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Vol. EX.— No. 20.
Philadelphia, Thursday, May 20, 1841.
Whole Number 436.
THE CATHOLIC HERALD.
1S PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY BY
M. FITUIAN,
No. 61 North Second Street, Philadelphia.
Terms.—Three Dollars per annum, payable half yearly
tn advance. Five Dollars will be received for 2 copies, or 1
copy for two years. All arrearages must be settled prior to
ordering a paper to be discontinued. All Communications,
except from Agents, or Subscribers enclosing remittances,
ust be post paid, and addressed “'I'o the Editor of the
Catholic Herald, Philadelphia, Pa.”
PYoetryp.
From the London English Journal.
WHY ARE THEY SHUT?
BY HORACE SMITH.
“Let us pass throngh, and none shall do you any hurt}
howbeit they would not open unto him.’—1 Maccabees:
Madame de Stael, as well as many other pious and
enlightened foreigners, have condemned our English
custom of closing all places of public worship except-
ing on the Sabbath, as tantamount to a denial of reli-
gion, or at least of devout meditation in its most appro-
priate locality, on six days out of the seven. They
do not require that service should be daily solemnized,
as itis in Catholic countries, (though it ought, I sus-
pect, to be more frequently performed in our own, if
the canon law and the rubrick were literally obeyed,)
but they urge that much good might be effected by
leaving our Cathedrals and Churches constantly open,
as inevitable stimulants of devout feeling and perhaps
of occasional thanksgiving, or. prayerful reflection, to
those who might visit them, however casually or has-
tily, It has been objected, that where there are coors
at each extremity, the sacred edifices might be used as
mere thoroughfares or’short cuts, as is frequently the
case upon the continent. And why should they not,
if we admit the possibility, that while hundreds may
pass through unreflecting: and unbefited, a single indi-
vidual may feel and durably retain the hallowing influ-
ence of the place, however hurried may be his transit?
As Eternity hangs from the present moment,'so may
the amendment of a whole life depend upon a passing
impression. Grace may be vouchsafed even to the
supplication of an instant. There is no presumption
in the well known epitaph on a man killed by a fall
from his horse—
‘ Betwixt the stirrnp and the ground,
Mercy Lasked, and merey found.
Why should we not, therefore, avail ourselves of
every accessory, every stimulant, and. situation, that
may awaken holy feelings and aspirations, however
transitory ; and | what so likely to elicit them, what
spectacle or sight so suggestive and sanctifying, as the
interior of a sacred edifice
Contemplating, as 1 do, the whole. world as a vast
natural temple, whose lamps are the glorious firma-
mental lights, whose choir the mingled voices of all
living things, whose organ the sonorous euphony of
winds and waves, whose congregation the vast brother-
hood of man—I can never.cast my eyes over the three
leaved bible of earth, sea, and sky, ‘without holy .im-
pressions, which, I would hambly. hope, have tended
to convert every day into. a Sabbath, and have: exer-
cised a practical ‘influence upon my life. From: the
mass of mankind, as I am well aware, it were vain to
expect any such absiract or creative imaginings ;—the
more necessary is it that they should be supplied with
all such visible and ‘tangible aids as may elevate their
minds as often as possible from their daily grovellings
into a higher and happier sphere.
In point of suggestiveness, our simple, unadorned,
and spiritual Protestant Churches, have become a sort
of ‘caviare to the million,’ whose imagination ean
only be stimulated through the instrumentality of the
senses. “There is a medium between idolatry and ad-
miration, between the worship of images and pictures,
or a belief in the intercession of saints, and the wlole-
some use of types and emblems, as stimulants to pious
yearnings ; or a reverence for particular tombs: and
monuments, as sources of elevating association: with
past or the future. For one over-appreliensive vision-
the sight of religious sculptures or paintings, there are
at least a hundred of our phlegmatic and unimaginative
countrymen, whose piety remains altogether dormant
for want of some such awakening harbingers and ap-
pellants.. In a choice between the certain indifference
of many, and the possible observation of ‘a few, we
should be more anxious to animate the faith of the for-
mer, than fearful that the faith of the latter may become
too lively.
Stated worship has been chiefly instituted for the
people; and if we cannot bring their minds up to reli-
gion as a spiritual abstraction, we must bring the reli-
gion down to the level of their apprehensions in the
best way we can. Shrines, images,’ and paintings,
are but so many conductors, which bring down the
light from heaven and direct itinto a safe channel. Of
their elevating influence upon art, in drawing forth the
divinity of genius, whose works, thus inspired, elicit
in their turn the devout yearnings of the spectator,
thus engendering a holy action and reaction, I need
not adduce instances, for the fact has been established
in all times and in all countries where Religion has
availed herself of the Artist’s aid. If we are to ban-
ish from our Churches the poetry of painting and
sculpture, why not proscribe the Muse herself, and
suppress the Psalms? Why not interdict the music
of the choir?
The following stanzas were composed while the au-
thor was sitting outside a Country Church in Sussex,
much regretting that, as it was a week day, he could
not gain admittance to the interior of the sacred edi-
ce i—
Why are our churches shut with jealous care,
Bolted and barred against our bosoms yearning,
Save for the few short hours of Sabbath prayer,
With the bell’s tolling statedly returning ?
Why are they shut?
If with diarnal drudgeries o’er-wrought,
Or sick of dissipation’s dull vagaries,
We wish to snatch one hittle space fur thought,
Or holy respite, in our sanctu: a
Why are they shut?
es,
What! shall the Church, the house of prayer no more
Give tacit notice from its fastened portals,
That fur six days’tis useless to adore,
Since Goo will hold no communings with mortalet
Why are they stut?
Are there no sinners in the churchless week
Who wish to sanctify a vowed repentance?
Are there no hearts bereft which fain would seek
‘The only bain fur Death’s uupitying sentence?
Why are they snut?
Are there no poor, no wronged, no heirs of grief,
No sick, who, when their strength or courage falters,
Long for a noment’s respite or relief,
By kneeling at the Gop or Mrrcy’s altars?
Why are they shut?
Are there no wicked whom, if tempted in,
Some qualin of conscience or devout suggestion
Might suddenly redeem from future sin?
Oh! if there be, how solemn is the question,
. Why are they shut?
In foreign climes, mechanics leave their task
‘To breathe a passing prayer in their Cathedrals:
There they have week-day shrines, and no one aske,
When he would kneel to them, and count hisbead-rolls,
Why are they shut?
Seeing them enter sad and discontented,
To quit these cheering fanes with looks of gladness,—
How often have my thoughts to ours reverted !
How oft have I exclaimed, in tones of sadness,
Why are they shut?
For who within a Parish Church can stroll,
Wrapt in its week-day stillness and vacation, ©‘ 7
Nor fect that in the very air his soul sions
Receives a sweet ani! ballowing lustration? ‘
The vacant pews, blank aisles, and empty choir,
Allin a deep sepulchral silence shrouded,
An awe more solemn and intense inspire,
‘Than when with Sabbath congregations crowded,
Why are they shut?
The echoes of our footsteps, as we treadj
On hollow graves, are spiritual voices ;
Ard holding mental converse with the dead
Io holy reveries our soul rejoices.
Why are they shut?
If there be one—one only—who might share
This sanctifying week-day adoration,
Were but our Churches open to his prayer,
Why—I demand with earnest iteration—
Why are they shut?
From the London Catholic Magazine.
TRACTS FOR THE’ TIMES,—REMARKS ON
CERTAIN PASSAGES IN THE 39 ARTICLES,
DATED, ‘* OXFORD, THE FEAST OF “THE CONVERSION OF
sT. PAUL, 1841.’ London: Rivingstons, 1841.
The present Tract (No. 90) is by far the most im-
portant which has yet been published; and, if we mis-
take not, is the precursor to a contest in the bosom of
the established church, which must end either in'a
wide schism, or what is more likely, by the return of
a consilerable portion of the professors of the Anglican
establishment to the. communion of the ancient church.
It is, We must confess, a bold attempt on the part of
the 'l'ractators, to reconcile ‘certain passages in the 39
articles,’ with the distinctive doctrines of the Catholic
Church, yet we are free to admit that they have not
been altogether unsuccessful; and when it is conaid-
ered thatthese articles were intentionally framed, so as
to allow a wide latitude of interpretation, we were not
surprised to find that the Tract writers had discovered
that there was very litte difference between them, and
the doctrine of the church, as explained in the decrees
of the council of ‘Trent,
In the introduction of the Tract, we are informed
that ‘it is often urged, and sometimes felt and granted,
that there are in the Articles, propositions or terms in-
consistent with the Catholic faith; or, at least, when
persons do not go so far as to feel the objection as of
force, they are perplexed how bestto reply to. it, or
how most simply to explain the passages on which it is
made to rest. The following Tract is drawn up with
the view of shewing how groundless the objection is ;
and further, of approximating towards the argumenta-
tive avswer to it, of which most men have an implicit
apprehension, though they may have nothing more.
‘That there are real difficulties to a Christian in the ec~
clesiastical position of our church at this day, no one
can deny ; but the statements of the Articles are not
in the number, and it may be right, at the present mo-
ment, to insist upon this.”
In support of the proposition contained in the last
clause of the above sentence, the ‘Tract writer begins
with the sixth and the twentieth Articles, on ‘Holy
Scripture,’ and ‘the Authority of the Church.’ As to
the canon, he observes that ‘the books of [uly Scrip-
ture are enumerated inthe latter part of the Article,
(sixth), so as to preclude question.’ Still there are two
points which deserve notice:
* First, the Scriptures, or canonical books, are said
to be those ‘of whose authority was never any doubtin
thechurch.’ Llere it is not meant that there ‘never
was any doubt in portions of the church, or particular
churches, concerning certain books which the Article
includes in the canon; for some of them—as, for ins
stance, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse
—have been the subject of much doubt in the West or
East, as the case may be. But the Article asserts that
there has been no doubt about them in the church Ga-
tholic ; that is, at the very first time that the Catholic
or whole church had the opportunity of forming a
judgment on the subject, it pronounced in favour of the
canonical books.” ‘Ihe. epistle to the Hebrews was
doubted by the West, and the Apocalypse by the East,
only while those portions of the church investigated
separately from each’ other—only till they compared
notes, interchanged sentiments, and formed an ‘united
judgment, “Phe phrase must mean this, becanse, from
ary whose devotion may be pushed into idolaty: by
Why are they shot
the nature of the case, itean mean nothing else
'
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