REVIEW AUGUST 1840. ART. I.-Der Geist des Christenthums dargestellt in den heiligen Zeiten, in den heiligen Handlungen, und in der heiligen Kunst. (The Spirit of Christianity exhibited in sacred Seasons, in sacred Actions, and in sacred Art.) In Two Parts. By Dr. F. A. Staudenmaier, Professor of Theology at the University of Freyburg, in Breisgau. Second edition, enlarged and improved. Mayence: 1838. THE the HE festivals of the Church are not arbitrarily appointed, but succeed each other in beautiful order and systematic arrangement. The first part of the ecclesiastical year, from Advent to Lent, is devoted to the contemplation of the mystery of the Incarnation. The second part, from Lent to Pentecost, is dedicated to that of the mystery of the Redemption; and the third, from Pentecost to All Saints, commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit, the foundation of the Church, and the propagation of the gospel; while the concluding festivals of All Saints and All Souls recall to our minds the glories of the Church triumphant, the tribulations of the suffering Church, and the terrors of the Last Judgment. Within this grand cycle, there is an epicycle of festivals, devoted to the celebration of the blessed Mother of God, and the other saints. But, if the order in which the festivals of the Church succeed be admirable, the subjects which they commemorate are of the most touching, impressive, and sublime nature. It is now the Divinity taking our flesh to rescue lost man from the penalty of sin, that is brought before our spiritual contemplation; now the Son of God expiring on the cross in most bitter torments; here the holy maid of Nazareth receiving with trembling joy the glad tidings of human salvation; there the Saviour of VOL. IX.-NO. XVII. B men: rising triumphant from "his glorious tomb," victorious qver death, and leading away captivity captive; and there, agajn, the Holy Spirit descending on the apostles, to found the everlasting kingdom, and fashion a new spiritual generation. These are some of the momentous subjects which the Church celebrates on her festivals. But the liturgy, in which these religious commemorations are embodied, is equally entitled to admiration. With what wonderful wisdom is it framed ! With what propriety has she selected the various epistles and gospels of each Sunday and festival, adapting them to the circumstances of the occasion, and the spiritual wants of her children! What beauty, what gravity, what exquisite fitness, reign in the subordinate parts of the liturgy, such as the introits, the collects, and the graduals! These prayers, like the minuter ornaments of a gothic cathedral, are in perfect keeping with the whole of the majestic service; yet, like those ornaments, their very fitness and propriety are often the cause of their being overlooked. The antiquity, too, of the liturgy, imposes on the imagination, and excites the most reverential feelings. It is frivolous to allege that the language in which it is composed, is unknown to the greatest part of the faithful. Mankind have always been sensible that an ancient tongue was a more fitting and dignified vehicle for the celebration of religious worship than a vulgar and a recent one. The oriental Christians, as well those who have seceded from, as those who have remained faithful to, the communion of the Catholic Church, have retained the use of the ancient Greek, Syriac, and Coptic tongues in their respective liturgies; though those languages are no longer spoken nor understood by the majority of their present members. The same practice prevails in the Jewish Church, where the ancient Hebrew, which, since the Babylonish captivity, has been unintelligble to all but the lettered Jews, is the language consecrated to public prayer; and it is remarkable that the Buddhists of Thibet, to this day, employ in their public worship the hieratic tongue-the sacred Sanscrit-a foreign speech, which, like their religion, was brought to them many centuries ago from India. It should also be borne in mind that the most solemn service of the Catholic Church, unlike that of the modern Jews and of the Protestants, is an awful, tremendous sacrifice, which, independently of the particular words wherein it is solemnized, commands the attention, and excites the reverential piety, of the faithful. Moreover the Church, in the abundance of her solicitude and love, provides translations and explanations in the vulgar tongue, of all the prayers that precede, accompany and follow this august sacrifice. But we should form an inadequate idea of the excellence of the Catholic liturgy, were we to leave out of consideration the beauty of the ceremonial. Here actions embody, enliven, and enforce the outpourings of the heart. Hereby the eye, the imagination, and the feelings, are alike enlisted in the service of God;-the supplications of the Church are typified and represented in outward acts; and every avenue is seized and occupied, whereby religious impressions can be conveyed to the soul. As the Catholic sacrifice is incomparably the purest and the most sublime ever offered up in the temples of man, so the ceremonial of the Church, according to the avowal of its very adversaries, is the most solemn, impressive, and majestic, ever exhibited to human eye. Let us hear on this subject the striking testimonies of two eloquent Protestant writers: "There is something extremely touching," says Count Von Löben, "in the maternal, accessible, and poetical character of Catholicism; and the soul finds a constant asylum in her quiet chapels, before the Christmas candles, in the soft purifying atmosphere of incense, in the outstretched arms of the heavenly mother, while it sinks down before her in humility, filial meekness, and contemplation of the Saviour's love. The Catholic churches, with their ever-opened portals, their ever-burning lamps, the ever-resounding voices of their thanksgiving, with their masses, their ever-recurring festivals and days of commemoration, declare with touching truth, that here the arms of a mother are ever open, ready to refresh every one who is troubled and heavy laden; that here the sweet repast of love is prepared for all, and a refuge is found by day and by night. When we consider this constant occupation of priests, this carrying in and out of the Holy of Holies, the fulness of emblems, the ornaments, varying every day, like the changing leaves of the flower; the Catholic Church will appear like a deep, copious well in the midst of a city, which collects around it all the inhabitants, and whose waters, perpetually cool, refresh, bless, and pervade all around."-Count Isidore von Löben, Lotosblatter, 1817. Part 1. "If the pilgrim, (says M. Clausen,) after the completion of his pilgrimage, weary, but full of pious joy and devotion, kneels down on the steps of the church, and returns thanks to Him who hath smoothed his way, and guided and protected his steps; if the mother, in the still, vacant temple, lies sunk at the foot of the altar, and commends her infant to the care of the saint invoked; if the evening sun glimmers through the dim, yet gorgeous colouring of the Gothic window, and sheds its last rays on those individuals who select for their devotion the quiet hours after the completion of the day's work; if the altarlights, at vespers, illume the dark vaults, and the organ murmurs forth its tones in holy chorus; if the hours of midnight and of sun-rise are announced by the convent-bell, which calls the monks from their cells to praise the Lord by day and by night, and to pray for all sufferers near and remote ;-so it is clear and evident, (and the Catholic Church has the merit of rendering this truth still more evident), that life should be a continued worship of the Deity; that Art and Nature possess an eternal and universal language for the expression and awakening of the highest feelings in the human breast; and we must esteem that Church as happy, which is enabled to appropriate this language in its whole extent."-Clausen, c. 1, p. 790. This ceremonial, beautiful, impressive, and majestic as it is, must needs exert a powerful influence upon art. Man is by nature an artistic being. The German poet has beautifully observed, "Science, O man, thou shar'st with higher spirits; If man, whose consciousness is composed of understanding, imagination, and sense, be in a manner driven by his compound nature to embody his feelings in outward representations, he must naturally seek his highest inspirations in that principle which has ever exerted the strongest empire over the human breast, we mean religion. Hence, in every age, the noblest efforts of art have been directed to the honour of religion, and have been hallowed and dignified by her influence. This influence was more or less sound, according as the religious system itself was more or less vigorously constituted, and according as it contained more or less elements of divine truth. In architecture, sculpture, and painting, this gradation of religious influence is clearly perceptible. Thus, while the light, airy, graceful temples of Greece and Rome corresponded well to their gay and voluptuous mythology; while the sombre, massive, and often subterraneous temples of the old oriental nations fitly symbolized the dark magical rites of demon-worship, solemnized within their walls; the Gothic, or northern architecture, with its majestic arches, its soaring columns, its profusion of mystic ornaments, its long narrow aisles, lit" by a dim religious light," like the shadowy light of the Christian mysteries themselves, the gothic or northern architecture typifies the exalting power of that religion, which lifts man above the world of sense, and amid the darkness and tribulations of this valley of death, cheers his soul with bright glimpses of eternity. Nor when Christian art renovated and perfected the forms of the old Roman architecture, was its nfluence less mysterious, or its power less striking. |