TWELVE YEARS IN A MONASTERY.*
WE have no great liking for the class of literature to which this book belongs. The author, a Franciscan friar, abandoned his Order after twelve years of monastic life because he had ceased to be a believer in the doctrines of his Church. He now seeks to raise the veil which hides the interior of the monastery from the gaze of the public. He knows that in • Twelve Years in a Monastery. By Joseph McCabe, lately Father Antoal (0.8.F.) London; Smith, Elder, and Co. [7s. 6d.1
doing this he gives grave offence to his former friends, and that he lays himself open to the charge of breach of faith. The Church of Rome has always concealed the inner life of the cloister with extreme jealousy, not necessarily from a desire to hush up scandals, but because it is a fundamental principle of monastic life that it is isolated from the outer world. The Church, therefore, has some right to expect that those who have taken vows will continue to regard them as an honourable undertaking to preserve silence, even when they have ceased to acknowledge in them a binding religious obligation. Some excuse, however, may be made for persona in the position of Mr. McCabe. Monks who abandon their vocation are often pursued by calumny. Mr. McCabe suffered in this way ; and he regards himself as entitled to set himself right with the public. As far as we can judge from his volume, he is a perfectly honest man whose testim ony may be accepted with regard to those matters which came within the horizon of his vision. It is more doubtful whether he possesses the power of seeing every- thing that other eyes might discern in the dim religious light of the cloister. The confession with which he begins his narrative raises a doubt about his competence as a critic of religious life. The son of Catholic parents, born under the shadow of the Franciscan Church in Manchester, he was persuaded to enter its school as an aspirant to the monastic life. He passed through the Novitiate, and in due time took the irrevocable vows. But he was conscious throughout that he was yielding to the wishes of others, not following a divine call, nor even a strong personal inclination. In such a case one can hardly speak of dis- illusion. He spent twelve years in religious houses in Lanca- shire, in London, and in Belgium. Nowhere did he find any satisfaction. The long hours of prayer wearied him ; the fasts he found irksome ; and being possessed of consider- able intellectual curiosity, he fretted under the meagre and narrow teaching of the monastic instructors, to whom by his own confession he gave a good deal of trouble. Throughout the whole of his career as a friar he was harassed by religious doubts of a fundamental character. He took no interest in the Anglican controversy, and not much in the Biblical question ; but he studied with care the problems of the spirituality and immortality of the soul, the existence of God and the divinity of Christ. Having come at last to the conclusion that the evidence for these doctrines is insufficient, he abandoned his vocation. The account which he gives of the Society which he left is far from inspiring :—
" There are, of course, isolated members who are deeply cor- rupted in monasteries and nunneries, as in every other sphere; and there are also individuals of an unusually high character. But the vast majority of the inmates of monastic institutions may be divided, as is clear from the preceding, into two categories. One is the category of those who are religiously inclined, but whose whole merit consists in the equivocal virtue of having bound themselves to a certain system of religious services, through which they pass mechanically and with much resignation, and which they alleviate by as much harmless pleasure and distraction as they can procure. The other category, and, perhaps, the larger one, consists of those who seem to have exhausted their moral heroism in the taking of the vows ; for the rest of their lives (and one of the most remarkable features of monks of all classes is the anxiety they show to prolong their 'earthly exile '— doubtless in a pentential spirit) they chafe under the discipline they have undertaken, modify it and withdraw from it as much as possible, and add to it as much 'worldly' pleasure as circum- stances permit. Both categories lead lives of ordinary morality— but only ordinary, so that the garments of a saint sit very in- congruously on their shoulders, to the ordinary observer ; they seem to appreciate the good things of this life as keenly as ordi- nary mortals, and shrink from death as naively as if death meant annihilation instead of entrance into Paradise."
One would like to be assured on somewhat higher authority than that of Mr. McCabe that this is all. That many of the monks are such as he describes we do not doubt. But if they are all such, modern monasticism is simply an imposture protected by the memory of a great past. That it has a great past no student of history can doubt. A deep and genuine religious life once existed in the cloister. The prayers and austerities which Mr. McCabe and his companions relieved by irreverent jokes, moderate potations of whisky, and cigars, have brought comfort and purest joy to thousands ; and they have attracted some of the strongest spirits of the race. The ideals and discipline of the cloister reacted powerfully on society, and gave birth to great enterprises and to im- portant intellectual movements. The early monks civilised Northern Europe, the friars were the pioneers of social
reform ; and in the later monasteries many of the thoughts ripened which form the groundwork of modern philosophy. Before accepting Mr. McCabe's unfavourable judgment, it is only fair to remember his honest avowal that he never had any sympathy with the life which he condemns. But were one of a like spirit to find himself in the midst of any religious society, Catholic or Protestant, he could only see the outside of it ; and the outer side of religions life is usually trivial and tedious in the eyes of the mere observer. Those who most truly represent it keep themselves apart from him.
Of the intellectual education given in monasteries, Mr. McCabe is a more convincing critic than he is when he
of their religions life. He complains, and we have no. doubt with justice, that everything—classics, science, and philosophy—is given to the students in a. highly expurgated form. The philosophy approved by the Church is taught,. not without ability, but other philosophical systems are either ignored or misrepresented. He compares the philosophical studies of the monastery with the programme of philosophical authors given at Cambridge, which is, he remarks, so delight- fully impartial that few students find themselves in possession of definite philosophical views after reading it. We greatly prefer the manlier and more liberal system of clerical educa- tion pursued at the Universities, to that of the seminary. But is it not too much to expect any Church with a definite creed to permit its students to go forth to preach while their minds are in a condition of delightful impartiality regarding the truth of its dogmas ? The Church of England and the Church of Germany, although closely asaociated with the universities, have recently added the training of the seminary to that of the University.
In a concluding chapter, the author raises a protest against the common opinion that if the Church is to succumb in the great conflict with naturalism, the Church of Rome will be the last fighter left on the field. He thinks, on the con- trary, that it will be the first to fall, because it is more out of sympathy with the modern spirit than other Churches. He forgets, however, the lesson of ecclesiastical history,. that the Church has always been strongest to command reverence and obedience when it faced the world in an =- compromising spirit. Complaisance to the spirit of the age is rather a sign of hesitation and weakness. One would not call the epoch of the Renaissance, or the eighteenth century, great ages of the Church. It seemed, indeed, to. be tottering to its fall ; yet never were Churchmen more in harmony than these with the prevailing temper of the times.
Previous page
