Part 19

XXXVII. If we view the exterior part of the life of Sir Thomas More, we only see an able politician, simple in his manners, engaged in a department of the state, and attentive to the affairs of the king and kingdom, always suffering himself to be wafted by the gale of fortune, without soliciting honours, and without refusing to accept of them; in private life, open, courteous, gentle, cheerful, and even fond of a convivial song, frequently partaking in the halls of mirth, of the jovial relaxations of the mind, and in the circulation of wit and pleasantry; always innocent, but never shewing the least symptom of austerity. His application in literature was directed, indifferently and alternately, to the study of sacred and profane learning, and he made great advances in both the one and the other. His great application to, and proficiency in the living languages of Europe, represent him as a genius desirous of accommodating himself to the world at large. His works, except such as he composed in prison during the last year of his life, seemed more to savour of politics than religion. I speak of the subject of them, not of the motive with which he wrote them. In his description of Utopia, which was truly ingenious, delicate, and entertaining, he lets his pen run so much on the interests of the state, as makes it seem as if he was indifferent about the concerns of religion.

XXXVIII. Who, in this image or description of Sir Thomas More, would recognize that glorious martyr of Christ, and that generous hero, whose constancy to the obligations of his religion could not be bent or warped, neither by the threats or promises of Henry VIII. nor a hard imprisonment of fourteen months, nor the persuasions and intreaties of his wife, nor by the sad prospect of seeing his family and children reduced to misery and beggary, nor by the privation of all human comfort, in taking from him all his books, nor finally by the terrors of a scaffold placed before his eyes? So certain is it, that the qualities of great souls are not to be discovered, but by the touch-stone of great occasions and hard trials, and may be compared to large flints, which only manifest their smooth or shining surfaces by the execution of hard blows.

XXXIX. Sir Thomas More was the same while he was a prisoner of state, as when he was High Chancellor of England; the same in adverse, as in prosperous fortune; the same ill treated, as in high favour; the same in the prison, as seated at the head of the Court of Chancery; but adversity, manifested and made visible his whole heart, of which the greatest and best part had before lain hid. This great man, used to give to his own virtues an air of humanity and condescension, which in the eyes of the vulgar abated their splendour; but in proportion as it obscured the lustre of them to their view, it augmented it in the sight of all men of discernment and penetration. It once happened when he was High Chancellor, that a gentleman, who had a suit depending before him, made him a present of two silver bottles: it was inconsistent with his dignity or integrity to accept the present; and how did Sir Thomas conduct himself? Did he fall into a passion against the suitor for having offered an affront to his reputation? Did he punish the criminal audacity of the man, for attempting to corrupt and make venal the functions of his duty? Did he manifest before his domestics any disinterested delicacy, or appear scandalized at the temptation? No; he did none of all this, because nothing of this sort was correspondent to the nobleness or generous turn of his mind. He received the bottles with a good grace, and immediately gave orders to one of his servants to fill them with the best wine he had in his cellar, and carry them back to the gentleman, together with this courteous message, _That it gave him great pleasure to have an opportunity of obliging him, and that any sort of wine he had in his house was much at his service_. Expressing, by this prudent seeming insensibility or want of apprehension, that he supposed that was the purpose for which the gentleman sent the bottles. In this manner, he joined integrity to gentleness of reproof, and correction with courteous behaviour; and by so much the less parade he made of his own purity, by so much the more was the confusion of the gentleman diminished.

XL. It is clear, that the heroic constancy with which he supported his adherence to his religion, was not the effect of a strained violence on his nature, but proceeded from innate virtue, which acts in all things, and on all occasions, according to the habitual dispositions of the mind; for always, to the very crisis of his suffering, he preserved the native cheerfulness of his disposition. He did not appear less festive, nor less tranquil in chains, than he had before appeared in the banquet room. During the time of his trial he was all composure, and when it was drawing near a conclusion, and those iniquitous judges, who had already sacrificed their consciences to the will of their sovereign, were on the point, to please and flatter him, of delivering that innocent man, as a victim to his resentment, the barber came to shave him, and just as he was going to begin his work, Sir Thomas recollected himself, and said _Hold, as the King and I at present are contending to whom this head belongs, in case it should be adjudged to him, it would be wrong for me to rob him of the beard, so you must desist_. Being about to ascend the scaffold, and finding himself feeble, he begged one who was near to aid him in getting up the ladder, saying to him at the same time, _Assist me to get up, for be assured I shan’t trouble you to help me down again_. O eminent virtue! O spirit truly sublime, who mounted the scaffold with the same festive cheerfulness, that he would sit down to a banquet! Let men of little minds and narrow souls contemplate this example, and learn to know, that true virtue does not consist in the observance of forms and scrupulous niceties.

SECT. V.

XLI. O how many antipodes in morality to Sir Thomas More are to be found in every state! for both in the east and the west, you will meet with many of those ridiculous scarecrows, who lead a kind of hermetic life, and are called sanctified or holy men; but those of this day do not mortify themselves so much, but offend other people more, than those of former times were used to do. With a displeasing gravity, and forbidding look that amounts to sour sternness; a conversation so opposite to the cheerful, that it borders on the extreme of clownish surliness; a zeal so harsh and severe, that it degenerates into cruelty; a scrupulous observance of rites and ceremonies, that approaches to superstition; and by the mere want or absence of a few vices; I say, that with the help of these appearances, they, without more cost or trouble, set themselves up as patterns or images of ultimate perfection; and they are truly images in the strict sense of the word, for their whole value consists in their external shape and figure; and I besides call them images, because they are not endued or informed with a true, but with the sham semblance of a spirit. I repeat again that they are images, because they are hard as marble, and insensible and unfeeling as the trunks of trees. In the morality that directs them, gentleness of manners, affability, and pity, are blotted out of the catalogue of virtues. I have not even yet said enough. Those two sensible characteristics of charity, pointed out by St. Paul, that is to say, patience and benevolence, are so foreign to their dispositions, that they are inclined to consider them as signs of relaxation of discipline, or at least of lukewarmness. They assume the figure of saints, without possessing more sanctity than the stock or stone images of such, and would number themselves among the blessed, wanting the requisites which the gospel expresses to constitute them such, and make them deserving of being inserted in that catalogue, which are meekness, compassion, and a conciliatory spirit. _Beati mites, beati misericordes, beati pacifici._

XLII. It is also certain, that virtue is tinctured with, or wears a different hue, according to the genius or disposition of the subject in whom it exists, and on this account, in different individuals it appears in different colours. Notwithstanding this, we ought in the mixture or combination, to distinguish what is derived solely from virtue, and what is produced by the intervention of constitution. There are men of a harsh, choleric, unpleasant cast of mind, who at the same time are virtuous; but their virtue on this account is not harsh, choleric, and displeasing, but rather in its operations, by means of its innate good qualities, corrects those defects. The misfortune is, that these defects of temper, confound the understanding and pervert the judgment; and in consequence of this perversion of the judgment, virtue is prevented from amending the defects of the genius. A virtuous man, who is of an impetuous, violent disposition, and inclining to the morose, when placed in command, is easily brought to think; he finds himself in circumstances where prudence dictates that he should use rigour; whereas one of an excessive gentle and mild genius, can never persuade himself that contingent is arrived. Both one and the other discharge and preserve their consciences, and the public are the sufferers by their mistakes, but in a very different degree, according to the diversity of the employments or destinations of such people. The very gentle man is most pernicious in external policy, and the rigorous in internal. An excess of clemency, and forbearing to put in execution criminal laws, in cases where the offences committed are injurious to the public at large, is a very great evil. In matters that concern the reformation, or internal amendment of souls, rigour is not only useless, but prejudicial, because the fear of temporal punishment does not make penitents, but hypocrites; it only removes the external execution of vice, and concentrates the evil intention within the soul, where it produces a new sin, in the hatred it excites against the judge.

SECT. VI.

XLIII. I have observed, that for the sincere conversion or turning of mens hearts, benignity and gentle treatment has done miracles, in cases where rigour has been found ineffectual. Two illustrious examples of this sort, which in different ages have been exhibited on the theatre of France, occur to me at present. The first is that of Peter Abelard, a most subtle logician, and famous broacher of heresies in the twelfth century. The adventures of this man were extraordinary, and he for the most part experienced adverse fortune. He suffered many persecutions, some of which were unjust ones; but neither the just nor the unjust were capable of subduing his mind, or mitigating the contentious vivacity of his spirit. His errors, after innumerable debates, were condemned by the council of Sens, at which St. Bernard assisted. He appealed from the sentence to Pope innocent the Second, who confirmed the decision of the council; and added to it, that his books should be burnt, and the author imprisoned for life. Abelard had an infinite number of enemies, many of whom were not so from their zeal to religion, but from many other very different motives. As an augmentation of his misfortunes, there was scarce any one who did not exclaim against him, and cry aloud for the execution of the sentence. In this deplorable situation of Abelard, there was only one man who had generosity enough to take the favourable side of the question, and interest himself on his behalf. This was that most pious and wise person St. Peter the Venerable, abbot of the great monastery of Cluny, who solicited and obtained of the Pope, Abelard’s pardon. He also reconciled him with St. Bernard, which amounted to the same thing as indemnifying him against the public hatred. Besides this, as a remedy for all his reverses of fortune, he offered him an asylum in his monastery of Cluny, which monastery received him in its arms like a loving father, and gave him the habit of a monk.

It will be proper to observe here, that Eloisa, a sensible, beautiful, and noble French lady, was in her youth in love with, and beloved by Abelard, to such an excess, that their love broke through all the fences of honour. Historians relate a very singular circumstance of this woman, which is, that Abelard being desirous of marrying her, she, notwithstanding her prodigious fondness for him, rejected the proposal, and chose rather to continue his concubine than be his wife, alledging as her motive for this conduct, that she would not, by her marriage, deprive the church of the great lustre that might be reflected on it by the sublime genius of Abelard, although in the end, she, by the importunities and threats of her friends and relations, was prevailed on to espouse him. She afterwards took the veil, and became an exemplary religious. She always maintained a very tender and affectionate correspondence with Abelard, but at the same time in very chaste terms, and such as were conformable to the rules of virtue and decorum. As soon as she was informed of Abelard’s death, she begged of St. Peter the Venerable, that he would let her have his body, that she might bury it in the convent where she was prelate; and the pious abbot granted her request. It appears by the epistles of Abelard, that Eloisa was universally beloved and respected for her virtue and discretion. He says, the bishops loved her as a daughter, the abbesses as a sister, and the seculars a mother.

The effect which this generous benignity of St. Peter the Venerable had upon Abelard, was admirable. He not only became a monk, but a most exemplary one, and a shining pattern of all kinds of virtues, of which St. Peter the Venerable gives irrefragable testimony in his letter to Eloisa on the occasion of his death, which letter is filled with the highest eulogiums on the virtues of Abelard. He says in one part of it, that he does not remember to have seen a man so humble as him; and in another, that it was matter of admiration, to observe a person so famous and of so great a name, have so lowly an opinion of himself. In another, he says, his understanding, his tongue, and his works, were always employed on celestial objects. And in another, he compares him to the great Gregory in the following words: _Nec (sicut de magno Gregorio legitur) momentum aliquod præterire sinebat, quin semper aut oraret, aut legeret, aut scriberet, aut dictaret_. These eulogiums are confirmed, and if possible exceeded, in the Chronicle of the Monastery of Cluny, which says, that, from the time of his taking the habit of a monk, his thoughts, words, and actions, were always divine: _Et deinde mens ejus, lingua ejus, opus ejus, semper divina fuere_.

XLIV. So that this man, who could not be made to bend to the most learned men of France, who were engaged in continual controversies with him; nor to the force of the civil power, exerted against him various times at the instance of his enemies; nor to the ecclesiastical prelates, nor to the authority of a council, nor to the zeal and learning of a St. Bernard: This man, I say, on whom all these exertions had no influence, submitted to the gentle, compassionate, and benevolent spirit of St. Peter the Venerable. The estimation and tenderness, with which this saint always regarded Abelard after his conversion, was very great, as is evident from two epitaphs he wrote to grace his tomb. I shall insert a part of each of them here, by which may be seen the high opinion he entertained of the learning and wisdom of this eminent man.

First Epitaph.

_Gallorum Socrates, Plato maximus Hesperiarum,_ _Noster Aristoteles, Logicis, quicumque fuerunt,_ _Aut par, aut melior, studiorum cognitus orbi_ _Princeps, ingenio varius, subtilis, & acer._

Second Epitaph.

_Petrus in hac petra latitat, quem mundus Homerum_ _Clamabat, sed jam sidera sidus habent._ _Sol erat hic Gallis, sed eum jam fata tulerunt:_ _Ergo caret Regio Gallica sole sua._ _Ille sciens quidquid fuit ulli scibile, vicit_ _Artifices, artes absque docente docens._

XLV. The second example, which is still more striking and illustrious than the first, is that of the Huguenots in the reign of Charles the ninth, in the diocese of Lisieux in Normandy. The learned Dominican John Henuyer, who had been confessor to Henry the second, was bishop of that diocese, when orders came from the king to the governor of Normandy, to put to the sword all the Huguenots of that province. The venerable prelate opposed the execution of the order as far as it related to his own diocese efficaciously, by declaring that he would sooner submit his own throat to the knife, than consent to the death of those heretics, whom he had always considered as sheep of his flock, although they had gone astray; and used such other arguments, as prevailed on the governor to suspend the execution of the orders; and the king, moved with the firmness and zeal of the pious bishop, revoked the decree with respect to the Huguenots of that bishopric. The hand of Omnipotence heaped blessings on the paternal affection which bishop Henuyer manifested to his flock, and on the pious exertion he made to save their lives at all events; and (O wonderful to relate!) in none of the other parts of France, where rivers of Huguenot blood had been spilt in the execution of the king’s orders, was the heresy extinguished; but on the diocese of Lisieux only, did God confer this great blessing. The experience of the paternal bowels and feeling of their prelate for them, made such an impression on the hearts of the Huguenots of that district, that they all, without a single exception, became converts to the catholic faith. Thus does benignity triumph over the most stubborn hearts, when managed and conducted with a pious zeal and consummate prudence.

SECT. VII.

XLVI. But to return to our subject, as all that was introduced in the preceding section was by way of digression: I say, that among the groupe of those severe saturnine geniuses, of whom we were just before speaking, are to be found the worst species of hypocrites. I speak of those censurers of other people’s conduct and behaviour, who pretend to do it out of zeal, and to promote the welfare of those they fall upon. These act as if they were ministers vested with full powers from Hell, or were a _quid pro quo_ of the Devil, because their whole occupation is pointing out the sins of mankind; a race so diabolical, that they are at variance with their neighbours, and friends with their vices. They pretend they love the first, and abhor the last, but it is quite the reverse. They are always busied in throwing biting reflections on their neighbours, and at the same time licking their chops with a longing desire to taste of their sins. There is no news so pleasing to them, as this or that person having made such and such a slip. This is their favourite little aliment, because it affords pabulum to feed and nourish their malevolence.

They exclaim furiously, and with all their might, against sinful and sensual practices, and wreck their inventions for hyperboles to exaggerate the wickedness of them; and after they have glutted their revenge on a miserable individual they have been abusing, they direct the rage of their thunder against the public at large, and cry out, The people are all going the high road to perdition: God defend us, sure the like never was seen! Their daily text is the _O tempora! O mores!_ of Cicero. The matter of their ordinary conversations is truly and properly matter, as it is all putrefaction and corruption; for they talk of nothing but turpitudes and uncleanness. They reserve for their own use and purposes Satan’s Gazette, where the news is distributed in articles and paragraphs received from different quarters; as for example: “We hear by an express arrived from such a street, dated such a day of the month, which was brought by an herb woman, that Mr. A---- has made great advances in his negotiations with Madam B----; and although in the beginning he met with some difficulties, by proposing more advantageous and agreeable terms, was at last admitted to a private audience.” In this manner it proceeds to give an account of various other matters, and always, as is customary, tells us something about the court; as for instance; “His majesty Pluto and all his family, although they cannot fail to be incommoded with the excessive heats which prevail in his territories, continue for all that to pass their time very jollily, by the entertainment they find in hunting all sorts of sins, which is a game that is found in great abundance in every quarter of his infernal majesty’s dominions.” But to be serious: Those who blazon or aggravate the vices that are most frequent or prevailing in a place or town, do a great injury which they are not aware of, which is removing from many a certain impediment, which withholds or restrains them from falling into those very vices. When speaking of the vice of incontinence for example, a man exclaims, “The city in this respect is in a total state of depravity; that the dissoluteness which pervades it is horrid and unbridled; that already, with a little reserve, or without any at all, you can scarce find a man that is continent, or a woman that is chaste; and truly this is the vice, against which they most frequently make such declamations.” Some hear this, who till then had entertained no such idea of the thing, and who were continent from the apprehension of being exposed, and the fear of being repulsed by this or that woman. This, to those who are withheld from being incontinent, principally or solely by the shame of being remarked, or that of being ignominiously repulsed, takes away in part, or removes totally, the chief impediment which retrained them from rushing into criminal amours. If all, says each of these to himself, or nearly all the men in the town, are guilty of this vice, my share of disgrace by falling into it will be but small, as I shall only bear my proportion as one among so large a number; and if all, or nearly all the women, are disposed to be lewd and wanton, it will rarely happen that I shall meet with one that will not yield to my solicitations. Some, from not foreseeing the inconvenience, are betrayed into this absurdity by their zeal, and commit the mistake with the best intentions. I have many times heard preachers exclaim with great fervour, that the town is filled with scandals and turpitudes; that there is scarce a house, which in every corner of it is not burning with the infernal fire of lust. I entreat most earnestly all those who exercise this sacred function, and God is the judge of the sincerity and pious intention with which I make the request, that they would abstain from such-like declamations, for the mischief they produce, is greater than the benefits which are derived from them.