was changed, not the spirit of the worship. And as there are cases in which it is known that an old idol retained its place and its honours under a new appellation; so a suspicious resemblance has been noticed between some of the oldest and most famous Images of the Virgin, and the coarse objects of earlier idolatry, which in like manner were said not to have been made by hands, but to have been sent from heaven. The men by whom the prodigious structure of the Romish Church was erected were wise in their generation, according to that wisdom which is not of a better world than this wherein we have our present existence. They flattered the inclinations and the weakness of human nature as much in this point, as they condescended to old habits and rooted superstitions. For to those who can be content with creatureworship, and who are ignorant of the scriptures, what more attractive object of adoration could be presented than the Virgin Mother of our Lord? Did we meet with such a personage in some system of heathen mythology, we should perceive how beautifully the character had been conceived, as much as we now perceive how inconsistent it is with uncorrupted Christianity. To this attractiveness we may ascribe much of L L the indiscrete and reprehensible language in the fathers which prepared the way for the Hyperdulia. But that great corruption was in a far greater degree promoted by the rivalry of particular Churches, and of different religious orders, vying with each other in the fables whereby they set forth their own pretensions to public favour. Hence the enormous legends of Our Ladies of the Pillar and of Montserrat; hence the celebrity of the Ladies of Guadalupe and Nazareth, of Halle and Montaigu,..and of our own Walsingham, before all this trumpery was whisked off in a whirlwind. Hence the reputation of so many other such shrines at which all prayers were to be heard and all diseases cured. And hence the less pardonable falsehoods by which every order in its turn represented itself as enjoying in a peculiar degree the Mighty Mother's patronage. She fancies a habit for one, favours another with the cut of a hood, and invents a scapulary or a string of beads. Hence the fooleries and blasphemies with which the Seraphic and Cherubic friars strove to surpass each other,..the revolting impieties which they related in books and sermons, and represented in pictures, and which instead of exciting horror and indignation proved so gainful to these audacious impostors, that earlier and later orders were tempted to try their fortune in the same kind of manufacture. Referring only to the abominable tales concerning St. Dominic and the Virgin, which have been closely imitated by the Cistercians, I will instance in this place a fable of such a character, that where it failed to excite disgust, we might suppose it would provoke ridicule,.. and yet we shall see with what success it was hazarded. St. Dominic in one of his visions was carried before the Throne of Christ. Looking around him in heaven, as it was natural he should, he saw there monks, friars, and nuns in abundance, but not a single one of his own order: upon which he broke out in lamentations, and ventured to ask the reason of so mortifying a disappointment. Our Lord laid his hand upon the Virgin's shoulder, benignly answering, I have committed your followers to my Mother's care; and she opening her mantle, discovered an innumerable number of Dominicans nestling under it. Benignamente, vi prego, ascoltate You have it upon the authority of that ancient author F. Thedorick de Appoldia, who by command of the general of the order, composed a life of the Saint before the end of the thirteenth century.* St. Antonine gave the tale the sanction of his sanctity by repeating it; a host of shaven and shorn Cherubics have followed him; and to crown all, it is inserted in the Dominican Breviary, as part of the Church service on St. Dominic's day!!! But pereant qui ante nos nostra dixissent, may the Dominicans have said upon this occasion, for a Cistercian had had just such a vision before them, and seen his brethren occupying the same place! How were these revelations to be reconciled? The Cistercian saw no Dominicans under the aforesaid mantle,..the Dominican saw no Cistercians there! And yet they who maintained the credit of the one vision, could not with decency impugn the other. It was agreed therefore that this high prerogative belonged to both orders; and to this decision the Jesuit Cuper, after summing up the case, gives his assent, declaring on the part of his brethren that they perceived no reason why the vision should not have been vouchsafed both to a Cistercian and a Dominican, seeing the Blessed Virgin had conde * Acta SS. Aug. t. i. p. 583. † Breviarium S. Ordinis Prædicatorum. Parisiis. 1647. p. 68. scended to bestow the same favour upon their humble* society also! Here then, Sir, are three orders under the Virgin's cloak; and if you refer to the Flores Seraphicit of F. Charles de Aremberg, you will find a covey of Capuchines in the same cover. You remember, Sir, where Chaucer places the departed friars in his Sompnour's Tale? In these legends we have the origin of that satire, and the proof how well it was deserved. But what carried the Hyperdulia to its height was the Franciscan tenet of the Virgin's immaculate conception. When the Dominicans, in an unlucky hour, found themselves pledged to support the unpopular side of that question, they strove to counteract the prejudice which was thus excited against them, by exaggerating her prerogatives, as well as by inventing legends to prove how greatly she delighted in their order and in its founder. The Franciscans would not be outdone in this line of invention, and thus the *Certè non videmus, cur similis visio monacho Cisterciensi, et S. Dominico offerri non potuerit, cum beatissima Virgo minimam nostram societatem eodem favore dignata est!—Acta SS. Aug. t. ii. P. 468. ad They may be seen there in Tanner's Societas Jesu usque sanguinis et vitæ profusionem militans.-P. 5. Pragæ. 1675. + Page 63. |