There is the focus of that sweet and powerful influence; there is learned that strength and gentleness, that universality of direction, and that moderation of form, that love, strong as death, sweet as invincible, which constitute the prudence of the wise. Those who deserve to be admitted amongst them will turn from all ways to it, and find their centre out. Other men will waver, ask for delay, and finally, perhaps, lose all sounds and tracks that might direct them, "Dum dubitant, seram pepulere crepuscula lucem "Oh! that those we have left behind," exclaims a young nobleman, writing recently from Rome, "could but see and experience the joy, the peace, the happiness which we now feel; a happiness which would be almost too great, were it not tempered by the continual remembrance of the many dear friends whom we have left still wandering far from this completed form of all completeness, this high perfection of intellectual content!" What is this but the scene so beautifully related by Virgil, repeated in the moral forest? It is the episode of Nisus and Euryalus, in real life. You remember the lines,— "Silva fuit late dumis atque ilice nigra Horrida, quam densi complerant undique sentes : Euryalum tenebræ ramorum onerosaque præda How many are there now who feel the grief of Nisus, when they perceive that some companion of their youth has been kept back from following them? Yes, there are voices that now awaken such Virgilian echoes, 66 Euryale, infelix qua te regione reliqui? Quare sequar? Rursus perplexum iter omne revolvens Observata legit, dumisque silentibus errat +." He who thus so loudly and affectionately calls, measures back his steps through the entangled thorns in hopes that his voice may yet reach the belated straggler, who, having completely mistaken the points of the compass, has perhaps become wholly bewildered as the evening shades now thicken around him, "Eripe, nate, fugam, finemque impone labori. Nusquam abero, et tutum patrio te limine sistam‡." * Met. xv. VOL. VI. + ix. 385. ii. 619. Such is the cry that many a devoted friend is now uttering through the dews of night. Alas! it has not been the destiny of each to hear a familiar tongue responding, "Jam jam nulla mora est; sequor, et qua ducitis adsum *." But lo! a new way invites us; still following those who approach the Church through affinity with truth. CHAPTER II. THE ROAD OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. HE forest is full of objects that are associated in youthful and popular minds with the book of God, that recall the trees of the Bible,-the scenery of the Bible. A solemn and beautiful avenue here opens before us, which might be called after any of the great Catholic names that will be for ever suggested by a recurrence to the Divine pages. Here we pass under majestic boughs that may raise up before our mind's eye the trees under which Abraham invited the angels to repose in the vale of Mambre, which Isidorus, who lived in the reign of Constantius, assures us that he saw with his own eyes; the woodland vale, in which the kings of Sodom and Gomorrha were overthrown; the oak of weeping, under which Debora, the nurse of Rebecca, was buried; the wood upon the mountain, prescribed to be cut down by Josue for the tribes to find room to dwell in; the palm-tree under which Debbora sat and prophesied; the oak in Sichem, at which Abimelech was made king; the oak of Thabor, where Samuel told Saul that he should meet three men, who would offer him loaves; the bramble, which suggested the apologue of Joatham respecting that ancestor of the same family of the forest, which was invited by the trees to be their king. Here, too, at times, are passes that recall the rocky gorge through which Jonathan and his armourbearer climbed on hands and feet; the woody hill of Hachila, where David hid himself from Saul; the craggy rocks of Engaddi, accessible only to wild goats; and the cave in which David spared his enemy. Here again we may be reminded of the wood of Jabes, and of its oak, under which the bones of * ii. 701. Saul and of his sons were buried ;-of the oak-tree on which Absalom was slain, and of that forest-school in which Solomon so long studied, when he treated about trees, from the cedar of Libanus unto the hyssop. Here are recalled the cedar-trees and the fir-trees which Hiram gave for the building of the temple, thirty thousand workmen being employed in divisions to fell them. Or we may be reminded here of the forest itself of Libanus, in which Solomon built his own house, with cedar pillars; of the turpentine-tree, under which the old Prophet found the man of God sitting, and of the juniper-tree, under which sat Elias, after going one day's journey into the 'desert. Rushing waters, too, wander along rocky channels, like the torrent of Carith, by which dwelt Elias the Thesbite, when the ravens brought him bread and flesh morning and evening. Nor are we left without the wild bees and their honeycombs, which can recall the forest where honey was found upon the ground. The wild bees in the woods yield a greater quantity, and a better quality of honey and wax than those which live in gardens, so that in the forests of Poland, Courland, and other provinces of Russia, in Pomerania, and in Prussia, as in southern regions, and especially at Nuremberg, there are courts of justice of the guardians of bees*. The high, inspired language of the prophets is recalled, too, by what is found in the woods, as in the instance of the reign of the Just One, foretold by Isaias, under the figures of the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive-tree, planted in the wilderness with the fir-tree, the elm, and the box-tree together. Ezechial, too, is remembered prophesying, and speaking of the cedar to be planted on the high mountain, and of all the trees that shall know how the Lord has brought down the high tree, and exalted the low tree; and dried up the green tree, and caused the dry tree to flourish. And again, speaking of the Assyrian empire, and saying "how the cedars in the paradise of God, the fir-trees and the planetrees, could not be compared with that lofty one among the trees of pleasure." This forest can awaken, also, a remembrance of Daniel predicting judgment on Baltassar, and speaking of the lofty tree that he saw, with beautiful leaves, and wide-spreading branches, which was to be cut down and dismantled, and from which beasts and birds should fly; it can recall, at every step, by instances of vegetable destruction, the ivy that in one night perished, for which Jonas mourned while wishing, with a zeal that God condemned, to destroy Ninive; it can recall the oaks of Basan, which Zacharias invited to mourn for the cutting down of the forest that denotes Jerusalem. In fine, directing men to the New Testament, the woods can * Cotta, Science Forestière. remind them of the fig-tree by the way-side, condemned for not bearing fruit; of the sycamore-tree, into which Zacheus climbed, boy like, and approved, in order to see Christ as He walked by; and, lastly, of the olives of the mount to which our Lord withdrew in solitude to fulfil the duties of his assumed humanity by prayer. How soothing is it, and worthy of a poet, methinks I hear some comrade here exclaim, to wander through a forest thus, thinking of the trees of the Bible! "It seems that you take pleasure in these walks, sir." Well then, since Massinger's words may be rightly applied to you, we can proceed now with more confidence. This venerable road, in ancient times, was followed, not only by a sapient throng expressly prepared to serve as guides, but also by a fervent population, impressed with a conviction that this constituted the direct avenue to the Catholic Church, from which it was thought, notwithstanding the fate of some few obstinate stragglers, that no one taking it could turn willingly his eyes. But in these latter ages of the world, such darkness has come over the whole forest of life, obscuring brightest things, multitudes, as we observed on a former occasion, are misled even upon this road, which belongs, by exclusive right, to the Catholic Church; men are wandering on without discovering the truth of Catholicity, while actually selecting this very track as the way to lead and keep them farthest from it, calling out to others as bewildered as themselves to follow them, saying that they should confine their feet to this road for ever, without looking forward or behind, and assuring them that by such constancy they will never arrive at the centre where is found the Catholic Church, the image of which, distorted by the medium through which it is conveyed to their eyes, causes them such displeasure. seen Truly, the aberrations of some men are wondrous strange; but having, on a former road, observed sufficiently their error in this respect, no one would wish here to return to it. 66 Satis est inamabile regnum Beneath these beautiful calm forest domes, it is better to dismiss all sinister comparisons, and proceed in peace to remark the signals which exist at every turn to direct men to the immense felicity which a faithful and just use of the Holy Scriptures can supply. In the first place, the Catholic Church is seen upon this road, as having, by its authority, promulgated the sacred volume, * Met. xiv. composed and arranged as it now exists. It is to the Church, authoritatively declaring what was to be accepted, and what rejected, that men, even those who profess to ignore and renounce her authority, are indebted for its possession. Efforts, indeed, have, from time to time, been made to reverse this state of things. Some, exercising their assumed right of private judg ment, have been disposed to pick and choose, in regard to whole books, and chapters of the Bible. Luther, in this respect, as is well known, was restrained by no diffidence; but, on the whole, as far as important purposes are concerned, their criticism has been obliged to acquiesce in the ecclesiastical sentence, and to retain and reject the books that it decided should be retained or rejected. Even in those localities where the Protestant criticism has prevailed so far, as regards the general opinion respecting the right of excluding certain parts of the Scriptures, a tardy homage, we are told, has been paid to the truth of the Catholic testimony; for "many of the most eminent biblical scholars, of those places, still ranged formally against it, are now of opinion, that the first reformers acted hastily and unwisely by rejecting the avriλeyoμévovç books; and that a fairer and betterinformed criticism has assigned to them that place amongst the Christian commentaries of which they had been formerly so unjustly deprived." In the second place, we may consider how Catholicity is discerned as the central source of all holy, sincere, rational esteem and veneration for the sacred volume. The Catholic Church has seen men pretending to a purer and higher inspiration than that which produced the Bible, rejecting, in toto, the sacred treasure of the Scriptures. In England itself, the Bible has been proclaimed by fanaticism to be a thing abolished, as containing beggarly rudiments, milk for babes. "Christ," said the preacher, whose act is related by Hume, in his History of the Commonwealth, "is now in glory amongst us, and imparts a farther measure of His Spirit to His saints than this Bible can afford. I am commanded to burn it before your face;" and so putting out a candle in his hand, he said, "here my fifth light"-for he had already put out four, as symbolical of other whims-" is extinguished." The Catholic Church has seen, in some countries at least, Protestantism accepting the views of general infidelity, respecting the truth of the Chinese chronology and history, as subversive of the Mosaic, and leaving it to Catholic scholars to prove, that the earliest date of their empire is after the call of Abraham *." Against Moses and the New Testament, men, opposed to Catholicism, listen to every flippant writer, whether dabbling in geology, or relating his travels in the East; but, * Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. tome xv. |