirement of reading and writing *." Evidently then he would have halted in the Chapel of St. John rather than have taken his seat among the scorners. However, be our opinion on modern systems of education what it may, there is but too much reason to credit the testimony of those unsuspected writers who represent the present age, abounding with men perilously over-civilized, and most pitiably uncultivated, as standing in singular need of that faith which produced the character that it is our object in these pages to portray. "Somehow or other," says Charles Lamb, "there is a want of strong virtue in mankind at present. We have plenty of the softer instincts, but the heroic character is *Statesman's Manual. gone." It is Topffer, in his last admirable work on art *, who speaks of his own times as forming "an epoch without moral life, without faith, without enthusiasm, without grandeur, when on the ruins of what is past nothing rises up but the worship of riches, of industry, and of matter; when productions, fabrication, and consumption, are the only things that are thought of, the end and the term of all efforts, the present and the future of society, the only wonders of the age." But waiving such general views, let us observe from other standing-ground the need which exists in society at present for profiting by the great lesson which is yielded by such a life as we are considering under these vaults,-namely, a life of faith. Now it is difficult not to be struck with the contrast presented by the energy of this character as witnessed in Jane Mary, and the weakness or nullity of wills where the faith that animated her is wanting. How ready for action and resolved on it in every emergency was this simple woman! As if well read in Alain Chartier's Bréviaire des Nobles, and knowing "Poure et riche meurt en corruption, Noble et commun doivent à Dieu service: Pour foy garder et pour vivre en justice." How morally strong, and how intellectually and practically heroic was this physically weak and singularly nervous creature! Her place evidently, to adopt the classification proposed by a great author, was among "persons who do, as distinguished from those who talk and think,—the former being now called," as he says, "practical persons, anciently believers." There is the secret: she trusted, she obeyed, according to a persuaded submission-ioric, the root and essence of all human deeds, being called by the Latins "fides," which has passed into the French "foi," and the English "faith †." Now look around you whenever this is wanting, and where are human deeds rightly so called? "Qu'est devenue," as Alain * Réflexions et menus Propos. Chartier might say with more justice than when he wrote, "la louable ordonnance de vivre, la constance de courage, et de meurs, et la haultesse de cuer et d'entreprise que tes devanciers laissèrent aux successeurs "What is soonest worn out in Our age us is the will," said a celebrated writer. "6 Assuredly," adds Saint-Beuve, "this is most true in our times, when the rarest of all spectacles is to see the moral energy of the will. seems to have exhausted all its force in that respect. The intelligence is extended, science has increased; it has studied and learned many things and in many ways, but it no longer dares, or is able, or wishes to will any thing. Amongst men devoted to the labour of thought, and who have the moral and philosophical sciences at their fingers' ends, there is nothing now more difficult to find than a will, a conviction, a faith. There are infinite combinations, impartialities without limits, vague and inconstant assemblages, but excepting for the dispute of the moment, a radical indifference. Looking on them the most favourably, they are great minds unfolded to all winds, but without an anchor when they stop, and without a compass when they proceed. . . . . We wish to comprehend without believing, and to receive ideas after the manner of a limpid mirror, without being determined by that as to, I do not say acts, but even to conclusions. The most impassioned derive from this moving succèssion a kind of passing and intoxicating pleasure, which reduces on them, the impression of each new idea to the charm of a sensation...... Yet one does not adopt this epicurism of the intelligence at once, and with a deliberate intention. One says that every thing must be known, and then there will be time to choose; but as time passes the energy of will fades away, till at last it wholly passes from the mind as well as the heart. The will then only serves the meanest passions, the wildest caprices or vicious habits; then the love of place, of gold, of the table, becomes the ruling passion. These secret and habitual objects can no longer be acknowledged without shame. With the noblest it is the love of their reputation which dominates, and they are seen with grey hair contending eagerly for this puerile garland. * Les Trois Vertus. I am Great men in some respects, they are no longer men in the intimate sense of the ancient wisdom; they no longer present intelligences served by organs, but intelligences which deceive organs and betray them. How few are there who in the order of thought fix themselves in time, and adhere without reserve to what is recognized by them as truth perpetual, universal, and holy; who, not content with recognizing it, devote themselves to it their faculties, their natural gifts; rich their riches, poor their farthing, passionate their passions, indolent their ease, proud their illusions; who become here below an humble and strong will, believing and active, — animating with its sovereign unity doctrine, affections, and manners; true men in regard to mind, sublime and encouraging models! aware," he concludes, furnishing, by the way, a useful lesson for ourselves," that in speaking of those who in our time present the noblest example of this consubstantial and sacred union of the will with the intelligence under the seal of faith,— of those whose mind and practice, all whose thought and all whose life are sumissive with such docility, and employed with such ardour in following out the consequences of doctrines, I know that we have to be on our guard against that fruitless study, that curious admiration without results, (Oh, what a smart lash for some consciences!) of which we have been indicating the mischief! The best way to profit by these moral activities is not to interpret or describe them, but it is to acquiesce in the general totality of the truths which they restore, and to render one's own personal testimony to the fundamental principle of which they are the simple organs *." "Amidst all this wild adulation of humanity," says another great author, "I remain sadly impressed by the spectacle of the sinking lower and lower, of the growing weakness and powerlessness of each man, taken in himself, in the modern society. This apotheosis of the wisdom and power of the masses seems to threaten to extinguish all personal initiative agency, and all strength of character in which virtue and nobleness consist t." *Saint-Beuve. † Montalembert, Les Moines d'Occident, i. Another reflection that is calculated to impart a high sense of the importance of the lesson emanating from this tomb, is the misery of those who follow a different standard, and who, without faith, excepting in themselves, live and die. "What we fail in," says a distinguished author, in one of his purely literary works, "is the study of supreme perfection, and the sentiment of our own imperfection. We have neither the ideal nor the real, neither humility nor energy in regard to moral greatness *.' There can be no joy in such a condition; yet nature has done her part most generously with many, nor is that great corrective ever withheld which should give it strength and vitality. But still, after all, in these times, the infallible support of faith comes to be found wanting, and consequently we hear it lamented of each of those proposed for objects of our hero-worship, that, Of all this outside bravery, within He neither felt encouragement nor hope; And reverence for himself, and, last and best, Confiding thoughts, through love and fear of Him, Are vain as billows in a tossing sea." Without faith no life is happy, and no death serene. Again I say, it is men the farthest removed from the sanctuary who acknowledge it. "This alternation of doubt and faith caused me," says Chateaubriand, "for a long period of my life, a mixture of despair and of ineffable delight. Who could paint that bitter disenchantment, that grief of not believing—or the ecstasy that accompanied a revival of faith?" Alas, to how few in our own country does the return appear to be granted! The form which the infidelity of England especially has taken, seems to a great author of our times, as one hitherto unheard of in human history. "The undisturbed imbecility," he says, "with which I found persons engaged in the study of economical and political questions declare that the laws of the Devil are *Philarete Chasles. |