nest as are the motives, and pure as are the minds, of the men who adopt the former notion, both scripture and history will justify us in dealing out to them a practical rebuke, for experience proves that the instinctive feelings of human nature which point to marriage, will corrupt under a celibacy which an individual imposes on himself without constraint of circumstances, or will most likely break through the barrier to flow in forbidden channels, and in either case the peace and purity of the mind are wrecked. Mr. Newman does not speak out in favour of celibacy, and those who are aware of his usual method of expressing his meaning will not be surprised at this, for he ordinarily prefers subtle insinuation to frank statement. I am morally certain, when he only hints at an opinion contrary to the generally received notions of Protestants, that his mind is strongly committed to it. He must be dull indeed who does not see to what the following passages point: "The beau ideal of a clergyman in the eyes of many is a reverend gentleman, who has a large family, and administers spiritual consolation." "When they had once resolved to devote themselves to the service of religion, (Basil and Gregory,) the question arose, how they might best improve and employ the talents committed to them. Somehow, the idea of marrying and taking orders, or taking orders and marrying, building or improving their parsonages, and showing forth the charities, the humanities, and the gentilities of a family man, did not suggest itself to their minds. They fancied that they must give up wife, children, property, if they would be perfect." "At present the only apparent remains among us of these isolated persons (the recluses) exist in what are commonly called old maids and single gentlemen; and it sometimes is seriously objected to the primitive doctrine of celibacy that 'bachelors are just the most selfish, unaccommodating, particular, and arbitrary persons in the community;' while ancient spinsters are the more disagreeable, cross, gossiping, and miserable of their sex.' Dreariness unmitigated, a shivering and hungry spirit, a soul preying on itself, a heart without an object, affections unemployed, life wasted, self-indulgence in prosperous circumstances, envy and malice in straitened; deadness of feeling in the male specimen, and impotence of feeling in the female; such are the only attributes with which the imagination of modern times can invest St. Ambrose, bishop and confessor, or St. Macrina, sister of the great Basil." In the above paragraphs, facts are not very fully expressed. The deficiency may be thus supplied. "Somehow," says Mr. Newman, Basil and Gregory "never thought of marrying and taking orders," as divines in the present day certainly do; but we are not to suppose that such thoughts were not common to holy persons in that day; for "somehow" Basil's younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, did so think, and took a wife, Theosebia, with him to his bishopric. We shall not also be indulging an "imagination," as Mr. Newman thinks, if we assign to St. Macrina, the sister of Basil, “ a heart without an object," in her celibacy. Her beauty, wit, and fortune, early drew around her numerous admirers; and it is no disparagement to the lady to say, that as one of the "daughters of men," she contracted herself in marriage; but her lover dying before the knot was tied, she then resolved upon a single life. I cannot, therefore, place Macrina among the celestials on the strength of her retirement from the world, for whatever forms of spiritual beauty might appear to woo her wrapt soul into solitude, it was certainly the loss of the N. S. VOL. IV. 3 X "human face divine" that mainly caused it. We have the story of her blighted love in the pages of her brother Gregory of Nyssa, who tells us that she wore a piece of the true cross, relates some wonders that she performed, and alludes to others; but candidly confesses that he passes them over lest he should not be believed! With reference to modern imaginations investing celibacy with "a hungry shivering spirit," and so on, it may be observed, that whether right or wrong, it is a very ancient opinion, for one who was nearer to the Apostles than any of the Fathers Mr. Newman quotes, and who ac cording to his principles was nearer to the truth than they, Clement of Alexandria, writes: "They who, in order to avoid the distraction of a married life, have remained single, have frequently become misanthropic, and have failed in charity.”* It is true, however, of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, that both of them came to the conclusion, that "marrying and taking orders” was not expedient; and let us now endeavour to ascertain "Gregory Nazianzen's Experience of the Ascetic Life." He was born in a small Cappadocian village, near to Nazianzum, where his father was bishop, and from which he took his surname. He became a monk in Pontus, a presbyter of Nazianzum, bishop of Sasima, bishop of Constantinople, then resigning his see, he retired to Nazianzum, and finally withdrew to Ananzum, his birth-place, where he died after a stormy pilgrimage. Gregory was a man of very affectionate spirit, and highly imaginative mind. He preached sermons, pronounced orations, and wrote poetry, which last is plentifully sprinkled with notices of his personal history and experience. Jerom, who appears to have attended his ministry, preceptor meus, quo scriptura explanante didici, calls him, Vir eloquentissimus, and his works fully justify the title. My copy of Gregory belonged to the late Robert Hall, who has scored many passages, particularly the two Orations against Julian, with frequent notes of admiration. In early life a dream made a deep impression upon the mind of Gregory, and excited within him, as he states, "the desire of incorruptness." He relates it in a poem entitled, A Lamentation for the Afflictions of his Soul, the sense and scenery of which I have endeavoured to preserve in the following translation: As sleeping once, a dream came with the sleep, The tender thread the silkworm spins was scorn'd ; * Stromata, lib. iii. 35. They stood with looks cast down, and lips press'd close, For ne'er had mortal mould such graceful mien; Carm. 4. The impression made by this dream upon Gregory never left him; he speaks of it as "a spark of heavenly fire," "a taste of divine milk and honey;" but it was strengthened by intercourse with his friend Basil, who in a letter addressed to him the following remarks: "We must strive after a quiet mind. As well might the eye ascertain an object put before it, while it is wandering restless up and down, and sideways, without fixing a steady gaze upon it, as a mind distracted by a thousand worldly cares be able clearly to apprehend the truth. He who is not yet yoked in the bonds of matrimony, is harassed by frenzied cravings and rebellious impulses and hopeless attachments; he who has found his mate is encompassed with his own tumult of cares; if he is childless, there is desire of children; if he has children, anxiety about their education; attention to his wife, care of his servants, oversight of his house, misfortunes in trade, quarrels with his neighbours, lawsuits, the risks of the merchant, the toil of the farmer. Each day as it comes darkens the soul in its own way; and night after night takes up the day's anxieties, and cheats the mind with illusions in accordance. Now, one way of escaping all this is separation from the whole world; that is, not bodily separation, but the severance of the soul's sympathy with the body, and to live so without city, home, goods, society, possessions, means of life, business, engagements, human learning, that the heart may readily receive every impress of divine doctrine." Gregory was not, however, influenced by selfishness so unmixed as this in making his choice of celibacy. The following lines from one of his poems, in a prose translation, express his views concerning it, which, however delusive, are yet lofty. "As we see sin in faintest traces, in wrath, murder, in wanton oaths, perjury, and therefore shun them, so I deemed a strict virginity the safest. Hence our full choir of holiest souls, are followers of the unfleshly seraphim, and Him who reigns in lonely light among them. These rush towards the thought of death, and hope of second life, with a single heart, loosed from the law and chain of marriage vow. I was but a captive at my birth. Sin my first being. But its base discipline revolted me towards a nobler path. Then Christ drew nigh me, and the Virgin-born called me to join his virgin-train. And now towards heaven I lift my brow exultingly, without bond or hindrance. No heir of this poor tabernacle I leave to ape me when my frame is broken, but shall be solitary, save with my God, and truest souls to bear me company." It was not until after a sharp and lengthened struggle that Gregory decided upon his mode of life. "Fierce was the whirlwind of my storm-tossed mind, Searching, 'mid holiest ways, a holier still. Long had I nerved me, in the depths to sink But the glorious Celibate he could panegyrize at length, as— "Breaking earth's spell, excelling marriage vow, He wrote a poem of 730 hexameters for the purpose of contrasting the respective claims of celibacy and wedlock to distinction; both speak; and the contest terminates by Celibacy being awarded to the right hand and Wedlock to the left of Christ in his kingdom. "Ye countless brethren of the marriage band, Slaves of the enfeebled heart and plighted hand! I see you bear aloft your haughty gaze, Gems deck your hair, and silk your limbs arrays, Come, tell the gain which wedlock has conferred on man." "Dim is her downcast eye, and pale her cheek : "Ah! who has hither drawn my backward feet, I praise my God, and tend the sick soul's needs; By gushing tears, and blessed lustral rite." The mode of life which Gregory adopted was the cænobite, midway between the solitary and the secular άζυγες and μιγάδες; it was an abandonment of the mixed multitude to move in a select circle, answering to the monastic discipline. He only indeed partially adopted it, being called to high stations in the church, which he reluctantly accepted and cordially relinquished. The episcopal chair of Sasima was a thorny seat, and Constantinopolitan society an intolerable nuisance. He seems to have had a profound sense of his own and the world's defilements; an intense passion for purity; a fond hope of reaching it in complete perfection on earth. "Is there no place from sin's dominion free?" he asks in one of his poems. "The port defends from storms-the shield from spearssweet home a shelter gives when howls the blast-Elias rode to heaven on flaming car-from Pharaoh's hand was Moses saved of old-Jonah escaped the whale-wild beasts grew tame at Daniel's feet-the youths survived the fire though fierce the furnace glowedAh! to me, what flight from sin remains?" His aspirations thus were high, while his expectations at one time were equally sanguine. I may be partial to Gregory; but I never met, in uninspired man, with more beauty and grandeur of mind than he occasionally developed. The possibility he honestly entertained of having the clay tabernacle cleansed in the present state from all the marks of its leprosy-living an angel-life on earth-dwelling in the body a Cappadocian monk, and yet in spirit inhabiting the third heaven, hearing the unspeakable words! In order to this he chose the celibate, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. When church honours came upon him, his usual food was always of the simplest kind, his dress homely, and gladly did he at last retreat from the sight of the banquets of Constantinople, for a cell with bread and water at Arianzum ! But grievously had Gregory miscalculated as to the capabilities of man in this life; and decisively did the ascetic discipline fail in bringing him the peace and purity for which he sighed. He comes before us in his old age, in his poems, with a heart bleeding, a soul oppressed, sin present, irritable tendencies unsubdued, a sad, disappointed, and sometimes almost hopeless man. More than half a century had rolled over his head when he wrote: "I lost, O Lord, the use of yesterday; O may I find this morn some inward piercing ray!" He did not get rid of his enemy, nor was Satan bruised under his feet, as he had once anticipated: "The serpent comes anew! I hold thy feet, O David! list, and strike thy harp-strings sweet! Hence! choking spirit, hence! for saintly minds unmeet." Still was the old Adam alive, the law in his members, the flesh lusting against the spirit, when the following was his confession at the time of the evening sacrifice: "O Holiest Truth! how have I lied to Thee! This day I vowed thy festival to be; Yet I am dark ere night. Surely I made my prayer, and I did deem My feet have slipped, and as I lay, he came, My gloomy foe, and robbed me of heaven's flame, In his last days, Gregory exhibits to us an affecting spectacle, yet a monitory example, which we may profitably study. Looking back upon his past life, he asks, in a poem 66 On Himself," "Where are my winged words? Scattered to the breeze? Where my bloom of spring, my early strength? Gone for ever! Where my brilliant fame? It glimmers, an expiring light! Where my manhood's vigour? Disease hath bowed and torn my frame! Where my wealth? Devoted to my God! Parents sleep beneath the lowly sod, nor they alone, a brother and a sister slumber too. Here I roam, from altar torn, and from the flock exiled-a prelate |