"Influence of Catholic Prayer on Civilization," Brownson's Quarterly Review for July 1848

 

When, in a divine institution even apparently remote from human affairs, we find certain bearings and proportions to human objects in what they have naturally worthy of praise, so that God appears to cooperate in a measure with man, it is right that such connection be made manifest; not, indeed, as some, perhaps, think, for the sake of begging the applause of those who are called philanthropists, but rather for the sake of adducing new instances to illustrate the infinite wisdom of the Divine Institutor. For his wisdom excites our admiration more strikingly when we behold the vivifying rays which diverge from it as a center, conveying sudden light and warmth into far distant regions, where their influence was not even suspected.  Now, though, I am not bold enough to assert that the influence of Catholic prayer on civilization has not been remarked by minds accustomed to reflection, I can safely say that many blind unbelievers and many well-inclined Catholics fail to understand the immense control exerted over the universal well-being of society by the institution I have proposed to examine.  The Catholic, full of faith and desirous of insuring a blissful immortality, will aim all but exclusively at this in prayer, scarcely deeming worthy of notice any of its temporal advantages, in comparison with its spiritual efficacy.  Infidels, on the other hand, whether they look upon prayer as a superstitious weakness of good souls who have more piety than wit, or, out of condescension, as an affair of the heart between man and God, will surely be far from believing that the exercise of Catholic prayer has anything to do with the great object they declaim of so frequently,- the general happiness of nations.  If, therefore, I can prove that there is so close a relationship between social amelioration and prayer, as used by Catholics, as to show prayer in the light of one of the most efficient means instituted for that end by the Creator, besides having the satisfaction of breathing a new hymn to the wisdom of the Founder of Christianity, I may hope to do some good to virtuous Catholics by pointing out new reasons why they should pray, drawn from the present state of society, at least, to what they call idle mysticism.   Accordingly, I assert the following proposition: - Catholic prayer, apparently only designed to obtain graces from heaven, is one of the most active causes of civilization and social welfare.

It is easy to perceive what grateful admiration a convincing proof of such an assertion is calculated to excite of the Divine Wisdom which established and governs the Church.  For is it not a wonderful thing, that a man apparently plain and simple, gathering around him in a remote part of Palestine twelve unlettered fisherman, prompting them with a prayer to God as our Father, and teaching them to commemorate his death by breaking a mystical bread, should have cast the germ, which, by its miraculous fecundity, has been a powerful, though not the only, cause of the great change effected in the pagan world by Christian civilization?  Who could refrain from an expression of thankfulness and admiration at such a sight;- admiration of Him, who, discerning in an instrumentality, which the world would deem utterly unequal to the task, a hidden force, great in its power, though slow in its action, applied it to produce in remote centuries effects far more imposing than its apparent efficacy,- thankfulness to Him, who, directing us to seek first of all things the kingdom of God, prepared for us at the same time, as an addition, the greatest of temporal goods, civil perfection?

“The study of the history of the Catholic Church in her relations to civilization,” says Balmes, “leaves much to be desired, as it has not yet been made the object of those wonderful compilations which have thrown so much light upon it in a dogmatical and critical point of view.” (El Protestantismo comparado con el Catolicismo. Bacelona. 1842. Tom 1. P. 203)  Now, in order to supply such an omission, it is necessary to consider attentively every part of this wonderful institution of the Almighty, and to investigate one by one, the evidence of its force, and its results.  Studied with such minute inspection, the anatomy of the human body has become, as it has been beautifully expressed, a hymn to the Creator; but that hymn would rise far more sublime and harmonious from the anatomical analysis of the social system of the most noble and perfect of societies, society divinely organized.

Let us, then, endeavor to establish the proposition by proof.  Could I hope to be equal to the grandeur of my subject, I might consider myself as making an ample return for the condescension to which I am indebted for the honor of being enrolled as a member of your illustrious Academy.  But as every divine institution, by participating of infinitude, goes far beyond the limited capacity of man, and much more the humble abilities of him who addresses you, I may hope at least, by my good-will and sincere effort, to show you my gratitude for an honor unmerited on my part, although I do possess its most essential requisite, that of being a devoted Catholic.

The starting-point from which we can fairly move will be the consideration of a well-known truth, that lends my proposition a first and wide demonstration.  “Ancient civilization, in most instances, was called to life on the threshold of the temple, by the voice of the priest, under the inspiration of sacred hymns.”  This truth, as Cantu justly observes, is clearly indicated even by the names of cities of the remotest antiquity.  Heliopolis, Diospolis, Hermopolis, Apollopolis, and other names of the kind, recall to our minds a sanctuary around which was built a large city.  And this argument, taken from the ancients, is strengthened by modern usage.  For do we not frequently hear among ourselves the name of a saint applied to a borough or a town built around his church?  In the New World, where the true religion, almost of herself, first really fulfilled what had been fabulously attributed to Orpheus, every reduction arose with a sacred name, to the sound of canticles, breathed by him whom the Indian addressed (opportunely for our argument) as the Father of the prayer, who in reality inaugurates association at its commencement by bringing all together for morning and evening prayer.

I am well aware that an argument of this kind will seem weak in my favor, precisely on account of its generality.  For if all religions produced these effects, what force can a similar fact have in support of Catholic prayer, of which alone it was intended to discourse?  But if we pause for a moment to reflect that every negation (short of nothing) necessarily involves a positive element, and consequently every false religion involves some element of truth, it will be understood that if Pagan civilization was occasioned by some remnant of the ancient patriarchal maxims, or even only by those natural ideas of God which Tertullian call the testimony of the soul naturally Christian, these facts also may be adduced as proof of our assertion, provided we can show that the civilizing power of the ancient hierophants was derived, not from falsehoods superadded, but from inherited truths.  This, as you perceive, might be easily proved; but it is scarcely worth while to undertake it, as the abundance of the proofs obliges me rather to condense than to enlarge them. 

Let us, then, exclude every common attribute, defining clearly what we mean when we speak of Catholic prayer.  Considered in its general import, it embraces every elevation of the mind to God, excited by faith, animated by charity, aided by the Sacrifice and the Sacraments, guided by the authority of the Church, and directed chiefly to the end of supernatural eternal happiness, by means of good works.  This is,  in a few words, the notion of Catholic prayer.  When it forms a habit in the heart of the faithful, this habit may be called the spirit of prayer.  The infidel does not pray; the unbeliever prays, but to obtain those goods towards which nature attracts him, and his friend with energy proportionate to his individual conviction of the existence of a God who governs the world, and of the benevolence of the God toward those who address him.  The heretic also prays through his Catholic remembrances; but if his heterodoxy be called to mind, he rejects the Catholic prayer, and is rejected by it, on account of his protesting against the ancient faith.  His prayer, therefore, inasmuch as it is heterodox, rises from the division of intellects, as schismatical prayer from the division of affections.  And as these, by departing from Catholic unity, necessarily lose both the firmness of belief and the bond of charity, their prayer, if they should pray, will be weak and unsettled in the mind, will be narrow and irritable in the affections. 

There is a vast difference, therefore, between the Catholic prayer, and every other suggested by unfaithfulness or by error.  Truth, certainty, love, are principles of activity; external rites and presiding authority are principles of unity; eternal life, to which Catholic prayer chiefly aspires, is a principle of generosity, and of entire sacrifice of paltry worldly interest.  As every other religious association is either altogether or in a great measure deprived of these elements, it is evident that they must be deprived also of all the happy effects that accrue to society from the spirit of prayer, exclusively proper to the Catholic Church.

To have a just notion, however, of this influence, it must be borne in mind that two conditions are thereto required,- conditions indispensable in every social organization,- where it is not sufficient that the means of attaining a given object be excellent in themselves, but moreover, must be such as the will of people consents to make use of.  What good can come from a physician’s prescribing the most powerful remedy, if I am unable to purchase it, or will not swallow it?  “The best laws,” says a beastly and filthy, but in practical matters a keen-sighted English lawyer (Jeremy Bentham), “the best laws are those that, without need of watching, sanctioning, or insisting, execute themselves, so to speak, by themselves.”  If Catholic prayer is to be called a proper means to civilize people, we must consider it, not only as efficacious, but as attractive. 

Here, then, are the terms to which my proposition is limited by the foregoing observations.  I maintain that the Author and Finisher of faith, wishing to complete through the supernatural order the natural perfection of man, which attains its fulness in perfectly civilized society, gave to Christian society in the prayer which he taught a means of civilization endowed with such attractiveness that it will never fall into disuse, a means endowed with such efficacy, that, when used, it cannot fail in perfectly compassing its object.  Let us begin by demonstrating the first attribute.

II.  It was remarked by a sophist (Rousseau) against his fellow-sophists, that all their moral teachings, devoid of feeling, and of efficacious sanction, leave man inert and dead; whereas the great art of legislation consists, according to Say, not in willing the effect, but in effecting the will.  For this end, as everyone sees, it is necessary to attach to the act prescribed a ready and obvious advantage to the agent.   A command thus given urges each individual to work with greater assiduity in seconding the secret intention of the legislator towards the common good, in proportion to the intensity of the individual’s desire of the private advantage hoped for, without need  of commands and sanctions.  If, then, the Divine Legislator wished to obtain the highest state of civilization in Catholic society, he could not contrive a wiser arrangement than that of attaching all advantages to be hoped by individuals to the use of a means eminently calculated to promote general civilization.  Now the hope of the Christian, of course, is in prayer.  Though all other graces should fail, this will never be denied him; though he should enjoy the possession of all goods,  without this they would all dwindle away.  Such is the belief of the Catholic.  Widely, different in this respect from the haughty Stoic, who hopes for the sublimity of virtue from self; from the groveling Epicurean, who asks nothing from his idle deity; from the fatalist, for whom destiny is unchangeable; from the presumptuous Lutheran, who thinks, that, provided he believe, he holds all good within his grasp; and from all other enemies of human liberty or divine grace.  The Catholic, so long as he remains unshaken in his belief that prayer is necessary to eternal salvation, and always a most useful, if not an absolutely certain, means towards temporal good, will ever be induced to pray; the Catholic, I say, will ever be induced to pray, whether he think of heaven or be stimulated by temporal want.  Behold, then, my friends, a first and distinguishing feature of the Catholic amongst all generations of men!  He is a man who feels a perpetual need of prayer, because by himself he can do nothing, because from God he hopes everything.  He is, moreover, comforted in this by the light in which faith presents to him his God, whom in charity he embraces. An ingenious Catholic writer made the remark, that the Catholic religion alone knew how to say to God, “My Father”; and this,  in fact, is the character of Catholic prayer, as is shown by the commencement of that more perfect formulary of prayer, the Pater Noster,  and explained by the Apostle, where he says that God infused into us the spirit of his Son, crying in our heart, Abba, Father!   Nor did he make himself only our Father, but elevated in such a manner the spiritual love and intimate confidence of the soul, that she dared even (comforted by the language of the Canticles and of the Apocalypse) to address him as her Spouse. 

What other religion ever dreamed of so intimate a consortship as that which is found amongst us, real, perpetual, and universal?  Is it to be seen in the intercourse of pagan divinities with the fabulous heroes?  But that was exclusive to a few,- Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter.  In the pantheistic union between man and God?  But that unity destroys prayer; for it is ridiculous to make God pray to himself.  Remove those fables, and then find, if you can, in all heathendom, the sentiment of friendship, of tenderness towards God.  Such an attribute is peculiar to that spirit of grace and prayer promised to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who learn therefrom the inimitable language of the children of God, the sound of which, so new, so incomprehensible to nature, forced the Catholic mind to create a new word to express its sweetness,- calling it the unction of fervid piety. (“Unctio eius docet me”)  Let the Catholic read any book of prayer; if he have a heart, and an eye that is accustomed to it, he will discover at once by what spirit it was dictated.  If there is unction in it, it came from a Catholic hand; if it is wanting in unction,- let the words be eloquent, the thoughts sublime, the sentiments touching, if you will,- the spirit of prayer breathes not there, it is the production of a foreign pen. 

Faith, therefore, affection, necessity, or, in other words, the mind, the will, the moral and material sense, all invite the Christian to pray unto God, whom he believes to be an ever watchful Protector and a most loving Father.  To which if you add the repeated commands of God and the Church, the frequency of private and social example, the invitations repeated to his eye by the pomp of sacred functions, to his ear by the tolling of the bell and the pealing of the organ, the various application of mystic rites to the most solemn moments of our mortal career,- our birth, our youth, our maturer years, our decline and departure,- you will perceive that the prayer of the Catholic not only becomes natural and spontaneous, but is likewise rendered continuous, in accordance with the injunction of its Divine Author to pray always, and never fail. This continuity of mental elevation to God, by its being a distinction of the Catholic, will give all the more weight to what we shall say concerning the civilizing efficacy of his prayer.  For how much greater the effect of a powerfully efficient means, when its application is continued without ceasing! – more especially as this continuity is not an effort of fancy or determination, but a spontaneous consequence of the dogma which shows him God present in all places and active in every creature, and of that affection which everywhere embraces in God a Friend and a Father.  Hence those sweet sentiments which pervade Catholic prayer, and that sublimity and those endearments in the symbols and expressions which accompany the rapturous transports of gifted souls, which nature cannot understand, and impiety derides.  Does not such derision prove, better than has been or may be done by me, how different from every other prayer is the Catholic prayer, considered in this first aspect of the suavity wherewith it is accompanied?  Yes, the Catholic is a man of prayer, as his temple is a house of prayer,- Domus orationis vocabitur.  Go forth from Catholic cities, and you will find a crowd at the theatre, at the exchange, in parliament, in the saloon of amusement, and in the hall of business; but the temple is empty and closed, except on festive days and solemn occasions.  The Catholic prays always; he has even formed of prayer a peculiar state, a profession.  There are entire communities whose business it is – to pray.  The unbeliever, the heretic, scoffs at them.  So much the better.  He thereby declares that his prayer is another thing from ours, for he is unable to comprehend our assiduity in prayer.

I have, then, unless I deceive myself, adduced more than was necessary to complete the first part of my task; having satisfactorily proved, that, if prayer be a means of civilization, the Catholic is perennially in the act of cultivating civil perfection, even without adverting to the fact, while he thinks of his dearest interests.  If he begs of God his kingdom, if he implores peace for himself, life for his beloved ones, help and protection, relief from adversity, escape from danger, recovery from sickness (and who by similar afflictions is not continually urged to pray?), he is impelled to toil in secret at the great edifice of civil perfection, to weave without beholding it the great texture designed by Providence upon the woof of society.

III.

But is the Catholic prayer really a means of civilization, and a means more efficacious than that prayer wherewith natural piety may inspire the infidel, or Christian reminiscences the heretic and the schismatic?  The affirmative is the true answer.  Because the proprieties which belong to it first prepare in the individuals a material fit for society, then unite them in the most perfect form of civilized society.  The influence of prayer in civilizing individuals; the influence of prayer in civilizing society; - these are two points that must be made clear, bearing constantly in mind what is meant by Catholic prayer and by civilization.  Let us begin with the individuals.

If there be a difficult undertaking in society, it is this first work of preparation, by which individuals, like the materials of Solomon’s temple, are disposed to fit and join each other with ease, without need of strokes or the noise of hammers.  The numerous causes of this difficulty are serious and evident.  On the one hand, the perfection of individuals depends in a great measure upon social vigilance.  And this depends upon the perfection of society; for, in an imperfect state of society, such vigilance will be weak, as during the Middle Ages, or superfluous and oppressive, as in many societies, ancient and modern.  On the other hand, it is difficult for a society to be perfect which is composed of imperfect individuals; whence the legal saying, that a perfect law is ill suited to a rude people. 

Nature, guided by Infinite Wisdom, has met this difficulty in domestic society, which she herself arranged, by leaving to each of the consorts mutual freedom of choice, and the right and duty of education.  By free election each of the consorts helps to assimilate the first two individuals.  By education both predispose to harmonious cohabitation the rising individuals, fit and ready, at that age, to accustom themselves to its forms.  But are these domestic forms proper to public association?  If there be not additional elements of unity, it is easy to understand that every head of a family will inculcate peculiar ideas, peculiar interests, peculiar objects.  Would you destroy these?  Then will you destroy the family, or of a certainty its liberty and welfare.

Moreover, by what means can society without tyranny lord it over ideas, interests, objects?  In virtue of what authority will society bind the mind and the heart?  Religion,- Religion alone is able to prepare them for reciprocal attraction by the affinity of moral doctrine grounded upon the authority of her infallible teachings.

Let us now examine how she undertakes the task, and carries it out.  The first difficulty towards ripening the rude for social improvement is, doubtless, the incapacity of the vulgar mind for rational discourse; an incapacity so well known, that the sages of old, giving it up in despair, closed the gates of the temple against vulgarity, retiring behind the curtain of arcane obscurity with a few chosen proselytes.  And modern sophists, after having essayed to spread philosophy among the crowd by teaching them to read and write, either, with Voltaire, pettishly give up the beggarly rabble to the Church, or continue to grumble that the bumpkins are unfit for subtle reasoning, in spite of cheap publications and knowledge-made-easy.  Still, these gentlemen would be satisfied with instructing the lower classes in the material sciences, and the forms of common decency; and could they only render them able operatives, responsible tradesmen, industrious and capable agriculturalists, they would hail the rabble as blessed, and call it a philosopher.

But let the Church come forward and inspire the Catholic with the prayer of faith; what will be her first suggestion, and its earliest fruit?  Everybody knows that the root of the spirit of prayer is embosomed in mediation; he who does not meditate will pray with his lips, but not with his heart, Labiis me honorat, cor autem longe est. In fact, for the Catholic, to teach prayer and to teach meditation are words that mean nearly one and the same thing.  Now, where is the difference between meditating and philosophizing?  To ponder the truth and certainty of principles, to develop accurately, each of their consequences, to measure their practical application,- this is what the Catholic means by meditation.  To this inward process the Church invites us, when she invites us to prayer, proportioning the means to every capacity.  To the rude and unripe she gives the Rosary, or the Way of the Cross, to the instructed the sublime aspirations of the Psalms, or the Itinerary of Bonaventure, Anselm, and Bellarmine.  The lessons are different, but the mastery is common to all.  All must meditate, because all must pray.  Let an experienced director be put at their side to guide them, and you will see how the faithful testimony declaring the words of heaven will give light and understanding to little ones.  O, How different is this wise system of tuition in the Church, by whom a master of spirit, a guide, is prepared for every simple person, from that Biblical school which, thrusting into his hands a mute and obscure text, says to the poor creature, “Go, read, and understand it for yourself”!  Why is it that they do not follow the same practice in their universities?  Why not place upon the chair an open volume in place of the professor, and bid the scholars to read?

The Church, therefore, the true educator of the people, in order to teach prayer, teaches how to meditate, and teaching meditation teaches the people to philosophize, perfecting their natural logic by a perpetual application of the sublimest truths, facilitated by the living voice of a master of spirit, that is to say, of spiritual philosophy.  Is there to be found elsewhere, let me ask, a school of logic so well adapted to the multitude, so well applied to each one, so universally frequented?

Bu this logic, thus perfected by continual use, is no more than an instrument; an instrument indifferent in itself to form a philosopher or a sophist.  What is required in the former in contradistinction from the latter?  It is easily stated.  True, certain, and sound principles, with a sincere love of truth to render them prolific in legitimate deductions.  He who reasons without sound principles builds in the air; he who reasons from true principles, without sincere love of truth, sees crooked and gets lost.  If, then, it is requisite that prayer, besides the instrument of ratiocination, provide him with certified and unshaken truth, and sincerity in the love of research.

Well, these two requisites likewise are precisely the natural results of the spirit of prayer in the Catholic Church.  Regard it first in reference to its end.  The prayer of the Catholic aspires essentially to the kingdom of God, and to the order of justice through which it is obtained.  Vastly different therein from the faithless idolator and from the carnal Jew, the Catholic is well aware that no temporal good can be prayed for with propriety, if it be foreign to his final end; whence, his first glance, when he goes to prayer, is towards his Father who is in heaven, of whom he asks his kingdom, a kingdom of happiness in heaven, a kingdom of order on earth.  This petition is essentially coupled with notions of the most sublime metaphysical truths and natural ethical maxims.  For He to whom those that pray address themselves in the universal Creator, Preserver, and Provider; were he not such, they, would not pray to him.  The occasion of prayer is the conflict between the terrible dualism of good and evil, moral and physical, which continually reminds them of the first parents’ fall,- that first source of sin, misery, and the weakness of their own powers,- and of the mercy of God the Restorer, the grace wherewith he comforts them, the necessity of their cooperation, and of that final reward which, crowning their victories, will justify in full the ways of Providence.  The existence and retributive justice of God the Creator, immortality, the liberty of man, his sin, his punishment, his restoration, his feebleness, his elevation through grace,- are not these, in brief terms, the main dogmata of Catholic metaphysics and ethics?

And these sublime doctrines are not, for the faithful who prays, vague and confused opinions.  The authority which teaches them is for him so weighty as to exclude all doubt; the manner in which such truths are presented is extremely positive and precise; and as in his conscience it would be a crime to yield even to monetary hesitation in regard to these doctrines, in like manner it would be a crime to introduce amongst them the slightest variation.

I know well that a certain species of independent philosophic genius, little favorable to Catholic docility,  would here raise the objection, that precisely on this account the Catholic can never be a philosopher, because he defers to authority, and does not draw from reason.  But as I am not called upon, lest I stray from my purpose, to prove the extreme reasonableness even of simple believers on account of the authority upon which they lean and the natural evidence of many of the dogmas in which they believe, I will merely remark, that the objection does not affect my argument.  For I have not undertaken to demonstrate that every Christian who prays is a subtle ontologist, but merely that with prayer is infused the true philosophico-social spirit, of which popular minds are capable.  Now this spirit does not exact a return in all things, and at all times, to the first causes, by the way of rational evidence, which in the usages of social life is but rarely in demand.  The philosophical spirit chiefly necessary for the advancement of civilization is that reflective and discursive wisdom which, resting principally on the real order of things, follows out correctly and with intimate conviction its practical consequences; that, in short, which the knowledge of olden times first styled philosophy; which, entirely in the dark as to oxygen, hydrogen, sublimate, steam-engines, phenomena, noumena, differentiation, and integration, was satisfied to look out for the true welfare of man and the shortest way to get at it.  To which philosophy if the Church add with prayer the habit of reasoning with correctness, and undoubted truths to reason upon, nothing will remain to be added by her save a sincere love of what is true.

Now is not this, respected Gentlemen, precisely one of the principal effects, if not the chief effect, of Catholic prayer in the order of this present life?  Undoubtedly the human mind has a natural avidity for truth: Quid enim fortius desiderat anima humana quam veritatem? (St. Augustine)  But it is frequently withheld from embracing it in its entireness by hearing the true demand a sacrifice of the agreeable.  The affections, rising in rebellion at such a demand, throw a mist around the intellect, and then induce it, even though furnished with the soundest principles, to dissemble the consequences, to doubt them, to deny them.  If, therefore, Catholic prayer tends essentially to moderate the affections, it must be looked upon plainly as the restorer of the love of truth, and consequently of correct judgment.

Now is there a Catholic to be found who does not know that moderation of our affections is a necessary principle, as well as a spontaneous consequence, of prayer?  In what else do Catholics make the remote preparation for prayer consist, save in this tranquility of the mind relieved from worldly cares, violent passions, and the distraction of business?  Does not the Apostle insinuate to the faithful to renounce perpetually or for a time the use of natural rights, and the bonds of legitimate affection, precisely that they may be able to pray? Does it not pass current as an axiom, that “an agitated heart is unfit for meditation”?

But if the tyranny of passion leave no peace of mind to the faithful, what is his first object, while he still makes an effort to pray, if not to get the mastery over it, and calm the fury of the storm?  Agitated by his passions, the infidel prays, but only that they may be glutted; the Stoic, if stimulated by them, only grows torpid, but does not pray; the unbeliever writhes in his sufferings, but, expecting nothing of Heaven, he does not pray.  When the war of the passions gathers thickest upon him, it is then the Catholic prays with greatest fervor; but he prays to resist them, and praying he does in fact resist them. And who has not experienced a thousand times what sudden serenity pervades the soul, on breathing merely the invocation, “Save us, O Lord, we perish”?  If the brief delay of the recitation of the alphabet seemed to the pagan philosopher a remedy against anger, what must we say of the divine medicine prepared for the faithful by Christian philosophy in prayer, which not only retards the burst of passion, but softens it down by the return of love, and dispels it by the light of meditated truth?

In all this, as you observe, I have prescinded hitherto from Christian prayer the supernatural graces by which it is always accompanied; but would it be just, while speaking amongst Catholics, to keep the two asunder?  Add, then, these graces to what has been said, call them to the aid of the mind in meditation, and you will behold what a dazzling effulgence they throw around it; add them to those truths in which it believes, and see with what firmness it adheres to them; add them to the heart that is engaged in conflict, and you will be astonished at the ease with which it can overcome itself.  What wonder, respected Academicians, that, when educated by a tuition so well suited to nature, and so powerful through grace, numerous gifted souls, even though humble and illiterate, should look deeply (the facts are well known) into the mysteries of eternal life? -  that the adherence of the Catholic to truth should be such as to lead him to seal it cheerfully in his blood? – that the serenity, the equanimity, the loveliness, of his spirit should be such as to impress upon the rude mould of a rustic, or a herdsman, a perfect image of whatever is true and beautiful is unaffected candor and dignified courtesy, - not such courtesy as teaches which hand is to be raised to the hat, or what posture is graceful in making a bow, nor yet the polished forms of a delicate compliment, but that decency and composure which consist in civility free from all exaggeration, and flowing spontaneously from a well-attempered and peaceful interior? 

Should you desire a practical demonstration of the reflections I have proposed in theory, allow me to ask you, Which is in our day the most frequented school, the most reputed mastership of the interior life?  None amongst you would hesitate for a moment to reply, “The Spiritual Exercises.”  This great means, prescribed by numerous enactments of prelates, princes, masters, directors, and missionaries, now as a preparation for Holy Orders, now as a regression from a career of scandal, now as the commencement of a Christian life, now as an advancement in the fervor of communities, now as the conversion of whole cities,- this great means, I repeat, seems to have been declared, by the uniform sentiment of all Christendom, the most appropriate to enable the human soul to cooperate with grace, to introduce it, to advance and to perfect it in that habit of spiritual health usually called the interior life, which rules and invigorates the whole life of the exterior.  Now what are the Spiritual Exercises but a course of Christian moral philosophy fitted to the comprehension of the public?  The Catholic multitude assists at them with eagerness, listening, understanding, reflecting, and drawing practical inferences, as we know from constant experience of undoubted facts.  What is set forth to them in that holy retirement?  They are taught, in the first place, the logic of meditation, hearing the rules first, and then the meditation in practice.  The subjects to be meditated upon are a compendious but solid and touching system of morals, natural and Christian, reduced to the rigor of science.  For, beginning with the axiom which forms the basis of all practical sciences, “The action must be determined by the intention, as the means by the end,” the Exercises proceed to develop to the popular comprehension the duty that binds us to obey the Creator; the woeful results which have followed, and still follow, from disobedience; the necessity of a God’s intervention to give us examples of life, doctrines of law, and the powerful aid of his grace.  How these fundamental truths of all Christian philosophy are placed within the reach of the public, to what feelings of compunction they give rise, what a reform of conduct they effect, it is not necessary for me to say, while addressing a Catholic audience well informed of the wonders produced by Exercises and Missions.  I will merely remark, in accordance with my theme, that this school, where the reasoning powers of the Catholic are so generally sharpened, where his intellect is imbued with the sublimest truths, his will is stirred by the holiest  emotions, his plan of action sketched out upon the soundest maxims, is at the same time the great school now frequented by whoever wishes to learn the spirit of prayer, whether he be a philosopher or a peasant.

I have given, respected Gentlemen, a few instances of the moral efficacy of Catholic prayer.  Let any other form of worship be presented by earth-born religious, exhibiting equal certainty in its tenets, equal sublimity in its conceptions, equal earnestness in their meditation, equal rectitude of deduction, equal serenity of mind, equal universality of mastership, and I will confess myself vanquished.  But if the infidel, the Moslem, the Israelite, does not rise above the surface of the ground in prayer, - if the heretic, in his pitiful attempt at babbling the Catholic language, floats about unable to find a master or a staple of certainty, becoming finally a mocker of piety because he cannot discover its reasonableness,- let the Catholic be allowed to boast of his prayer as a true means of education in social philosophy, and let us no more hear this admirable mastership decried as the lazy inaction of worthless people.

No! the interests of humanity are not lost by festivals and days of prayer, in spite of the complaints of greedy economists upon the uselessness of the weekly repose granted to the laborer by the providence of the common Father of all.  The day of prayer is a day set apart to form a habit of philosophizing in the vulgar breast, to instill the knowledge of principles, to suggest consequences of practical morality, to model and polish manners.  And as no form of human religion will hold so steadfastly to the duty of consecrating the festival to God, so no other religion will ever be equally sure to see the great means of prayer employed by its followers.  The Catholic, therefore, prays, and, praying, learns, though he be an illiterate man, to reason, has subjects to reason upon, sincerity of love to reason well, appropriate direction to go on with success, and unceasing impulses to frequent this school.

The individual having been prepared in this manner, by light of mind and warmth of heart is enabled henceforth to produce those fruits of civilization hitherto unknown to the lond and gloomy nights of the frozen regions.

IV.

But to render fruitful the germs implanted in the human individual by prayer, let us examine the force of prayer itself, considered, not as an inward schooling of the heart, but as an external bond of social perfection.  If I succeed in proving that Catholic prayer, by elevating the intellects of the faithful to the noblest end which a society can propose to itself, unites them mutually by the strongest ties that can be imagined, and harmonizes them by such a mastership that the result is perfect agreement, and nevertheless without any violence, who will deny to prayer the glory of being a most efficient instrument for social perfection?  Now this is easily proved, if I see aright, provided it be clearly determined what we mean by civil or social perfection.

Human society is a union of men, that is to say, of organic beings endowed with intelligence and volition, for a common object or good.  Its perfection, therefore, must consist in a perfect union of perfect men, for a perfect end, to be gained by a perfect operation, intellectual, moral, and material, which elements must be harmonized one with the other in such proportion that the social operation may obtain the highest efficacy in reaching its end.  For association is a means whereby Providence designed to render it easier for the individual upon earth to gain that infinite good to which he is destined in heaven. Now the perfection of a means is in being decidedly a means that is conducive to the end, or efficacious.   Hence it is, that, if in society one of the elements grows out of proportion in comparison with the others, in such a measure as to render difficult the operations of society,- if, for instance, too high a perfection of laws is imposed upon imperfect individuals, or if too feeble authority is expected to govern a numberless multitude, etc.,- such want of harmonious proportion will cause to be deficient in the complex what would be the perfection of each element by itself; precisely as the head of the Farnesian Hercules would be defective on the bust of the Apollo Belvedere, or the mainspring of the finest chronometer in the great clock of the Capitol.

Perfect end, therefore, perfect union of perfect individuals in perfect harmony, is briefly the true notion of social and civil perfection.  If I be successful in proving that prayer is a most efficient means to bring about this harmonious complex in Christian society, I shall have fully redeemed my promise.  Let us try it.

But in order to make the demonstration evident, we must analyze the ideas contained in each of the four above-mentioned elements of civil perfection,- end, union, individuals, harmony.  Let us examine first the end.  In what does the perfection of the end of society consist?  If society operates only through associates, if the associates are bound to render their every action subordinate to the object of ultimate felicity, it is evident that perfection of the end as it affects society consists in this, that all social action be in like manner subordinate to the great final object.  But whereas this last end by itself may be considered either in its purely natural proportions, or as elevated by revelation to the beatific order, society will be perfect in the highest degree, if it rises to this last point, aiming at supernatural felicity.

Who can fail to see at once what efficacy there must be in prayer for perfecting the end of society, as well under its first aspect of natural probity, as under the second of supernatural charity?  The thing is so evident, that I would fear to detain you by lengthened proof; especially after having demonstrated the great perfection with which it endows the individual, by moderating the violence of his passions, and by directing his aim towards supreme happiness.  Surely it is impossible for a society composed of individuals whose passions are schooled, and whose intent is supernatural, not to order the whole social action towards the highest perfection.  I think it unnecessary to delay longer in proving that Catholic prayer produces in perfect individuals a social tendency towards a perfect end.

Let us, then, proceed to consider the other two elements, over which the influence of prayer may seem at first sight less immediate and evident.  The second element of civilization is perfect union of the individual associates; a perfection which includes numerous parts exceedingly difficult to be held firm, at the same time, by civil society.  For the perfection of union becomes the greater, in the first place, as the multitude of associates is increased in number, in the second place, it becomes closer from the strength of its bonds.  These two elements, as everyone knows, are apt to clash; for it is exceedingly hard for the many to be intimately united, or for the intimately united, without weakening their union, to become many.

Moreover, the union, having to combine from man to man dissenting intellects and free wills, depends in a great measure upon a uniform view of the end, upon the subordination of each free will to one common authoritative regimen, and, finally, upon mutual friendliness binding the civil associates.

If, therefore, I can show Catholic prayer to be a most efficient means, for bringing about perfect union of innumerable men through mutual friendship, through a common tendency towards the same end under an authoritative regimen, I shall have shown it to be a most efficacious instrument for this second element of civilization, the union of the associates.  Now who is there but sees, at the first glance, how Catholic prayer in its various forms, just because it is Catholic, stretches out to the full extent of universality of time and place?  If nearly the whole merit of this prayer depends upon communicating with all the faithful, as the Apostles’ Creed teaches in the article, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS,- and if, consequently, it is lawful to communicate in prayer with the faithful alone, as the Church constantly commands,- then it follows that the Catholic prayer is essentially a social prayer, and that to this prayer only such a privilege belongs.  The schismatic and heretic may pray as much as it seems fit to them; this prayer, if schismatical or heretical, will be a fruit and a furtherance of division.  The Mahometan may pray, and the Jew; it will be with sword in hand and hatred at heart.  The infidel idolator also may pray; he prays for himself exclusively, to the God of a household, a race, a nation.  And even though all these should desire to fulfil through prayer the duty of universal human benevolence, they would pray at most with a certain alliance more negative than positive, grounded rather upon not wishing harm than upon conspiring positively towards the common good.  The Catholic alone can embrace positively all nations in his prayer, because he alone has positive doctrine destined to bind all in the alliance of faith; without which positive doctrine, it would be a vain pretension to establish amongst men perfect human association.  For is not man a rational animal?   The association, then, will not be human, which does not unite intellects.  But where do intellects join, if not in truth, to which in concord they yield their assent?  Where could they habitare in unum apart from truth,- they, capable of resting and rejoicing in truth alone?  It will be answered, perchance, that, to constitute human society, any truth of the practical, or even only of the material order, is enough; for a philharmonic or a commercial society stands by mere consension upon musical entertainment or pecuniary advantage.  So be it.  But can such a society be called humanly perfect, or perfectly human, while it excludes from the association the most proper object of the noblest of man’s faculties, Absolute Truth,- while it excludes the dearest interest of man’s will, Eternal Good?

It is in vain, therefore, that modern philanthropic toleration would fain hope to establish universal association amongst men, removing the discrepancy of intellects by tolerating every doctrine.  Let us go so far as to suppose that what is impossible could be thus effected,- even that the light of man’s intellect and his innate longing after truth could be rendered dormant or dead,- would men be then associated?   Ay, associated insomuch as they are men;  just as they would be associated, insomuch as merchants, in a universal commercial copartnership, by depriving them of all their money, and quenching all desire of gain.  Surely every society of merchants has its particularity in this, that it excludes all who do not concur in the material of industry and in the purpose of profit.  Take away these elements of singularity from the associates, and they will be merged again in universal society.  But can that society be called a society of commerce?

That society, alone, therefore, is perfectly human, which unites the intellects of all men in positive doctrines; that alone can become such, whose tendency and aim are thus to unite them.  Now the Catholic religion is the only one that aims at so glorious an end by means of faith and charity.  Therefore prayer, the proper language of this religion, is the supremely efficacious means of universal association, as the principal means of national union is the national tongue.

Yes, every Catholic engaged in prayer must remember naturally the society in which he prays, the common faith by which he is enlightened to pray, the brotherly charity which gently forces him to it, the great general object to which it has reference, namely, the kingdom and God and his justice, which is likewise the order of its attainment.  Prayer, then, forms in the breasts of Catholics an habitual inclination to consider the association of all men in the arms of the Heavenly Father as the acme of social perfection.  Pater noster,- adveniat regnum tuum!

But what has been said of its universality is proper to Catholic prayer under all its forms; for it still arises from the bosom of social communion. Examine its various forms, and you will see how they all press energetically towards this immense unity of place and time, towards which Catholicity tends by its name as well as by its spirit.  Do you wish to examine its private prayer?  You will see it animated by a universal spirit in those words which form the exordium of the most excellent of all our prayers, Our Father; and in those other traditional formularies transmitted to our by by-gone generations, to which by this means ours is carried back and united.  Let the Protestant laugh at these prayers thus reduced to formularies; it is but well that he should pray with private formularies, as he thinks with a private spirit.  We, who pray in unity of spirit, cling with all the people of all ages to the same formularies of the same language.

And if such be the spirit of private prayer, how much more evidently social will the spirit of public prayer appear!  Contemplate, for example, its first, noblest, most solemn act,- I mean the Sacrifice.  Could man ever conceive a thing more divinely social than the Catholic Sacrifice, where  the common banquet, the most natural symbol of closest intimacy, presents all men with superangelic bread, not only specifically, but individually, identical with that which during eighteen centuries has been broken and distributed amongst Catholics under the name of Communion?  The food, being at the same time the august Victim of the universal sacrifice, recalls the attention of the Catholic to that solemn act on which, during the forty centuries preceding, were fixed the eyes, the hopes, the desires of the Patriarchs, and joins in the most perfect union of persons, of place, and of time, the thoughts, the affections, the external worship of all the just of every age.  Where, honored Sirs, can be found, where imagined, in a society lasting through time, extending over space, a more real, most vast, more spiritual unity?

If we reflect, moreover, as it is proved by the angelic mind of St. Thomas, that in the Church all is ordained towards the Eucharist,- preaching, to instruct the faithful regarding it; the Sacraments, to predispose them towards it; the liturgy, to accompany them to it; the hierarchy, to organize them for its reception,- it will be clearly seen that all these elements must derive from the Sacrifice a participation in its character of universality, as the means receive their characteristic stamp from the end; and consequently it will be understood how Catholic prayer, of which the Sacrifice is the most solemn, devout, and efficacious act, is a means eminently calculated to join all people in social unity.  What wonder, then, that the Church bears the mark of universality in all her worship, as she bears it in her name?  Behold her hierarchy: it tends to spread its spiritual sway over all the earth, and to be perpetuated through all ages.  Listen to her hymns: breathed three or four thousand years ago upon the psaltery of the Prophet-king, or by the lips of the daughters of Israel on the strand of the Red Sea, they are daily reechoed on the remotest shores from the rising to the setting of the sun, repeated in one universal language by all Catholic tongues.  Follow the steps of her missionaries:  they are ashamed to let a bark be steered by the bold offspring of Japeth to any shore where the standard of the crucified Nazarene does not already rise to sanctify the prayer of the Catholic neophyte.  To the Sacraments she administers is joined the idea of a universal society, out of which they are not to be found; to her solemnities she invites here children, even from far distant regions; and in an age still semi barbarous, the festal Jubilee realizes at the feet of the Universal Pastor a perfect unity of all known nations, gathered together in prayer at the tomb of their first Father and Master.

We have thus contemplated Catholic prayer in regard to the successive generations and to the number of associates whom it joins together.  It would, however, be of little use for the time and the number to be unlimited, if the union were weak.  A society in which the force of union is not proportioned to the number soon becomes a confused multitude, and ceases to be a great society.   Now it is precisely the property of Catholic prayer to bind the immense multitude it embraces with spiritual ties especially, the strongest ties that can be conceived by the human mind. 

For, on attentive consideration, the great difficulty of social union is traceable to three serious hindrances; namely, to the difficulty of persuading each intellect of the intrinsic rectitude of the laws, to the difficulty of disentangling each will from private interests, to the difficulty of composing individual feelings hurt by daily obstacles and offenses.  Then the difficulty of overcoming such hindrances is not to be attributed so much to the want of persuasive arguments in a well-arranged society, as to the fact that to concentrate the popular mind upon them is as hard as it is desirable.

Now here it is that Catholic prayer obtains a victory over the popular mind, which no political provision could ever gain.  It forces the multitude to elevate its desires above the low and wretched sphere of temporal arrangements, personal interest, and private revenge.  The Catholic who prays looks towards a Supreme Ruler, in whose hands even the injustice of men becomes an instrument, now of ineffable paternal mercy, now of justice, terrible, indeed, but always holy and unimpeachable; nor could the Catholic pray without such faith in God, the Supreme Ruler.  In this view, how easy it becomes to respect in temporal enactments, though they do not present themselves, humanly speaking, as wise, the Supreme Ordainer, Divine Wisdom, and breathe, Fiat voluntas tua!  This is exactly the reason why the enemies of public order so frequently reproach the Catholic with servility and cowardice.  He know how to be resigned; and resignation is the fruit of prayer.

As to private interest, how weakened is its hold upon the soul of a  Catholic habituated in prayer to consider as his own highest interest the reign of justice and order!- especially as in the act of asking any spiritual or material boon, he feels the obligation of its communication imposed as a condition of receiving it: “Date et dabitur vobis,” Give and it will be given to you.  And still more powerfully is he urged to forgive an injury by those words, “Dimittite et dimittemini,” forgive and you will be forgiven, which he applies to himself when he prays, making a condition of the pardon he implores of God the pardon he grants to his brother.  To revive so unceasingly in the breasts of a whole society sentiments of obedience and love, and to revive them at the feet of a common Father, in the act of petitioning for what is most ardently desired, and as a condition necessary to obtain it,- what is this but to bind that society with the strongest ties that can join together men of understanding and will?  Hence said the Wise Man, that the Church, the offspring of Infinite Wisdom, is constituted in its nationality by obedience and love; obedience, which extends its reverence as to leaders to all the members of a numerous and indefectible hierarchy, out of the direction of which the Catholic would know not how to pray, and the control of which, extending not only to the action, but to the conscience and the intellect, renders it impossible for the subject, not merely to rebel, but even to truckle and dissemble;- love, that, prescinding every personal and domestic, every civil or national reason, looks chiefly, and by the force of its essential nature, to those great universal reasons which embrace all human individuals, even though enemies and persecutors.

However, someone might raise the objection, that Catholic prayer contributes, indeed, to bind believers in a universal society, but that such a society is a religious, and not a political one,- whereas civilization has reference to the political, and no to the religious, condition of nations; that all our arguments, therefore, have been beating the air, and fall short of the mark.  But such an objection would proceed from the paltry and narrow spirit that animates the bastard philosophy of later times; which, dissecting human society with the edge of merciless analysis, doggedly insisted on carving the moral into as many parts as the knife of the anatomist does the physical man.  But who in the nineteenth century can hope to effect that inconceivable separation of the religious man from the moral man, of the moral from the psychological, of the psychological from the physiological, of physiology from physics, of physics from mathematics, of this and all other sciences from metaphysics?  If such a one there be, desirous to separate those sciences and to make them run out to their full length each by itself on the isolated part it refers to in human relations, he might as well persuade the young painters engaged at the Academy in studying the nude to change the attitude or light of the model, each one for himself, without making any variation in the original studied by his schoolmates.  But as the identical original studied by many cannot be changed for one without being altered to the eye of the others, so an isolated part of humanity cannot be changed without altering the other parts for better or for worse.  If, therefore, prayer exerts a powerful influence in perfecting universal society in the religious point of view, it thereby tends to perfect political society; more especially- and I beg attention to the remark- as the perfecting of the social dispositions in mankind is vastly different from perfecting a determined society.  As individuals prepared for association by the use of their rational faculties, by the enlargement of their views, by disinterestedness in their aims, by moderation in their tendencies, are thereby made capable of religious association, so are they of political association.   

But what is this talk about universal political association?  Can we be simple enough to believe possible this humanitarian association in a mere material order?  O, how much could be said against it, did my theme allow a discussion of the subject?  Would such a society, I might ask, be governed, or be without a government?  If it have no government, whence will it derive its unity?  If it have a government, will this be endowed with power irresistible or resistible?  Suppose it resistible, there will be no firmness of order.  Suppose it irresistible, there will be no guarantee of the liberty of the subject.  And, further, by what bond will nations be joined in it?  By their interests?  But these are in perpetual conflict.  By force?  That would be despotism.  By law?  Every one explains it out of his own head.  Deprive humanity of the universal religious bond, and you will seek in vain for another universal bond of union, and without such a bond you will labor in vain to form a universal society.  For my part, as I cannot understand society without union, nor union without a bond, nor a bond of intelligent beings without truth, nor perfect truth without infallible certainty, nor infallible certainty out of the true religion, I see no universal society out of the true religion; consequently I can believe in the full growth of social perfection in political society only so far as it is an offshoot of religious society.

Let him who thinks differently, without renouncing Catholicity, explain whether the non-Catholic humanitarian society he contemplates is to admit Catholics into its bosom, and to remove the enmity of error against truth,- whether the Catholic is to remain without clergy, the clergy without conversions.  Certes, if things proceed according to their present nature, either intolerant impiety must exclude the Catholic from its humanity, or the tolerated Catholic must bring over humanity to the faith.  In the first supposition, your boasted universal society will not be universal; in the second, it will be chiefly religious.  

If, therefore, civilization has an essential forecast towards universality, if universality cannot be obtained apart from religion, prayer,- which is proved to be a most efficacious means to join together religiously all men with the universal bond of a supreme end and a moral order suitable to human nature, with the reasonable bond of obedience to an authority which sways conscience, with the pleasing bond of charity towards a universal society of brethren,- prayer is, then, a most efficacious means to promote civilization amongst men.  Then the objection mooted against us falls to the ground; for prayer, precisely because it is a most efficacious means to form the perfection of religious society, is equally a means to form the civilization of the public.

So, then, we have proved the first three parts of our subject;- perfect end, perfect union of perfect individuals.  It remains for us now to consider the perfection of the harmony wherewith these elements are attempted in Catholic society under the influence of prayer.  You perceive the strict limits to which I confine myself.  I did not undertake to speak to you of Catholic perfection in general, but only of the influence exercised upon such perfection by prayer.  Let us, then, examine briefly in what manner it influences this harmony of the social elements.  Let us see how it harmonizes,- 1^st, in the end, the various degrees of perfection to which it rises; 2^nd, in individuals, the various conditions into which they are divided; 3d, finally, how it harmonizes the various powers of the individuals with the various grades of perfection in the end.  It will thus be seen what harmonic vigor Catholic prayer involves, and how no separate sect can compare with it.

The first element it harmonizes is the end, which we have considered as engrossing the ultimate end of man, the proper end of society, and the immediate end of human actions devoted to its attainment.   If, then, I succeed in demonstrating to you, that, in the Catholic religion, the order of human actions towards the ultimate end produces a living energy in the social end, and produces it mainly through the spirit of prayer wherewith it invests the faithful, I shall have demonstrated Catholic prayer to be effective of harmony in the various grades of the end.  Now that this effect belongs exclusively to Catholic prayer will appear evident to any one who will enquire into the properties of heretical or infidel mysticism, so apt to degenerate into fanatical pietism or Oriental apathy.  This is a beautiful remark of Gioberti, who, comparing the contemplation of the Eastern pantheist with that of the Catholic, shows languor to be the natural fruit of the pantheism of anti-Catholics, activity that of Catholicity.  I refer those who desire to see it fully proved, with metaphysical rigor, to his work; or to the valiant Spanish Apologist, who draws out this same truth in another point of view, proving that Catholicity is properly the pure source of the personality and of the lively activity of modern civilized societies.   For my part, I will beat a track, not so sublime indeed, but more obvious,- that of facts.  Who can deny that religious society is for more active than every other in the social order?  The irreligious man essentially tends to individualism, for his moralism is necessarily based upon interest or pleasure.  The social operation of individualism is essentially inconstant, like interest, fleeting, like the individual, and miserly, like egotism.  On the contrary, the activity of individuals in religious society, having chiefly in view eternal life, and regarding temporal wealth as a means of attaining it, through assistance given to want of all kinds, is urged, on the one hand; to acquire wealth, on the other, to make use of it for the advantage of others.  Nor do I under the name of wealth comprise merely pelf and provisions.  Are we not also to call wealth science to be diffused, works performed in the service of others, and the ameliorations effected in art?  All human activity, as economists well observe, is one of the chief sources of social enrichment. Now, then, that Catholic society, even in regard to temporalities, possesses this activity in the highest degree, wonderfully disinterested, persevering, indefatigable, is acknowledged not only by Catholics, but also be unbelievers.  Moreover, it is as evident that these properties flow, in Catholic society, from the spirit of prayer, as it is sure, that, without prayer, faith and charity, without which there can be neither disinterestedness, unremitted labor, nor Christian perseverance, grow languid and die.  Consider all Catholic institutions, where individuals with superhuman generosity sacrifice self to the common good; you will find that they all receive birth from men rapt in the spirit of prayer, are all sustained by the same spirit, all unsettled or corrupt if failing in the spirit of prayer.  What but this spirit wafts legions of missionaries over the stormy waves of the ocean, or bears them across the yawning chasms of the wilderness?  What shuts up n hospitals the sons of John of God, or the daughters of Vincent of Paul?  What leads the Ignorantine or the Somasc to become a child amongst the little ones of Christ?  What leads numberless guilds and confraternities into the dungeon and the jail?  What guides the good shepherd amidst the most revolting wretchedness and depravity?  What, on board of the galley and inside the bagnio, amongst the victims of Turkish cruelty, strengthened the bearer of ransom and liberty?  What, amidst the sandy wastes of Staoueli, starts colonies of husbandmen in Algeria?

Of a certainty, if the influence of cause on effect is made evident by the ceasing of the effect when the cause is removed, the influence of the spirit of prayer stands out conspicuously in all these Catholic institutions.   For it is an infallible rule, admitted by all, that each individual is found more and more ardent and effective in his operations, as, parity in all else preserved, he is more and more ardent and assiduous in prayer.

And this essential influence of the spirit of prayer on Catholic activity in general explains the cause of a fact constantly observed, namely, that the first and fullest development of arts and sciences amongst Catholics is always an offshoot of the spirit of prayer.  Poetry, grown older and more foolish, sang, “Le donne, I cavalier, l’arme, glia mori” (“Ladies, knights, arms, and love.”  But the earliest lispings of its infancy were heard in a religious melody.  The notes of music today swell with entrancing luxuriousness on the stage of profane theatres, but they owe their existence and their name to a sacred hymn.  The Catholic chisel molds the yielding marble into forms of Grecian elegance, but its first effort was to sketch a crucifix or a Madonna in plain wood.  And crucifixes and Madonnas are the most ancient pictures, altars and basilicas the earliest edifices, missionaries of the Church the earliest travelers, calculators of Easter-tide the oldest astronomers, masters of theology the first philosophers.  Everywhere over the lifeless corpse of motionless pagan culture resounded the orison of Religion, recalling it back to life, quickening it with her holy spirit, and marshalling it in the service of Prayer.

The spirit of Catholic prayer, therefore, endowing with powerful energy the activity of individuals towards the social good subordinate to ultimate and supreme good, produces perfect harmony in the threefold gradation of the end.  Let us proceed to examine how it harmonizes the second element,- I mean, the multitude.

Wherein must the harmony of this consist?  In preserving its variety and introducing unity, so that in movement there may be peace.   Unity without variety would be monotony; variety without unity would be uproar; both without movement, void of discourse, would be inert and tedious; and if by movement they did not reach peace, they would be discursive to no conclusion.

The happy tendency of Catholic prayer is, to harmonize the multitude with unity in variety, with repose in movement.  For, gathering all the faithful together at the feet of the Heavenly Father, it brings them to a level of such perfect equality as to abolish among them all envy of another’s greatness.  The same table is approached, the same Master is listened to, the same law is obeyed, the same tribunal is respected by the father with the son, the illiterate with the learned, the servant with the master, the subject with the prince; and if, on going forth from the house of prayer, civil inequality is seen to come up anew, the recollection of a kingdom where he is highest who humbles himself most attempers these varieties in a sense of entire tranquility.  And whence, in fact, if not from this deep knowledge of an ultramontane greatness, was engendered in the faithful that aphorism of civil moderation which rendered so easy in other times the political harmony of Christian society,- “Let us be satisfied with our condition”?  In our days, the mania for growing extravagantly rich raises war between the laborer and the manufacturer; the thirst for office makes the private citizen a slave in antechambers, where he displaces and is displaced in turn; the soldier wishes for war to be made captain, the pauper wishes for tumults to be made minister.  In every corner of society, in short, contrast is so striking, that it has become to the eyes of the utilitarian publicist the essential element of social unity.  The existence of unity in contrast I can understand, if there be a higher power to combine the parts; but the idea of unity derived only from contrast seems to me incomprehensible and contradictory.  True, the stones of a vaulted ceiling hold close together, while they contrast, but the reason of their union is the gravitation which tends to unite them, and the strength of the side walls which enclose them.  You have here an idea of religious society.  In it variety of interests does not cease to exist; for without variety there would not be harmony.  But all interests are subservient to the tendency of order, which is the center of intelligence, and flanked by divine law, which is its rule, and keeps it from varying.  But whence, unless from prayer, is this power to respect order and law, when they prescribe limits to interest?

In Proportion, therefore, as the inward spirit reigns amongst Catholics, the harmony is perfect amongst the individuals;  who, serving their distinct personal condition, are nevertheless equalized at the foot of the altar in the simple quality of Faithful; and moving at the impulse of varied interest, still repose alike in the love of order; which repose in order is peace.  

But to obtain perfect harmony, it is not enough that the various orders of the end and the various conditions of individuals be harmonized; it is requisite, moreover, that perfect harmony be established between the individuals and the end, of greater or less perfection.  And here is the chief glory of the admirable inward operation of the spirit of prayer.  For without this spirit harmony is impossible in political society. 

To prove tis last assertion, I need only to show clearly what I mean when referring to harmony between individuals and the perfection of the social end.  What political economist is ignorant of the great variety of powers in individuals, and of the grades of perfection in the end held in view by society?  The acme of the perfection of order admits beneath it many gradations of imperfect order, to which imperfect individuals can easily be induced to rise; but would it be easy to induce all your individuals to gain the topmost grade of perfection?  Assuredly not.  Hold, then, as a maxim of wise policy, that society will be perfect when those few individuals reach the height of perfection who are capable of it, and the others rise to the point which their capabilities allow.  If upon imperfect individuals, you seek to impose the burden of supreme perfection, society, by such disproportion of parts, must become imperfect and unsettled.

But what means are to urge with proportion so harmonious the material inertness of our clay to such high perfection?  Will you enforce perfection by a universal law?  That would be indiscretion.  Will you abandon the idea of attaining it?  That would leave society imperfect.  Will you prescribe for each individual the degree of perfection proportioned to him?  But where will you find a political eye, a spiritual thermometer, so exact as to be able to measure the degrees of individual fervor in the attainment of moral perfection, upon which political welfare almost entirely depends?  This is precisely the task of the spirit of prayer, which, without need of coercive laws, is to itself the law and the impulse to compliance.  This spirit places before each intellect the sublimest grades to which it may aspire.  This spurs the heart, this gains from heaven eagle wings; and, as it takes its start from the highest of heavens, it impels all to the uppermost grade, and, as it infuses itself and becomes personified in the heart of each one, so it adapts itself exactly to each one’s forces.  Hence, while law is satisfied with forbidding evil, counsel invites to the highest degree of good.  But what force would counsel have without the inward spirit which gives strength to follow it?

Thus, respected auditors, you behold the marvelous accord produced in Catholic society by the spirit of prayer between the various degrees of individual perfection, and the various degrees of social perfection towards which they tend.  No one is here charged with a burden greater than his strength; no one is relieved from what he is able to bear.  Hence springs a wonderful unity in the immense variety of these successive degrees; and who will calculate its good results in a truly Catholic society?  How wretched those societies that drew back their lips from this font of perfection!  Do they need help for the poor?  Then recourse must be had to a tax for paupers, as voluntary alms-giving has ceased.  Do they need an impulse to make the poor labor?  Then a workhouse is to be established, for the love of suffering is understood no longer.  Do they need a check upon the overflow of population?  Then marriage must be countermanded, for the idea of virginal perfection is out of date.  Do they need protection for the widow, education for the orphan, assistance for the sick, refuge from prostitution, instruction for the people?  Laws upon laws, and new laws upon new laws, and salaried officers to see that they are observed, and salaried inspectors to watch over the officers, and freedom of complaint to keep straight the inspectors, and repeated punishment.  Alas!  What a complication of social machinery to obtain in a bungling manner, and by compulsion, what would be effected by the spirit of charity spontaneously and to perfection!

But this internal spirit, being individualized itself in individuals, might clash with the universal harmony by some singular melody of its own.  It wants, then, prudent direction, and in this we hold the office of him who, being judge and father at the same time, is seated in that tribunal before which alone conscience unveils all its powers, as well as all its weaknesses.  The function of impelling each one with discretion of energy to the perfection of which he is individually capable can be exercised only by the Catholic priesthood, and nowhere better than in the act of reconciliation, when the heart, repentant of its faults, wishes to make due reparation.  At that moment, when the inward disposition is ready for any sacrifice, what efficacy can be conveyed in a counsel, or a suggestion, even without a command!  But might not this counselor, himself destined to harmonize the individual in a proportionate degree of social perfection, become isolated from the universal harmony?  This is forestalled by the hierarchical union in which he himself is harmonized.  Before being allowed to assume jurisdiction over souls, he must himself make clear the doctrines he follows, the conduct he pursues, and the qualities which distinguish him.  On this condition only does he obtain jurisdiction over souls from his prelate, through whom he is joined to the center of Catholic unity, wherein is harmonized the immense variety of spirits, each of which, according to the measure of grace allotted to each, gives praise to the God of virtue.  From this center are derived rules of direction in the more difficult cases, faculties for loosening the guilty of the more heinous transgressions, dispensing power in exceptions to the more serious obligations, safe doctrines for the discernment of inward motions.  This, correcting in the ministers of reconciliation every extravagance of rigor or indulgence, rejecting that counterfeit mysticism which miscalculates the internal operations of grace, and that false science which, without discrimination, denies and derides them altogether, maintains with prudent caution, amongst Catholics, a love for perfection without rigorism, by means of a mysticism free from exaggeration defending them on the right hand and on the left from the extravagance of pietism and illuminism, as well as from the cold indifference of rationalism and skepticism. 

Thus, the spirit of prayer, taken in its widest acceptation, inasmuch as it embraces every species of elevation of the soul to God, and every means destined to produce, maintain, and direct it, evidently appears to be a highly efficacious agent of social perfection, even in the civil and political order.  For, after having established in the individuals those forms of intelligence, of science, of probity, of energy, without which civil and political perfection can never be obtained, it tends then, from the intrinsic nature and property of Catholic prayer, to join all men together in the vastest society possible, for an end than which there can be none more perfect, with highly disinterested activity, animated by sentiments of brotherly charity and unalterable meekness. And while it urges all individual associates to such high social perfection, it nevertheless maintains, by means of the hierarchic investment of the controlling powers, such harmony of proportions between the Best, to which it aspires, and the various forces whereby it aspires, in individuals, that these, neither wounded by the spur not yet untouched by it, frow desirous of themselves to soar towards a still higher elevation, as the spirit of internal union with God breathes still more vigorous in their heart.

But I perceive that an important objection might be raised to me by certain prejudiced minds.  “How do you dare,” they might say to me, “to boast of civilization as an effect of Catholic prayer, while Catholic countries show such an evident penury of civilization?  Look at those numerous foreigners who come down to us from the North, so graceful in their apparel, so genteel in their address, so generous in their bearing, and compare them with the roughness of our lower classes.   You will then certainly give up the great opinion you have of prayer as a means of civilization.  It can well be satisfied with its spiritual utility, without our torturing it, in spite of fact, into an agency to which it does not pretend.”

The objection apparently has its force, but it is not difficult to expose it to minds possessing clearness of ideas and knowledge of the world.  For that boasted Northern civilization is not really the great thing some people imagine it to be, nor is our roughness so extreme; and if we in aught are guilty, as in many things we are, the cause of our guilt is precisely that we lack on the occasion the spirit of prayer of which I am speaking.

But this Northern civilization shows to us only its brightest features, as travelers are certainly not the dregs of the populace.  For who has not heard, especially in these latter days, of the deplorable state of the paupers in countries which are the first to boast of their civilization?  We have heard of the praiseworthy efforts made by so many societies in that most civilized of cities, London, to prevent the people from being ground down by excessive labor, eaten up by the filth and worms, killed by hunger and exhaustion, infected by the cold damp of the dens which they inhabit,- from being trampled upon by the masters whom they serve, or the dominant sect which persecutes them.  And is not this sufficient to make us understand how different that wretched crowd must be from the proud, genteel, and graceful travelers in whom we are wont to see the picture of Northern civilization?  What is to be said, moreover, of the astounding ignorance, I will not say regarding religious and moral principles, but even regarding the most glaring facts, in which those wretched beings languish, who, oftentimes shut up during the whole week in the factories where they toil, are found even not to know that there is a Christian church in the world?

In our country, on the other hand, how much more element is industry towards the operatives!  How much more equal the condition of men!  How much more generally diffused in the people the notions of religious instruction!  How much more easy, for him who wishes to work, to earn a comparatively comfortable subsistence!  But if you draw a comparison, not between the vulgar and the vulgar, but between the better classes of the two regions,- if, for example, you compare the Catholic matron, the Catholic knight, the Catholic priest, with the Northern lady, the Protestant squire, the Anglican minister,- perhaps in the latter you will meet with sterling honesty, unfeigned sincerity, and efficacious zeal for the promotion of sound civilization, than in our former?  You can find a test of it even in the public press, where it speaks of the Catholic and the heterodox missions.

Much, indeed, is waning amongst Catholics, especially in the lower classes, towards a better condition of civilization, but this is chiefly owing to the want of a true spirit of prayer, especially in the body of the people.  There are many Catholics who, satisfied with exterior formalities, fail to imbue themselves, be meditation, with that spirit which brings to perfection the special philosophy of the Catholics; hence, in proportion as this is missing, we miss also interior and exterior civilization.

The want of civilization, then, sometimes discovered amongst Catholics, for from proving that prayer is not a fitting means to attain it, is an argument which strengthens our assertion, and renders it evident by fact.

Now, let the political economist and the publicist come forward and decry Catholic mysticism, and the hours, and the days, and the buildings, and the studies, and the persons, and the whole communities, devoted by profession to prayer, and talk of money thrown away, time lost for nothing, idle and worthless people useless to the welfare of society!  Surely there may be an abuse of prayer, even as of the human understanding.  Or rather, why should I say it?  No!  there cannot be an abuse of prayer; for the elevation of man to his God, his supreme good, his perfection, can never be excessive.  That which can be abused is the appearance of prayer; but prayer which is Catholic,- guided, I mean, by the infallible authority of the Church,- as it tends directly to attain the companionship of eternal society, so does it form indirectly the perfection of temporal society.