The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

414 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY.Within the pale of that Church there is work for all theselabourers, and that too the very work in which each delights,while Rome reaps the fruit of all. " To him whowould scourge himself into godliness," says Channing, speakingof the Church of Rome, " it offers a whip ; for him whowould starve himself into spirituality it provides the mendicantconvents of St Francis ; for the anchorite it preparesthe death-like silence of La Trappe; to the passionateyoung woman it presents the raptures of St Theresa, andthe marriage of St Catherine with her Saviour; for therestless pilgrim, whose piety needs greater variety than thecell of the monk, it offers shrines, tombs, relics, and otherholy places in Christian lands, and, above all, the holy sepulchrenear Calvary. . . , When in Rome, the travellersees by the side of the purple-lackeyed cardinal, the beggingfriar ; when under the arches of St Peter, he sees acoarsely- dressed monk holding forth to a ragged crowd; orwhen beneath a Franciscan church, adorned with the mostprecious works of art, he meets a charnel-house, where thebones of the dead brethren are built into walls, betweenwhich the living walk to read their mortality. He is amazed,if he give himself time for reflection, at the infinite varietyof machinery which Catholicism has brought to bear on thehuman mind."* " The unlettered entliusiast," says Iklacaulay,"whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, and,whatever thepolite and learned may think, a most dangerousenemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. Shebids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hoodof coarse dark stuff, ties a rope round his waist, and sendshim forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing ; hetakes not a ducat away from therevenues of her beneficedclergy ; he lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritualcharacter and are grateful for his instructions; hepreaches not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a waywhich moves the passions of uneducated hearers ; and all* Letter on Catholicism, pp. 10, 11.