THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

No. XC.

THIRD SERIES - No. XXI.

JANUARY, 1839.

ART. I. Sulla Morale Cattolica Osservazioni di ALESSANDRO MANZONI. Firenze. 1835.

It is not often that we receive writings of polemic divinity from Catholic countries. Whether because Rome is too sure of her rights to be willing to make them a subject of dispute, or because she considers force the best of her rights; whether because she relies on the immutability of her fate, or because she feels her fate inevitable; whether, in a word, because in a controversy she has nothing to fear, or nothing to hope, it is certain that Rome has laid down her arms, and, far from thinking of carrying war among her enemies, when attacked answers The fervor of her missionaries and the zeal of her propaganda have relented; the dark legions of Loyola have been scattered; of that great chain, that threatened the peace of Europe, only a few links remain, separate, scattered. Poor owls, surprised by the broad sun in their nocturnal rambles, the Jesuits are groping about from court to court for a shelter, proffering the coöperation of their foiled policy and exploded hypocrisy, acting the part of satellites of those monarchs of the earth, of whom they were formerly the terror,—

not.

"Di re malvagi consiglier peggiori."

There are no church reviews, no periodicals of any credit or circulation connected with religion, in any of the Catholic lands, unless we except perhaps the Giornale di Religione in Modena, a monthly periodical printed under the auspices of

VOL. XXV. 3D S. VOL. VII. NO. III.

35

the Austrian heir of the house of Este, and sharing the notoriety which his Highness seemed so anxious, at any cost, to secure. There are a great many reasons why it should be so. The wars the Romish church has waged, since the' Council of Trent, against the different Protestant denominations, have turned by no means to her advantage; and what she preserved from that general dismemberment, she rather owed to the selfish views of her defenders, than to the wisdom of her own measures, or to the energy of her own exertions. She is now threatened at home, in the heart of her once most firmly devoted provinces, France, Spain, and Italy. She is grappling with a formidable adversary far more dangerous than either Luther and his fiery doctrines, or Napoleon and his boundless ambition, - a dreary spectre, weaponless, passionless, mute, bidding her no defiance, declining close engagement, overcome by no disaster, elated by no success, but lurking by her side, waiting and watching, destroying her by a steadfast, ghastly look, blasting all objects on which it rests, desolating, petrifying like the gorgon of old, Skepticism. It would be no longer of any great consequence whether the cause be good, or whether it have able supporters; there is no tribunal before which the debate may be brought. The pope is not perishing for want of preachers or writers, so much as for lack of readers and listeners; and on that account his opponents have not much chance against him. All religious controversies are adjourned in the Catholic countries, to give place to political strifes, and the people will listen to no parties until they have constituted themselves free judges.

-

But were it otherwise, could even the general interest be turned towards so vital a question, Catholicism could not bring into the lists champions able to withstand the combined efforts of the Protestant churches. In Germany and England, as well as in America, the clergy have the general direction, — it may almost be said, the exclusive monopoly of literature. In France and Italy the ministers are good in proportion as they are ignorant. In spite of the numberless host of priests and friars of all colors, ranged under the standards of the successors of St. Peter, it is not difficult to understand that, with such vows as a Catholic priest is obliged to pronounce at the altar, it is no easy task to obtain fresh recruits. Young men of high expectations from the universities are very seldom induced to put on the surplice, unless by the sinful allurements of worldly am

bitious views, or by more impious insinuations respecting the fragility of the barrier that is to separate them from that world which they profess to renounce. But those of the parochial clergy, among whom is often found the holy evangelical man, the father, the edifier, the benefactor of his fellow beings, mostly issue from the country; they are the children of the poor, who, bred up in seminaries generally at the expense of the state, with the aspect of want ever before their eyes, are fitted up for mass in the short space of two years, and sent back to their mountains before the taint of worldly depravity has reached them. Thus, the highly gifted but worldly minded prelate, surrounded with luxury and vice, wants that energy. and ardor which only conviction can give; and the modest but ignorant curate is too blind himself ever to bring light upon others. Hence of that innumerable militia there is not one pressing forward for the cause they have embraced, whilst the one class disgrace it by their scandalous misconduct, and the other by their absurd superstition. Hence it happens that the few generous enthusiasts who still dare to raise a generous voice for Christianity, if not for Catholicism, such as Chateaubriand and Lamennais in France, Manzoni and Pellico in Italy, either do not belong to, or do not write in the spirit of the clergy, and are looked upon by them with mistrust and jealousy, though the closest investigation may not find them astray for a single moment from the strictest orthodoxy.

Thus it is really consoling to see Manzoni, the noblest poet of Italy, in the present age, a man of undisputed conscientiousness, of the purest morals, as well as of the most independent and disinterested spirit, taking up the gauntlet that had lain in the arena, or at least had very seldom been worthily handled, since Luther first threw it against popish deception and tyranny, and declaring himself a champion of that noble original faith, from which dissenters had only departed in the hope of adhering closer to it.

Among his countrymen the pious device of Manzoni will perhaps give rise to different interpretations. It will be supposed that the author wrote, actuated by the desire of reconciling the spirits exasperated since the general collision of all civil, moral, and religious principles in the epoch of the late French invasions; it will be ascribed to a laudable intention of reacting against the torrent, which German and French Philosophy are pouring down the Alps under the disguise of new scientific

speculations; it will be explained as a fine political scheme, intended to gain over to the cause of Italian emancipation the sound part of the clergy, and the moderate minds that still obey their impulse, and to make the cross and the mitre the rallying standard for an Italian confederacy, that might renew the wonders of valor of the Lombard league of happy remembrance: so unwilling is our wily and selfish age to admit in others sincerity of purpose and straightforwardness of view. We think there is no need of attributing worldly motives to an undertaking so generous in itself. We think there is enough in the memories and traditions of the triumphs of the militant church, to make a generous soul grieve at its approaching dissolution. There is enough august and majestic in the edifice whose final downfall he is attempting to prevent, to repay him for his work; enough in the persecutions the church begins in her turn to endure; enough in the tears and desolation of her mourning widowhood, to engage a chivalrous heart to consecrate all to her relief; to make her cause beautiful in the eyes of the brave, it is enough that it is the cause of the conquered :

"Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni."

We know no particulars of the life of Manzoni. It could hardly be believed how, in an enslaved country, public opinion is cautious and respectful as to the private character and conduct of individuals, even the most distinguished. Where the police is busy to secure public tranquillity, there are no impertinent newspapers, no editorial prefaces, no Biographie des contemporaines, to watch closely every new starting celebrity, following them from step to step, invading the secrecy of their favorite haunts, peeping over their shoulders while they are writing, putting all their oddities and extravagancies in open day, as if to reassure common mortals that the man of genius is still made of flesh and bones, eats and sleeps, and is as subject to human infirmities as the least of them. It is thus that neither in the different editions of his works, nor in any of the Italian periodicals, do we find an account of the life and character of our author; and all the estimate we can make of his manner of thinking and feeling must be derived from what he himself has yielded to our curiosity-his writings. We remember, however, to have understood, though only timidly and hesitatingly whispered, that Manzoni was in his youth affected by a disease, common in our days to the

brightest minds in his country-doubt; that he was long tormented by an inquisitive solicitude that had nearly undermined all his belief in revelation; when, travelling accidentally in the south of France, he happened to hear, we do not remember whether in Nismes or Toulouse, a French preacher, by whose eloquence he was so mightily struck, that soliciting his acquaintance, and taking a wiser view of the subject, in which he had seen hitherto nothing but chaos and darkness, he was completely won back to the faith of his fathers, and vowed to exert the powers of genius heaven had granted him to the rescue of others. Whether this miraculous conversion ever took place or not, it is a fact, that, in his works, Manzoni constantly evinces the most profound belief in the general dogmas of the Catholic religion, and even in those ecclesiastical appendages, that form the matter of controversy with Protestants.

His sacred hymns, his tragedies, his divine ode on Napoleon, almost every chapter of his far-famed novel, are eminently Catholic; and not only is Catholicism incidentally introduced when the subject naturally leads to it, but it seems as if the works themselves had been expressly undertaken for the sake of glorifying the importance of its redeeming mission, and illustrating the sublimity of its sacred rites.

The book we propose to examine forms, as it were, the republication in systematic form of the theories he had indirectly diffused in various parts of his works. The flame of charity he had clothed under the glowing flashes of lyrical poetry, the profound meditations he had veiled under the pathos of tragedy, the salutary lessons resulting from the development of the catastrophies of romance, all this is now reduced to system; his ideas have taken form, method, and consistency; the apostle has cast off his mantle and fulfilled his mission.

The work of Manzoni is destined, as he himself announces in his preface, to defend the morals of the Catholic church from the accusations that are made against her in the 127th chapter of the History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages by Sismondi. There it was meant to prove that the corruption of Italy is partly derived from the moral doctrines of that church. Manzoni is convinced that those doctrines alone are holy and consistent with reason; that all corruption comes rather from transgressing them, or from misunderstanding and misinterpreting them; that it is impossible to find against them an argument of any weight; that none at least is to be regarded