CHAPTER IV.

SYMBOLIC RITUAL.

SECTION I. THE TEACHING OF OUR LORD.

In order to treat properly the worship of the New Testament in its relation to Ritual, we must carefully distinguish the different aspects which Ritual may bear. Hitherto we have been considering only that feature of Catholic ceremonial which may be called Splendour, Grandeur, or Magnificence. But by far the greater number of the Church's rites have no pretension to this quality. The ordinary administration of the Sacraments, the ordinary prayers and benedictions of the Church, have nothing in them of the nature of splendour. There are parishes, and even whole countries, where the worshippers never saw a ceremony to which the epithets grand or imposing could with any propriety be given. It is really a ludicrous mistake on the part of many English writers to fancy that the senses and souls of Catholics are dazzled and subdued by a constant round of magnificent rites. Sir Emerson Tennent, in order to account for the attachment of the natives of Ceylon to the Catholic faith, says, 'Their imaginations were excited, and their tastes permanently captivated, by striking ceremonial and pompous pageantry.'

This is really a singular theory. Why, even a child would grow weary of a Christmas pantomime, if obliged to witness it every day for a month. Are there, then, savages of human kind in any part of the world whose imagination and tastes can be 'permanently captivated' by a mere monotonous display of pompous pageantry, which, when disconnected from doctrine and the feelings which spring from belief in doctrine, would not possess even the interest of theatrical display?

But facts are no less opposed to such theories than philosophy. I will quote here the commentary which the author of Christian Missions makes on the words just quoted. 'Does Sir Emerson Tennent,' he asks, 'suppose that Father Joseph Vaz, for example, when a fugitive in the swamps and jungles of Ceylon, converted 30,000 idolaters by "pompous pageantry"? Did St. Francis Xavier, whose ecclesiastical apparatus was limited to a hand-bell and a catechist, convert 700,000 souls by "gaudy ceremonial"? Did the venerable John de Britto gain his tens of thousands in the forests of Marava by the splendour of an imposing Ritual? Was it by the aid of such accessories that the martyred apostles of China and Corea, whose churches were huts and their vestments rags, won their Was it "pageantry triumphs? which rescued 1,500,000 South American Indians from the worship of demons? Was it "Ritual" which caused the Holy Name to be adored on the banks of Lake Huron, by the borders of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and again, at a later date, in the plains of Oregon and the valleys of the Rocky Mountains? Is it by a "gaudy ceremonial" that the Franciscans are at this moment renewing their ancient victories in the far interior of Brazil, or the Lazarists in Syria, or the Jesuits in Columbia, or the Marists in the islands of the Pacific?'

I may add, has it been by means of a splendid Ritual that the Church has retained her hold on the affections of the Irish nation? Those Celtic souls are certainly not insensible to the impressions of the imagination; and yet for three hundred years have they worshipped the God of their forefathers in the bog or on the mountain-side, in the thatched hut or the slated 'house' with its mud floor; and generations after generations have passed away of confessors or martyrs to the Catholic faith, without having witnessed even the solemnity of a High Mass or seen the incense ascend at Vespers.

There is, however, another kind of Ritualism very different from what we have been considering. It makes use of the senses indeed, but not to impress them; they merely serve as instruments to convey ideas to the mind. To illustrate what I mean from Protestant worship, singing and instrumental

music may be said to belong to the first kind of Ritualism, that which is æsthetic; kneeling to the latter. Now, it is certain that in her external worship the Church uses many actions not simply necessary, but which are purely symbolical, and that she gives mystic signification to a multitude of actions, movements, and objects used in her various rites. This too is a subject of accusation against her.

It is the nursery tale told to children that Catholics are slaves of a multitude of forms and ceremonies, and that they think to go to heaven by taking holy water, making genuflections, and counting Paters and Aves on their beads. And the old nursery tale is believed in after-life, so that it may be told boldly at any time and go unquestioned.

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The notorious Lola Montez-whether she was really a champion of spiritual worship,' as understood in modern times, or more probably from hatred to priests, who had been the enemies of her scandals—in a lecture she delivered in America, speaks of the Catholic priesthood as 'a hierarchy of magicians, saving souls by machinery, opening and shutting the kingdom of heaven by a Sesame of incantations which it would have been the labour of a lifetime to make so much as intelligible to St. Peter or St. Paul.' Such language would not have been used had it not been known to be acceptable to the audience to whom it was spoken; and the language of this virago is, in every respect, as decent as that used, almost every day, from many pulpits, and deliberately printed in books against Catholics.

Dr. Vaughan seems not in vain to have invoked the shades of Wickliffe and of Knox. 'Baptism,' he says, 'in the hands of the Ritualist is a rite more fit to have come from the school of Simon Magus, a dealer in magic emblems, than from the school of Christ; and the scenic performances which the same authorities have connected with the Communion, remind us more of what we might have expected from an initiation into some heathen mystery, than the Supper for which the private room in Jerusalem was made ready some eighteen centuries ago.'

When I read passages like these from the pen of Protestant

ministers, I am reminded of a saying of the learned Anglican Johnson, in his Treatise on the Unbloody Sacrifice, that the candid Pliny gives us as gentlemanlike an account of the Eucharist, in his letter to Trajan the Emperor, as some that go for Christian divines in these latter ages.'

We have seen strong statements; let us examine whether they are based on equally strong proofs. I give the best I have been able to find in the various writers I have consulted. Of course, I confine myself to proofs or objections derived from Scripture.

Dr. Vaughan quotes largely from the denunciations of our Blessed Lord against the Pharisees for their external observances of human traditions, as the washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels and tables, together with their neglect of the commandments of God; but I confess to my utter inability to see by what process of reasoning Pharisaic observances and Ritualistic exactitude are identified.1

When the Jews clamour for the death of Jesus Christ, and yet are too scrupulous to enter into the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled, I understand the force of the denunciation against such a mockery of religion. They, indeed, 'strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.' But when the Blessed Virgin Mary presses the 'Holy One' to her bosom, and yet observes the law, She shall touch no holy thing until the days of her purification be fulfilled' (Lev. xii. 4), -is she too straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel? Or, is there no difference between the love which observes even the least thing pertaining to the honour of God, and the hypocrisy which, despising God and violating His laws, tries to create for itself a reputation for sanctity by exactitude in external trifles ?—no difference between Zachary and Elizabeth, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame' (Luke i. 6), and the Pharisees, tithing mint and rue, and every herb, and passing over judgment and the charity of God'? (Luke xi. 42.)

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Yet, even in the condemnation of the Pharisees, our Blessed Lord is careful to guard His words from abuse. He does not

1 The accusation as regards tradition will be discussed in Part II.

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blame them for observing little things, but for making that observance a pretext for the neglect of weightier matters: 'These things you ought to have done, and not to leave the other undone' (Luke xi. 42).

Let us not be deceived by superficial resemblances. There are different ways of contributing to God's external service. The men who sold in the Temple oxen, sheep, and doves pretended to be zealous for the sacrifices, though actuated only by avarice; and our Divine Redeemer, in His real zeal for the honour of His Father's house, drove them from it with a scourge of cords. There is a false zeal and a real zeal. So, too, there is a false Ritualism and a real Ritualism. I am not going to defend the zeal of the money-changers, but that of Jesus Christ ; not the Ritualism of the Pharisees, but that of the Blessed Virgin and St. Zachary.

I cannot but think that this attempt of Dr. Vaughan to identify Ritualism and Pharisaism is eminently unfair. He says, that on no other ground can we understand why the Gospels should give us this everlasting Pharisee than that he is the type of Ritualists, and that Ritualism is a besetting sin of human nature. I willingly admit that the vices which our Blessed Lord denounced in the Pharisees are of all ages; I admit that there have been Catholics superstitiously resting in external ceremonies, substituting external strictness for solid virtue, and filled with disdainful pride. But I do not think that the spirit which makes men say, 'I thank God I am not as the rest of men,' is exclusively found among Catholics. Certainly the conduct of English Protestants in Continental churches, and the scorn that is written on their faces for the multitudes that pray around them, are generally interpreted to mean, 'I thank God that we English are not like the rest of the world, or as those wretched Papists who are beating their breasts yonder.' The tone of English Protestant controversy is such that the celebrated De Maistre remarked, ‘One would think it was their belief that Christ died only for the English !' Were it necessary, I could illustrate the spirit of the Pharisee from more than one passage of Dr. Vaughan's own volume.

But, to leave these recriminations, let us admit that the