Monism

“ Monistic Religion. If we understand by religion, not a superstitious cult and irrational creed, but the elevation of the mind through the noblest gifts of art and science, then Monism forms a "bond between religion and science" (1892) . The three ideals of this rational monistic religion are truth, virtue, and beauty. In all civilized states it is the duty of the representatives of the people to see that the monistic religion is officially recognized and its equal rights with other confessions assured. ”

“ The character of the absolute knower's picture is however so impossible for us to represent clearly, that we may fairly suppose that the authority which absolute monism undoubtedly possesses, and probably always will possess over some persons, draws its strength far less from intellectual than from mystical grounds. To interpret absolute monism worthily, be a mystic. Mystical states of mind in every degree are shown by history, usually tho not always, to make for the monistic view. ”

“ The issue, as we shall try to show, lies between Christianity on the one hand and Monism on the other. From the Christian point of view the individual matters supremely; from that of Monism the beginning of wisdom is that the individual should recognise and acquiesce in his utter insignificance. ”

“ In like case with the charge of atheism and irreligion are those so often heard against monism, that it destroys the poetry of life and fails to satisfy the spiritual wants of human nature; we are told, in particular, that aesthetics—certainly a most important department both in theoretical philosophy and in practical life—is prejudiced by a monistic philosophy. ”

“ We have, next, however to review the representatives of theism and of the Christian view of the world—which review will show us that the song of triumph which monism began to raise before its expected victory, came very near disturbing the composure of persons here and there. ”

“ MONASTICISM THE MONASTIC SPIRIT The Papacy during the Middle Ages found its strongest supporters among the monks. By the time of Gregory the Great monasticism [18] was well established in the Christian Church. Its origin must be sought in the need, often felt by spiritually-minded men, of withdrawing from the world —from its temptations and its transitory pleasures—to a life of solitude, prayer, and religious contemplation. Joined to this feeling has been the conviction that the soul may be purified by subduing the desires and passions of the body. ”

“ In its mortified light the very soul of monasticism, Roman and half-military, as the completest outcome of a religion of threats, seems to descend upon one. Monasticism is indeed the product of many various tendencies of the religious soul, one or another of which may very properly connect itself with the Pointed style, as we saw in those lightsome aisles of Pontigny, so expressive of the purity, the lowly sweetness, of the soul of Bernard. ”

“ Nuns and monks of the Middle Ages, those who knew monasticism better than it ever could be known in these modern days, dreaded these larvæ more than anything else, and they had methods of destroying them and repelling the beguilements of evil spirits better than we have, for the contemplative orders were more kindred to those earlier times than to-day. Monasticism of today takes another turn. Love of God is eternal, but we must love God in the idiom and spirit of our time. ”

“ Such is what I may call the divine instinct of the Church, the Body of Christ, who also disdains, when she lifts her voice in prayer or praise, all the effeminate and meretricious ornaments of harmony or melody, which are the sources of attraction and admiration in worldly music, and adheres to what is simple in its enunciation, grave in movement, and moderate in tone, as one who reveals divine thoughts, and not the dreamy, overwrought imaginations of impassioned genius, which minister rather to the senses than to the soul. ”

“ What sure hope then could I ever have of pardon or remission of sins? What voice of priest or monk, the holiest on earth, could ever assure me I had been honest with myself? What absolution could ever give me a right to believe that the baptismal robes, soiled as they told me "before I had left off my infant socks," could once more be made white and clean?
Then, for the first time in my life the thought flashed on me, of the monastic vows, the cloister and the cowl. I knew there was a virtue in the monastic profession which many said was equal to a second baptism. ”

“ In a generous eclecticism, within the bounds of her liberty, and as by some providential power within her, she gathers and serviceably adopts, as in other matters so in ritual, one thing here, another there, from various sources—Gnostic, Jewish, Pagan—to adorn and beautify the greatest act of worship the world has seen. It was thus the liturgy of the church came to be—full of consolations for the human soul, and destined, surely! one day, under the sanction of so many ages of human experience, to take exclusive possession of the religious consciousness. ”

“ But there is another point here, and that is the contact that is necessary between the leaven and the dough. We have passed from the old monastic idea of Religion being seclusion from life. But that mistake dies hard, and there are many very Evangelical and very Protestant—and in their own notions superlatively good—people, who hold a modern analogue of the old monastic idea; and who think that Christian men and women should be very tepidly interested in anything except what they call the preaching of the Gospel, and the saving of men's souls. ”

“ Like the serene choirs of angels in the old monk's pictures, each one with the same tongue of fire on the brow, with the same robe flowing in the same folds to the feet, with the same golden hair, yet each a separate self, with his own gladness, and a different instrument for praise in his hand, and his own part in that ‘undisturbed song of pure content,’ we shall all be changed into the same image, and yet each heart shall grow great with its own blessedness, and each spirit bright with its own proper lustre of individual and characteristic perfection. ”

“ MONASTICISM.—It was during this very conflict with the barbarians that the Church developed the remarkable institution known as Monasticism, which denotes a life of seclusion from the world, with the object of promoting the interests of the soul. The central idea of the system is, that the body is a weight upon the spirit, and that to "mortify the flesh" is a prime duty. ”

“ Monasticism, as we have shown, originated mainly from a sense of inability to lead a Christian life in an atmosphere largely tinged with paganism, and in which the prevailing ideal of life had sunk to a very low standard. The remarkable success of monasticism led to a great increase in the number of those who desired to enrol themselves as members of an organised religious community. In course of time, not only had Christianity become the generally accepted religion of the western world, but the monks had come to be regarded as the élite among the clergy. ”

“ For a few moments the monk and the young man stood in silence, till at length the monk spoke.
"You have told me, my son, that your heart often troubles you in being more Roman than Christian; that you sometimes doubt whether the Church on earth be other than a fiction or a fable. But look around us. Who are these, this great multitude who praise and pray continually in this temple of the upper air? These are they who have come out of great tribulation, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ”

“ Legere, orare, laborare—study, prayer, and labour—was the daily work of the monk; and if it was not always the task of the individual it certainly was of the community. Of course the sacred volume was the primary object of their study; but almost all branches of human learning are aids to the study and right understanding of Scripture, and were cultivated for that purpose.
Then again, monasticism was, as we have seen, intended to be self-sufficing. It was a world of its own, a city of God, producing for itself all that is needed in the physical and moral order. ”

“ The debased idea of Christianity then prevalent—identifying it with monachism, assuming monachism to be its highest form, and, as the spirit of an age is shown by its use of words, terming the monastic orders religious—this, and the expediency of conciliating the favour of an all-powerful hierarchy, led these fraternities to adopt the monastic organisation, submit to a rule, and assume the cowl, and, while distinguished from the monks by the temporary nature of their vows and dependence on labour for their support, become an intermediate class between the monks and the laity. ”

“ The ritual of the Catholic Church is the ritual of a race shut out from Nature, holding no communion with the powers of earth and air, but turning the spirit inwards and aiming at the concentration of the whole soul upon an unseen God. ”

“ The latter is the poetry of the cloister, the work of men separated from the world, upon whom asceticism and scholastic philosophizing had worked to refine and subtilize their conceptions. It is the poetry, not of laymen, but of priests and monks, the special and peculiar utterance of a sacerdotal class, wrapt in intercessory functions, straining ever for glimpses of the Beatific Vision, whose one absorbing effort was to emancipate the soul from time and discipline it for eternity. ”

“ Meanwhile the glorious band of Christians and the companies of monks, paying no regard to the king's majesty, and in no wise terrified by his threats, advanced in the grace of Christ, and grew in number beyond measure, making short account of the king's words, but cleaving closely to everything that led to the service of God. For this reason many, who had adopted the monastic rule, abhorred alike all the sweets of this world, and were enamoured of one thing only, namely godliness, thirsting to lay down their lives for Christ his sake, and yearning for the happiness beyond. ”

“ The Jesuit is cultured, affable and spotlessly clean. Does the new age demand liberty? "Liberty," cries the Jesuit, "is the divine prerogative, colossal in proportion, springing straight from the broad basin of the soul's essence!"
Such in its merest outlines is the story of the development of the monastic type and its causes.
The Fundamental Monastic Vows
The ultimate monastic ideal was the purification of the soul, but when translated into definite, concrete terms, the immediate aim of the monk was to live a life of poverty, celibacy and obedience. ”

“ Monastic life, no less than the schools of Alexandria, was influential in creating a divinity which gave as great authority to dogmas that are the result of intellectual deductions, as those based on direct and original declarations. And these deductions were often gloomy, and colored by the fears which were inseparable from a belief in divine wrath rather than divine love. The genius of monasticism, ancient and modern, is the propitiation of the Divinity who seeks to punish rather than to forgive. ”

“ He took special interest in fostering monasticism and such-like institutions, which were, indeed, most conducive to the well-being of the world, for during this dangerous period of convulsion, monasticism was almost the only nursery of intellectual culture. The Roman Catholic church ranks him as the last of the Fathers, and places him alongside of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, the four greatest teachers of the church, Doctores ecclesiæ, whose writings have been long reverenced as the purest and most complete vehicles of the Catholic tradition. ”

“ It has, in perfection, three great qualities of the highest art—perfect skill in execution, commanding appeal to the purest emotions, and the power to leave the mind in a state of ecstatic rest or emotional contentment that makes one oblivious of the world while listening or watching. It was the outcome of an age of great religious enthusiasm. The monks had great dreams, and with them came the energy that inspired their brains to the utmost fulfilment. ”

“ No, it is the Catholic Church alone that can stamp upon the painter's productions the supernatural impress of those notes by which she herself is recognizable as true.
There is a unity of intention, scope, and spirit in Catholic art of every age and clime. Like the doctrines and devotions of the Church, Catholic art, in all its various forms—symbolical, historical, devotional, ideal—ever revolves round one centre, and is referable to one exemplar. Divine beauty "manifest in the flesh"—the image of the Father clothed in human form and living in the Church—he is the inspirer of Christian art. ”

“ The longings of the human heart constitute the impulse, or the energy, of religion. The intellectual convictions act as guiding forces. As a religious type, therefore, the monk was produced by the action of certain desires, influenced by specific opinions respecting God, the soul, the body, the world and their relations. ”

“ All down through the Middle Ages, the idea continued to prevail that the monastic life was the highest and purest expression of the Christian religion, and that the monks' chances of heaven were much better than those of any other class of men. ”

“ When an organ pours forth its sonorous and mellow notes and men's voices chant Gregorian music before the brilliantly lighted altar sparkling with golden ornament, when the solemn Latin liturgy is recited and the consecrated elements are raised by the priest, the average religious requirements of the French would seem to be satisfied. Those who do not find any satisfaction in watching and listening to these offices of the Roman Church as a rule drop into a state of agnosticism, if not of complete irreligion. ”

“ The vita contemplativa was to take to itself the vita activa as a regular and not an occasional function of perfect Christian piety. An evangelization of monasticism, according to the more active spirit of the Gospel, was at hand. The monastic ideal was to become humane and actively loving. In principle and theory, as well as practice, Christian piety was no longer to find its entire end and aim in contemplation, in asceticism, in purity: it was regularly henceforth to occupy itself with a loving beneficence among men. ”