Quædam fercula sunt quibus hic bene possumus uti, "Si quis in hac cœna mundo tantum saturatur, Then, after relating the fate of Dives and Lazarus, O prudens Lazare, feliciter esuriisti, "Tu vero quid agis, infelicissime dives, "Nolo cœnantes nimio sermone tenere, Dedecet hic nimiumque loqui, nimiumque tacere ; Ad quem vincendum nos armet Rex benedictus. Amen." "Such," says the Père Cahier, after citing the passage, was the lesson of the middle ages, suggested by the hospitable board, on the moral equality of persons before God, and on that sole durable futurity which is to make compensation for the ephemeral inequalities of the earthly society." But let us consider the attractions of the "table talk" which not, as too often "inter scyphos," ambition, vanity, envy, curiosity, but the Catholic philosophy, inspires. "Non illos citharæ, non illos carmina vocum, ; Sed noctem sermone trahunt, virtusque loquendi St. Conrad was bishop of Constance at his death in 976. It is related, that he and Udalricus were both at supper on Thursday evening, when they protracted discourse upon divine things till a late hour, insomuch that the sweetness of the argument led them unawares to sit till after midnight, when lo! a messenger arrived from the Duke of Bavaria, whom Udalricus, who was the most hospitable and gracious of men, invited to partake of what was before them, not attending to the hour. The messenger hastily returning to his lord, had nothing more urgent to relate than that the two bishops, who were of such renown for sanctity, could not abstain from meat even on Fridays.† Innocence is not safe when guests of this description enter; but the Catholic conversation is alien to such reports as to the source from which they emanate, without losing interest by their absence. Speaking of his hospitable reception by the Cardinal Barbadicus, at Padua, Dom Mabillon says, that he can never recall to mind that house without remembering what Timotheus said of Plato's supper, "Cœnas Platonis non modo in præsentia, sed in posterum quoque diem jucundas esse."‡ "Lead me to your chief," says a Greek wanderer, " to whom I may reveal things, and from whom I may learn things in turn; for God ordains that one man should want another *Αλλου δ ̓ ἄλλον ἔθηκε θεός γ ̓ ἐπιδευέα φωτῶν. How many pilgrims, how many prelates, monks, barons, and knights, received to hospitality of old, were peculiarly fitted, by the diffusion of religious zeal, to satisfy that desire of hearing great events from the lips of those who witnessed them, which might animate a host? "Multa super Priamo rogitans, super Hectore multa ; Nunc quales Diomedis equi, nunc quantus Achilles, The persecutions of the Church, the firmness of pontiffs, * Ovid. Met. xii. 157. Iter Italicum, 203. † Raderus, Bavaria Sancta, iii. 106. § Theocrit. the achievements of the noble and the worthy, who maintained the cause of God on earth—these opened now the field for interrogating the guest, to whom each host would say, "Whoso can speak of this," "Ille meæ domui protinus hospes erit."* The Church could not be long concealed from those obscured in greatest ignorance, if each would only engage, like Nestor, to tell what he had heard at a hospitable home, saying, ὅσσα δ ̓ ἐνὶ μεγάροισι καθημένος ἡμετέροισι "The The pilgrim was expressly enjoined to give a religious tone to the conversation at table in houses which received him. So in an old manual, a Calvinist minister, wishing to deride the pilgrims of Loretto, while at dinner in the house of a certain marquis, asking them a question about hunting and cookery, one of them made no answer, deeming silence the proper reply to a frivolous question; and the other replied, that "Loretto was the most devout spot on earth," showing a presence of mind like that so praised in Pyrrhus, who, on being asked his opinion as to the best flute-player, replied suitably, that "Hyperion seemed to him to be the best general." Conversion, too, is often a direct object. The Chancellor Séguier, in his journal, describing the grand dinner given by the Archbishop of Rouen, François de Harlay,§ to himself and his suite, comprising the Huguenot general Gassion, says, whole discourse at dinner was directed by the archbishop to remarks upon the Holy Scripture, to theology, and antiquities, and often avowedly for the conversion of the said Sieur Gassion, though without much fruit." The results, however, were often different. Marina de Escobar ascribes her being brought to the mystic pastures of the good Shepherd, in her fourteenth year, to the visit which Father Jerome de Ripalda, of the Society of Jesus, paid to her parents in their house at Valladolid. Two friars of St. Francis travelling came to the castle of a certain tyrant, noble, but cruel and vicious. He received them however well, and as it was in the winter season he caused a great fire to be prepared, and a table to be laid, to which he invited them most graciously; but all the time of supper no one spoke of any thing but plunder, and robbing travellers and merchants, and such matters. After supper one of the friars thanked him for *Ovid. Trist. iii. 12. iii. 186. Vit. Ven. Virg. Marinæ, i. his generous hospitality, and begged that he would assemble all his household, as he wished to address them. When all had come into the hall, he spoke of the celestial glory, and of the angels and saints, and of the presence of God, from which sin would exclude men, delivering them to the demons and dragons of hell, and the presence of Lucifer, where would be fire and ice, and darkness palpable for ever and ever. This discourse had such an effect, that the lord of the castle was converted and all his household.* Even the common guest, where faith has formed minds, is often a true guide._Lord Carnarvon, dining at the table of Senhor Ferreira, at Regoa, remarked the strong colouring which religion gave to the conversation. One of the company, gay and sparkling, and whose most brilliant sallies were generally concluded by some quaint allusion to the instability of human life, on being reminded that the English Fidalgo present was returning to Lisbon, where he might convey his wishes on a certain subject to the government, laughed, and made a jocular reply; then, suddenly checking himself, said, with the strongest emphasis, and the most fervent expression of countenance, "Ah, if he could put in a word for me with the government of heaven!" This was only an instance, beautifully told, of all Catholic conversation in the festive hour, as every traveller may have remarked. Bishop Challoner relates, that the English martyr, Father Holland, wherever he was in company, whatever the conversation happened to be, would, by a dexterous turn, bring it to some religious instruction for the advantage of the guests, imitating the great St. Xaverius, of whom it used to be said, that in his conversation with people of the world, he would "go in at their door and come out at his own.' Such was the blessed augury, according to which birds of passage are more used than birds domestic. Thus, by the passing guest, were parents, servants, children, conducted with sweetness on their way to truth. *Speculum Vitæ S. Francisci, ii. cap. 54. CHAPTER VII. THE ROAD OF HOME. N certain forests of the north, says an old writer, the wind resounding through the leaves, makes a harmony like that of the sweetest birds. I know not whether this be true, but if the next path through our wilderness, bearing the title of the road of home, should have no sweet attraction for the reader, I can only repeat the lines, "Natus es e scopulis, nutritus lacte ferino, Proceeding again along a path which leads immediately from the paternal home, and from domestic life in general, we come to the attractions which the Catholic discipline and spirit supply, through the natural, simple, and temperate habits. which they involve, through the very aspect which they contribute to affix on the house itself, and through the combined action of all the aggregate associations which bind men to their home, and which receive, as we shall now remark, from Catholicity a distinctive and holy character. Ere we advance, however, a single step, the opening is wide; for clearly the whole ideal and realization of the family directs men to the Catholic Church, which had from the beginning, as at the present day, to defend both from the hostility of all sects which had separated from her communion. The Holy Family-Joseph, Mary, Jesus; names so precious to the father, mother, child; such was the type prepared by the Eternal Wisdom. In its realization, Christ was invited to the marriage, as to that of Cana in Galilee, which denoted a holy commencement, according to the sweet and gracious simplicity of those manners described by the Scriptures in relating the marriages of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob and Rachel. The legal existence of the family was another benefit of the Church, which, as Gaume observes, was the complement of its regenerative influence. The philosophers had done nothing for the domestic society, or rather, like the sophists of the last and present century, they seemed to conspire against it. Its unity, indissolubility, and sanctity, the respect due to the wife and mother and * iii. 11. |