Twelve Years in a Monastery/Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV
STUDENTSHIP
After the novitiate has been successfully accomplished it was necessary to resume the course of our education. Through the total neglect of profane study which is foolishly directed, most of the ground we had already conquered was lost during the year of the novitiate. Latin was sustained, even advanced a step, since all our services and quasi-religious studies had been in Latin—although ecclesiastical Latin, and especially the Latin of the psalms of which we heard so much, would make the shade of Cicero shudder. Whatever other acquisitions had been made were entirely lost. We had, therefore, to devote ourselves once more to ‘humanities,’ and for this purpose we were transferred (without a glimpse of the immortal lakes, for the friars had fallen on evil days with the bishop) to what is now the principal house of studies of the Franciscans at Forest Gate in East London.
The friars have to-day at Forest Gate a large and imposing pile of buildings, two schools, a fine but incomplete monastery, and a very spacious and handsome Gothic church. The foundation is an object of much pride to London Catholicism. Fifteen years ago there was no Catholic congregation in that locality. Then the friars from the Stratford monastery began to say Mass in a small outhouse of the Ursuline Convent to a dozen or so of Catholics; a school-chapel was built, and the congregation had reached about 300 when our party arrived twelve years ago. Section by section the church, monastery and schools, representing about 20,000l. worth of property, were rapidly erected, and the congregation soon numbered more than 3,000. Rival churches were alarmed; Roman Catholics dreamed extravagant dreams of the conversion of England.
But if one had made inquiries in neighbouring Catholic parishes the secret of the miraculous growth would quickly have been revealed. Nearly every priest in East London was exasperated against the friars for stealing his best parishioners. There were really few ‘converts’ to Rome in the new congregation, and those were merely the flotsam and jetsam of superficial religious controversy. The great bulk of the congregation were the better middle-class Catholics from all parts of East London who had migrated to the new and healthier district in which the friars had erected a church, mainly on borrowed funds.[1]
When we arrived at Forest Gate in 1886 the mission was in the hands of the three ablest friars of the order, F. David, F. Aidan, and F. Bede; the success of the mission was mainly due to the devoted exertions of the two latter friars, for F. David, a man of much erudition and ability, was intended rather for the supervision of our studies. He had been professor of philosophy at the friary in Ghent for ten years previously, and had, therefore, been chosen by the Belgian authorities to supervise the studies in the new English branch of the order. Unfortunately the long years of exclusive attention to study had made him extremely unpractical, and our studies proceeded in a most desultory and irregular fashion. There were so few of us in the community, and our professor had so many other offices to discharge, that little attempt was made during the first six months to organise our work. All our religious exercises were hurried through early in the morning, making more than three consecutive hours of prayer of divers kinds, and, as often as not, we had the monastery to ourselves during the day. Once or twice a week, at any hour of the day or night, our professor would interrupt the course of his ministerial and parochial duties and his studies of Sanscrit at the British Museum to give us a class in Latin; even during that half hour he used to write letters, and we would purposely make the most atrocious blunders and conduct ourselves in the wildest manner our imagination could suggest.
Our long Saturnalia came to an end at last with the arrival of a second and younger professor, who entered into the work of reform with alarming zeal. He was fresh from the Belgian province, in which a perfect discipline (from a mechanical point of view) prevails in the houses of study. Young, intensely earnest, and sincerely religious, he made an honest effort to reform us without losing our sympathy, but, as he knew little more of our studies than we did, and had an uncontrollable temper, and a conspicuous harshness of character, he alienated us more and more as time went on. From Belgium too, he had imported the system of espionage which is deservedly odious to English students; he considered that the necessary rigour of monastic discipline justified it. However, he never cared to be caught in the act, and we gave him many a mauvais quart d’heure by running to the door of our study room when we saw his shadow near it, and chasing him through the convent in his anxiety not to be seen. At length we appealed to authority, and effected his deposition and removal. In later years I learnt to esteem and respect him, and he made rapid progress in the order and in the London ministry; finally, however, he ended in an ignominious apostasy and deep disgrace.
His successor proved to be a superior of quite an opposite character. Far from continuing the zeal and rigour of his predecessor, he became alarmingly broad and familiar, and before many months had elapsed we found it impossible to entertain a particle of respect for him. In point of fact he already showed clear symptoms of mental aberration, and a few years afterwards his conduct became (and still remains) so extraordinary that absolute dementia is the kindest hypothesis to urge in its defence. He, too, was removed from his position at our appeal, and we began to have an evil reputation in the province. During our five years of study at Forest Gate we succeeded in removing no less than six professors and superiors, and, since I was the ‘dean’ of the students all through my curriculum, I attracted an undue amount of interest; I have no doubt that my own ‘fall’ was frequently predicted many years in advance. Our immediate superiors came to bear the name of the ‘Removables’ in the province.
After twelve months at classics we were initiated into a course of rhetoric. The Jesuits more wisely postpone the rhetorical studies until the last year, but, in any case, it is little more than a waste of time. Lessons in elocution and declamation are decidedly opportune, and should be insisted upon much more conscientiously than they are in the training of priests, but the usual 'course of rhetoric' is only learned to be forgotten. It deals with the invention and distribution of arguments, the analysis and composition of orations, the various styles of discourse, figures of speech, and the comparative play of ideas and emotions. There are few who retain any knowledge of its multitudinous rules when the period of practice arrives, fewer still who pay the slightest attention to them. The only useful element of the training is the practice of making ecclesiastical students prepare and deliver short sermons to their companions. In many monasteries the students preach to the assembled community during dinner. It affords excellent training for public speaking, for one who is able to speak with any degree of self-possession to a small audience will have little fear of a large congregation. I have often preached to a congregation of a thousand people with the utmost composure, but I have invariably trembled before a congregation of ten or twelve persons.
The course of rhetoric is succeeded by a course of scholastic philosophy. In the great mediæval schools philosophy was taught in conjunction with theology; to the arguments drawn from Scripture and tradition on any point of belief the professor usually added a few arguments 'from reason.' In the twelfth century there had been, of course, much philosophical activity; indeed, the main controversy of that fiercely argumentative age, the question of universals, was a purely philosophical problem. Still such questions merely arose incidentally from theological problems; in an age of unquestioning faith in the unseen, the formal and distinct treatment of philosophy as a preliminary science was unnecessary, the doctrinal points were merely confirmed ‘from reason.’ St. Thomas, however, led to a divorce by publishing, in addition to his ‘Summa Theologica,’ a smaller ‘Summa Philosophica’ or ‘Contra Gentes’ which purported to defend the more fundamental points of Christian belief without recourse to revelation; it was intended to appeal to the Arab or Neo-Peripatetic school, through which the schoolmen had become acquainted with Aristotle’s philosophy. John Duns Scotus, the celebrated English friar, followed Aristotle’s example more closely, and wrote many distinct treatises on logic and metaphysics. By the sixteenth century, when there was a conspicuous revival of speculative activity, the separation of philosophy from theology was complete. In our own logical and Rationalistic age such a separation is imperative. Before a positive revelation can be entertained certain preliminaries, notably the existence, nature, and authority of the Revealer, must necessarily be established by pure reasoning; hence philosophy must precede theology.
The scholastic philosophy which is taught in Catholic seminaries usually includes treatises on logic, metaphysics, and natural ethics. First is given a short treatise on dialectics, which differs little from the ordinary logic of Jevons or Whateley, and it is followed by a more careful study of the second or material part of logic. Just as the pressure of unbelief evolved the distinct science of philosophy, so the pressure of modern criticism, of Kantism and Empiricism, has lent a vast importance to material logic or ‘Criteriology’ as an introduction to scholastic metaphysics. The transcendentalist and the Empiricist, coming from opposite quarters, have joined forces in the destruction of pure metaphysics. The criteriology of the modern scholastic attempts to ward off their criticism by a vindication of the trustworthiness of our faculties and by the establishment of an available criterion of truth.
A treatise of general metaphysics follows in which are discussed, analysed, and vindicated the general concepts and principles which will be used subsequently in the construction of the desired theses; such are, causality, substance and accidents, time and eternity, finiteness and infinity, &c. Special metaphysics is divided into three parts, cosmology, psychology, and natural theology or theodicy. The division frequently changes, but the treatise is understood to discuss every object which comes within the purview of unaided human thought. It opens with a proof of the existence of the material world, against the Idealists, discusses its origin and its features of time and space; then the question of life is entered upon, its origin and nature discussed, and the two great branches of the organic world are philosophically described and commented upon. The second part, psychology, is concerned with the human soul; it seeks to prove its spirituality and immortality against the Materialist, classifies and analyses its various faculties, treats of the origin and nature of thoughts, emotions, and volitions. The third part treats of God; it opens with the usual demonstration of His existence against the Agnostics, endeavours to elucidate His attributes as far as mere reasoning will avail (and the scholastic philosopher is persuaded that it will avail much), and considers His relations to this nether world.
The line of reasoning throughout is taken closely from Aristotle; the conclusions arrived at may be traced ultimately to certain general principles which are neither an accumulation of sense-impressions (against the Empiricists), nor merely subjective laws (against the Kantists)—they are intued directly by the mind, and are supposed to carry with them their own credentials of objective truth. Until the time of Thomas Aquinas, all Catholic philosophers (except Boetius) had followed Plato, and regarded Aristotle with suspicion; St. Thomas, however, and all the schoolmen, except St. Bonaventure, rejected the Platonist method and introduced Aristotle (through the Latin translations of the Arabic school), expurgated his philosophy, and enlarged it in certain directions in harmony with Christian teaching. Thus the scholastic philosophy is fundamentally the philosophy of Aristotle, who is always spoken of by the schoolmen as ‘the philosopher,’ just as St. Paul is called ‘the Apostle.’
To logic and metaphysics is usually joined a treatise on natural ethics, founded on the Nicomachean ethics. It deals with the abstract conceptions of right and duty, virtue and vice, law and conscience; discusses the various theories of moral obligation; expounds and enforces the various duties which arise from the relations of individual, social, and international life. Since no appeal to revelation is admitted in it, the treatise goes by the name of natural ethics to distinguish it from the science of moral theology, which covers the same ground in the light of revelation and authority.
One of the principal defects of the course of philosophy which is thus given to clerical students is its narrow exclusivism. That their own philosophical system is plausible, strongly and cleverly constructed, is what one would expect from the vast number of keen intellects that have contributed to its elaboration; but every manual from which it is taught and every professor carefully excludes, or only gives a most inaccurate version of, rival philosophies. At Cambridge, the programme of philosophical authors is so delightfully impartial that few students find themselves in possession of definite philosophical views after reading it; in every seminary and monastic college the impression made upon the student is that the scholastic system is so clearly and uniquely true that all opponents are either feeble-minded or dishonest—usually the latter alternative is urged.
And, indeed, apart from the fact that all opponents (as writing ‘expressly against faith’) are on the Index, and that it would be a sacrilege to entertain the possibility of their being right for a moment, the time which is devoted to the vast subject is entirely inadequate. Two years is the usual duration of the course; one year is very frequently the limit of philosophical study. Then the ages of the students must be taken into account; they are generally youths of from eighteen to twenty-one who are quite incapable of entering into such grave problems seriously, and only one in a hundred makes any attempt to do so. Sufficient information is committed to memory to satisfy an examiner; but, unless the student is drawn to the science for a solution of questions that have arisen in his own soul (which is rarely the case), he shirks philosophy to the utmost of his power, and looks forward eagerly to his deliverance from it.
Its attractiveness is still further lost sight of on account of its injudicious treatment at the hands of professors; they are frequently men of little or no scientific attainments (though a wide acquaintance with science is essential to a philosopher), and, neglecting the problems of actual interest and importance, they fritter away the allotted time in the most contemptible controversies. The liberty of the will or the existence of God will be dismissed in a day, and a week will be zealously devoted to the question whether substance and personality are two distinct entities, or whether the qualities of a thing are physically, formally, or mentally distinct from its substance. In many seminaries a certain amount of physical science is taught in conjunction with the course of philosophy, but much jealousy is shown with regard to it. I was much attracted to the empirical sciences from the beginning, and, though not actually prevented, I was much discouraged in their pursuit; I was informed that the empirical sciences made the mind ‘mechanical’ and predisposed to materialism. F. David, though not actually my professor, guided my studies with great kindness throughout my course; although I fortunately broke loose from his influence in some directions, and found that I had subsequently to verify with care whatever I had accepted from him, I was certainly much indebted to him for the formation of habits of industry and precision.
The priest who was nominally entrusted with our philosophical training is certainly not responsible for the fatal depth to which I ultimately penetrated into it. One of the few things he had not mastered was metaphysics; he could paint and play, and was an authority in architecture, archæology, rubrics, casuistry, canon law and history. The authorities had the intention of making him our professor of theology, and it was thought that he could safely be entrusted with our philosophical studies in the meantime. He was a Belgian friar of noted eccentricity, and his method of teaching philosophy was quite original—a family of parrots could have passed his examinations as brilliantly as we did. After each lesson he dictated a number of questions and answers, and on the following morning the answers were to be repeated word for word. Some of my fellow-students passed a most satisfactory examination at the end of the term without having a single idea on philosophical questions. The worthy professor was another victim of our seditious movements.
The last three or four years of the student's career are devoted to the study of theology. Under that title are usually comprised ecclesiastical history, canon law, scripture, moral and dogmatic theology. Ecclesiastical history, usually a very narrow and one-sided version of the vicissitudes of the Church, does not, as a rule, occupy much of their time, and generally assumes an apologetical character. Canon law, a vast system of ecclesiastical legislation, is either entirely neglected or given in a very rudimentary fashion. Each order and diocese secures one or two experts in the subject, who are appealed to in case of complications, internal or external, but the majority of the clergy are content with the slight knowledge of canon law which they necessarily glean from their moral theology. The three years are, therefore, devoted to Scripture and theology proper.
With four lectures each week during a period of two or three years it is impossible to study satisfactorily more than a comparatively small section of the Scriptures. A general introduction precedes, dealing with the idea of inspiration, the formation of the orthodox canon of Scripture, and the history (usually in caricature) of Rationalism and the Higher Criticism; the special introduction to the New Testament endeavours to urge its claims to credibility as an historical narrative, by a host of internal and external arguments. Certain books are then selected for detailed commentary, and the students are supposed to study the exegetical method in order to cover the rest of the ground at their leisure.
How far is the study of Scripture in the Church of Rome affected by the Higher Criticism (and the monuments)? Very profoundly, in point of fact, though the modification of views can find no expression since the celebrated retrograde encyclical of Leo XIII., Newman’s contention that there were obiter dicta in Scripture which did not fall under the inspiring influence introduced a far-reaching principle; it was not necessary to hold that all was inspired. Before the stern criticism of the Rationalists many had begun to admit scientific and historical errors in Scripture, even to contend for them in the pages of the ‘Tablet’; and a celebrated French professor, M. Loisy, went very far in company with the critics. Then came the Pope’s encyclical declaring that no errors could be admitted in Scripture, and M. Loisy disappeared from his chair (with a most suave and courteous letter from the Pope in his pocket, recognising his past services). However, an encyclical only affects the expressions, not the thoughts, of scholarly Catholics. Leo XIII. has never once used his ‘infallible’ authority; his encyclicals enjoy neither more nor less than his personal authority as a theologian—which, in serious quarters, is nil. He is an impressive littérateur, and his utterances are blindly accepted by the bulk of the faithful, not only as marvellously profound, but as sharing, to some extent, the prestige of his supernatural power; they are wrong on both counts. A Loisy or a Mivart will simply wait patiently until Cardinal Vanutelli or some broader-minded man assumes the tiara; at present, as a matter of discipline and policy, they must keep silent.
Another refuge from the oppression of the encyclical is in the elasticity of the word ‘inspiration.’ That the whole of Scripture is inspired is an article of faith; what inspiration is, has never been defined. The advanced thinker can give it any interpretation his views may demand. A very able professor of Scripture at Louvain University, assured me that his own ideas on Scripture were absolutely chaotical on account of the vagueness of the fundamental idea; he prayed for a dogmatic definition of inspiration.
Moral theology has been detached from dogmatic, in the specialisation of studies, and forms a distinct science of a purely practical nature. It opens with a few general treatises on moral responsibility, conscience, law, and sin, which constitute what is called fundamental theology. The special treatises which follow discuss the obligations of the moral agent in every conceivable relation and circumstance. Each treatise usually takes a particular virtue as its object, and enumerates every possible transgression of the same, arguing out their comparative gravity and frequently giving practical rules to the confessor in dealing with them. Thus there is a treatise on religion, which, after explaining the general obligations of the virtue, enters into a detailed discussion of its possible transgressions—sacrilege, blasphemy, &c.—giving numerous divisions and illustrations, and carefully drawing up a scale of their relative gravity. There is a treatise on impurity which gives the student the physiological elements of the subject and enumerates (with the crudest details) the interminable catalogue of its forms, the professor usually supplementing the treatise from his own experience in the confessional. There are, also, treatises on charity, on justice (a voluminous treatise which descends into the minutest details of conjugal, social, and commercial life), on veracity, and all other virtues.
Throughout the preceding section on virtues and vices, which usually forms a quarto volume of some 500 or 600 pages, little appeal is made to positive revelation. The pronouncements of the theologian are enforced from time to time by texts from Scripture and references to ecclesiastical legislation, but the main portion of the work is purely ethical and rational. The second section, however, treats of obligations which are wholly connected with their revealed dogmas: it discusses at great length (in a second quarto volume of 500 pages) the seven sacraments of the Church of Rome, the vast number of obligations they entail in practical life, the transgressions which arise from their neglect or abuse, the theory and the practice of their constitution. The two principal treatises are on confession and matrimony; in the former the future confessor receives the necessary directions for his task (a much more complicated one than is commonly supposed), and in the latter the numerous Catholic impediments to marriage and their dispensations are treated, and there is a further discussion of conjugal life. The path throughout is beset with the innumerable conflicts of theologians, and every point is profusely illustrated with real or fictitious ‘cases.’
Moral theology is regarded as the most important of sacerdotal studies, and in many monastic orders it is the only study which is seriously cultivated. Young priests have annual examinations in it for many years after their ordination, and throughout life the priest has to attend periodical conferences which are held in every monastery and diocese for the discussion of points of casuistry. Our professor was a young man of much ability and refinement of character, who lectured on the cruder sections with marked confusion and apology, but, as a rule, priests soon acquire the habit of discussing indelicate ‘cases’ with the calmness of a medical man.
Much as we were attached to our professor for his kindliness and charm of character, we had to procure his removal at the end of a year. Though a man of more than average ability, he was too weak and unsuited for the monastic condition to fill his position with credit.
For our course of dogmatic theology we had the able guidance of Father David. He was a man of wide erudition and considerable mental power, and held us, with one or two exceptions, magnetically bound to him during our studentship. It was a curious fact that nearly all of his students withdrew themselves from his influence in later years. The change seemed to be attributable to the subsequent discovery of the inaccuracy of many of the statements we had taken from him—for want of practice in writing and a shrinking from criticism had encouraged a certain degree of carelessness in his expressions—and partly to the fact that his early kindness and assistance had too much of an element of patronage and authority to survive in maturer years. Personally I was more than usually indebted to his guidance, and I was the last of our course to remain under his influence. Amongst a host of attainments he had a remarkable grasp of dogmatic theology. He had been professor of philosophy in Belgium for many years, and although he was but superficially acquainted with other schools, especially modern schools, he had a profound knowledge of scholastic philosophy, which is the basis of dogmatic theology, and pervades and unites its entire fabric.
For dogmatic theology takes the student in hand at the precise point to which philosophy has conducted him; it is, in fact, merely revelation set in a philosophical framework. The various points of dogma which are contained (or are supposed to be contained) in Scripture, were first selected by the Fathers and developed, generally by the aid of the Neo-Platonic philosophy, into formidable structures. The schoolmen completed the synthesis with the aid of the peripatetic philosophy, and elaborated the whole into a vast scientific scheme which they called Theology. The purely philosophical problems which arose have been extracted, and form the distinct science of metaphysics; the ethical questions have been separated and formed into moral theology; the speculative science which remains, still wholly philosophical in form and largely so in argument, is dogmatic theology.
Dogmatic theology starts with the supposition that the existence and authority of God and the immortality of the human soul—the ‘Praeambula fidei,’ as they are called—have been rationally proved, with certainty, in philosophy. On these facts, and on the ethical and speculative insufficiency of this ‘natural revelation,’ it grounds a presumption that a ‘positive’ revelation has come from behind the veil: from the presumption it proceeds to a demonstration of the historical fact.[2] This is the work of the first treatise or chapter. The second treatise argues for tradition as the organ of revelation (against the Anglicans); the third discusses the constitution of the Church and the prerogatives of the Pope; the fourth is a small but interesting treatise on faith, giving a much more rational explanation of it than an ordinary Catholic is conscious of.
After these fundamental treatises the ground is prepared for argument on supernatural motives: God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Sacraments are discussed in voluminous treatises, and each question is solved by texts of Scripture and quotations from the early Fathers. Scripture and tradition are also confirmed, wherever it is possible, by an argument from reason. It is assumed throughout that every dogma must stand the negative test of reason, it must contain no proposition that violates any evident mental law. Hence strenuous efforts are made to ward off the criticism of the Rationalist, and in some cases, as in treating the central point of the Trinitarian dogma or the sacramental presence of Christ in the sacred biscuit, the reasoning becomes curiously subtle and interesting.
Much space, also, is occupied with the conflicts of rival schools of theologians. Thomists (followers of St. Thomas) and Scotists (followers of the Franciscan, Duns Scotus) quarrel religiously on every point of theology that the Church has not defined. The Scotists (Franciscans) are against everybody in everything, for Scotus was the keenest critic that ever kept within the bounds of the Church—a kind of Abelard restrained by profound religious veneration. The Dominicans follow St. Thomas servilely. So do the Jesuits at present, entering, no doubt, into the spirit of their vow of special obedience to the Pope; for Leo XIII. has declared in favour of St. Thomas, and Thomism has spread through the Church like dilettante socialism or a veneration for St. Joachim. The result of the divisions is, that important questions of actual interest are imperfectly grasped by theologians until they find that the world has moved a step, and they then ungracefully follow it: their time is mainly occupied with the thrilling problems of, whether the influence of grace on the soul is physical or moral; whether Christ would still have come upon the earth if Adam had not taken to apples; whether (as it was once put to me) the soul will spend its eternity in careering round the divine essence or in plunging deeper and deeper into it, &c.
Through this scheme of education every student for the Roman Catholic priesthood must pass. In the larger seminaries and more prosperous congregations the programme is carried out with great fidelity, and frequently the more brilliant students are sent, to consolidate and develop their studies, to Louvain University or to Rome. The smaller seminaries and minor congregations, who are ever pressed for priests, curtail the scheme very freely: philosophy is all but omitted, dogmatic theology is reduced to the indispensable minimum, and moral theology is carefully pruned of its luxurious growth of superfluous controversies. In the case of monastic orders whose work consists almost entirely in missionary and parochial activity amongst the poor the Church connives at a lower standard of education.
In the Franciscan Order the constitutions, from which its admirers usually but wrongly derive their information of its practices, generously prescribe three years for philosophy and four for theology. In few branches of the order are more than five years devoted to the higher studies. In England we were the pioneers of a new system, and from first to last our studies were irregular and stunted. We spent five years as students at Forest Gate, of which fifteen months were devoted to classics and rhetoric, fifteen months to philosophy, and two years and a half to theology. During that period our life differed little from the régime described in the preceding chapter. We rose at a quarter to five, dragged through the long programme of religious services, and commenced study at eight; six or seven hours per day were devoted to study and the remainder of the time was occupied as has been described.
We had taken the irrevocable vows three years after leaving the novitiate, though, in any case, few of us would have thought of reconsidering our position. All our thoughts went forward in anticipation to the priesthood, the ‘finis studiorum,’ as we equivocally called it, and we found many means to enliven the dull and insanitary life which must be traversed before reaching it. No vacation was allowed during the whole of the period, but once or twice per week we had the luxury of divesting ourselves of the heavy robe and taking long walks in ordinary clerical costume; once or twice per year, also, we were granted a day trip to some local haunt when our monastery had tided over its first financial difficulties.
For at the commencement of the period we had ample practical illustration of the meaning of a vow of poverty—which is more than even a mendicant friar really bargains for nowadays. Under one superior, a timid and narrow-minded friar who had been worked into office to serve the purposes of a diplomatic and ambitious higher superior, our diet and clothing became painfully appropriate to our profession of mendicancy; his parsimony and real scarcity of money were neatly concealed behind a cheerful profession and praise of ‘holy poverty’ before which all complaint was stultified. However, our congregation increased, and the income of the church ran up, so that ‘holy poverty’ was laid aside in favour of more humane sentiments. Our diet became generous and substantial, our beer and wine more expensive, a heating apparatus was introduced; we almost attained the ordinary level of modern monastic life, and our handsome and comfortable monastery became a significant contrast to the dilapidated cow-shed which had been the first home of the order.
Still the life was extremely insanitary, and there was much sickness amongst us. During three years we lost six of our young men, and almost all of us entered upon our active career with deeply impaired constitutions. Our medical attendant waged a constant but fruitless war with our superiors to procure a saner recreation for us; at his demand for exercise we were furnished with picks and shovels and turned into our garden. One huge mound of earth afforded us exercise for four years; one superior desired to see it in a central heap, his successor fancied it in the form of a Roman camp, and a third directed us to form an intrenchment along the side of the garden with it. But the root of the evil was far deeper than they cared to recognise; it lay in the isolation, the dull, soul-benumbing oppression of the monastic life.
The sick were treated with great kindness, as a rule, but, naturally, with little skill and effectiveness, for no woman is, under any conceivable circumstances, allowed to enter the monastery. In a serious illness which befell me I had acute consciousness of that aspect of celibate life. The custards and beef-tea which the doctor had ordered were made by our cook of corn-flour and somebody’s essence of beef (the cook had the laudable intention of saving time for his prayers); and even when certain lady friends outside had taken the responsibility for my diet, I still had the equivocal blessing of ‘fraternal’ nursing. The lay-brother who acted as my infirmarian, a good, rough, kind-hearted fellow, like most of his class, had been a collier before his conversion, and, though he made a desperate effort to be gentle and soothing, his big horny hands lent themselves very badly to the purpose. However, no expense was spared in the care of the sick, and most superiors were extremely kind and considerate in their treatment.
The constant changes in the personnel of the monastery are also one of the forms of relieving the monotony of the life. Elections are held every eighteen months in which changes of superiors are made and religious are transferred from one monastery to another; for months in advance the convents are thrown into a fever of excitement over the issues. Discontented inferiors are afforded an opportunity of representing their grievances, and they readily submit to harsh treatment in view of the approaching election. In some monasteries and nunneries the superior is elected for life, and in such cases he is chosen by the inmates themselves with great care. In our fraternity the local superiors, or guardians, of the various monasteries were appointed by a higher council,[3]. and had to hand in their resignations at the end of eighteen months; when, if their record was satisfactory, they might be re-elected for a time. The frequent change is a matter of general satisfaction, for no superior ever succeeds in gaining the sympathy of an entire community. One of the kindest and ablest superiors we ever had, Father Bede, only retained the position for a year and a half, and at the end of that term was with great difficulty dissuaded from leaving our province altogether. He was a man of exceptionally earnest, active, and respected life; kind, sincere, unworldly, and refined, he is still much honoured in Catholic circles. But the difficulties of office, the petty intrigues of jealous confrères, the stupid obstinacy of minor officials, the bitter opposition of a large section of his community, almost drove him from England. One of his colleagues endeavoured to persuade me that F. Bede had only accepted the charge of Forest Gate monastery for the purpose of ruining it; in point of fact he was its warmest and most effective supporter, and a type of priest whom it is a pleasure to recollect.
Feast-days, also, helped to break the monotony of the life. Even in our poorest days the higher festivals were celebrated with much éclat, principally of a gastronomic character; for there are always sufficient thoughtful friends, and usually a nunnery or two, in the neighbourhood of a friary to supply the defects of their masculine cuisine on state occasions. On such days the law of silence is suspended at dinner, and the friars join in a general mêlée of conversation and raillery; often, too, an impromptu concert is added, and the songs of by-gone days re-echo through the cloisters. Our refectory was prudently located at the back of the house and far from profane ears. Wine is poured out in abundance; in our days of poverty it was weak Rhine wine or a very suspicious article labelled port, but with the return of prosperity (and the advent of a generous benefactress), good port and whisky and a fair quantity of champagne made their appearance. We students were also liberally supplied with wine, and, as some religiously declined it, others drank copiously.
The long preparation for the priesthood is divided into stages marked by the reception of the preliminary orders. In the Church of Rome there are seven orders through which the cleric must pass, four minor and three major or ‘holy’ orders. In the early Church each order marked a certain category of officials in which the candidate for the priesthood was detained for some time. The first ceremony, called the ‘tonsure,’ in which the bishop symbolically cuts five locks of hair from the head of the neophyte, is a formal initiation into the ranks of the clergy; in cutting the hair the bishop repeats the words of the psalm ‘Dominus pars hereditatis meae,’ for the ‘cleric’ is one who has thrown in his ‘lot’ (kleros) with the ministers of the Lord. After a time he passes through the four minor orders and becomes successively doorkeeper, reader, exorcist, and acolythe. Now the tonsure and the minor orders are usually given in one ceremony, for the lower offices have been absorbed into the higher. The inveterate conservativism of the Church of Rome has led to some curious and ridiculous survivals in the ceremony; for instance, after receiving the order of doorkeeper, the cleric is solemnly marched by the master of ceremonies to the church-door, where he pulls the bell, opens the door and shuts it, and returns to the sanctuary for the next step, having ‘faithfully discharged his office of doorkeeper.’ The function of exorcist can now only be exercised by a priest with the permission of the bishop in each case; in the west of Ireland, where belief in diabolical interference and the power of the priest is still profound and widespread, exorcisms are not unknown.
The subdiaconate is usually received at twenty-one and the diaconate a year afterwards. In the monastic orders, where the vow of celibacy has already been pronounced, these ceremonies are comparatively unimportant, but to the secular student the subdiaconate is a fateful step; the vow is made by taking a step forward in the sanctuary at the invitation of the bishop, and many a student has withdrawn at the last moment. The ceremony of ordination is long and tiresome; it contains many beautiful prayers and much impressive symbolism, but many rites also which are grotesque survivals of former days and much superfluous reading. The bishop reads (generally in a rapid mumbling tone, for they are not now expected to be understood), a series of exhortations to the candidates, who rarely understand a word of his muttered Latin; and, as in the Anglican consecration service, he addresses and interrogates the people present—but, more prudently than his Anglican brother, he does so in the same inaudible Latin.
Two years are supposed to elapse between the diaconate and the priesthood, but we received the three major orders within the same six months. Ecclesiastical laws can always be dispensed by Rome in unusual circumstances, and the extraordinary extent to which clerical regulations are over-ruled and dispensed at the present day gives one the impression that the Church has fallen upon very extraordinary times.
- ↑ It is curious to note that one of their principal benefactors has since seceded from the church. The secession was kept a profound secret by the few of my colleagues who knew it, but was accidentally communicated to me.
‘What has he become?’ I inquired.
‘Oh! a Theosophist or Agnostic, or something of that kind,’ was the lucid reply of my discriminating colleague. - ↑ More will be said of this Rationalistic method of Catholic theology, so contrary to common repute, in the last chapter. The author has treated the question more fully in the Westminster Review, July 1896.
- ↑ The election is described more fully p. 178