THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CONVENT LIFE.
SELDOM is the trim evil of the Conventual life, its infinite pettiness, brought before the public as it has been by the case of " Saurin v. Star," now being heard before the Queen's Bench. Usually there is a taint of unfairness, a savour of unveracity in all inquiries into conventual discipline. Either the suit is promoted by red-hot Protestant fanatics, who in their hearts believe every convent to be either a prison or a brothel, who credit any random assertion, and exaggerate all evidence on their own side ; or it is instituted by some Bun who finds she has mistaken her vocation, and between her anxiety to be released and her acquired dread of conventual authority sees in every
sister" a jailor, in every window-blind a barred grating, and in every "cell " an impenetrable fortress. In " Sauria v. Star," however, the plaintiff is a sincere Catholic, who has lived the conventual life for thirteen years, who approves it, and who complains not of any restraint, but of unjust compulsion to go free. Nothing is said or hinted of the convent in Hull but what might be alleged of any very strictly ruled establishment, and there is no disposition to assail either the theory or the practice of conventual discipline,— indeed, a kind of aesthetic regard for both, a regard of the taste rather than of the judgment, breathes through the speeches of the plaintiff's counsel, who contrives, with the rare skill of an accomplished orator, to plead his cause as if the atmosphere of the Court were originally Catholic. The discipline is not denounced, but only the aberrations from true discipline alleged iu this par ticular case, and the public can decide upon the merits or demerits of the system explained without feeling that it sees them through a discolouring medium. That decision will in England, we imagine, be hostile ; and we wish to point out for the twentieth time the reason why it ought to be so, a reason with which the case itself has nothing whatever to do. On that we should, iu any circumstances, refrain from comment until the verdict had been given, and in this particular instance we do not happen even to entertain an opinion, except that both parties seem to be very exceptionally sincere, and that neither will probably be found to have been legally very much in the wrong. It is the light which is thrown by the facts admitted on both sides on a very important system of religious thought with which alone we have to deal.
The Conventual system, as maintained by Rome, rests upon two ideas, one of which has, we believe, a strong fascination for every good mind throughout the world—is, in fact, almost instinc tive with all but the corrupt ; and the other has an attraction for every mind which is not either self-dependent, or fortified by the Anglo-Saxon desire for individual freedom. The first idea is the blessedness of solitude, of retirement from a world which seems .as full of evil to the Pagan as to the Christian, to secure that peace and respite from sordid distractions and earthly temptation which the soul instinctively longs for, and without which it can never attain its full beauty and power of moulding life according to its own loftiest ideal. This idea is not Roman Catholic in any distinctive sense, but has appeared in every system of life that has taken great hold on men, is of the very essence of Hindooism and Buddhism for example, has survived in Mohammedan countries the obvious dislike of the founder, and is defended in principle by all the straiter sects of Evangelical Christendom, though, true to their contempt for outward forms, they make retirement a spiritual effort of the mind. There is, indeed, probably no mind of the better class which does not feel 'that occasional " Retreat," as it is technically called, would be advantageous to its spiritual and even to its intellectual welfare, and that even a life of retreat wisely used might bring the soul nearer to God and Truth. Rome, however, alone of the Christian Churches has systematized the idea, and reduced it to action under the most exceptionally favourable circumstances. By introducing the idea of.vicarious worship, of a magnificent good to be gained for the mass of mankind by those who retreat, of a direct help thereby afforded by recluses to the scheme of salvation, she has entirely removed the sense alike of uselessness and of isolation, and has added to the charm of passive meditation the stronger attraction of an active and inevitably successful benevolence. Using an imagery borrowed from the Paganism she superseded and absorbed, Rome declares that the " religious " keep alive the holy flame in a sinful world, and perform for mankind in their lower degree the service which, in the highest degree, is per formed by the Redeemer. The perpetual prayer, the recurrent sacrifice, the incessant obedience offered up by the sanctified com
munities within the Church, avert in a degree that wrath which the rejection of the supreme Sacrifice might else bring down upon mankind. That is the theory ; now let us see how it works. Nobody questions the authenticity of this letter, addressed by Sister Scholastica, Miss Saurin, to the Superioress of the Convent at
Hull ; or that she is not only an intense Catholic, but in desire a fervent nun :-
"Were I only humble, charitable, and obedient, I feel I would be all, and still, with all my sins and faults, I do not feel I am worse, and hope, through the mercy of our good God, one day to be better, with the assistance of the many good holy prayers that are offered for me. I have begged hard in my offering of the works, &c., of this month the poor souls to help me, which I feel they will. I once contradicted Sr. M. Agnes, and answered her in a disrespectful manner,—said the Office of the Dead so badly that I feel Sr. M. Evangelista must have been dissatisfied, and both sisters greatly distracted. I will try to learn it. I have been very often unkind and impatient with the little children ; showed a dislike to do things I was told by my superior ; often ring the bells a few minutes late. I feel you do not know I go to the library every Sunday. Sr. Mary Evangelista has not a thing to do at the time. You know better than I can explain to you those who come there talk. How I am to avoid speaking to them I know not; it is the cause of more pain than I can tell you, though it lasts only half an hour or a little more. Another thing, I do not know whether I am interfering in others' business, but as I have been so long trying to sweep out a large school with a little help, on my knees, with an old handbrush, and one you could scarcely call a brush, I do not think, now that we have got a little better brush, you would allow it (the school brush) to be used for all the atone steps, passages, pantry, and scullery (which are always wet), kitchen, &e. The last brush was worn out on those ; then it was left in the school. I do not know whether Sr. M. Agnes is aware of it or not, but I would not make a remark about it except to you. May I use the Elevation of the Soul for a meditation book, or some of those small ones on the Passion from the case in community-room, with Sr. M. Agnes' permission ?"
The mind, violently driven back on itself, exaggerates everything
till the minutest trifles occupy it more than great events, till the convent becomes a small microcosm of the world, till the soul is more choked with cares, more harassed by temptations, more dis
tracted with human impulses than it could have been abroad.
The worn brush takes the place of poverty, Sister Evangelista of worldly opinion, the temptation to talk of the t.mptations to frivolity, weariness of petty details of the ennui which out of England is perhaps the greatest snare of all. The writer of this note may be a weak sister, for aught we know ; but Henrietta Caracciolo was not weak, and her testimony is precisely the same ; that the result of removing real obstacles to devotion is to make of false ones real ; that after years of careful avoidance of dangers, the very wind has terror in it. Every revelation of convent life points to the slime truth,—that the convent is, and must be but the world, dwarfed down to a littleness which makes those who have to live in it little also, a world in which• in the absence of ambition there is envy ; in the absence of avarice, parsimony ; in the absence of war, bitter contentiousness. The mind is reduced
with that which troubles it, till in the estimate of result no gain whatever can be found.
The second idea is the virtue of obedience, not as a means, but as an end. This also is a degradation in practice of an idea which in theory is perhaps the noblest humanity has yet evolved, self-sacrifice for a spiritual end. The recluse tests his or her submissiveness to the will of the Almighty, the subjection of self to a higher power by obedience to the superior whom the Almighty has chosen or suffered His Church to choose. Every act of obedience to that superior, if only it is willing, still more if it is delighted, is a proof to the heart of the recluse that she is submissive to the Lord, and as every such act increases the capacity for such acts, is a direct spiritual gain. She has " borne her cross," as the Lord bore His, unrepiningly. It is folly to deny, as most Protestants deny, that there is a certain nobility in this conception, though it must always be less noble to subjugate the will than to train the will into a God-serving force, or that it has produced some marvellous characters and wonderful achievements ; but its general result on the mass of mankind, and especially on women, is distinctly evil. The theory if heartily accepted and long obeyed ultimately supersedes the internal conscience by an external one, deprives service of all grace by depriving it of all volition, and makes of every act of self-sacrifice a barter for an immediate return. The will unnaturally constrained either avenges itself,—good monks have shown themselves the most cruel and the proudest of mankind,—or finally yielding, deprives the character of the last relic of true force, even in the direction it wishes to go ; and a lady sweeping the floor with a worn-out brush thinks she is thereby helping to work out her salvation, yet complains of an insufficiency of bristles. This is the effect on her who obeys, but on her who commands the result is infinitely worse. The last restraint on the tyranny of the good, the instinctive sympathy with the suffering, is removed, or rather transferred to those unhappy enough not to suffer. If every order gives the subordinate a new opportunity of grace, why not multiply orders? If the disagreeableness of the order swells that grace, why not search carefully for disagreeables ? If the pain of obedience is its highest merit,
why not inflict, or rather bestow, that pain without reason, or against reason? If torture is benevolence, torture is a duty ; and
that point once reached, as it undoubtedly has been reached often by good men, the conscience becomes inverted, love a source of crime, sympathy a cause of oppression, purity a reason for tyranny, cruelty a virtue, mercy an offence ; till mankind, wearied out, rises in despair to affirm that if this be the Almighty's law, defiance is nobler than continued obedience, and religion is proclaimed for a season an accursed thing, and the Church becomes l'infarne.
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