The Sunday rest may no less guide travellers to the Catholic Church, which for such divine and reasonable motives prescribes it. "The hermits," says the rule of Camaldoli, "must never travel on Sundays or festivals, unless obedience or necessity requires."* The general direction of the traveller's mind on all days is expressed by the Franciscan rules for behaviour without the house :-"Non leviter circumspicereQuantocyus negotia expedire-Cum ædificatione omnibus loqui -Modestiam et gravitatem servare-Discrete cum opus fuerit interrogare-Curiosa non attendere-Rumores vanos fugereLoca sancta frequens visitare.”+ Catholicism had for object too, which was seen accomplished in the sequel, to preserve travellers from the injury which Tyndarus said had resulted to Menelaus from his peregrinations, saying to him, 66 βεβαρβάρωσαι, χρόνιος ὢν ἐν βαρβάροις; and yet to inspire them with patience and forbearance, according to the words of St. Gregory, "Ibi æquanimiter portandi sunt mali, ubi aliqui reperiuntur boni." In fine, a mere consideration of the advantage to travellers resulting from the observance of such rules as the Catholic religion prescribes, and from a personal familiarity with its usages, can direct men, as in the instance of a recent English author, to a recognition of its truth. "The traveller in the middle ages," says this writer, rose with the religious men beneath whose roof he had found shelter for the night. With them he sought, first of all, the altar of God, and joined in the matin office. He went forward on his road with prayer and benediction, Prosperum iter was the kindly monks' farewell, faciat tibi Deus salutarium nostrorum utinam dirigantur viæ tuæ ad custodiendas justificationes Dei! and from field, and brook, and bush, the salutation still for miles came forth, haunting his ear, Procedas in pace in nomine Domini! A cloud of good wishes accompanied and guarded him from monastery to monastery, while the courts of bishops and the cloisters of learned men were opened to him. True, his progress was slow, and often beset with dangers, yet, upon the whole, the traveller of those times had some solid advantages which now-a-days we may be allowed to regret, and for which we might be willing to exchange no inconsiderable portion of our modern facilities." § On his return, the traveller finds other directions conducive to his devout meditation of eternal things, provided for him by the Catholic religion, of which he can best appreciate *Constitut. Eremit. Camald. c. 67. ‡ Orestes, 485. the importance after observing the consequences of travel where they are unknown. He is warned to be on his guard against the distractions arising from his journey; for to him is applicable, in a certain sense, and with the necessary modifications, the injunction given to monks, who on returning from a journey, however short, during the rest of the day, at the end of all the canonical hours, were to prostrate themselves on the pavement, and ask the prayers of all, on account of the excesses which they might perchance have committed on the way, by sight, or hearing, or using idle words.* The prayer accompanying the benediction on his return, was as follows: "Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, miserere huic famulo tuo, et quicquid ei in via subripuit visus aut auditus malæ rei, aut otiosi sermonis totum ineffabili pietate propitiatus indulge per Christum Dominum nostrum." Though merely secular, he cannot but admire the excellence of another rule which Catholicity would recommend to all, telling him that he is to be no less on his guard against disturbing or scandalizing others by disclosing what may distract their minds or wound charity; which direction may be gathered from these words of another most ancient rule. "When monks return from a journey they must not relate in the monastery what evil they have heard or seen on the way" as also from another, which says, "Revertentes ea quæ foris agi viderint referre non audeant, nisi illa tantum quæ ædificent audientes."§ Mabillon, in his own reserve, supplies an example which indicates a virtue in the Catholic mind which the mere wordly traveller can now hardly conceive, but which may direct him to truth by the practical effects which are deduced from it; for when relating his visit to Monte Cassino, he adds, "there are not wanting here old monks of great merit, superior even to youths in fervour and desire of regular discipline, quorum si revelaremus nomina, modestiam et latendi desiderium forsan offenderemus." || Finally, after completing a journey, the mind was to be rendered more familiar with the thought of the pilgrimage which all must make to a future world; and for which faith and good works were the needful provision. There are some whose wanderings have been long protracted, who on their return to their country, and to what they once esteemed their home, experience poignant, and to * Hist. Cassinensis, lib. ix. 533. + Cæsar Heister. Illust. Mir. lib. vii. c. 11. Regula S. Pachomii ap. Luc. Holstein Codex Reg. § Regula Tarnatensis, c. 2, ap. id. Iter Italicum, 124. human aid inconsolable sorrow, like him the poets tells of, who had "left in youth his father-land, But from the hour he waved his parting hand, The young forgot him and the old had died." "This," says a modern English author, "is the most purely painful of all painful things. It presses on us with its whole unalleviated weight;" but Catholicity had the secret of rendering even this burden lightsome, as many examples can demonstrate. In the year 1249, the bishop of Tortosa, in Syria, an Englishman of the Dominican order, returned to England, as Mathieu Paris says, through love of his native soil, and with the intention of visiting his relations at Reading. But when he came there, he found that his paternal house had fallen to ruins, and he could find no one living who was related to him. Here was an instance of the sorrow deprecated. And is this now his home? "Hic labor extremus, longarum hæc meta viarum ?”* If so, this forest of human life, will Southey say, inflicts no direr penalty. But these are the world's thoughts. What an advantage will it then prove to be able to retain a mind like that of this good Dominican and bishop, who after preaching the next day in the convent of Reading, as if nothing painful had happened, though all his auditory were personally unknown to him, calmly and cheerfully departed again to his see in peace; or like that of Dom Mabillon, who concludes the account of his journey to Italy with these affecting but courageous words: "So we returned to our monastery of St. Germain in Paris. Nunc mihi tamdem receptui canendum, nunc de alio itinere cogitandum. Nam, ut ait Augustinus, peregrinationes, quas quietas et faciles habere nequeas, per totam cogitare vitam, non est hominis de illa una ultima, quæ mors vocatur, cogitantis, de qua vel sola intelligis esse cogitandum."+ But we must here conclude this general view of the spiritual direction afforded by journeys, which has been obtained along or near the road which St. Bonaventura designates as that of the devout meditation on eternal things; for henceforth, in order that what now appears but indistinctly may appear right plainly, we must explore each of the avenues which open from it, along which pass so many men burning, and oft unconsciously, to reach the centre, Iter Italicum, * En. iii. 714. though at times, from unskilled anxiety, not loth to follow too long transverse paths; and this perambulation will occupy us during the next book. We shall find that not only as we now observe, can the mere fact of so many journeys having been undertaken and concluded with such views, inspire men who feel the void that their disuse occasions with a desire of passing on to the Catholic Church, which alone knew how to supply them, to sanctify the traveller, his objects, and his sufferings, rendering each journey fruitful to himself and to others; but that at each halt he makes, and at each diverging way, there are countless objects which can still guide him to beatitude, while drawn towards the centre, which is its focus, not by the geometrical necessity of which Plato speaks, but by love. END OF BOOK I. APPENDIX: CONTAINING TRANSLATIONS OF THE GREEK, LATIN, AND OTHER QUOTATIONS, FOUND IN THE TEXT OF THE FIRST BOOK OF COMPITUM. SECOND EDITION. CHAPTER I. Introductory Motto. To write to friends the same as to all. Page 2, line 18. Of things passing. 19. To him the library of the Catholic faith is thoroughly familiar. 8. He will sit solitary and be silent, because he will rise above himself. 29. O rear'd whence come the men who now exist. 37. New there the words, because old. 13. A forest of ancient discourse. 41. Ye who thirst, come to the water. 3. As the Cretan labyrinth of old, With wand'ring ways and many a winding fold, In a round error which denied recess.-(Dryden.) Note. The deceits of the labyrinth built by the Egyptians compared with the dangers of the world as it is seduced by the devil. 9, 14. We beseech thee, holy boy, that thou wouldst come and walk among us. 38. If man to me would speak, or I a voice 10, 16. God calls by Himself, calls by Angels, calls by Fathers, calls by Prophets, calls by Apostles, calls by Pastors, calls even by ourselves, calls often by miracles, calls often by scourges, calls sometimes by this world's prosperity, calls sometimes by its adversity. α |