nial; that it inculcates morality, because purity of heart is essential in those who partake of it; that it is an offering of the produce of the earth to the Creator, and that it commemorates the sublime and affecting history of the Son of man. Combined with the recollection of the Passover and of the first covenant, it is lost in the remoteness of time; it reproduces the earliest ideas of man, in his religious and political character, and denotes the original equality of the human race. Finally, it comprises the mystical history of the family of Adam, their fall, their restoration, and their reunion with God.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONFIRMATION, HOLY ORDERS, AND MATRIMONY.

Celibacy considered under its Moral Aspect.

IN considering the period of life which religion has fixed for the nuptials of man and his Creator, we find a subject of perpetual wonder. At the time when the fire of the passions is about to be kindled in the heart, and the mind is sufficiently capable of knowing God, he becomes the ruling spirit of the youth, pervading all the faculties of his soul in its now restless. and expanded state. But dangers multiply as he advances; a stranger cast without experience upon the perilous ways of the world, he has need of additional helps. At this crisis religion does not forget her child: she has her reinforcements in reserve. Confirmation will support his trembling steps, like the staff in the hands of the traveller, or like those sceptres which passed from race to race among the royal families of antiquity, and on which Evander and Nestor, pastors of men, reclined while judging their people. Let it be observed that all the morality of life is implied in the sacrament of Confirmation; because whoever has the courage to confess God will necessarily practise virtue, as the commission of crime is nothing but the denial of the Creator.

The same wise spirit has been displayed in placing the sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony immediately after that of Confirmation. The child has now become a man, and religion, that watched over him with tender solicitude in the state of nature, will not abandon him in the social sphere. How profound are the views of the Christian legislator! He has established only two social sacraments, if we may be allowed this expression, because, in reality, there are but two states in life-celibacy and marriage. Thus, without regard to the civil distinctions invented by our short-sighted reason, Jesus Christ divided society into two classes, and decreed for them, not political, but moral laws, acting in this respect in accordance with all antiquity. The old sages of the East, who have acquired such a wide-spread fame, did not call men together at random to hatch utopian constitutions. They were venerable solitaries, who had travelled much, and who celebrated with the lyre the remembrance of the gods. Laden with the rich treasure of information derived from their intercourse with foreign nations, and still richer by the virtues which they practised, those excellent men appeared before the multitude with the lute in hand, their hoary locks encircled with a golden crown, and, seating themselves under the shade of the planetree, they delivered their lessons to an enchanted crowd. What were the institutions of an Amphion, a Cadmus, an Orpheus? They consisted in delightful music called law, in the dance, the hymn, the consecrated tree; they were exhibited in youth under the guidance of old age, in matrimonial faith plighted near a grave. Religion and God were everywhere. Such are the scenes which Christianity also exhibits, but with much stronger claims to our admiration.

Principles, however, are always a subject of disagreement among men, and the wisest institutions have met with opposition. Thus, in modern times, the vow of celibacy which accompanies the reception of Holy Orders has been denounced in no measured terms. Some, availing themselves of every means of assailing religion, have imagined that they placed her in opposition to herself by contrasting her present discipline with the ancient practice of the Church, which, according to them, permitted the marriage of the clergy. Others have been content with making the chastity of the priesthood the object of their raillery. Let

us examine, first, the views of those who have assailed it with seriousness and on the ground of morality.

By the seventh canon of the second Council of Lateran,1 held in 1139, the celibacy of the clergy was definitely established, in accordance with the regulations of previous synods, as those of Lateran in 1123, Troslé in 909, Tribur in 895, Toledo in 633, and Chalcedon in 451. Baronius shows that clerical celibacy was in force generally from the sixth century. The first Council of Tours excommunicated any priest, deacon, or sub-deacon, who returned to his wife after the reception of Holy Orders. From the time of St. Paul, virginity was considered the more perfect state for a Christian.

3

But, were we to admit that marriage was allowed among the clergy in the early ages of the Church, which cannot be shown either from history or from ecclesiastical legislation, it would not follow that it would be expedient at the present day. Such an innovation would be at variance with the manners of our times, and, moreover, would lead to the total subversion of ecclesiastical discipline.

In the primitive days of religion, a period of combats and triumphs, the followers of Christianity, comparatively few in number and adorned with every virtue, lived fraternally together, and shared the same joys and the same tribulations at the table of the Lord. We may conceive, therefore, that a minister of religion might, strictly speaking, have been permitted to have at family amid this perfect society, which was already the domestic. circle for him. His own children, forming a part of his flock, would not have diverted him from the attentions due to the remainder of his charge, nor would they have exposed him to betray the confidence of the sinner, since in those days there were no crimes to be concealed, the confession of them being made publicly in those basilics of the dead where the faithful assembled to pray over the ashes of the martyrs. The Christians of that age had received from heaven a spirit which we have lost. They

This was the tenth general council, at which one thousand bishops were present. T.

2 The fourth general council, numbering between five and six hundred bishops. T.

3 Baron., An. 88, No. 18.

formed not so much a popular assembly as a community of Levites and religious women. Baptism had made them all priests and confessors of Jesus Christ.

St. Justin the philosopher, in his first Apology, has given us an admirable description of the Christian life in those times. "We are accused," he says, "of disturbing the tranquillity of the state, while we are taught by one of the principal articles of our faith that nothing is hidden to the eye of God, and that he will one day take a strict account of our good and evil deeds. But, O powerful Emperor, the very punishments which you have decreed against us only tend to confirm us in our religion, because all this persecution was predicted by our Master, the son of the sovereign God, Father and Lord of the universe.

"On Sunday, those who reside in the town and country meet together. The Scriptures are read, after which one of the ancients' exhorts the people to imitate the beautiful examples that have been placed before them. The assembly then rises; prayer is again offered up, and water, bread, and wine being presented, the officiating minister gives thanks, the others answering Amen. A portion of the consecrated elements is now distributed, and the rest is conveyed by the deacons to those who are absent. A collection is taken; the rich giving according to their disposition. These alms are placed in the hands of the minister, for the assistance of widows, orphans, sick persons, prisoners, poor people, strangers; in short, all who are in need, and the care of whom devolves especially upon the minister. We assemble on Sunday, because on that day God created the world, and the same day his Son arose to life again, to confirm his disciples in the doctrine which we have exposed to you.

"If you find this doctrine good, show your respect for it; if not, reject it. But do not condemn to punishment those who commit no crime; for we declare to you that, if you continue to act unjustly, you will not escape the judgment of God. For the rest, whatever be our faith, we desire only that the will of God be done. We might have claimed your favorable regard in con

1 That is, a priest. In the first ages, the word "peɑßúreços or ancient was very frequently used to signify a bishop or priest, set apart by ordination for the ministry of the Church: it was afterwards employed solely to designate the priestly order. T.

sequence of the letter of your father, Cæsar Adrian, of illustrious and glorious memory; but we have preferred to rely solely upon the justice of our cause."1

The Apology of Justin was well calculated to take the world by surprise; for it proclaimed a golden age in the midst of a corrupt generation, and pointed out a new people in the catacombs. of an ancient empire. The Christian life must have appeared the more admirable in the public eye, as such perfection had never before been known, harmonizing with nature and the laws, and on the other hand forming a remarkable contrast with the rest of society. It is also invested with an interest which is not to be found in the fabulous excellence of antiquity, because the latter is always depicted in a state of happiness, while the former presents itself through the charms of adversity. It is not amid. the foliage of the woods or at the side of the fountain that virtue exerts her greatest power, but under the shade of the prison-wall or amid rivers of blood and tears. How divine does religion appear to us when, in the recess of the catacomb or in the silent darkness of the tomb, we behold a pastor who is surrounded by danger, celebrating, by the feeble glare of his lamp and in presence of his little flock, the mysteries of a persecuted God!

We have deemed it necessary to establish incontestably this high moral character of the first Christians, in order to show that, if the marriage of the clergy was considered unbecoming in that age of purity, it would be altogether impossible to introduce it at the present day. When the number of Christians increased, and morality was weakened with the diffusion of mankind, how could the priest devote himself at the same time to his family and to the Church? How could he have continued chaste with a spouse who had ceased to be so? If our opponents object the practice of Protestant countries, we will observe that it has been necessary in those countries to abolish a great portion of the external worship of religion; that a Protestant minister appears in the church scarcely two or three times a week; that almost all spiritual relations have ceased between him and his flock, and that very often he is a mere man of the world." As to certain Puri

1 Justin, Apolog., edit. Marc., fol. 1742. See note B.

2 "It was no trivial misfortune," says Dr. King, "for the cause of Christianity in England, that at the period of our separation from popery the clergy were