is, in which the passions are in vigorous, and at the same time healthy, action-is that in which we should most naturally expect to find several moral qualities. Good humour, frankness, generosity, active courage, sanguine energy, buoyancy of temper, are the usual and appropriate accompaniments of a vigorous animal temperament, and they are much more rarely found either in natures that are essentially feeble and effeminate, or in natures which have been artificially emasculated by penances, distorted from their original tendency, and habitually held under severe control. The ideal type of Catholicism being, on account of the supreme value placed upon virginity, of the latter kind, the qualities I have mentioned have always ranked very low in the Catholic conceptions of excellence, and the steady tendency of Protestant and industrial civilisation has been to elevate them. I do not know whether the reader will regard these speculations—which I advance with some diffidence-as farfetched and fanciful. Our knowledge of the physical antecedents of different moral qualities is so scanty that it is difficult to speak on these matters with much confidence; but few persons, I think, can have failed to observe that the physical temperaments I have described differ not simply in the one great fact of the intensity of the animal passions, but also in the aptitude of each to produce a distinct moral type, or, in other words, in the harmony of each with several qualities, both good and evil. A doctrine, therefore, which connects one of these two temperaments indissolubly with the moral ideal, affects the appreciation of a large number of moral qualities. But whatever may be thought of the moral results springing from the physical temperament which asceticism produced, there can be little controversy as to the effects springing from the condition of life which it enjoined. Severance from the interests and affections of all around him was the chief object of the anchorite, and the first conse quence of the prominence of asceticism was a profound discredit thrown upon the domestic virtues. The extent to which this discredit was carried, the intense hardness of heart and ingratitude manifested by the saints towards those who were bound to them by the closest of earthly ties, is known to few who have not studied the original literature on the subject. These things are commonly thrown into the shade by those modern sentimentalists who delight in idealising the devotees of the past. To break by his ingratitude the heart of the mother who had borne him, to persuade the wife who adored him that it was her duty to separate from him for ever, to abandon his children, uncared for and beggars, to the mercies of the world, was regarded by the true hermit as the most acceptable offering he could make to his God. His business was to save his own soul. The serenity of his devotion would be impaired by the discharge of the simplest duties to his family. Evagrius, wher a hermit in the desert, received, after a long interval, letters from his father and mother. He could not bear that the equable tenor of his thoughts should be disturbed by the recollection of those who loved him, so he cast the letters unread into the fire.1 A man named Mutius, accompanied by his only child, a little boy of eight years old, abandoned his possessions and demanded admission into a monastery. The monks received him, but they proceeded to discipline his heart. 'He had already forgotten that he was he must next be taught to forget that he was a father.'2 rich; His little child was separated from him, clothed in dirty rags, subjected to every form of gross and wanton hardship, beaten, spurned, and ill treated. Day after day the father was compelled to look upon his boy wasting away with sorrow, his once happy countenance for ever stained with tears, distorted by sobs of anguish. But yet, says the admiring biographer, 'though he saw this day by day, such was his love for Christ, and for the virtue of obedience, that the father's heart was rigid and unmoved. He thought little of the tears of his child. He was anxious only for his own humility and perfection in virtue.' At last the abbot told him to take his child and throw it into the river. He proceeded, without a murmur or apparent pang, to obey, and it was only at the last moment that the monks interposed, and on the very brink of the river saved the child. Mutius afterwards rose to a high position among the ascetics, and was justly regarded as having displayed in great perfection the temper of a saint.2 An inhabitant of Thebes once came to the abbot Sisoes, and asked to be made a monk. The abbot asked if he had any one belonging to him. He answered, 'A son.' 'Take your son,' rejoined the old man, and throw him into the river, and then you may become a monk.' The father hastened to fulfil the command, and the deed was almost consummated when a messenger sent by Sisoes revoked the order.3 Sometimes the same lesson was taught under the form of a miracle. A man had once deserted his three children to become a monk. Three years after, he determined to bring them into the monastery, but, on returning to his home, found that the two eldest had died during his absence. He came to his abbot, bearing in his arms his youngest child, who was still little more than an infant. The abbot turned to him and said, 'Do you love this child?' The father answered, 'Yes.' Again the abbot said, 'Do you love it dearly?' The father answered as before. "Then take the child,' said the abbot, and throw it into the fire upon yonder hearth.' The father did as he was commanded, and the child remained unharmed amid the flames.1 But it was especially in their dealings with their female relations that this aspect of the monastic character was vividly displayed. In this case the motive was not simply to mortify family affectionsit was also to guard against the possible danger resulting from the presence of a woman. The fine flower of that saintly purity might have been disturbed by the sight of a mother's or a sister's face. The ideal of one age appears sometimes too grotesque for the caricature of another; and it is curious to observe how pale and weak is the picture which Molière drew of the affected prudery of Tartuffe,2 when compared with the narratives that are gravely propounded in the Lives of the Saints. When the abbot Sisoes had become a very old, feeble, and decrepit man, his disciples exhorted him to leave the desert for an inhabited country. Sisoes seemed to yield; but he stipulated, as a necessary condition, that in his new abode he should never be compelled to encounter the peril and perturbation of looking on a woman's face. To such a nature, of course, the desert alone was suitable, and the old man was suffered to die in peace.3 A monk was once travelling with his mother-in itself a 1 Verba Seniorum, xiv. 2 TARTUFFE (tirant un mouchoir de sa poche). 'Ah, mon Dieu, je vous prie, Avant que de parler, prenez-moi ce mouchoir. Comment! DORINE. TARTUFFE. Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurois voir; Par de pareils objets des âmes sont blessées, Et cela fait venir de coupables pensées.' Tartuffe, Acte iii. scène 2. 3 Bollandists, July 6. most unusual circumstance-and, having arrived at a bridgeless stream, it became necessary for him to carry her across. To her surprise, he began carefully wrapping up his hands in cloths; and upon her asking the reason, he explained that he was alarmed lest he should be unfortunate enough to touch her, and thereby disturb the equilibrium of his nature.1 The sister of St. John of Calama loved him dearly, and earnestly implored him that she might look upon his face once more before she died. On his persistent refusal, she declared that she would make a pilgrimage to him in the desert. The alarmed and perplexed saint at last wrote to her, promising to visit her if she would engage to relinquish her design. He went to her in disguise, received a cup of water from her hands, and came away without being discovered. She wrote to him, reproaching him with not having fulfilled his promise. He answered her that he had indeed visited her, that by the mercy of Jesus Christ he had not been recognised,' and that she must never see him again.2 The mother of St. Theodorus came armed with letters from the bishops to see her son, but he implored his abbot, St. Pachomius, to permit him to decline the interview; and, finding all her efforts in vain, the poor woman retired into a convent, together with her daughter, who had made a similar expedition with similar results.3 The mother of St. Marcus persuaded his abbot to command the saint to go out to her. Placed in a dilemma between the sin of disobedience and the perils of seeing his mother, St. Marcus extricated himself by an ingenious device. He went to his mother with his face disguised and his eyes 2 Tillemont, Mém de l'Hist. eccles. tome x. pp. 444, 445. 1 Verba Seniorum, iv. The mihi commemoratio aliarum femipoor woman, being startled and narum in animo.' perplexed at the proceedings of her son, said, 'Quid sic operuisti manus tuas, fili? Ille autem dixit: Quia corpus mulieris ignis est, et ex eo ipso quo te contingebam veniebat 3 Vit. S. Pachomius, ch. xxxi.; Verba Seniorum. |