The subject which I have been asked to treat is the higher education of priests; which, I suppose, is the highest education of man, since the ideal of the Christian priest is the most exalted, his vocation the most sublime, his office the most holy, his duties the most spiritual, and his mission whether we consider its relation to morality, which is the basis of individual and social welfare, or to religion, which is the promise and the secret of immortal and godlike life is the most important and the most sacred which can be assigned to a human being.

Religion and education like religion and morality are nearly related. Pure religion, indeed, is more than right education; and yet it may be said with truth that it is but a part of the best education, for it co-operates with other forces with climate, custom, social conditions, and political institutions to develop and fashion the complete man; and the special instruction of teachers which is the narrow meaning of the word is modified, and to a great extent controlled, by these powers which work unseen, and are the vital agents that make possible all conscious educational efforts.

The faith we hold, the laws we obey, the domestic and social customs to which our thoughts and loves are harmonized, the climate we live in, mould our characters and give to our souls a deeper and more lasting tinge than any school, though it were the best.

My subject, however, does not demand that I consider these general and silent agencies by which life is influenced, but leads me to the discussion of the methods by which man, with conscious purpose, seeks to form and instruct his fellow-man; to the discussion of the special education which brings art to the aid of nature, and becomes the auxiliary and guide of the other forces which contribute to the development of our being.

In this age, when all who think at all turn their thoughts to questions of education, it is needless to call attention to the interest of the subject, which, like hope, is immortal, and fresh as the innocent face of laughing childhood.

Is not the school for all men a shrine to which their pilgrim thoughts return to catch again the glow and gladness of a world wherein they lived by faith and hope and love when round the morning sun of life the golden purple clouds were hanging, and earth lay hidden in mist, beneath which the soul created a new paradise? To the opening mind all things are young and fair; and to remember the delight that accompanied the gradual dawn of knowledge upon our mental vision, sweet and beautiful as the upglowing of day from the bosom of night, is to be forever thankful for the gracious power of education. And is there not in all hearts a deep and abiding yearning for great and noble men, and therefore an imperishable interest in the power by which they are moulded? When fathers and mothers look upon the fair blossoming children that cling to them as the vine wraps its tendrils round the spreading bough, and when their great love fills them with ineffable longing to shield these tender souls from the blighting blasts of a cold and stormy world, and little by little to prepare them to stand alone and breast the gales of fortune, do they not instinctively put their trust in the power of education?

When, at the beginning of the present century, Germany lay prostrate at the feet of Napoleon, the wise and the patriotic among her children yielded not to despondency, but turned with confidence to truer methods and systems of education, and assiduous teaching and patient waiting finally brought them to Sedan.

When, in the sixteenth century, heresy and schism seemed near to final victory over the Church, Pope Julius III. declared that the evils and abuses of the times were the outgrowth of the shameful ignorance of the clergy, and that the chief hope of the dawning of a brighter day lay in general and thorough ecclesiastical education. And the Catholic leaders who finally turned back the advancing power of Protestantism, re-established the Church in half the countries in which it had been overthrown, and converted more souls in America and Asia than had been lost in Europe, belonged to the greatest educational body the world has ever seen. What is history but examples of success through knowledge and righteousness, and of failure through lack of understanding and of virtue?

Wherein lies the superiority of civilized races over barbarians if not in their greater knowledge and superior strength of character? And what but education has placed in the hands of man the thousand natural forces which he holds as a charioteer his well-reined steeds, bidding the winds carry him to distant lands, making steam his tireless, ever-ready slave, and commanding the lightning to speak his words to the ends of the earth? What else than this has taught him to map the boundless heavens, to read the footprints of God in the crust of the earth ages before human beings lived, to measure the speed of light, to weigh the imperceptible atom, to split up all natural compounds, to create innumerable artificial products with which he transforms the world and with a grain of powder marches like a conquering god around the globe?

What converts the meaningless babbling of the child into the stately march of oratoric phrase or the rhythmic flow of poetic language? What has developed the rude stone and bronze implements of savage and barbarous hordes into the miraculous machinery which we use? By what power has man been taught to carve the shapeless rock into an image of ideal beauty, or with it to build his thought into a temple of God, where the soul instinctively prostrates itself in adoration?

Is not all this, together with whatever else is excellent in human works, the result of education, which gives to man a second nature with more admirable endowments? And is not religion itself a kind of celestial education, which trains the soul to godlike life?

No progress in things divine or human is made by man except through effort, and effort is the power and the law of education. The maxim of the spiritual writers that not to struggle upward and onward is to be drawn downward, applies to every phase of our life. Whence do we derive strength of soul but from the uplifting of the mind and heart to God which we call prayer? To pray is to think, to attend, to hold the mind lovingly to its object; and this is what we do when we study. Hence prayer, which is the voice of religion, is a part of education, nay, its very soul, breathing on all the chords of life, till their thousand dissonances meet in rhythmic harmony. What is the pulpit but the holiest teacher’s chair that has been placed upon the earth?

And as the presence of a noble character is a more potent influence than words, so sacramental communion with Christ is man’s chief school of faith, of hope, and love. There are worthy persons who turn, as from an unholy thought, from the emphatic announcement of the need of the best human qualities for the proper defence of the cause of God in the world. Such speech seems to them to be vain and unreal; for God is all in all, and man is nothing. But in our day it is easier to go astray in the direction of self-annihilation than in that of self-assertion; since the common tendency now of all false philosophies is pantheistic, and issues in unconscious contempt of individual life. If man is but a bubble, merging forth and re-absorbed, without past or future, then indeed both he, and what he seems to do, sink into the eternal flow of matter, and are undeserving of a thought. This certainly is not the Christian view, to which man is revealed as a lesser god, and co-worker with the Eternal, whose thought can reach the infinite, and whose will can oppose that of the Omnipotent. In Christ, God co-operates with man for the salvation of the world; and in the Church, man co-operates with God to this same end. The more complete the man, the more fit is he to work with God. Even bodily disfigurement is looked upon as an obstacle; how much more, then, shall lack of intelligence and want of heart render us unworthy of the divine office? I certainly shall never deny that love, which the Apostle exalts above faith and hope, is higher also than knowledge. The light of the mind is as that of the moon fair and soft and soothing, without heat, without the power to call forth and nourish life; but the light of the soul, which is love, is the sunlight, whose kiss, like a word of God, makes the dead to live, and clothes the world in strength and beauty. Character is more than intellect, love is more than knowledge, religion is more than morality; and a great heart brings us closer to God, nearer to all goodness, than a bright mind. Education is essentially moral, and the intellectual qualities themselves, which we seek to develop, derive their chief efficacy from underlying ethical qualities upon which they rest and from which they receive their energy and the power of self-control. Inequality of will is the great cause of inequality of mind; and the will is strengthened by the practice of virtue, as the body by food and exercise. If this is a general truth, with what special force must it not apply to the ministers of a religion the paramount and ceaseless aim of which is to make men holy, so that at times it has almost seemed as though the Church were indifferent as to whether they are learned or beautiful or strong? She pronounces no man a doctor unless he be also a saint; and when I insist that the priest shall possess the best mental culture of his age, that without this he fights with broken weapons, speaks with harsh voice a language men will neither hear nor understand, teaches truths which, having not the freshness and the glow of truth, neither kindle the heart nor fire the imagination, I do not forget that, without the moral earnestness which is born of faith and purity of life, mere cultivation of mind will not give him power to unseal the fountains of living waters which refresh the garden of God. The universal harmony is felt by a pure heart better than it can be perceived by a keen intellect. To a sinless soul the darker side even of life and nature is not wholly dark, and the mental difficulties which the existence of evil involves in no way weaken the consciousness of the essential goodness that lies at the heart of all things. In the religious, as in the moral world, men trust to what we are rather than to what we say, and the teacher of spiritual truth is never strong, unless his life and character inspire a confidence which arguments alone do not create; for in questions that reach beyond the sphere of sensation, we feel that insight is better than reasons, and hence we instinctively prefer the testimony of a god-like soul to the conclusions of a cultivated mind: and indeed our Blessed Lord ever assumes that the obstacle to the perception of divine truth is moral and not intellectual. The pure of heart see God; the evil-doer loves darkness and shuns the light. St. Paul goes even farther, and associates mental cultivation with a tendency directly opposed to religious faith, which is humble. “Knowledge puffeth up.” But the words of the Apostle should not be stretched beyond his purpose, which is to point to pride as a special danger of the intellectual as sensuality is a danger of the ignorant. For man to have aught is to run a risk, and hence to do as little as possible is in the thought of the timid a mark of prudence. And indeed, if fear be nearer to wisdom than courage, then should we fear everything, for danger is everywhere. A breath may sow the seed of death; a look may slay the soul. In knowledge, in ignorance, in strength, in weakness, in wealth, in poverty, in genius, in stupidity, in company, in solitude, in innocence itself, danger lurks. But God does not abolish life that danger may cease to be; and they who put their trust in Him will not seek to darken the mind lest knowledge lead man astray, but will rather in a righteous cause make the venture of all things, as St. Ignatius preferred the hope of saving others to the certainty of his own salvation. And may we not maintain, since we hold that there is no inappeasable conflict between God and Nature, between the soul and matter, between revelation and science, that the apparent antagonism lies in our apprehension, and not in things themselves, and consequently that reconcilement is to be sought for through the help of thoroughly trained minds? The poet speaks the truth, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” They who know but little and imperfectly, see but their knowledge, if so it may be called, and walk in innocent unconsciousness of their infinite nescience. The narrower the range of our mental vision, the greater the obstinacy with which we cling to our opinions; and the half-educated, like the weak and the incompetent, are often contentious, but whosoever is able to do his work does it, and finds no time for dispute. He who possesses a disciplined mind, and is familiar with the best thoughts that live in the great literatures, will be the last to attach undue importance to his own thinking. A sense of decency and a kind of holy shame will keep him far from angry and unprofitable controversy; nor will he mistake a crotchet for a panacea, nor imagine that irritation is enlightenment. The blessings of a cultivated mind are akin to those of religion. They are larger liberty, wider life, purer delights, and a juster sense of the relative values of the means and ends which lie within our reach. Knowledge, like religion, leads us away from what appears to what is, from what passes to what remains, from what flatters the senses to that which speaks to the soul. Wisdom and religion converge, as love and knowledge meet in God; and to the wise as to the religious man, no great evil can happen. Into prison they both carry the sweet company of their thoughts, their faith and hope, and are freer in chains than the great in palaces. In death they are in the midst of life, for they see that what they know and love is imperishable, nor subject even to atomic disintegration. He who lives in the presence of truth yearns not for the company of men, but loves retirement as a saint loves solitude; and in times like ours, when men no longer choose the desert for a dwelling-place, the passionate desire of intellectual excellence co-operates with religious faith to guard them against dissipation and to lift them above the spirit of the age. The thinker is never lonely, as he who lives with God is never unhappy. Is not the love of excellence, which is the scholar’s love, a part of the love of goodness which makes the saint? And are not intellectual delights akin to those religion brings? They are pure, they elevate, they refine; time only increases their charm, and in the winter of age, when the body is but the agent of pain, contemplation still remains like the light of a higher world, to tinge with beauty the clouds that gather around life’s setting. How narrow and monotonous is sensation! how wide and various is thought! They who live in the senses are fettered and ill at ease; they who live in the soul are free and joyful. And since the priest, unless he be a saint, must have, like other men, some human joy, and since he dwells not in the sacred circle of the love of wife and children, in which the multitudes find repose and contentment, what solace, what refreshment, in the midst of cares and labors, shall we offer him? If there be aught for him that is not unworthy or dangerous, except the pleasures of the mind, to me it is unknown; and though a well-trained intellect should do no more than to enable us to take delight in pure and noble objects, it would be a chief help to worthy life. And when the whole tendency of our social existence is to draw men out of themselves and to make them seek the good of life in what is external, as money, display, position, renown, is it not a gain, if, while we open their minds to the charm of intellectual beauty, we make them see that this eager striving for wealth and place is a vulgar chase? And does not the spirit of refinement in thought, in speech, in manner, add worth and fairness to him whom it inspires, though the motive which preserves him from what is low or gross be no higher than a fastidious delicacy and self-respect?

To deny the moral influence of intellectual culture is as great an error as to affirm that it alone is a sufficient safeguard of morality. Its tendency unquestionably is to make men gentle, amiable, fair-minded, truthful, benevolent, modest, sober. It curbs ambition and teaches resignation; chastens the imagination and mitigates ferocity; dissuades from duelling because it is barbarous, and from war because it is cruel, and from persecution because it trusts in the prevalence of reason. It seeks to fit the mind and the character to the world, to all possible circumstances, so that whatever happens we remain ourselves, calm, clear-seeing, able to do and to suffer. At great heights, or in the presence of irresistible force, as of a mighty waterfall, we grow dizzy; and in the same way, in the midst of multitudes, in the eagerness of strife, in the whirlwind of passion, equipoise is lost, and we cease to be ourselves, to become part of an aggregate of forces that hurry us on, whither we know not. To be able to stand in the presence of such power, and to feel its influence, and yet not to lose self-possession, is to be strong; is, on proper occasion, to be great. And the aim of the best education is to teach us the secret and the method of this complete self-control; and in so far it is not only moral, but also religious, though religion walks in a more royal road, and bids us love God and trust so absolutely in Him that life and death become equal, and all the ways and workings of men as the storm to one who on lofty mountain peak, amid the blue heavens, with the sunlight around him and the quiet breathing of the winds, sees far below, as in another world, the black clouds and lurid lightning flash and hears the roll of distant thunder.

It is far from my thought, it is needless to say, that mental cultivation can be made to take the place or do the work of religion, even in the case of the very few for whom the best discipline of mind is possible. My aim is simply to show that the type of character which it tends to create is not necessarily at variance with religious principle and life, as is, for instance, that of the mere worldling; but that it conspires with Christian faith to produce, if not the same, at least similar virtues, though its ethical influence is comparatively superficial, and the moral qualities which it produces lack consistency and the power to withstand the fire of the passions. It is enough for my purpose to point out that if intellectualism is often the foe of religious truth, there is no good reason why it should not also be its ally.

No excellence, as I conceive, of whatever kind, is rejected by Catholic teaching, and the perfection of the mind is not less divine than the perfection of the heart. It is good to know, as it is good to hope, to believe, to love. A cultivated intellect, an open mind, a rich imagination, with correctness of thought, flexibility of view, and eloquent expression, are among the noblest endowments of man; and though they should serve no other purpose than to embellish life, to make it fairer and freer, they would nevertheless be possessions without price, for the most nobly useful things are those which make life good and beautiful. Like virtue they are their own reward, and like mercy they bear a double blessing. It is the fashion with many to affect contempt for men of superior culture, because they look upon education as simply a means to tangible ends, and think knowledge valuable only when it can be made to serve practical purposes. This is a narrow and a false view; for all men need the noble and the beautiful, and he who lives without an ideal is hardly a man. Our material wants are not the most real for being the most sensible and pressing, and they who create or preserve for us models of spiritual and intellectual excellence are our greatest benefactors. Which were the greater loss for England, to be without Wellington and Nelson, or to be without Shakspeare and Milton? Whatever the answer be, in the one case England would suffer, in the other the whole world would feel the loss. Though a thoroughly trained intellect is less worthy of admiration than a noble character, its power is immeasurably greater; for, example can influence but a few and for a short time, but when a truth or a sentiment has once found its best expression, it becomes a part of literature, and like a proverb is current forevermore; and so the kings of thought become immortal rulers, and without their help the godlike deeds of saints and heroes would be buried in oblivion. “Words pass,” said Napoleon, “but deeds remain.” The man of action exaggerates the worth of action, but the philosopher knows that to act is easy, to think, difficult; and that great deeds spring from great thoughts. There are words that never grow silent, there are words that have changed the face of the earth, and the warrior’s wreath of victory is entwined by the Muse’s hand. The power of Athens is gone, her temples are in ruins, the Acropolis is discrowned, and from Mars’ Hill no voice thunders now; but the words of Socrates, the great deliverer of the mind, and the father of intellectual culture, still breathe in the thoughts of every cultivated man on earth. The glory of Jerusalem has departed, the broken stones of Solomon’s Temple lie hard by the graves that line the brook of Kedron, and from the minaret of Mount Sion the misbeliever’s melancholy call sounds like a wail over a lost world; but the songs of David still rise from the whole earth in heavenly concert, upbearing to the throne of God the faith and hope and love of countless millions. And is not the Blessed Saviour the Eternal Word? And is not the Bible God’s word? And is not the Gospel the Word, which, like an electric thrill, runs to the ends of the world? “Currit verbum,” says St. Paul. “Man lives not on bread alone, but on every word that cometh forth from the mouth of God.” Nay, there is life in all the true and noble thoughts that have blossomed in the mind of genius and filled the earth with fragrance and with fruit.

Shall I be told that the intellectual cultivation and discipline, which gives to man control of his knowledge, the perfect use of his faculties, justness of perception with ease and grace of expression, cannot bring serviceable advocacy or defence to the cause of divine truth? What does truth need but to be known? And since to reach the mind and heart of man it must be clothed in words, what is so necessary to it as the garb and vesture, the form and color, the warmth and life, which shall so mark it that to be loved it needs but be seen? And who shall so clothe it, if not he who has the freest, the most flexible, the clearest, the best disciplined mind? In the apostolic age, when the manifestations of miraculous power accompanied the announcement of Christian doctrine, the lack of the persuasive words of human eloquence was not felt. Let him who can drink poison and touch scorpions, and not suffer harm, despise the aid of learning; but for us, who are not so assisted, no cultivation of mind or preparation of heart can be too great; and to appear in the garb of a savage were less unseemly than to speak the holiest and the highest truths in the barbarous tongue of ignorance.

Our way here cannot be doubtful. Either we must hold with certain peculiar heretics that learning is a hindrance to the efficacious teaching of religious truth, or, denying this, we must hold, since mental culture is serviceable, that the best is most serviceable.

May we not take this for a principle, to believe that God does everything, and then to act as though He left everything for us to do? Or this: Since grace supposes nature, the growth and strength of the Church is not wholly independent of the natural endowments of her ministers?

As a matter of fact we Catholics are constantly speaking and acting upon principles of this kind. We maintain that without a proper education our children must lose the faith; and that without careful moral and mental training no man is likely to become a good priest; and all that I further insist upon is that if he is to do the best work, he must have the best intellectual discipline. In an intellectual age, at least, he cannot be the worthy minister of worship, unless he is also the accomplished teacher of truth. In vain shall we clothe him in rich symbolic vestments, place him in majestic temples, before marble altars, in the midst of solemn music, in the dim sober-tinted light, with the great and noble looking out upon him, as from a spirit world, in vain shall all this be, if when he himself speaks, his words are felt to be but the echo of a coarse and empty mind. And hence our enemies would gladly leave us the poetry of our worship, would even enter our churches to be comforted, to be soothed, to seek the elevation and enlargement of thought and sentiment which comes upon us in the presence of what is vast, mysterious, and sublime, if we would but confess that it is only poetry, good and beautiful only as art is good and beautiful. The spirit of the time, in fact, it seems to me, is more and more disposed to grant us everything except the possession of intellectual truth. That the Catholic Church is a marvellous power; that her triumphs have been so enduring and so unexpected that only the foolish or the ignorant will predict her downfall; that she overcame paganism; that she saved Christianity when Rome fell; that she restrained the ferocity of the barbarians, protected the weak, encouraged labor, preserved the classics, maintained the unity and sanctity of marriage, defended the purity and dignity of woman, espoused the cause of the oppressed, and in a lawless and ignorant age proclaimed the supremacy of right and the worth of learning; that to these signal services must be added her power to give ease and pleasantness to the social relations of men, keeping them equally remote from Puritan severity and pagan license; her eye for beauty and grace, which has made her the foster-mother of all the arts; her love of the excellent and the noble, which has enabled her to create types of character that are immortal; her practical wisdom, giving her the secret of dealing with every phase of life, so that her saints are doctors, apostles, mystics, philanthropists, artists, poets, kings, beggars, warriors, peasants, barbarians, philosophers, all this, if I mistake not, unbelievers even are more and more willing to concede. Nor are they slow to express their admiration of the strength and majesty of this single power amid the Christian nations, which reaches back to the great civilizations that have perished, which has preserved its organic unity intact amid the social revolutions of two thousand years, and which is acknowledged still to be the greatest moral force in the world. But, underlying all they say and think, is the assumption that the foundations of this noble structure are crumbling; that the world of faith and thought in which it was upbuilt is become a desert where no flower blooms, no living soul is found; that the temple is beautiful only as a ruin is beautiful, where owls hoot and bats flit to and fro. “There is not a creed, we are told, which is not shaken, nor an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable; not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve.”

The conquests of the human mind in the realms of nature have produced a world-wide ferment of thought, an intellectual activity which is without a parallel. They have increased the power of man to an almost incredible degree, have given him control of the earth and the seas, have placed within his grasp undreamed-of forces, have opened to his view unsuspected mysteries; they have placed him on a new earth and under new heavens, and thrown a light never seen before upon the history of his race. As a part of this vast development new questions have risen, new theories have been broached, new doubts have suggested themselves; and because we have changed, all else seems to have changed also. And since, underlying all questions, there is found a question of religion, the discussion of religious and philosophic problems has, in our day, become a social necessity, and the science of criticism, together with the physical sciences, has driven the disputants upon new and difficult ground, where the battle must be fought, and where retreat is not possible.

As well imagine that society will again take on the form of feudalism, as that the human mind will return to the point of view from which our ancestors looked on nature.

And this world-view shapes and colors all our thinking, in theology as in other sciences, so that truths which were latent have come to light, and principles which have long been held find new and wider application.

Never has the defence of religion required so many and such excellent qualities of intellect as in the present day. The early apologists who contrasted the sublimity and purity of Christian faith with a corrupt paganism had not a difficult task. In the Middle Age the intellect of the world was on the side of Christ. The controversy which sprang up with the advent of Protestantism was biblical and historical, and its criticism was superficial. The anti-Christian schools of thought of the eighteenth century were literary rather than philosophical, and the objections they urged were founded chiefly upon political and social considerations. In all these discussions the territory in dispute was well defined and relatively small. But into what a different world are not we thrown! These earlier explorers sailed upon rivers whose banks were lined by firm-set rocky cliffs, by the overshadowing boughs of primeval forests, with here and there pleasant slopes of green where they might lie at rest amid the fragrance of wild flowers; but from our Peter’s bark we look out upon the dark unfathomed seas towards an unknown world whose margin ever fades and recedes as we seem to draw near the haven of our desire.

As in the beginning of the twelfth century the cry, “God wills it!” rang through Europe, and from all her lands armies of mailed knights sprang into battle-array and turned their faces towards the Holy City, resolved to wrench from infidel hands the Sacred Tomb of Christ, so now, from her thousand watch-towers, science sounds her clarion note with quite other intent, urging on to the attack of the citadel of God in the heart of man, renewing upon lower fields the war in which immortal spirits contended with the Almighty “in dubious battle on the plains of heaven, and shook his throne.” As “he jests at scars that never felt a wound,” so here the lesser knowledge makes the bolder man. Not that difficulties should create doubts, or that objections may not be answered, or that it is necessary to refute each hypothesis that appears and fades like a dissolving view, or to notice each unwarrantable inference from unquestioned facts, or that it is worth while to address ourselves to minds whose nebulous and shifting opinions make it impossible that they should receive correct impressions; but the field upon which attacks upon religion are now made is so vast, the confusion of thought into which new discoveries and speculations have thrown the minds of even educated men is so bewildering, the methods for the ascertainment of truth are so tangled and misapplied, the rushing on of multitudes to discuss problems which have hitherto been left to philosophers, and which they alone can rightly enunciate, is so stupefying, that those who have the clearest perception of the mental state of the modern world, and who are able to take the finest and most comprehensive view of the religious, philosophic, and scientific controversies of the day, seem loath to enter into a struggle where the ground continually changes, and where victory at the best is only partial, and but leads to further contest. It is well to remember, also, that in the intellectual arena to attack is easier than to defend, and any shallow, incoherent talker or writer can propose difficulties which the keenest thinker will find great trouble to explain. Since we and our works fall to ruin and pass away, we seem instinctively to take the side of those who seek to undermine and overthrow systems of thought and belief which claim to be indestructible, and the human heart is half a traitor to the Church which declares that she is indefectible and infallible. Is there not indeed, however we account for it, in all nature a kind of dread and horror of the supernatural, such as one who hides within his bosom a secret of dark guilt feels in the presence of the conscience of mankind? And does not this make the world lean to the side of those who would eliminate God from nature?

And yet, since man’s heart is the home of contradictions, is it not also true to say that he is naturally religious? His faith in God is as deep and unwavering as his faith in the testimony of the senses; and if there are atheists there are also men who hold that all things are unreal and only appear to be; that the world is but a myriad-formed, a myriad-tinted idea, the dream of a substanceless dreamer. Not only do we believe in God and in the soul, but all that we love, all that we hope for, all that gives to life charm, dignity, and sacredness, is interpenetrated, perfumed, and illumined by this faith. If men could be persuaded that the unconscious is the beginning and the end of all things, what good would have been gained? The light of heaven would fade away, and the soul’s high faith be made a lie; the poor would have no friend, and the rich no heart; the wicked would be without fear, and the good without hope; success would be consecrated, and death alone would remain as the refuge of the unfortunate. Even animal indulgence, in sinking out of the moral order, would lose its human charm. If then in our day there is wide-spread scepticism, a sort of vague feeling that science is undermining religion and that the most sacred beliefs are dissolving, the cause of this lies not so much in the natural tendencies of the mind and heart, as in social conditions, in passing phases of thought, in the shifting of the point of view from which men have hitherto been accustomed to look on nature; and the continuance and the progress of doubt, and consequently of indifference, is, to some extent at least, to be ascribed also to the fact that the most earnest believers in God and in Christianity have, for now more than a century, been less eager to acquire the best philosophic and literary cultivation of mind than others who, having lost faith in the supernatural, seek for compensation in a wider and deeper knowledge of nature, and in the mental culture which enables them to enjoy more keenly the high thoughts and fair images which live in literature and art. As a well-trained intellect, in argument with the unskilful, easily makes the worse appear the better cause, so in an age or a country where the best discipline of mind is found chiefly among those who are not Christians, or at least not Catholics, public opinion will drift away from the Church, until the view finally becomes general that, whatever she may have been in other times, her day is past. Nor will aught external, however fair or glorious, secure her against this danger. How often in the history of nations and of religions is not outward splendor the mark of inward decay? When Rome was free, a simple life sufficed; but when liberty fled, marble palaces arose. The monarch who built Versailles made the scaffold on which French royalty perished; and so a dying faith, like the setting sun, may drape itself in glory. The Kingdom of God is within; there is the source of life and strength, without which nor numbers nor wealth, nor stately edifices nor solemn rites, avail. Nor can we be certain of men’s love when we cease to have influence over their thoughts. The proper appeal is to the heart through the mind; and even a mother loses half her power when she ceases to be the intellectual superior of her children. How then shall the heavenly Mother of the soul keep her place in the world, if those who speak in her name mar by imperfect and ignorant utterance the celestial harmony of her doctrines?

Ah! let us learn to see things as they are. In face of the modern world, that which the Catholic priest most needs, after virtue, is the best cultivation of mind, which issues in comprehensiveness of view, in exactness of perception, in the clear discernment of the relations of truths and of the limitations of scientific knowledge, in fairness and flexibility of thought, in ease and grace of expression, in candor, in reasonableness; the intellectual culture which brings the mind into form gives it the control of its faculties, creates the habit of attention, and develops firmness of grasp. The education of which I speak is expansion and discipline of mind rather than learning; and its tendency is not so much to form profound dogmatists, or erudite canonists, or acute casuists, as to cultivate a habit of mind, which, for want of a better word, may be called philosophical; to enlarge the intellect, to strengthen and supple its faculties, to enable it to take connected views of things and their relations, and to see clear amid the mazes of human error and through the mists of human passion. I speak of that perfection of the intellect, which, to use the words of Cardinal Newman, “is the clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension of all things as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its place and with its own characteristics upon it. It is almost prophetic from its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human nature; it has almost supernatural charity from its freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of faith because nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music of the spheres.” This is, indeed, ideal; but they who believe not in ideals were not born to know the real worth of things:

“Spite of proudest boast
Reason, best reason is to imperfect man
An effort only and a noble aim,
A crown, an attribute of sovereign power,
Still to be courted, never to be won.”

It is plain that education of this kind aims at something quite different from the mere imparting of useful knowledge. It takes the view that it is good to know, even though knowledge should not be a means to wealth or power or any other common aim of life. It regards the mind as the organ of truth, and trains it for its own sake, without reference to the exercise of a profession. Hence its distinguishing characteristic is that it is liberal and not professional. It holds cultivated faculties in higher esteem than learning, and it makes use of knowledge to improve the intellect, rather than of the intellect to acquire knowledge. Hence, one may be a skilful physician, a judicious lawyer, a learned theologian, and yet be greatly lacking in mental culture. It is a common experience to find that professional men are apt to be narrow and one-sided. Their mind, like the dyer’s hand, is subdued to what it works in. They want comprehensiveness of view, flexibility of thought, openness to light, and freedom of mental play. They think in grooves, make the rules of their art the measure of truth, and their own methods of inquiry the only valid laws of reasoning. These same defects may be observed in those who are given exclusively to the study of physical science. When they sweep the heavens with the telescope and do not find God, they conclude that there is no God. When the soul does not reveal itself under the microscope, they argue it does not exist; and since there is no thought without nervous movement, they claim that the brain thinks.

Now, if it is desirable that those who are charged with the teaching and defence of divine truth should be free from this narrowness and one-sidedness, this lack of openness to light and freedom of mental play, the education of the priest must be more than a professional education; and he must be sent to a school higher and broader than the ecclesiastical seminary, which is simply a training college for the practical work of the ministry. The purpose for which it was instituted is to prepare young men for the worthy exercise of the general functions of the priestly office, and the good it has done is too great and too manifest to need commendation. But the ecclesiastical seminary is not a school of intellectual culture, either here in America or elsewhere, and to imagine that it can become the instrument of intellectual culture is to cherish a delusion. It must impart a certain amount of professional knowledge, fit its students to become more or less expert catechists, rubricists, and casuists, and its aim is to do this; and whatever mental improvement, if any, thence results, is accidental. Hence its methods are not such as one would choose who desires to open the mind, to give it breadth, flexibility, strength, refinement, and grace. Its text-books are written often in a barbarous style, the subjects are discussed in a dry and mechanical way, and the professor, wholly intent upon giving instruction, is frequently indifferent as to the manner in which it is imparted; or else not possessing himself a really cultivated intellect, he holds in slight esteem expansion and refinement of mind, looking upon it as at the best a mere ornament. I am not offering a criticism upon the ecclesiastical seminary, but am simply pointing to the plain fact that it is not a school of intellectual culture, and consequently, if its course were lengthened to five, to six, to eight, to ten years, its students would go forth to their work with a more thorough professional training, but not with more really cultivated minds. The test of intellect is not so much what we know as the manner in which it is known; just as in the moral world, the important consideration is not what virtues we possess, but the completeness with which they are ours. He who really believes in God, serves Him, loves Him, is a hero, a saint; whereas he who half believes may have a thousand good qualities, but not a great character. Knowledge is not education any more than food is nutrition; and as one may eat voraciously, and yet remain without bodily health or strength, so one may have great learning, and yet be almost wholly lacking in intellectual cultivation. His learning may only oppress and confuse him, be felt as a load, and not as a vital principle, which upraises, illumines, and beautifies the mind; mentally he may still be a boy, in whom memory predominates, and whose intellect is only a receptacle of facts. Memory is the least noble of the intellectual faculties, and the nearest to animal intelligence; and to know well is, in the eyes of a true educator, of quite other importance than to know much. But a memory, more or less well-stored, is nearly all a youth carries with him from the college to the seminary, and here he enters, as I have already pointed out, upon a course not of intellectual discipline, but of professional studies, whose object is not “to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, eloquent expression,” but simply to impart the requisite skill for the ordinary exercise of the holy ministry. Hence it is not surprising that priests who are zealous, earnest, self-sacrificing, who to piety join discretion and good sense, rarely possess the intellectual culture of which I am speaking, for the simple reason that a university and not a seminary is the school in which this kind of education is received. That the absence of such trained intellects is a most serious obstacle to the progress of the Catholic faith, no thoughtful man will doubt or deny. Since the mind is a power, in religion, as in every sphere of thought and life, the discipline which best develops and perfects its faculties will fit it to do its work, whatever it may be, in the most effective manner. Hence, though the education of which I speak does not directly aim at being useful, it is in fact the most useful, and prepares better than any other for the business of life. It enables a man to master a subject with ease, to fill an office with honor; and whatever he does, the mark of completeness and finish will be found upon his work. He sees more clearly, judges more calmly, reasons more pertinently, speaks more seasonably than other men. The free and full possession of his faculties gives him power to turn himself to whatever may be demanded of him, whether it be to govern wisely, or to counsel judiciously, or to write gracefully, or to plead eloquently. Whatever course in life he may take, whatever line of thought or investigation he may pursue, his intellectual culture will give him superiority over men who, with equal or greater talents, lack his education; and he possesses withal resources within himself, which in a measure make him independent of fortune, and which, when failure comes and the world abandons him, remain, like faith, or hope, or a friend, to make him forget his misfortunes.

Of the English universities, with all their shortcomings, Cardinal Newman says: “At least they can boast of a succession of heroes and statesmen, of literary men and philosophers, of men conspicuous for great natural virtues, for habits of business, for knowledge of life, for practical judgment, for cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who have made England what it is, able to subdue the earth, able to domineer over Catholics.” It is only in a university that all the sciences are brought together, their relations adjusted, their provinces assigned. There natural science is limited by metaphysics; morality is studied in the light of history; language and literature are viewed from the standpoint of ethnology; the criticism which seeks beauty and not deformity, which in the gardens of the mind takes the honey and leaves the poison, is applied to the study of eloquence and poetry; and over all religion throws the warmth and life of faith and hope, like a ray from heaven. The mind thus lives in an atmosphere in which the comparison of ideas and truths with one an other is inevitable; and so it grows, is strengthened, enlarged, refined, made pliant, candid, open, equitable.

When numbers of priests will be able to bring this cultivation of intellect to the treatment of religious subjects, then will Catholic theology again come forth from its isolation in the modern world; then will Catholic truth again irradiate and perfume the thoughts and opinions of men; then will Catholic doctrines again sink into their hearts, and not remain loose in the mind to be thrown aside, as one casts away the outworn vesture of the body; then will it be felt that the fascination of Christian faith is still fresh, supreme, as far above the charm of science as the joy of a poet’s soul is above the pleasures of sense. The religious view of life must forever remain the true view, since no other explains our longings and aspirations, or justifies hope and enthusiasm; and the worship of God in spirit and in truth, which Christ has revealed to the world, the religion not of an age or a people, but of all time and of the human race, must eternally prevail when brought home to us in a language which we understand; for we place the testimony of reason above that of the senses. To the eye the sun rises and sets, to the mind it is stationary; and we accept, not what is seen, but what is known. Is there need of stronger evidence that the power within, which is our real self, is spiritual? And is it not enough to see clearly, to perceive that in the struggle of mind with matter, which is the essential form of the conflict of spiritualism with materialism, of religion with science, the soul, in the end, will be victorious, and rest in the real world of faith and intuition, and not in the pictured world of the senses?

Religion, indeed, like morality, is in the nature of things, and Catholic faith is Una’s Red Cross Knight, on whose shield are old dints of deep wounds and cruel marks of many a bloody field, who is assailed by all the powers of earth and of the nether world, armed with whatever weapons may hurt the mind or corrupt the heart, but whom heavenly Providence rescues from the jaws of monsters and leads on to victory.

But what true believer thinks himself excused from effort, because Christ has declared that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church? Does he not know that though, when we consider her whole course through the world, she has triumphed, so as to have become the miracle of history, yet has she at many points suffered disastrous defeat? Hence, those who love her must be vigilant, and stand prepared for battle. And in an age when persecution has either died away or lost its harshness, when crying abuses have disappeared, when heresy has run its course, and the struggle of the world with the Church has become almost wholly intellectual, it is not possible, assuredly, that her ministers should have too great power of intellect. And consequently it is not possible that the bishops, in whose hands the education of priests is placed, should have too great a care that they receive the best mental culture. And if this is a general truth, with what pertinency does it not come home to us here in America, who are the descendants of men who, on account of their faith, have for centuries been oppressed and thrust back from opportunities of education, and who, when persecution and robbery had reduced them to ignorance and poverty, were forced to hear their religion reproached with the crimes of her foes? And now, when at length a fairer day has dawned for us in this new world, what can be more natural than our eager desire to move out from the valleys of darkness towards the hills and mountain tops that are bathed in sunlight? What more praiseworthy than the fixed resolve to prove that not our faith, but our misfortunes made and kept us inferior. And, since we live in the midst of millions who have indeed good will towards us, but who still bear the yoke of inherited prejudices, and who, because for three hundred years real cultivation of mind was denied to Catholics who spoke English, conclude that Protestantism is the source of enlightenment, and the Church the mother of ignorance, do not all generous impulses urge us to make this reproach henceforth meaningless? And in what way shall we best accomplish this task? Surely not by writing or speaking about what the influence of the Church is, or by pointing to what she has done in other ages, but by becoming what we claim her spirit tends to make us. Here, if anywhere, the proverb is applicable verba movent, exempla trahunt. As the devotion of American Catholics to this country and its free institutions, as shown not on battle-fields alone, but in our whole bearing and conduct, convinces all but the unreasonable of the depth and sincerity of our patriotism, so when our zeal for intellectual excellence shall have raised up men who will take place among the first writers and thinkers of their day their very presence will become the most persuasive of arguments to teach the world that no best gift is at war with the spirit of Catholic faith, and that, while the humblest mind may feel its force, the lofty genius of Augustine, of Dante, and of Bossuet is upborne and strengthened by the splendor of its truth. But if we are to be intellectually the equals of others, we must have with them equal advantages of education; and so long as we look rather to the multiplying of schools and seminaries than to the creation of a real university, our progress will be slow and uncertain, because a university is the great ordinary means to the best cultivation of mind. The fact that the growth of the Church here, like that of the country itself, is chiefly external, a growth in wealth and in numbers, makes it the more necessary that we bring the most strenuous efforts to improve the gifts of the soul. The whole tendency of our social life insures the increase of churches, convents, schools, hospitals, and asylums; our advance in population and in wealth will be counted from decade to decade by millions, and our worship will approach more and more to the pomp and splendor of the full ritual; but this very growth makes such demands upon our energies, that we are in danger of forgetting higher things, or at least of thinking them less urgent. Few men are at once thoughtful and active. The man of deeds dwells in the world around him; the thinker lives within his mind. Contemplation, in widening the view, makes us feel that what even the strongest can do is lost in the limitless expanse of space and time; and the soul is tempted to fall back upon itself and to gaze passively upon the course of the world, as though the general stream of human events were as little subject to man’s control as the procession of the seasons. Busy workers, on the other hand, having little taste or time for reflection, see but the present and what lies close to them, and the energy of their doing circumscribes their thinking.

But the Church needs both the men who act and the men who think; and since with us everything pushes to action, wisdom demands that we cultivate rather the powers of reflection. And this is the duty alike of true patriots and of faithful Catholics. All are working to develop our boundless material resources; let a few at least labor to develop man. The millions are building cities, reclaiming wildernesses, and bringing forth from the earth its buried treasures; let at least a remnant cherish the ideal, cultivate the beautiful, and seek to inspire the love of moral and intellectual excellence. And since we believe that the Church which points to heaven is able also to lead the nations in the way of civilization and of progress, why should we not desire to see her become a beneficent and ennobling influence in the public life of our country? She can have no higher temporal mission than to be the friend of this great republic, which is God’s best earthly gift to His children. If, as English critics complain, our style is inflated, it is because we feel the promise of a destiny which transcends our powers of expression. Whatever fault men may find with us, let them not doubt the world-wide significance of our life. If we keep ourselves strong and pure, all the peoples of the earth shall yet be free; if we fulfil our providential mission, national hatred shall give place to the spirit of generous rivalry, the people shall become wiser and stronger, society shall grow more merciful and just, and the cry of distress shall be felt, like the throb of a brother’s heart, to the ends of the world. Where is the man who does not feel a kind of religious gratitude as he looks upon the rise and progress of this nation? Above all, where is the Catholic whose heart is not enlarged by such contemplation? Here, almost for the first time in her history, the Church is really free. Her worldly position does not overshadow her spiritual office, and the State recognizes her autonomy. The monuments of her past glory, wrenched from her control, stand not here to point, like mocking fingers, to what she has lost. She renews her youth, and lifts her brow, as one who, not unmindful of the solemn mighty past, yet looks with undimmed eye and unfaltering heart to a still more glorious future. Who in such a presence, can abate hope, or give heed to despondent counsel, or send regretful thoughts to other days and lands? Whoever at any time, in any place, might have been sage, saint, or hero, may be so here and now; and though he had the heart of Francis, and the mind of Augustine, and the courage of Hildebrand, here is work for him to do.

In whatsoever direction we turn our thoughts, arguments rush in to show the pressing need for us of a centre of life and light such as a Catholic university would be. Without this we can have no hope of entering as a determining force into the living controversies of the age; without this it must be an accident if we are represented at all in the literature of our country; without this we shall lack a point of union to gather up, harmonize, and intensify our scattered forces; without this our bishops must remain separated, and continue to work in random ways; without this the noblest souls will look in vain for something larger and broader than a local charity to make appeal to their generous hearts; without this we shall be able to offer but feeble resistance to the false theories and systems of education which deny to the Church a place in the school; without this the sons of wealthy Catholics will, in ever increasing numbers, be sent to institutions where their faith is undermined; without this we shall vainly hope for such treatment of religious questions and their relations to the issues and needs of the day, as shall arrest public attention and induce Catholics themselves to take at least some little notice of the writings of Catholics; without this in struggles for reform and contests for rights we shall lack the wisdom of best counsel and the courage which skilful leaders inspire. We are a small minority in the presence of a vast majority; we still bear the disfigurements and weaknesses of centuries of persecution and suffering; we cling to an ancient faith in an age when new sciences, discoveries, and theories fascinate the minds of men, and turn their thoughts away from the past to the future; we preach a spiritual religion to a people whose prodigious wealth and rapid triumphs over nature have caused them to exaggerate the value of material progress; we teach the duty of self-denial to a refined and intellectual generation, who regard whatever is painful as evil, whatever is difficult as omissible; we insist upon religious obedience to the Church in face of a society where children are ceasing to reverence and obey even their parents; if in spite of all this we are to hold our own, not to speak of larger hopes, it is plain that we may neglect nothing which will help us to put forth our full strength.

I do not, of course, pretend that this higher education is all that we need, or that, of itself, it is sufficient; but what I claim is that it would be a source of strength for us who are in want of help. God works in many ways, through many agencies, and I bow in homage to the humblest effort in a righteous cause of the lowliest human being. There are diversities of graces, but the same spirit; diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. Numquid omnes doctores? asks St. Paul. But since he places teachers by the side of apostles and prophets, surely they will teach to best purpose who to the humility of faith add the luminousness of knowledge. To those who reject the idea of human co-operation in things divine I speak not; but we who believe that we are co-operators with Christ cannot think that it is possible to bring to this godlike work either too great preparation of heart or too great cultivation of mind. Nor must we think lightly even of refinement of thought and speech and behavior, for we know that manners come of morals, and that morals in turn are born of manners, as the ocean breathes forth the clouds and the clouds fill the ocean.

Let there be then an American Catholic university, where our young men, in the atmosphere of faith and purity, of high thinking and plain living, shall become more intimately conscious of the truth of their religion and of the genius of their country; where they shall learn the repose and dignity which belong to their ancient Catholic descent, and yet not lose the fire which glows in the blood of a new people; to which from every part of the land our eyes may turn for guidance and encouragement, seeking light and self-confidence from men in whom intellectual power is not separate from moral purpose, who look to God and His universe from bending knees of prayer, who uphold

“The cause of Christ and civil liberty
As one, and moving to one glorious end.”

Should such an intellectual centre serve no other purpose than to bring together a number of eager-hearted, truth-loving youths, what light and heat would not leap forth from the shock of mind with mind; what generous rivalries would not spring up; what intellectual sympathies, resting on the breast of faith, would not become manifest, grouping souls like atoms, to form the substance and beauty of a world?

O solemn groves that lie close to Louvain and to Freiburg, whose air is balm and whose murmuring winds sound like the voices of saints and sages whispering down the galleries of time, what words have ye not heard bursting forth from the strong hearts of keen-witted youths, who, Titan-like, believed they might storm the citadel of God’s truth! How many a one, heavy and despondent, in the narrow, lonesome path of duty, has remembered you, and moved again in unseen worlds, upheld by faith and hope! Who has listened to the words of your teachers and not felt the truth of the saying of Pope Pius II., that the world holds nothing more precious or more beautiful than a cultivated intellect? The presence of such men invigorates like mountain air, and their speech is as refreshing as clear-flowing fountains. To know them is to be forever their debtor. The company of a saint is the school of saints; a strong character develops strength in others, and a noble mind makes all around him luminous.

Why may not eight million Catholics upbuild a home for great teachers, for men who, to real learning and cultivation of mind, shall add the persuasiveness of easy and eloquent diction; whose manifest and indisputable superiority shall put to shame the self-conceit of American young men, our most familiar intellectual bane, and an insuperable obstacle to all improvement, self-conceit, which is the beatitude of vulgar characters and shallow minds? If our students should find in such an institution but one man, who, like Socrates, with ironic questioning might make for them the discovery of the new world of their own ignorance, the gain would be great enough.

Why may we not have a centre of light and truth which will raise up before us standards of intellectual excellence; which will enable us to see that our so-called educated men are as far from being scholars as the makers of our horrible show-bills are from being artists; which will teach us that it is not only false but vulgar to call things by pretentious names, as, for instance, to call a politician a statesman, a declaimer an orator, or a Latin school a university.

Ah! surely as to whether an American Catholic university is desirable there cannot be two opinions among enlightened men. But is it feasible? A true university is one of the noblest foundations of the great Catholic ages, when faith rose almost to the height of creative power, and it were folly in me to maintain that such an undertaking is not surrounded by many and great difficulties. To begin with the material for foundation, money is necessary, and this, I am persuaded, we may have. A noble cause will find or make generous hearts. Men above all we need, for every kind of existence propagates itself only by itself. But let us bear in mind that the best teacher is not necessarily or often he who knows the most, but he who has most power to determine the student to self-activity; for in the end the mind educates itself. As distrust is the mark of a narrow intellect or a bad heart, so a readiness to believe in the ability of others is not only a characteristic of able men, but it is also the secret charm which calls around them helpers and followers. Hence, a strong man who loves his work is a better educator than a half-hearted professor who carries whole libraries in his head.

To bring together in familiar and daily life a number of young men, chosen for the brightness of their minds and an eager yearning for knowledge, is to create an atmosphere of intellectual warmth and light, which invigorates and inspires the master, while it stimulates his disciples. In such company it will not be difficult to form teachers. But will it be possible to find young men who will consent, when after years of study they have finally reached the priesthood, to continue in a higher institution the arduous and confining labors to the end of which they have looked as to the beginning of a new life? In other lands such students are found, and if with us there is a tendency to rush with precipitancy and insufficient preparation to whatever work we may have chosen, this is but a proof of the need of special efforts to restrain an ardor which springs from weakness and not from strength. Haste is a mark of immaturity. He who is certain of himself and master of his tools, knows that he is able, and neither hurries nor worries, but works and waits. The rank weed shoots up in a day and as quickly dies; but the long-growing olive-tree stands from century to century, and drops from its gently waving boughs ripe fruit through the quiet autumn air. The Church endures forever; and we American Catholics, in the midst of our rapidly-moving and ever-changing society, should be the first to learn to temper energy with the patient strength which gives the courage to toil and wait through a long life, if so we make ourselves worthy to speak some fit word or do some needful deed. And to whom shall this lesson first be taught if not to the clerics, whose natural endowments single them out as future leaders of Catholic thought and enterprise; and where can this lesson so well be learned as in a school whose standard of intellectual excellence shall be the highest?

While we look, therefore, to the founding of a true university, we will begin, as the university of Paris began in the twelfth century, and as the present university of Louvain began fifty years ago, with a national school of philosophy and theology, which will form the central faculty of a complete educational organism. Around this, the other faculties will take their places, in due course of time; and so the beginning which we make will grow, until like the seed planted in the earth, it shall wear the bloomy crown of its own development.

And though the event be less than our hope, though even failure be the outcome, is it not better to fail than not to attempt a worthy work which might be ours? Only they who do nothing derive comfort from the mistakes of others; and the saying that a blunder is worse than a crime is doubtless true for those who have no other measure of worth and success than the conventional standards of a superficial public opinion. We at least know

“There lives a Judge
To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim
Faithfully kept is as a noble deed;
In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.”