A Half-Century of Names and Deeds Immortal Anno Domini 1600-1650
The first half of the Seventeenth Century—Rulers and Leaders —Genius in literature—Birthtime of modern science—Philosophy, Painting, Sculpture, Music, Education—Schools of the Jesuits— Religion—Great Saints—Influence in civil life—Missionary spirit, Organization—Missions of the Jesuits—A Society baptized in blood—Genius of sanctity imperishable.
During the first half of the seventeenth century men were born and things done that were destined to have a lasting influence. Ferdinand II of Germany, in his successful struggle for the Counter-Reformation and the restitution of church properties to their rightful owners, had to sustain the burden of the Thirty Years' War for more than half its duration. Maximilian, Duke and Elector of Bavaria, was ably supporting him, and consolidating in Bavaria the religious spirit for which it is noted to this day. By maintaining peace in France for twenty years, and promoting agricultural, industrial and commercial prosperity, Henry IV prepared the way for Louis XIII, during whose reign, favored as he was with ministers like Colbert and Richelieu, genius was at its best in France. It was the day of such brilliant leaders as Tilly, Wal-lenstein, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, to whom military science and strategy even in our time is much indebted.
In England, Shakespeare was writing "Hamlet" rare Ben Jonson, "Every Man in His Humor" Fletcher, "The Faithful Shepherdess"; Massinge "A New Way to Pay Old Debts"; blind old Mil ton, his "Paradise Lost"; Lord Bacon, his "Novum Organum". In Spain, Calderon was creating his "El Principe Constante"; Alarcon, "La Verda Sospechosa"; Lope de Vega, his "Comedies of the Cloak and Sword"; De Castro, "Las Mocedadis del Cid"; and the immortal Cervantes, the immor tal "Don Quijote de La Mancha". In France Comeille was producing "Le Cid"; Moliere had begun his stage career; and Richelieu, in 1635, was founding the Academy, which has since been the inspiration of literary work all the world over, as well as in its own country. Among its first mem bers were Boileau, Bossuet, La Fontaine and R; cine.
In Italy Baldi was making idyllic poetry and admirable monographs; Davanzati was translating Tacitus; Tassoni parodied the heroic poets in his comic epic; Chiabrera adapted Greek and Latin metres to Italian verse; Testi wrote patriotic poems and the versatile Salvator Rosa indulged in satire In Germany, Arndt was writing widely-read books of Protestant theology; the mystic shoemaker Bohme was producing his profound though con fused notions; Ayrer and Heinrich, Duke of Brunswick were writing plays; Opitz was bringing forth his masterly treatise on German poetry Logau, his epigrams; Fleming, lyrics; Dach's poetry lent lustre to the Konigsberg Circle; Gry-phius was the chief dramatist of the period; the Jesuit von Spee was intrepidly defending the vic-tims of the witchcraft tribunals; Angelus Silesius was giving noble expression to mysticism in poetry; the Jesuit Balde sang in both German and Latin; Von Grimmelshausen, author of the prose classic of the century, "Simplicissimus", was born in 1625.
It was the birthtime of the science we are cul-tivating to-day, the age of Galileo and his telescope, Torricelli and his barometer, Napier and his algarithms, Huygens' astronomical discoveries, Mersenne and his laws of vibration, Gassendi the Bacon of France, Gilbert and magnets, Harvey and the circulation of the blood, Bacon and the process of induction, Kircher the versatile Jesuit, with his hieroglyphs, adding-machine, speaking-tube and Aeolian harp, Malpighi and his physiology, Rober-tal the mathematician, Kepler and planets, Gascoigne and his micrometer, Van Helmont and Gases, Buonaventura Cavalieri and the geometric method of indivisibles, Sydenham and epidemic diseases, von Guericke and the air-pump. Espinoza, Descartes, Pascal and Locke were born at the time; their philosophies still influence profoundly the thought and conduct of multitudes. Grotius was gleaning from the neo-Scholastics and mediaeval jurisprudence principles of an international law which, if honored in our day, would facilitate the establishment of a world's court.
Painters like Velasquez, Murillo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Grimaldi, Lorrain, Reni, Domenichino, Dolci, Sassoferrato, Salvator Rosa, Maratta, Zur-baran were creating their immortal masterpieces. In sculpture, Montanez was enriching the cathedral of Seville ; Bernini was at work upon his "Apollo and Daphne"; Maderna was elaborating the death-like pose of his St. Cecilia; Algardi was founding the School of Bologna. In music, the Masters of the Golden Age included Sweelinck, the talented brothers Anerio, da Vittoria, the Englishmen Byrd, Wilbye, Morley, and Gibbons, the Germans Hassler and Aichinger. The first oratorio was produced by Emilio Cavalieri; the first opera, by Peri; Monteverde was the pioneer of modern harmony. Schutz elaborated polyphonic principles in Church music; and Frescobaldi composed for the organ.
Education, particularly in France, was in honor, nowhere more than in the colleges at Clermont, La Fleche and Rouen, which will be frequently mentioned in these pages. So much in favor were the -Jesuit colleges in France that from twenty in number before A. D. 1600 they increased to seventy in these fifty years, an average of one a year. In spite of the opposition of the Paris University and the Parliament of Paris, and of false accusations of political enemies, they became the popular schools of the time, their average attendance approximating one thousand. For two centuries they educated men who became leaders in every sphere of life, Corneille, Moliere, Descartes, Mersenne, Bossuet, Francis de Sales, Richelieu, Montesquieu, Buffon, Malesherbes. These schools were in close touch with the culture not of France only, but of the learned world of the time. Nationalism had not yet put up barriers to the companionship of scholars of different countries; there was one language in which scholars could converse; travel was leisurely and as often for observation and the exchange of ideas as for trade or pleasure; members of a missionary order were constantly in contact with those who had seen other lands and known other peoples. It is surprising how quickly, without railroad or radio, news got abroad and mental work became common. There was a newspaper in Frankfort in 1615, in Antwerp in 1616. and in England in 1622. Corneille's "Le Cid" appeared in France in 1636; it was produced in England in 1637; that tragedy influenced the European stage for two centuries. Drama was a notable element in the Jesuit system of education, and a point of contact between them and the official and lettered world. It was not unusual for the court and nobility to attend their college plays, and for cities like Munich and Paris to solemnize these productions. Jesuit professors wrote these plays and directed their performance and other similar public exhibitions. One of the few facts recorded of Jogues as professor in the college at Rouen is the reading of a Latin poem on a legend from Evagrius to the student body numbering nineteen hundred, at the beginning of the scholastic year 1632.
Arts and science were the main courses in the colleges. In many places, as at Bordeaux, Cahors Bruges, Reims, Caen and Poitiers, they were affili-ated to the universities of these cities, in some cases constituting the university Faculty of Arts. Clermont and Pont-a-Mousson had the complete university courses of the period, theology, philos ophy, embracing natural philosophy or science, the humanities, languages, history and literature. We are not surprised, therefore, to find men trained in these colleges, who afterward became missionaries versed in sacred science, familiar as Jogues and Brebeuf with Holy Writ, but making their own ob servations astronomical and meteorological, charting maps, noting what was peculiar in forestry, vegeta tion and animal life, recording the racial charac teristics of the Indians—one of them, Lafitau, is the founder of modern ethnology (1)—studying their languages not only as missionaries, but as philolo gists, and planning as true political economists, like Le Jeune, the civilization that flourishes in Canada to-day. The Ontario Government in 1920 published Potier's seven books on the Huron language and grammar. (2)
In those days, at least in countries which had resisted the innovations of Luther, Calvin and Henry VIII, religion was not yet excluded from ordinary life. France had resisted Lutheranism, and Calvinism had not succeeded in winning over many of its people. French Protestants, generally known as Huguenots, were active in trade, and especially in politics, until in 1628 Richelieu put an end to their political pretensions, and to their dealings with her ancient enemy, England, with a view to making Protestantism a dominant factor in the national life. Great saints were common. Like de Sales, Vincent de Paul and Bellarmine, they took prominent part in civil, social and scientific affairs. De Sales wrote books on spiritual subjects which to-day are read for style as much as for content. De Paul organized public charities in a manner and on a scale which no one had before attempted. Bellarmine was the exponent of genuine democracy, especially as we know it in America, and he was the friend who favored consideration for Galileo. Writers like Baronius, Petavius, Bossuet, Lessius, de Paz were bequeathing a heritage in history, positive theology, apologetics, and mysticism which has not yet been exhausted. Paul V had succeeded in making the enactments of the Council of Trent the established discipline of the Church.
So active was the missionary spirit at the time that Gregory XV found it necessary to constitute a permanent congregation for the propagation of the Faith, the Propaganda. Paul had solemnized the beatification of many, like Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, Teresa, Louis Bertrand, Thomas of Villanova, Isidore, and the canonization of Charles Borromeo, Frances of Rome. Gregory had canonized Ignatius, Francis, Philip, Teresa and Isidore, and beatified among others Albertus Magnus and Peter of Alcantara. It fell to the lot of Urban VIII to issue the bulls for the canonization of Ignatius and Xavier. He canonized Elizabeth of Portugal and Andrew Corsini. Indeed, so common was it to have petitions to beatify and canonize distinguished servants of God, that he found it necessary to regulate the canonical processes for this purpose. It was an era of holiness, and it was an era of missions likewise. Urban was zealous in promoting both. Saints Peter Fourier and Cousin Germaine, Francis Regis and John Berchmans were actually living. The Church in France needed no reforming agency from without. Vincent de Paul, Olier, Condren, Eudes, Bourdoise were recreating the clergy and the missionary spirit. The Oratorians under Berulle, the Vincentians and Capuchins were evangelizing rich and poor, lettered and unlettered. De Sales had brought the cloister close to the world with his Visitandines; de Paul had organized his Daughters of Charity, whom we honor today as Sisters of Charity; Eudes his Good Shepherd; and
the Ursulines had three hundred and twenty houses for the instruction of young girls, sharing with Notre Dame the education of girlhood in France. To the schools of the Jesuits, Condren was looking for recruits to the Duke de Ventadour's Battalion of the Holy Sacrament, the lay auxiliaries of this true Catholic renascence and the generous supporters of every good movement, especially of the Missions Etrangeres, which were to develop in 1658 as a result of all this earnestness and devotion.
Never before nor since was exploration so active. To mention only what was happening in our own world, a de Monts was occupying Port Royal in Acadia in 1604. The English were in Virginia in 1607. Hudson was in New York Bay in 1609. The Dutch were on Manhattan in 1614. By 1634 settlements were made in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware.
Missionary orders had their men in every part of the globe. The Jesuits alone were in China, India, Japan, Cochin-China, Mingrelia (Transcaucasia), Ceylon, Aethiopia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Tibet, Paphlagonia, Persia, Armenia, Angola, Abyssinia, Paraguay, Mexico, Peru, Quito, Maryland and Quebec. From every quarter, word was being received of sacrifices as well as of conquests for the Faith. It was enough to warm the blood of any young religious to hear that, in 1614 alone, one hundred thousand were made Christians in Paraguay, and then to learn that a Claver had died in his heroism in Cartagena; that, one after another, a Chimura, Ribera, Spinola, de Angelis, Andrada, Carvalho had won the martyr's crown; that without leaving Europe a Melchior and Stephen had been put to death in Poland; that across the Channel in England a Bennet, Bradley, Turner, Jenison, Holland, Corbie, Morse, Owen, Oldcorne and Garnet were being racked, drawn, hanged and quartered, in a vain attempt to force them to betray their brethren as well as to deny their Faith. Truly the Society of Jesus, to which they belonged, had been baptized in blood. Within sixty years after its foundation, eighty-one of its members had died for religion. Before it was a half-century older, one hundred and seven more had sealed their testimony with their lives. Martyrdom was as much a prospect for its members as any other, and the self-sacrifice that would lead up to it was part of the training in its schools, as much as excellence in arts or science. If men born and things done in those days were destined by virtue of genius in art or science to endure in fame or influence, much more were those who excelled in the genius of sanctity, to phrase the suggestion of Aubrey De Vere (3), elected by God to do things which will never fade from memory, and to be immortal themselves in happiness and influence.