Chapter 40

"The difference of our religions, my dear Oswald," continued Corinne, "is the cause of that secret censure which you cannot conceal from me. Yours is serious and rigid--ours, cheerful and tender. It is generally believed that Catholicism is more rigorous than Protestantism; and that may be true in a country where a struggle has subsisted between the two religions; but we have no religious dissensions in Italy, and you have experienced much of them in England. The result of this difference is, that Catholicism in Italy has assumed a character of mildness and indulgence; and that to destroy it in England, the Reformation has armed itself with the greatest severity in principles and morals. Our religion, like that of the ancients, animates the arts, inspires the poets, and becomes a part, if I may so express it, of all the joys of our life; whilst yours, establishing itself in a country where reason predominates more than imagination, has assumed a character of moral austerity which will never leave it. Ours speaks in the name of love, and yours in the name of duty. Our principles are liberal, our dogmas are absolute; nevertheless, our despotic orthodoxy accommodates itself to particular circumstances, and your religious liberty enforces obedience to its laws without any exception. It is true that our Catholicism imposes very hard penance upon those who have embraced a monastic life. This state, freely chosen, is a mysterious relation between man and the Deity; but the religion of laymen in Italy is an habitual source of affecting emotions. Love, hope, and faith, are the principal virtues of this religion, and all these virtues announce and confer happiness. Our priests therefore, far from forbidding at any time the pure sentiment of joy, tell us that it expresses our gratitude towards the Creator. What they exact of us, is an observance of those practices which prove our respect for our worship, and our desire to please God, namely, charity for the unfortunate, and repentance for our errors. But they do not refuse absolution, when we zealously entreat it; and the attachments of the heart inspire a more indulgent pity amongst us than anywhere else. Has not Jesus Christ said of the Magdalen: _Much shall be pardoned her, because she hath loved much_? These words were uttered beneath a sky, beautiful as ours; this same sky implores for us the Divine mercy."

"Corinne!" answered Lord Nelville, "how can I combat words so sweet, and of which my heart stands so much in need? But I will do it, nevertheless, because it is not for a day that I love Corinne--I expect with her a long futurity of happiness and virtue. The most pure religion is that which makes a continual homage to the Supreme Being, by the sacrifice of our passions and the fulfilment of our duties. A man's morality is his worship of God; and it would be degrading the idea we form of the Creator, to suppose that He wills anything in relation with His creature, that is not worthy of His intellectual perfection. Paternal authority, that noble image of a master sovereignly good, demands nothing of its children that does not tend to make them better or happier. How then can we imagine that God would exact anything from man, which has not man himself for its object? You see also what confusion in the understandings of your people results from the practice of attaching more importance to religious ceremonies than to moral duties. It is after Holy Week, you know, that the greatest number of murders is committed at Rome. The people think, to use the expression, that they have laid in a stock during Lent, and expend in assassination the treasures of their penitence. Criminals have been seen, yet reeking with murder, who have scrupled to eat meat on a Friday; and gross minds, who have been persuaded that the greatest of crimes consists in disobeying the discipline of the church, exhaust their consciences on this head, and conceive that the Deity, like human sovereigns, esteems submission to his power more than every other virtue. This is to substitute the sycophancy of a courtier for the respect which the Creator inspires, as the source and reward of a scrupulous and delicate life. Catholicism in Italy, confining itself to external demonstrations, dispenses the soul from meditation and self-contemplation. When the spectacle is over, the emotion ceases, the duty is fulfilled, and one is not, as with us, a long time absorbed in thoughts and sentiments, which give birth to a rigid examination of one's conduct and heart."

"You are severe, my dear Oswald," replied Corinne; "it is not the first time I have remarked it. If religion consisted only in a strict observance of moral duties, in what would it be superior to reason and philosophy? And what sentiments of piety could we discover, if our principal aim were to stifle the feelings of the heart? The stoics were as enlightened as we, as to the duties and the austerity of human conduct; but that which is peculiar to Christianity is the religious enthusiasm which blends with every affection of the soul; it is the power of love and pity; it is the worship of sentiment and of indulgence, so favourable to the flights of the soul towards heaven. How are we to interpret the parable of the Prodigal Son, if not that love, sincere love, is preferred even to the most exact discharge of every duty? This son had quitted his paternal abode, and his brother had remained there; he had plunged into all the dissipation and pleasure of the world, and his brother had never deviated for a single moment from the regularity of domestic life; but he returned, full of love for his father and of repentance for his past follies, and his parent celebrated this return by a festival. Ah! can it be doubted that among the mysteries of our nature, to love and to love again is what remains to us of our celestial inheritance? Even our virtues are often too complicated with life, for us to comprehend the gradations of good, and what is the secret sentiment that governs and leads us astray: I ask of my God to teach me to adore him, and I feel the effect of my prayers in the tears that I shed. But to support this disposition of the soul, religious practices are more necessary than you think; they are a constant communication with the Deity; they are daily actions, unconnected with the interests of life and solely directed towards the invisible world. External objects are also a great help to piety; the soul falls back upon itself, if the fine arts, great monuments, and harmonic strains, do not reanimate that poetical genius, which is synonymous with religious inspiration.

"The most vulgar man, when he prays, when he suffers, and places hope in heaven, has at that moment something in him which he would express like Milton, Homer, or Tasso, if education had taught him to clothe his thoughts with words. There are only two distinct classes of men in the world; those who feel enthusiasm, and those who despise it; every other difference is the work of society. The former cannot find words to express their sentiments, and the latter know what it is necessary to say to conceal the emptiness of their heart. But the spring that bursts from the rock at the voice of heaven, that spring is the true talent, the true religion, the true love.

"The pomp of our worship; those pictures in which the kneeling saints express a continual prayer in their looks; those statues placed on the tombs as if they were one day to rise with their inhabitants; those churches and their immense domes, have an intimate connection with religious ideas. I like this splendid homage paid by men to that which promises them neither fortune nor power--to that which neither punishes nor rewards them, but by a sentiment of the heart. I then feel more proud of my being; I recognise something disinterested in man; and were even religious magnificence multiplied to an extreme, I should love that prodigality of terrestrial riches for another life, of time for eternity: enough is provided for the morrow, enough care is taken for the economy of human affairs. How I love the useless, useless if existence be only a painful toil for a miserable gain! But if on this earth we are journeying towards heaven, what can we do better than to take every means of elevating our soul, that it may feel the infinite, the invisible, and the eternal, in the midst of all the limits that surround us?

"Jesus Christ permitted a weak, and perhaps, repentant woman, to anoint His feet with the most precious perfumes, and repulsed those who advised that those perfumes should be reserved for a more profitable use. "_Let her alone_" said He, "_for I am only with you for a short time_." Alas! all that is good and sublime upon earth is only with us for a short time; age, infirmity, and death, would soon dry up that drop of dew which falls from heaven and only rests upon the flowers. Let us then, dear Oswald, confound everything,--love, religion, genius, the sun, the perfumes, music, and poetry: atheism only consists in coldness, egotism, and baseness. Jesus Christ has said: _When two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be in the midst of them._ And what is it O God! to be assembled in Thy name, if it be not to enjoy Thy sublime gifts, and to offer Thee our homage, to thank Thee for that existence which Thou hast given us; above all, to thank Thee, when a heart, also created by Thee is perfectly responsive to our own?"

At this moment a celestial inspiration animated the countenance of Corinne. Oswald could hardly refrain from falling on his knees before her in the midst of the temple, and was silent for a long time to indulge in the pleasure of recalling her words and retracing them still in her looks. At last he set about replying; for he would not abandon a cause that was dear to him. "Corinne," said he, then, "indulge your lover with a few words more. His heart is not dry; no, Corinne, believe me it is not, and if I am an advocate for austerity in principle and action, it is because it renders sentiment more deep and permanent. If I love reason in religion, that is to say, if I reject contradictory dogmas and human means of producing effect upon men, it is because I perceive the Deity in reason as well as in enthusiasm; and if I cannot bear that man should be deprived of any one of his faculties, it is because I conceive them all barely sufficient to comprehend truths which reflection reveals to him, as well as the instinct of the heart, namely, the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul. What can be added to these sublime ideas, to their union with virtue? What can we add thereto that is not beneath them? The poetical enthusiasm which gives you so many charms, is not, I venture to assert, the most salutary devotion. Corinne, how could we by this disposition prepare for the innumerable sacrifices which duty exacts of us! There was no revelation, except by the flights of the soul, when human destiny, present and future, only revealed itself to the mind through clouds; but for us, to whom Christianity has rendered it clear and positive, feeling may be our recompense, but ought not to be our only guide: you describe the existence of the blessed, not that of mortals. Religious life is a combat, not a hymn. If we were not condemned in this world to repress the evil inclinations of others and of ourselves, there would in truth be no distinction to be made except between cold and enthusiastic souls. But man is a harsher and more formidable creature than your heart paints him to you; and reason in piety, and authority in duty, are a necessary curb to the wanderings of his pride.

"In whatever manner you may consider the external pomp and multiplied ceremonies of your religion, believe me, my love, the contemplation of the universe and its author, will be always the chief worship; that which will fill the imagination, without any thing futile or absurd being found in it upon investigation. Those dogmas which wound my reason also cool my enthusiasm. Undoubtedly the world, such as it is, is a mystery which we can neither deny nor comprehend; it would therefore be foolish to refuse credence to what we are unable to explain; but that which is contradictory is always of human creation. The mysteries of heavenly origin are above the lights of the mind; but not in opposition to them. A German philosopher[31] has said: _I know but two beautiful things in the universe: the starry sky above our heads, and the sentiment of duty in our hearts_. In truth all the wonders of the creation are comprised in these words.

"So far from a simple and severe religion searing our hearts, I should have thought, before I had known you, Corinne, that it was the only one which could concentrate and perpetuate the affections. I have seen the most pure and austere conduct unfold in a man the most inexhaustible tenderness. I have seen him preserve even to old age, a virginity of soul, which the passions and their criminal effects would necessarily have withered. Undoubtedly repentance is a fine thing, and I have more need than any person to believe in its efficacy; but repeated repentance fatigues the soul--this sentiment can only regenerate once. It is the redemption which is accomplished at the bottom of our soul, and this great sacrifice cannot be renewed. When human weakness is accustomed to it, the power to love is lost; for power is necessary in order to love, at least with constancy.

"I shall offer some objections of the same kind to that splendid form of worship, which according to you, acts so powerfully upon the imagination. I believe the imagination to be modest, and retired as the heart. The emotions which are imposed on it, are less powerful than those born of itself. I have seen in the Cevennes, a Protestant minister who preached towards the evening in the heart of the mountains. He invoked the tombs of the French, banished and proscribed by their brethren, whose ashes had been assembled together in this spot. He promised their friends that they should meet them again in a better world. He said that a virtuous life secured us this happiness; he said: _do good to mankind, that God may heal in your heart the wound of grief_. He testified his astonishment at the inflexibility and hard-heartedness of man, the creature of a day, to his fellow man equally with himself the creature of a day, and seized upon that terrible idea of death, which the living have conceived, but which they will never be able to exhaust. In short, he said nothing that was not affecting and true: his words were perfectly in harmony with nature. The torrent which was heard in the distance, the scintillating light of the stars, seemed to express the same thought under another form. The magnificence of nature was there, that magnificence, which can feast the soul without offending misfortune; and all this imposing simplicity, touched the soul more deeply than dazzling ceremonies could have done."

On the second day after this conversation, Easter Sunday, Corinne and Lord Nelville went together to the square of St Peter, at the moment when the Pope appears upon the most elevated balcony of the church, and asks of heaven that benediction which he is about to bestow on the land; when he pronounces these words, _urbi et orbi_ (to the city and to the world)--all the assembled people fell on their knees, and Corinne and Lord Nelville felt, by the emotion which they experienced at this moment, that all forms of worship resemble each other. The religious sentiment intimately unites men among themselves, when self-love and fanaticism do not make it an object of jealousy and hatred. To pray together in the same language, whatever be the form of worship, is the most pathetic bond of fraternity, of hope, and of sympathy, which men can contract upon earth.

FOOTNOTE:

[31] Kant.