Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847: Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and EducationAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847: Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and Education
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
France -- Church history -- 19th century; Italy -- Church history -- 19th century
Such has been the impression of to-day's worship; it was _devotion_
indeed: that is, the ascending of the heart to its own Lord: not a
perpetual effort to work on the understanding, but the lifting of the
higher power, the spirit in man, by which all are equal, to God. This
begins with the holy Sacrifice in the morning, and ends with the
exhibition of that same tremendous Sacrifice, the Incarnation of Love,
in the evening. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," is the
first and last: He comes amid a cloud of His saints: they are powerful
because they are His: their works are mighty because He works in them,
their supplications prevail because they, being flesh and blood, have
become partakers of the Word made flesh. She, most of all, whose most
pure substance He took to make His own for ever: so that what came of
her is joined in hypostatic union with God, and is God. Thus
seen, the communion of saints is a real thing, embracing our daily
life at a thousand points, the extension and drawing out of the
Incarnation, understood by it, and in it. To those who do not realise
that tremendous Presence at the altar the saints are so many sinful
men and women made gods and goddesses, and those who reverence them
idolators. How much do people lose by such a misconception: how
utterly do they fail to perceive the length and depth and breadth and
height of the Truth: they halve and quarter the Incarnation and boast
that they alone understand it. These multiplied prayers and hymns seem
to them a form, the bowing of the body a mockery, for they discern not
Him who walks amid the golden candlesticks--it is emptiness to them,
for He is not there.
The archbishop was kind enough to have us placed in the choir, just
below the sanctuary.
At dinner at twelve M. le Curé had invited M. Surgis, M. de la Haye,
and his two other curates, one of whom preached in the afternoon on
the necessity of the cross, first to the righteous and then to
sinners: he enlarged upon the many ways in which God brings both to
Him by the application of suffering, humiliation, &c.
In the evening M. le Curé took us to pay our respects to the
archbishop once more. We heard much talk again of the deplorable state
of France. He was very cordial to us, hoped we should not get
near a barricade, and expressed his satisfaction at having met us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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