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Page 7
To this Gregorian canticle in praise of the British constitution,
I grieve, but am compelled, to take these following historical
objections. The first missionary to Germany was Ulphilas, and what she
owes to these islands she owes to Iona, not to Thanet. Our missionary
offices to America as to Africa, consist I believe principally in
the stealing of land, and the extermination of its proprietors by
intoxication. Our rule in India has introduced there, Paisley instead
of Cashmere shawls: in Australasia our Christian aid supplies, I
suppose, the pious farmer with convict labour. And although, when
the Dean wrote the above passage, St. Augustine's and the cathedral
were--I take it on trust from his description--the principal
objects in the prospect from St. Martin's Hill, I believe even the
cheerfullest of my audience would not now think the scene one of
the most inspiriting in the world. For recent progress has entirely
accommodated the architecture of the scene to the convenience of the
missionary workers above enumerated; to the peculiar necessities
of the civilization they have achieved. For the sake of which the
cathedral, the monastery, the temple, and the tomb, of Bertha,
contract themselves in distant or despised subservience under the
colossal walls of the county gaol.
LECTURE II.
THE PLEASURES OF FAITH.
_ALFRED TO THE CONFESSOR._
I was forced in my last lecture to pass by altogether, and to-day
can only with momentary definition notice, the part taken by Scottish
missionaries in the Christianizing of England and Burgundy. I would
pray you therefore, in order to fill the gap which I think it better
to leave distinctly, than close confusedly, to read the histories of
St. Patrick, St. Columba, and St. Columban, as they are given you by
Montalembert in his 'Moines d'Occident.' You will find in his pages
all the essential facts that are known, encircled with a nimbus of
enthusiastic sympathy which I hope you will like better to see them
through, than distorted by blackening fog of contemptuous rationalism.
But although I ask you thus to make yourselves aware of the greatness
of my omission, I must also certify you that it does not break the
unity of our own immediate subject. The influence of Celtic passion
and art both on Northumbria and the Continent, beneficent in all
respects while it lasted, expired without any permanent share in the
work or emotion of the Saxon and Frank. The book of Kells, and the
bell of St. Patrick, represent sufficiently the peculiar character
of Celtic design; and long since, in the first lecture of the 'Two
Paths,' I explained both the modes of skill, and points of weakness,
which rendered such design unprogressive. Perfect in its peculiar
manner, and exulting in the faultless practice of a narrow skill, it
remained century after century incapable alike of inner growth, or
foreign instruction; inimitable, yet incorrigible; marvellous, yet
despicable, to its death. Despicable, I mean, only in the limitation
of its capacity, not in its quality or nature. If you make a
Christian of a lamb or a squirrel--what can you expect of the lamb
but jumping--what of the squirrel, but pretty spirals, traced with
his tail? He won't steal your nuts any more, and he'll say his prayers
like this--[2]; but you cannot make a Beatrice's griffin, and emblem
of all the Catholic Church, out of him.
[Footnote 2: Making a sign.]
You will have observed, also, that the plan of these lectures does
not include any reference to the Roman Period in England; of which
you will find all I think necessary to say, in the part called _Valle
Crucis_ of 'Our Fathers have told us.' But I must here warn you, with
reference to it, of one gravely false prejudice of Montalembert. He is
entirely blind to the conditions of Roman virtue, which existed in the
midst of the corruptions of the Empire, forming the characters of such
Emperors as Pertinax, Carus, Probus, the second Claudius, Aurelian,
and our own Constantius; and he denies, with abusive violence, the
power for good, of Roman Law, over the Gauls and Britons.
Respecting Roman national character, I will simply beg you to
remember, that both St. Benedict and St. Gregory are Roman patricians,
before they are either monk or pope; respecting its influence on
Britain, I think you may rest content with Shakespeare's estimate of
it. Both Lear and Cymbeline belong to this time, so difficult to our
apprehension, when the Briton accepted both Roman laws and Roman gods.
There is indeed the born Kentish gentleman's protest against them in
Kent's--
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