Life - Conferences Delivered at Toulouse

250 Pages·15.419 MB·English

by  Henri-Dominique Lacordaire

LIFE:
CONFERENCES DELIVERED AT TOULOUSE.
BY THE
REV. PERE LACORDAIRE,
OP THE ORDER OF FRIAR-PREACHERS.
Translatedfrom the French, with the Author's permission,
BY
HENRY
D. LANGDON,
Author of"The Rivers ofDamascus and Jordan"etc.
NEW YORK
:
P. O'SHEA, PUBLISHER, 37 BARCLAY STREET,
AND
42 PARK PLACE.
1875.
TO
M. A. V.
A LOVING TKI BUT E
OF
TIM K-TRIRD I 11I KNI>SHIF
HDL.
DECLARATION.
ALTHOUGH I have constantly taught under the
authority and in presence of the Archbishops of
Paris, and my doctrine has never been criticized
or called in question by them although that same
;
doctrine published by the press, has excited neither
reproach nor discussion, yet, lest in treating so
many theological questions some involuntary error
may have escaped me, and this I must and do
readily presume from myweakness, I declare thatI
submit my Conferences to the Catholic Church
whose son I am, and in particular to the Holy
Eoman Church, the mother and mistress of all
Churches, wherein resides the plenitude of author
ity founded on earth by our Lord Jesus Christ.
I also declare that I do not acknowledge the
pretended reproductions of my Conferences which
I
have been made by various periodicals, whatever
be their form or name. I once more protest
against the violation of literary rights whose result
is to place under the name of a preacher discourses
amidst an immense
imperfectly reported auditory,
and no less imperfectly corrected by the authors
of such speculations. Should the doctrine con
tained in these publications be attacked, I decline
the responsibility thereof as of a work which isnot
mine, and for which I can be held accountable
only by a violation of all right and equity.
FR. HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE,
Prov. des Fr. Precheurs.
NANCY, at the Convent ofNotre-Dame-du-Chene,
the I5lh October, 1851.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
DECLARATION . . 5
LIFE IN GENERAL .... , 9
.43
THE LIFE OF THE PASSIONS
THE MORAL LIFE 85
THE INFLUENCE OF THE MORAL LIFE IN LEADING
MAN TO HIS END 127
...
THE SUPERNATURAL LIFE 165
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SUPERNATURAL LIFE
UPON PERSONAL AND PUBLIC LIFE 211
LIFE IN GENERAL.
MY
LORD,* GENTLEMEN,
Twenty years ago, God gave me the thought
of expounding from the pulpit the body of Chris
tian doctrine. The first part of this work is done.
To-day I begin the second.
The times and places are greatly changed.
Having reached this point in a laborious career,
I would cast a glance upon the past and the
future. Looking back upon the past, I thank
God who, in so long a course, amidst so many
;
private and public vicissitudes, has permitted me
to complete a large portion of an extensive plan.
Looking towards the future, I thank him for
having opened this edifice to me, where I find an
auditory less numerous, doubtless, and less cele
brated than before, but which has preserved the
honor of religion with that of letters the tradi
;
tions of faith with those of taste and knowledge.
Ajnongst you, Gentlemen, I shall not forget the
* Monsigneur Mioland, Archbishopof Toulouse.
but I shall not fear the future. You will be
past,
the guardians of my words, and from you, per
haps, my last hearers, they will fall back upon
those, who, in other times and places, received
the first fruits of my ardor. I dare not say of my
apostolate.
When we treat of truth in a dogmatic point of
view, the question is : What is faith, and how
must we believe ?
When we treat of truth in a moral point of
view, the question is : What is life, and how must
we live ?
These two questions, although bound up to
gether, are very different from each other.
I We may despise faith, but we cannot despise
/We
life. may refuse to submit our irinds to the
revealed will of God, and against his word make
an arm of the reason which we hold from Him
;
but we cannot stand up as rebels against life, as
masters of life. Whosoever you may be, you are
the subjects of life. It did not wait for your
orders to come to you, it will not wait for them to
withdraw from you. It came to you without you
;
it will leave you in spite of you. It reigns by its
own essence, which does not depend upon you,
and which, nevertheless, you bear in yourselves
13
( )
as in a fragile and an immortal vessel. You live,
but you live as subjects, and your power, which is
so great against faith, is null against life.
I am wrong. Would to God that we had but
to submit to life ! By a strange contrast, how
ever, we hold this life, which is not of us, which
deals with us as it pleases, in the hand of our
counsel. We speak, and it listens we command,
;
and it obeys and, at the same time slaves and
;
lords, we mingle with the necessities of servitude,
We
the responsibility of rule. cannot be born,
nor can we when we neither can we
die, please,
choose the place and conditions of our existence
;
but in the fatal circle where it holds us, although
free in our actions, we are the willing instruments
of our destiny we answer for ourselves to our
;
ownfortune and whilst nature convinces us of our
;
dependency, conscience convinces us of our sove
reignty. Burdened with this double load from
the day of our birth, we thus advance, masters
and slaves of ourselves, to another day which is
unknown to us and beyond that day, to ages
;
and things wherein our life appears to us from
afar under that double and terrible character
which it presents even here below, of necessity
and liberty, of invincible duration and inevitable
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( )
account. If, therefore, when I treated of faith, I
spoke with certainty, I feel much more certain in
speaking to you of life my strength here derives
;
force from your weakness, and instead of your
mind being able easily to object to truth, your
conscience will henceforth be my most sure
helper.
What then is life ? What is that mysterious
power which has been forced upon us as a stranger,
and for which we must answer as for ourselves ?
Often, in my youth, I have climbed high
mountains. Under their solemn form they hold a
charm which delights us. It seems that in raising
us with them, our souls take a higher soar, a
deeper scrutiny, and the poet has not said in vain :
Jehovah has blessed the heights of earth.
We
mounted then, charmed with our youth,
touched by the scene which widened at each mo
ment under our feet but, in proportion as we
;
mounted, light and joyous, something of nature
vanished before us. The hum and flight of bird3
became rare, the air moved through foliage less
dense little by little even the trees fled before us
;
in a distant perspective, and a bloomless field re
mained to us as a last vestige of grace and fertil-