Page images
PDF
EPUB

Human nature before grace-bandits-war-gladiators.

5

in so far as we have not changed body and limbs, our fleshly sight is still darkened by the cloud of this world. What a dominion is this, and what a power of the mind! not only to be itself withdrawn from the pernicious touch of the world, as one who being cleansed and hallowed can take no defilement from encounter with the enemy, but to be found in such an increase of greatness and might, as to rule with sovereign lordship over the whole force of our assailing adversary!

5. That by a more clear exposure of the truth, the signs of this divine gift may be rendered plainer, I will give you light whereby to understand it; wiping aside the mist of evils, I will uncover to you the shadows of this shrouded world. Imagine yourself a little time to have been removed to the summit of some lofty mountain, and witness from thence the aspect of human things as they lie spread beneath you: cast your eyes hither and thither, and yourself free from contact of earth, mark the turmoils of this billowy world. You will at once begin to look on life with pity; recalled to self-remembrance, and made more thankful to God, you will congratulate yourself with increased comfort on having escaped from it. Look then, and see the public ways obstructed by bandits, the seas invested by pirates, the murderous sternness of camps introducing warfare into every place; a world reeking with mutual bloodshed; and homicide, a crime in individuals, called virtue when wrought by nations, as if sin should gain impunity, not from the measure of innocence, but from the extent of its barbarity.

6. If next you turn eyes and countenance towards the cities; no solitude so melancholy, as the peopled concourse there. The show of gladiators is placed in its array, that eyes which lust for cruelty may find in it a pastime. The body is nourished up with strong aliments, and the huge bulk of limbs thrives in its brawn and muscle, that the pampered victim may die a costlier death. Man for man's pleasure is slaughtered; and to learn to slay is a point of skill, an exercise, a trade; sin is not only done, but taught. What can be named more inhuman, or more miserable? Men are educated in the capacity of murder, and find their glory in the practice. What think you, I pray, of this also, when men expose themselves to wild beasts, unsentenced thereto? In

I.

6

The theatre-its immoralities.

TREAT. the flower of their age, beautiful in person, and in robes of cost, they dress themselves alive for their voluntary funeral, glorying, poor creatures, in their very misery. They fight with beasts, not for their crimes, but for their madness. Fathers are spectators of their own sons; a brother is in the ring, and his sister close by; and though the increased grandeur of the spectacle, makes addition to its expense, yet, alas! even the mother supplies that increase, in order that she too may be present at her own woes. In scenes thus impious, thus dreadful and deadly, they forget that their eyes at least are murderers.

7. Turn now and look at another kind of spectacle, as contagious and as deplorable; in the theatres you will witness occasions both for sorrow and shame. It is called "the tragic buskin," to recount in verse the enormities of early times; the by-gone sin of parricide and incest is unfolded in representation fashioned after the pattern of the truth, lest in the course of ages what erst was perpetrated may be forgotten. Every age is reminded by what it hears, that what has been, can be done; offences die not with the wane of ages, crime is not drowned in years, nor wickedness buried in forgetfulness; deeds gone by in the perpetration abide in the precedent. In mimes, men are drawn on, by lessons of impurity, to review what they have done before in secret, or to hear told what they may do hereafter. Adultery is learnt, while it is seen; and while this evil, publicly sanctioned, inveigles to vice, the matron returns from the scene, with loss of the modest feeling which perchance she took to it. What ruin is it to morals still beyond, what a provocative to infamous deeds, what food for vice, to be contaminated by stage-playing, to see the studied sufferance of sinful acts against the covenant and law of birth! Men are unmanned", their especial pride and strength is all enfeebled in the dishonour of their enervated frame; and he best pleases there, whose gait best minces into a woman. His crime expands into a deed of praise, and the more infamous he is, the more accomplished is he accounted. Witnessed, (alas the guilt!) and witnessed with delight, what cannot such a one insinuate? He stirs the senses, he lulls the feelings, he drives out the sterner conscience of an honest breast; and even authority is

Patientiam incesta turpitudinis elaboratam.

d Evirantur.

C

General profligacy—the forum.

7

not wanting to the disgrace which solicits them, that the mischief may creep upon men by an easier access. They draw Venus unchaste, Mars adulterous; and that Jupiter of theirs, supreme not more in dominion than in vice, burning amidst his very thunderbolts for earthly amours, one time bespangled in the plumage of a swan, and at another floating down in a shower of gold, and now rushing forward with his ministering birds to seize upon children. Ask now, can a spectator continue uninjured or pure? The Gods whom they worship, they imitate; to the wretched men crimes become a religious duty.

8. Oh, if standing on that lofty watch, you could pry into the secret places, unbolt the doors of chambers, and expose the hidden recesses to the testimony of sight, you would behold the immodest commit what the modest brow cannot even behold; you would see what it is a blame even to see; you would see what men frenzied with their vices deny that they commit, while hasting to commit them. With mad purpose man assaults man. Things are done which are distasteful even to the doers. It is a truth, the criminal accuses those who are but like himself; the infamous defames the infamous, and thinks to be but conscious an acquittal, as if consciousness were not proof. In public they are accusers, in private they incur the charge; sitting in judgment upon the act, while they are the culprits who have done it. They condemn abroad, what they practise at home; freely doing what when done they blame. Such audacity is fit help-meet to vice; it is a shamelessness befitting the impure. Wonder not at ought which their mouth may speak; its worst offence in words is but a small sin.

9. But now, after highways occupied by robbers, after battles manifold dispersed through the whole earth, after spectacles either cruel or impure, after infamous lusts, either publicly proffered or secluded within the walls of home, where sin concealed but makes boldness greater,-you may still think the public forum safe, as neither subjected to open outrage, nor touched with a criminal pollution. Thither then look, and you will witness abominations more abundant, and

c

S. Cyprian's profession, as a rheto- acquaintance with the forum. rician, prior to his conversion, gave him

8

Fraud-oppression-venality of judges—

TREAT. will turn your eyes aside with increased aversion. Though I. the laws be graved on twelve tables, and the statutes publicly lettered on entablature of brass, amid those very laws is wickedness committed, amongst those statutes are offences wrought. Innocence is not retained even where it is defended. The fury of disputants rages; amid the garbs of peace, peace is broken, and the mad forum rebellows with litigation. Spear is there, and sword, and executioner nigh at hand; there is hook to pierce, and rack to stretch, and fire to consume: torments for one body of man more than his members. Who is to interpose? His patron? He plays a double game and deceives. The judge? He sells his sentence. He sits to punish, and commits crimes; and judge becomes guilty, that defendant may perish guiltless. Crime is rife in all quarters; every where, in multiplied forms of sin, does the injurious poison work, by means of iniquitous minds. One man forges a will; another deposes falsely by a fraud which is capital; here children are kept from their patrimony, there a man's property is estreated to strangers. The adversary incriminates, the false informer assails, the witness defames; on all hands the bold venality of prostituted voices advances on its work of lying accusation; the guilty not even share ruin with the innocent. There is no fear of the laws; no apprehension of inquisitor or judge; what can be paid for, is not dreaded; the offence is, among the guilty to be guiltless; he who does not imitate the bad, offends them. Law has made a compact with crime, and guilt has become legal, by being public. What sense of shame, what probity can exist, where bad men have none to condemn them, and where none are found but ought to be condemned?

10. But that I may not seem to be selecting the worst specimens, and, from wish to disparage, to be leading you over objects offensive, from their sad and odious aspect, to the gaze of a purer conscience, I will now point you to things which the world's ignorance accounts good; but wherein you will still discover objects of aversion. What you deem to be honours, the fasces, resources in wealth, power in the camp, purple robes in office, arbitrary power in command, these are but the hidden virus of seductive ills, sin smiling with a face of gladness, but a deep woe under the treacherous attraction.

Ambition-servility—popularity-disgrace—indigence- 9

Poison, whose deadly juices have been tinctured with sweetness, and its savour disguised by a successful deceit, seems on the drinking but a common beverage; when drunken up, the death which you have swallowed surprises you. You see that man, remarkable in dress, and glittering, as he thinks, in his purple: what baseness was the price which bought his splendour? What arrogant rebuffs did he not first submit to? What proud gates were not besieged by his matin salutations? How many haughty men's insulting steps, wedged in their crowd of clients, did he front, before himself in turn was greeted by an equal retinue, appendage not of his person but of his power? He earns respect not by his character but by the fasces. Witness, in a word, the wretched exit of these men, when the time-serving flatterer moves off, and their partizan, deserting them when private men, leaves their side bare to dishonour. Then the injuries which they have inflicted on their estate come home to them, the losses of their exhausted fortune, by which the favour of the vulgar was bought, and the popular breeze pursued with perishing and thankless solicitations. Utterly infatuate' indeed and barren was the adventure, to present, in the mere amusement of a disappointing show, what is no gain to the people, and a waste to the candidate!

11. Those too whom you consider as the rich, who add park to park, shutting out the poor beyond their boundingline, and stretching ever further their limitless estates; who possess the mighty mass of silver and gold, treasuries of wealth, whether in builded heap or buried store, these too, trembling amidst their riches, are torn by the workings of anxiety, lest the robber dispossess them, lest the assassin assail them, lest the jealousy of richer men molest them with fraudulent suits. Their food is not in peace, nor their slumbers. See he is sighing amidst a banquet, drinking from gems; and though the soft couch receive his body, exhausted with feasting, in its embosoming depth, he lies sleepless amid the down; not aware, wretched man! that his are torments in disguise, that he is held captive by his gold, and is rather the menial than the master of his wealth and riches. And, oh hateful blindness of mind, and profound darkness of an insane cupidity! when he might disburden and uplift him

« PreviousContinue »