all the changes of the world the varied goodness of Him in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," brings us nearer to the spirit of the Saviour of mankind. But it is not only as encouraging a sincere devotion, that these reflections are favourable to Christianity; there is something, moreover, peculiarly allied to its spirit in such observations of external nature. When our Saviour prepared himself for his temptation, his agony, and death, he retired to the wilderness of Judæa, to inhale, we may venture to believe, a holier spirit amidst its solitary scenes, and to approach to a nearer communion with his Father, amidst the sublimest of his works. It is with similar feelings, and to worship the same Father, that the Christian is permitted to enter the temple of nature; and by the spirit of his religion, there is a language infused into the objects which she presents, unknown to the worshipper of former times. To all indeed the same objects appear-the same sun shines the same heavens are open, but to the Christian alone it is permitted to know the author of these things; to see His spirit "move in the breeze and blossom in the spring;" and to read, in the changes which occur in the material world, the varied expression of eternal love. It is from the influence of Christianity accordingly that the key has been given to the signs of nature. It was only when the Spirit of God moved on the face of the deep, that order and beauty were seen in the world. It is accordingly peculiarly well worthy of observation, that the beauty of nature, as felt in modern times, seems to have been almost unknown to the writers of antiquity. They described occasionally the scenes in which they dwelt; but, if we except Virgil, whose gentle mind seems to have anticipated, in this instance, the influence of the Gospel, never with any deep Feeling of their beauty. Then, as now, the citadel of Athens looked upon the evening sun, and her temples flamed in his setting beam; but what Athenian writer ever described the matchless glories of the scene? Then, as now, the silvery clouds of the Egean sea rolled round her verdant isles, and sported in the azure vault of heaven; but what Grecian poet has been inspired by the sight? The Italian lakes spread their waves beneath a cloudless sky, and all that is lovely in nature was gathered around them; yet even Eustace tells us, that a few detached lines is all that is left in regard to them by the Roman poets. The Alps themselves, "The palaces of nature, whose vast walls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche-the thunderbolt of snow,-" Even these, the most glorious objects which the eye of man. can behold, were regarded by the ancients with sentiments. only of dismay or horror; as a barrier from hostile nations, or as the dwelling of barbarous tribes. The torch of religion had not then lightened the face of nature; they knew not the language which she spoke, nor felt that holy spirit which to the Christian gives the sublimity of these scenes. Chateaubriand divides his great work into four parts. The first treats of the doctrinal parts of religion; the second and the third, of the relations of that religion with poetry, literature, and the arts; the fourth, of the ceremonies of public worship, and the services rendered to mankind by the clergy, regular and secular. On the mysteries of faith he commences with these fine observations: "There is nothing beautiful, sweet, or grand in life, but has its mystery. The sentiments which agitate us most strongly are enveloped in obscurity; modesty, virtuous love, sincere friendship, have all their secrets, with which the world must not be made acquainted. Hearts which love understand each other by a word; half of each is at all times open to the other. Innocence itself is but a holy ignorance, and the most ineffable of mysteries. Infancy is only happy because it as yet knows nothing; age miserable because it has nothing more to learn. Happily for it, when the mysteries of life are ending, those of immortality commence. "If it is thus with the sentiments, it is assuredly not less so with the virtues; the most angelic are those which, emanating directly from the Deity, such as charity, love to withdraw themselves from all regards, as if fearful to betray their celestial origin. "If we turn to the understanding, we shall find that the pleasures of thought also have a certain connexion with the mysterious. To what sciences do we unceasingly return? To those which always leave something still to be discovered, and fix our regards on a perspective which is never to terminate. If we wander in the desert, a sort of instinct leads us to shun the plains where the eye embraces at once the whole circumference of nature, to plunge into forests, those forests the cradle of religion, whose shades and solitudes are filled with the recollections of prodigies, where the ravens and the doves nourished the prophets and fathers of the church. If we visit a modern monument, whose origin or destination is known, it excites no attention; but if we meet on a desert isle, in the midst of the ocean, with a mutilated statue pointing to the west, with its pedestal covered with hieroglyphics, and worn by the winds, what a subject of meditation is presented to the traveller! Everything is concealed, everything is hidden in the universe. Man himself is the greatest mystery of the whole. Whence comes the spark which we call existence, and in what obscurity is it to be extinguished? The Eternal has placed our birth and our death under the form of two veiled phantoms, at the two extremities of our career; the one produces the inconceivable gift of life, which the other is ever ready to devour. "It is not surprising, then, considering the passion of the human mind for the mysterious, that the religions of every country should have had their impenetrable secrets. God forbid that I should compare their mysteries to those of the true faith, or the unfathomable depths of the Sovereign in the heavens, to the changing obscurities of those gods which are the work of human hands. All that I observe is, that there is no religion without mysteries, and that it is they with the sacrifice which everywhere constitute the essence of the worship. God is the great secret of nature: the Deity was veiled in Egypt, and the Sphynx was seated at the entrance of his temples."-Vol. i. 13, 14. On the three great sacraments of the Church-Baptism, Confession, and the Communion-he makes the following beautiful observations : "Baptism, the first of the sacraments which religion confers upon man, clothes him, in the words of the Apostle, with Jesus Christ. That sacrament reveals at once the corruption in which we were born, the agonising pains which attended our birth, and the tribulations which follow us into the world; it tells us that our faults will descend upon our children, and that we are all jointly responsible-a terrible truth, which, if duly considered, would alone suffice to render the reign of virtue universal in the world. "Behold the infant in the midst of the waters of the Jordan! The Man of the Wilderness pours the purifying stream on his head; the river of the Patriarchs, the camels on its banks, the Temple of Jerusalem, the cedars of Lebanon, seem to regard with interest the mighty spectacle. Behold in mortal life that infant near the sacred fountain; a family filled with thankfulness surround it; renounce in its name the sins of the world; bestow on it with joy the name of its grandfather, which seems thus to become immortal, in its perpetual renovation by the fruits of love from generation to generation. Even now the father is impatient to take his infant in his arms, to replace it in its mother's bosom, who listens behind the curtains to all the thrilling sounds of the sacred ceremony. The whole family surround the maternal bed; tears of joy, mingled with the transports of religion, fall from every eye; the new name of the infant, the old name of its ancestor, is repeated by every mouth, and every one mingling the recollections of the past with the joys of the present, thinks that he sees the venerable grandfather revive in the new-born which has taken his name. Such is the domestic spectacle which throughout all the Christian world the sacrament of Baptism presents; but religion, ever mingling lessons of duty with scenes of joy, shows us the son of kings clothed in purple, renouncing the grandeur of the world, at the same fountain where the child of the poor in rags abjures the pomps by which he will in all probability never be tempted. "Confession follows baptism; and the Church, with that wisdom which it alone possesses, fixed the era of its commencement at that period when first the idea of crime can enter the infant mind-that is, at seven years of age. All men, including the philosophers, how different soever their opinions may be on other subjects, have regarded the sacrament of penitence as one of the strongest barriers against crime, and a chef-d'œuvre of wisdom. What innumerable restitutions and reparations, says Rousseau, has con fession caused to be made in Catholic countries! According to Voltaire, 'Confession is an admirable invention, a bridle to crime, discovered in the most remote antiquity, for confession was recognised in the celebration of all the ancient mysteries. We have adopted and sanctified that wise custom, and its effects have always been found to be admirable in inclining hearts, ulcerated by hatred, to forgiveness.' "But for that salutary institution, the guilty would give way to despair. In what bosom would he discharge the weight of his heart? In that of a friend-Who can trust the friendship of the world? Shall he take the deserts for a confident? Alas! the deserts are ever filled to the ear of crime with those trumpets which the parricide Nero heard round the tomb of his mother. When men and nature are unpitiable, it is indeed consolatory to find a Deity inclined to pardon; but it belongs only to the Christian religion to have made twin sisters of Innocence and Repentance. "In fine, the Communion presents instructive ceremony. It teaches morality, for we must be pure to approach it; it is the offering of the fruits of the earth to the Creator, and it recalls the sublime and touching history of the Son of Man. Blended with the recollection of Easter, and of the first covenant of God with man, the origin of the communion is lost in the obscurity of an infant world; it is related to our first ideas of religion and society, and recalls the pristine equality of the human race; in fine, it perpetuates the recollection of our primeval fall, of our redemption, and reacceptance by God."-Vol. i. 30-46. caste. These and similar passages, not merely in this work, which professes to be of a popular cast, but in others of the highest class of Catholic divinity, suggest an idea which, the more we extend our reading, the more we shall find to be just—viz., that in the greater and purer writers on religion, of whatever church or age, the leading doctrines are nearly the same, and that the differences which divide their followers, and distract the world, are seldom, on any material or important points, to be met with in writers of a superior Chateaubriand is a faithful, and in some respects, perhaps, a bigoted Catholic; yet there is hardly a word here, or in any other part of his writings on religion, to which a Christian in any country may not subscribe, and which is not calculated in all ages and places to forward the great work of the purification and improvement of the human heart. Travellers have often observed that in a certain rank in all countries manners are the same; naturalists know that at a certain elevation above the sea in all latitudes we meet with the same vegetable productions; and philosophers have often remarked, that, in the highest class of intellects, opinions on almost every subject in all ages and places are the same. A similar uniformity may be observed in the principles of the greatest writers of the world on religion; and while the inferior followers of their different tenets branch out into endless divisions, and indulge in sectarian rancour, in the more lofty regions of intellect the principles are substantially the same, and the objects of all identical. So small a proportion do all the disputed points in theology bear to the great objects of religion-love to God, charity to man, and the subjugation of human passion. On the subject of marriage, and the reasons for its indissolubility, our author presents us with the following beautiful observations: "Habit and a long life together are more necessary to happiness, and even to love, than is generally imagined. No one is happy with the object of his attachment until he has passed many days, and above all, many days of misfortune, with her. The married pair must know each other to the bottom of their souls; the mysterious veil which covered the two spouses in the primitive church must be raised in its inmost folds, how closely soever it may be kept drawn to the rest of the world. "What! on account of a fit of caprice, or a burst of passion, am I to be exposed to the fear of losing my wife and my children, and to renounce the hope of passing my declining days with them? Let no one imagine that fear will make me become a better husband. No; we do not attach ourselves to a possession of which we are not secure, we do not love a property which we are in danger of losing. “We must not give to Hymen the wings of Love, nor make of a sacred reality a fleeting phantom. One thing is alone sufficient to destroy your happiness in such transient unions; you will constantly compare one to the other, the wife you have lost to the one you have gained; and, do not deceive yourself, the balance will always incline to the past, for so God has constructed the human heart. This distraction of a sentiment which should be indivisible will empoison all your joys. When you caress your new infant, you will think of the smiles of the one you have lost; when you press your wife to your bosom, your heart will tell you that she is not the first. Everything in man tends to unity; he is no longer happy when he is divided, and, like God, who made him in His image, his soul seeks incessantly to concentrate into one point the past, the present, and the future. : "The wife of a Christian is not a simple mortal: she is a mysterious angelic being the flesh of the flesh, the blood of the blood of her husband. Man, in uniting himself to her, does nothing but regain part of the substance which he has lost. His soul as well as his body are incomplete without his wife he has strength, she has beauty; he combats the enemy and labours the fields, but he understands nothing of domestic life; his companion is awanting to prepare his repast and sweeten his existence. He has his crosses, and the partner of his couch is there to soften them: his days may be sad and troubled, but in the chaste arms of his wife he finds comfort and repose. Without woman man would be rude, gross, and solitary. Woman spreads around him the flowers of existence, as the creepers of the forests which decorate the trunks of sturdy oaks with their perfumed garlands. Finally, the Christian pair live and die united: together they rear the fruits of their union; in the dust they lie side by side; and they are reunited beyond the limits of the tomb."—Vol. i. 78, 79. The extreme unction of the Catholic Church is described in these touching words : VOL. III. B |