CONTENTS

PREFACE
PAGE
vu
..
CHAPrER
I. IN THE BEGINNING 1
II. DIVINE PHILOSOPHY 24
Ill. THE wORLD AND THE SPIRIT 51
IV. FRUITS OF CONTEMPLATION AND LABOR 68
V. HUMILITY IN SERVICE 91
VI. LEADER OF THE FAITHFUL 111
VII. "PATRIOTISM AND ENDURANCE" 128
VITI. TRIAL OF SOULS 158
IX. FREE BELGIUM 187
X. THE COMPANY OF THE SAINTS 201

XI. THE AMERICAN TOUR 212

XII. THE TIRELESS LABORER 228

xm. PASTORAL 240

XIV. LAST YEARS 250

xv. THE END 274

APPENDIX 298

REFERENCES 8~

hroEX 805
 FRUITS OF CONTEMPLATION AND LABOR
death, and prevented it from becomi'ng J.ust anoth er f oss1 .1
among
. the many
. such academic and phil osoph'1ca1 end eavors.
This unceasing effort to make his work 1·1v1ng
· 1s· we11seen 1n
·
a passage from La Conscience Moderne:

~ore than once we have been asked to expound in a few

~u~c1n~tpage~ the essence of ~eo-scholastic philosophy; how
it is differentiated from medireval scholasticism on the one
hand _a~d ~ro~ mod:rn philosophy on the other. Such an
exposition is impossible, and we should be faithless to the
spirit of o~r work if we were tempted into offering one. . . .
T~e. essential works of a school must be living: it is method,
spirit, rather than doctrine.

Such an explanation of aims may have seemed quixotic at

the time; nevertheless, he set out to show that it could be-
come fruitful as a practised ideal. To launch the under-
taking of his living work of the school he wrote prodigiously
and with astonishing rapidity, always in the face of great
odds, such as the duties of administration, the interruptions
of visits, and an ever-increasing correspondence. To pro-
duce important works of writing was to Mercier an essential
activity of a living, progressive school such as he wanted his
Institute to be. It was the duty of every serious student by
profession, it was the necessary condition of a living science
which wishes to advance into the future and not merely live
on the past. To fulfil this condition he pushed his disciples
with feverish haste, and he gave them a perfect exam~le in
himself. To give voice to the school, to the method and ideas
for which it stood, as well as to express his own ideas, he
founded, besides the Revue N eo-Scolastique, the press of the
Higher Institute of Philosophy, known as the Bibliotheque
79
 FRUITS OF CONTEMPLATION AND LABOR
death, and prevented it from becoming J.ust anoth er f oss1 .1
among
. the many
. such academic and ph'l1 osoph'1ca1 endeavors.
Tlus unceasing effort to make his work 1·1v1ng
· 1s· we11seen 1n
•
a passage from La Conscience Moderne:

~ore than once we have been asked to expound in a few

~u~cmd~tffpage~ thdeefssence of ~ea-scholastic philosophy ; how
1t 1s 1 erenbate rom med1reval scholasticism on the one
hand _a~d ~ro~ mod:rn philosophy on the other. Such an
exposition 1s 1mposs1ble, and we should be faithless to the
spirit of o~r work if we were tempted into offering one....
The essential works of a school must be living: it is method
spirit, rather than doctrine. '

Such an explanation of aims may have seemed quixotic at

the time; nevertheless, he set out to show that it could be-
come fruitful as a practised ideal. To launch the under-
taking of his living work of the school he wrote prodigiously
and with astonishing rapidity, always in the face of great
odds, such as the duties of administration, the interruptions
of visits, and an ever-increasing correspondence. To pro-
duce important works of writing was to Mercier an essential
activity of a living, progressive school such as he wanted his
Institute to be. It was the duty of every serious student by
profession, it was the necessary condition of a living science
which wishes to advance into the future and not merely live
on the past. To fulfil this condition he pushed his disciples
with feverish haste, and he gave them a perfect exam~le in
himself. To give voice to the school, to the method and ideas
for which it stood, as well as to express his own ideas, he
founded, be ides the Revue N eo-Scolastique, the press of the
IIigher In titute of Philosophy, known as the Bibliotheque
79
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERCIER

de l'Jnstitut Superieur de Philosophie. Its first public t·

. a ions }
were written by the founder, Mercier. These were his
suc- I
cessive volumes, Cours de Philosophie, Psychologie, Logique
t
Criteriologie, Ontologie. '
t:
In his Criteriologie he dealt with epistemology, settin
himself in opposition to the neo-Kantian positivism whic~
dominated philosophy at that time. Mgr. Leon Noel, in
La Philosophie en Belgique, in speaking of Mercier's con-
tribution to the problem of knowledge, says,
~

Before the time [ of Mercier] this problem had scarcely V1

been faced in a frank way by philosophers of Thomistic in- e
spiration. The apparent silence of scholastics on a question
unknown to their age, had been taken as a solution by too
timid disciples. One must, they thought, deny that there
was any question, refuse to discuss it, to examine before all
else the aptitude of the mind to know truth. But this pre-
judice instead of inspiring confidence could only shake it.
In its place, Mgr. Mercier courageously substituted the tac-
tics of radical sincerity. . . . He showed how St. Thomas
and Aristotle had already recommended this method; fol-
lowing the example of St. Thomas, he turned the mind back .
on itself, and instead of affirming gratuitously its aptitude IS
for truth, he had the mind attain it in its immediate judg-
ments.

And it was entirely owing to the work of Mercier that at the

International Thomistic Congress held in Rome in 19~5,
one-third of the discussions were devoted to the problem of
knowledge. The Criteriologie also dealt with metaphysics.
It contained a justification of metaphysics against the po~i-
tivistic sccptici m. Here Mercier tried to di cover a solid
con
foundation for Reali m which would insure the doctrine of
of i
ub tance and the e i tence of God. In all his treatment
80
 FRUITS OF CONTEMPLATION AND LABOR
1 never lost sight of his starting point , exp erience.
· 1n
le
logic he sh_mvedthe i~portance of the syllogism as opposed
to the logical con£us1ons of positivism. He also examined
the problem of induction on the metaphysical plane. In
ethics he showed that the foundation of obligation was not
in the will of the Creator, as it has often been arbitrarily
asserted to be, but is in the rational nature of man. In
psychology he confronted Aristotelian vitalism with modern
discoveries in the biological sciences. With far-reaching
vision,Mercier placed his confidence in the newly born sci-
ence of experimental psychology and equipped his Institute
with a laboratory which was one of the finest. We may view
as a tribute to the work of Mercier the recent ruling of the
present Pope which required that experimental psychology
be taught in all Catholic seminaries. This was only carry- .
ing out what Mercier had said forty years previously, in
1891:
Psychology is undergoing today a transformation from
whichwe would be blameworthy to remain aloof .... Here
is a young, contemporary science, which is in itself neith~r
spiritualistic nor materialistic. If we do not take part 1n
it, the psychology of the future will develop without us, and
there is every reason to believe, against us. Do we want to
conquer the right to have a directing influe~ce? Then we
must prepare workers who will produce their own ';orks,
original experiments, which no one can overlook without
ceasing to be familiar with the science.
All this activity produced favorable results both for ~im
and for the school. In 1907 the Royal Academy of Belgium
· h'l h · spite
conferred on him the decennial prize for P i osop Y_,in .
of its t d' · • t d c·es The quality of his
ra 1bonal con ervative en en 1 ·
81
 THE LIFE
1 OF CARDINAL MERCIER
:.J

• d from the very beginning in Germany

·k was recognize . JlO qu
woI .. h as Rudolf Eucken and Fritz Medicus
b authonbes sue . . ' stood
Y t the Sorbonne. His works ran into nu- Me i
and in France a .
·t· and were soon translated into many lan- ty yei
merous edI 10ns . . .
guao-es. Tl1e ns I titute too was soon bearing rich fruit as a of C 2
0

resu1t o£ 1·ts acti'vity· It produced many books. Three other Pius

·
reviews we1·e established besides the Revue N eo-Scolastique. may
In other countries many reviews were founded which owe
their origin to the one at Louvain, as is shown by their inter
names. The New Scholasticism, Rivista di Filosofia neo- fort
scolastica,Scholastik, Ciencia tomista. The attendance at ambi
the Institute soon increased tremendously with its increased and"
reputation. Students came from all parts of the world, and The
returning home sent new pupils back. The influence of the dioc
Institute can be seen in the establishment of other similar
enterprises, such as the Catholic Institute of Paris, the new his
University of 1\1:ilan,and others at Innsbruck, Cologne, and
even at Rome itself. And the present Pope, in his recent
reforms for Catholic education, seems to have been influ- COffi]
encedby the work of Mercier at Louvain. fifty
That M · , · fl
ercier s m uence extends far beyond his own time and
and place is shown b th
. t' . Y e many recent references to Thom- prie
~sic philosophy. Mercier's ideal has been realized· Thomism Gov
Is respected wh h' ,
now . erever P ilosophy itself is. 1 St. Thomas is esta
recognized everywh . .
That th· · d eie as an important philosopher. seve
Is is ue to Mercier' 8 t. . .
1
. In 1924, at h un iring activities there can be nati
Liebert, Pr . t c International C
of Germane:h~cnt of the Kantges~l~;r{ss of Philosophy in Naples, Doctor
l{ant, to draw inkers, thought it fttt· c aft and one of the mo t influential Con
A~d the same a Parallel b tween th mg m comm morating a centenary of
Milan,
th to comrnC:ngressask d Doct~rma st er ~f Konigsberg and St. Thomas.
0
e canonization: ;~te at another sol~:enih R~ctor of the Univer ity of
· Thomas. In 1926 th ga. ri~g th i th c nt nary of
e organizer of th Int rnational
8!t
 FRUITS OF CONTEMPLATION AND LABOR
no question. He wanted. Thomism to b e h ear d and under-
stood by. modern
, thinkers.
. And his dre am h as come true.
~1ercier s work with the Institute lasted in· a11ab out twen-
ty years. It was brought to an end in 1907 by the death
of Cardinal Goossens, Archbishop of Malines. By then,
Pius X had succeeded Leo XIII on the Papal throne. There
may have been no doubt in his mind who should succeed
Goossens; it did not take him very long to decide, but the
interval was one of suspense to Belgium, of tense anxiety
for the officers of the Belgian church who cherished secret
ambitions, and of lively interest and importance in political
and social as well as in ecclesiastical and academic circles.
There were bishops who stood high, conspicuous in the urban
dioceses of Liege, Ghent, Bruges, Tournai, and Namur.
Any one of them would have been justified in feeling that
his rank and station entitled him to consideration. But it
was too important a post to be filled on a basis of mere
seniority. Malines is the largest diocese in Belgium. It
comprises two and a half million souls, eight hundred and
fifty parishes, numerous important seminaries and colleges,
nd
and for the service of all these, two thousand four hu red
. 1· . ts In one year the
priests, monks, and re 1g10us servan · . .
• t'10 for the religious
Government had voted an appropna n
. f th Roman Church of
establishments and institutions O e f
seven million francs. Clearly the appointment was one o
national political importance. .
the topics on their
Congress of Philo sophy at Harvard in<;lutl~~
program : "Ne o-scholastici sm. A discussion
::e0
:!1ue of scholastic ~bi-
esentatives of neo-Thorn:~
t
wer a ked to expound their doctrines. An:
10 ophy in term s of the pr es~nt." Several ref ~he Sorbonne, a diS ~guis ;
\hesis that modern pbilosop y
Prof or of medireval studies has held t e St Thomas,
must be dated not from Descartes but from ·
8S
 THE LIFE OF ARD! AL MERCIER
n rics, on tlie other hnnd, arc printtc csta~lishments adrnin-
i tercd by the bi hops, who owe 110 accounting of their stew.
a.rdship to iuJJ but the Congregation of Studies in Rome
which is ,·er cognizant of the status of each and every on:
of the seminaries.
The curriculum of the College of St. Rombaut overlaps
that of the lower cminary to such an extent that Mercier
and those of his classmates who entered with him had to com-
plete only two years of philosophy and four of theology in
the hrn eminarie . lVhen Mercier entered the Petit Semi-
naire at 1\Ialines, it had some fifty students in the old build-
ing , which stood on the foundation walls of the old castle of
the Lalaings. There was a new building under construction
which had just then brought misfortune. The headmaster,
the Canon de Beeser, had gone up the scaffolding to inspect
the work, and had fallen to his death, and Mercier's head-
ma ter, Father du Rousseau, had just succeeded him. The
old buildings were of mellow crumbling brick and sandstone
in the fofade of the time of Henry IV, the inner walls in-
clo ing court after court bordered with scarlet geranium and
thick-grown holly where successive academic generations of
boys run and shout, play handball and leapfrog. Among
them move slowly the black-robed priests in conversational
pairs, seemingly unconscious of the noisy life about them, ac-
tually alert to any infraction of the discipline of the hour.
So it looked when Mercier was a student, and so it looked
fifty years later when the tall cardinal coming upon it by
chance would toop through the opened panels of the big
gate to forget for a morneut the sorrows of the present in o.
glimp c of the pnbt,
IN THE BEGINNING
Mercier's program here was as crowded with work as is
that of the American student with "activities," ~ut a most
important element of it was that w~ich the A~encan sel~om
learns-meditation, His first week m the semmary was given
to retreat, devoted mainly to meditation in his cell, broken
only by frequent conferences with his spiritual director, _by
visiting the Blessed Sacrament, and reciting the Office daily.
He learned to begin his day with a half-hour's quiet contem-
plation, a habit which was to stand him in such good stead
later in life, and which he was time and again to urge upon
his clergy. To him Cella contvnuata dulcescit; 4 there, and
there only he found the peace which passeth understanding;
there he learned by experience that the best advice he could
give his priests was that of the psalmist: "Commune with
your own heart in your own chamber, and be still." 5
After the first week of retreat, laboremus was the watch-
word, and that was nothing new to Mercier, either then or at
any other time of his life. The day began at five or five-thirty
and went on with meditation, mass with communion, break-
fast at seven-thirty, four hours of class and study in the
forenoon, four hours more in the afternoon, broken by an
hour's walk or other recreation, and more study after supper.
Then, when he had visited the Blessed Sacrament, recited the
rosary and completed spiritual reading and prayers, he
might stretch himself on his hard narrow bed with nine hours
work and three of c ·erc iscs of piety to his credit. On one day
a week this rigid program was relo. ·cd enough to allow
the students a little more time for a fov rite "tud ,, a. lit-
tle mor •xer isc, or a vi 'it to som' nciO'hborinO' in titution
'"'l'hy cell, If lhuu onlinuuc It, rowcU1 sweet .''
GI sl\lm h·. "'·
15
 DIVINE PHILOSOPHY
them as never before, for he had the whole of Christendom on
bis shoulders.
J'ofrt· •effort
,
s-uprcmc do;t •
t en dre ' d , And Christendom, as he viewed it, was suffering from a
Ollll a]_,tc,a realiser le tz . a evelopper
mind diseased to which he felt it his duty to minister. The
le ·otrc ct qui ne doit re';:C:,:1~::i;ulier de perfect::re per.
aucun autre. qui est rising tide of science was depriving traditional teaching of
-CARDINAL 1\1 the very ground under its feet; there seemed scarce a rock
Ertcr:e:a.
left to cling to. Philosophic thought was to Leo a Babel of
CHAPTER II confusion, the realm of learning mere anarchy: philosophic
processes were nothing but quc tioning, speculation, and
DIVI E PIDLOSOPHY doubt. Philosophy had lost its old authority to marshal all
human thought in orderly ranks under its banner, a compact
1878 , ,ery near to th t ·

I
N
. e ime when Mercier little group that the Church could keep well in hand. Sci-
pomted to his professorship t L . was ap- ence was scattering it in alarming disorder. Disturbing
p • a ouvam G.
ecc1, then nearly seventy ears of ' JOacchino numbers were straggling after Kant and other harmful Ger-
the Papal throne of R Ly age, was elected to
ome as eo XIII I mans. Cardinal Newman, no less than Leo himself, was con-
was the emaciated t· . . n appearance he vinced that he was living in an age of general and widespread
. asce ic, with a skeleton-like
parchment-like skin b t ·th 1 . figure, a unbelief, and to many another the Church seemed already
' u W1 g owmg e .
penetrating solicitous mind the "d th ~es suggesting the defeated in fields of thought which it had scarcely felt itself
ne s of heart and win . '. 1· . ep o thought, tender- called upon to defend. ::\foreo,er, at this time when need was
. mng s1mp JC1ty" which C di I
man saw m him . . ar na ew- greatest, strength was least to command. As a cholar Leo
. ' qua 1ihes by which he raised the P
a prestige it had I apacy to was offended by the low state of learning among his clergy,
. . scarce y known since the l\fiddle and as a reformer he was saddened by their low spiritual
Hi earlier practice in the 1· • Ages.
achni . t t·
three::
he and th t
~v:
;a
ia
app 1Cat10n of these qualities to
problems was in Belgium. At the age of thirty-
een sent to Brussels as Papal N
1t·
. Th
unc10. ere
tone.
To find a remedy for all this, Leo looked, naturally enough
backward down the centuries toward the period of the
a cu ivated Nestor Leopold I h d t k Church's greatest strength the Middle Acre . Then huth
oth , ' ' a a en one an-
h er s measure and realized one another's worth Th . h lrnd flowed forth from the Church in l\ clen.r united urrent.
ad needed all his patience and all h. d.1 I . . e_ze e How in the ages since had it become muddied and diYided?
red th f · • is P omahc skill to
~ce e ricbon between the J csuits and the Cathor U . Truth i eternal and if the unchnn<TinO' hur h lrn it then
vers1ty of Louvain over educational policies . N ow h e ic m-
needed there it still mu t be. If in the Iiddl ~~ the truths firt
~4 5
 THE LU'E OF
. Annr AL ME1tc1
o f ..\ tot! nd Plat o, ti icn of the
ri ':a
in h rmony "ith th d grcnt scholust·
.. ogmas of th I ics, s DIVINE PHILOSOPHY
mu,t o:11efrom the Inter thinker . c iurch, the clctllJdcd
th n :-r1tablc fou11tnin-J1cad f 1\Ien rnust ha:ve f lclllc11.t mor11.lforce of the Church by 1.m intellectual 1· naissance
" s to llllrk bad-.. throun-1 lo true knowledge ,:ll'gottc11. wrought from within. And having resolved, he proceeded to
p l 1 1110( crn pl ·1 • -1. 1e
nc c: adencc of the f
i:,
. 11 osophy, bu k need action.
our tccnth and fift c thl'o The first step was the encyclical of August, 1879, entitled
go Iden /10' of chol t· . . eenth centu .· Ugh
o a ic1 m m th tl . lles t Aeterni Patria. It urged the renaissance of Thomism on the
ncre (l'innt on ti I • e urtcenth. I d o the
o ie cart 1 m tho e d n eed th Catholic world as a measure of common sense and scientific
Thomn . .Aquina I l ays, Albertus Ma ' Cl'e procedure, contrasting the philosophy of St. Thomas as pure
' ure y t le best and gnus and
can ' tl1eir tl1ought sha d b greatest of all Do .. gold with the tawdry tinsel of the modern philosophers, urg-
p:i
t
hri tinn tradition.
aJile mu t lead to the
B
0: y aJI the best in both paganm1n1-
iEutnderstood that faith and rcaand
e ernal Truth . tl son
ing the return to his sound principles as a cure for the ills of
modern thought. It argued that the marvellous progress
in the natural sciences was from the beginning due to the
wo great thinkers differed thou.,.h ' 1e methods of the
perl1ap included the best of ti o ' and that of St. Thomas unbroken continuity with which the acquisitions of one gen-
Church could do no bette tl ie system of the other. 'l'he eration have been passed on to be perfected by succeeding
th t p . r 1an accept the A 1· ones. If philosophy does less than this, it closes the doors on
a rmce of Schola t· J nge ic Doctol'
ics, as 1er gre t . ' its own progress. Descartes opens a new chapter in the his-
The ynthctic and order! . . . a master m theology.
tory of thought by closing the one before, by casting aside
marized, developed and y gemus with wl1ich he had sum-
' exposed the theolo f th without reflection the hard-earned treasures of thirty cen-
P Iaced him far above tJ . . gy O e Church turies of reflection. To follow such a process is voluntarily
1e car 1ier writers on s t .
ogy. And was not hi A • t Ot . . ys ematic theol- to reduce philosophy to the stone age. A look toward the past
rJ c1ian pJuloso h 1·
acceptable? D'd •t P c system equally shows St. Thomas Aquinas standing head and shoulders
. l 1 not share the ch . t . .
logical yntl1e es? St Tl a1ac er1stics of Jus theo- above his satellites, who in turn stand no less above the mod-
. · 1omas' h I·1 l
modification in it fund tal P osop 1Y stood without erns. One sees there a faith that completes the power of in-
o tood; it needed onla~enb tkenets, the only system which telligence, and a philosophy that smooths and fortifies the
y o e nown to command road to faith. And philosophy not only makes the road to
Cou Id not now all ntJ101· th respect.
... 1c ought b 'fi d b
pl1ilo ophy ufficien1-J t d e um e Ya system of faith but gives to theology the organic tructure of a science.
- y vas an compelling to d . Knowledge and under tanding of acred theology are easily
authoritatively, yet without violence 11I ommate
n w nd old, L . ' a mman knowledge and fully attained by one who joins to integrity and lo,e of
Th : eo aw 111 an wer clearly in the work of life a mind rounded and finished by philo -ophic tu die-. The
om Aquina 'wJ10 had realized for hi own t· ti duty of religious defense of truths dinnely deli-ered pertain
tli i n <led { Le , , 1me 1e yn-
or o . He aw a way to restore the full to philo ophic pursuits. It i the glory of philosophy to be
Q6 ~7
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL ME:acrE:a
~~ l'e-
steemed the bulwark of faith and the strong defe
Ie1g10n.
. .
DIYI NE PHILOSOPHY

Th e Church itself, the Encyclical went on, faithful touchstone to modern th ou<Tht to i::,

as to be applied as a d therein and save what was bcstf.

constant tradition, had commanded Chri stian teach to a w h t was un oun . inciples o
seek help from philosophy. Those who with the stud ers to
destroy w a lation of the everla tmg pr . Id f
It was sue h a .corre X ewman expressed later m • lns ca o
Philosophy united obedience to their Christian faith y of
thought and bemg a • hen ion of the bearings of ~ne
none the less philosophers, for the splendor of the d"Were. . . "The compre f
Unit-ersity.
1 l ahon
h to each and t 1e oc
a h the u e o eac . t
truths received into the mind helped the understanding 1"1:oed . cc on anot. er, another-t h"I bcl on gs ' I conceive, o .a.
scien
in no wise detracted from its dignity and liberty. Faith, anis of them all mth on~ which is mv conception of what is
of science of c1enc ' •
opposed neither to reason nor to natural truths. St. 'I'hoinas, sort h ,,
the master among the scholastic doctors, loved truth for its meant by philo op Y· the lan,Leoproceededatoncetoprac-
own sake, and clearly distinguished faith from reason H aving announced Ph f ded and endowed an acad-
I Rome e oun
happily at the same time associating them together. "Noth-,
ti
. al measures. n • to undertake th e
c f St Thomas Aqumas
ing is more desirable or closer to my heart," said Leo, "than emy in the name o . . 1 dvocated. He caused to be
that you furnish to studious youth a large and copious teaching which the en~~rli~acr~tica.1 edition of St. Thomns's
brought forth a. ma.gm cen th ri ht training could be
supply from the crystal spring flowing in a never-ending Rome at le t e g ld fl. ,
prolific stream from the fonts of the angelic doctor." Not works.
T
ow rn
•
Th ·stic teaching cou °''
had, and the influence of the om: ture to how that truth
(he hastened to explain) that he advocated a blind and rabid ll f Leo's world. And a a g . . ted
out to a o f . . ·t trul'-· the d1 mtere
reactionism, the disinterment of an archeo1ogica1 doctrine to that hr spm w J •
has naught to ear, th doors of the y he n
be worshipped and maintained as dogma-far from it! But . he thre open e
spirit of science, l h chmen and 1 vmen.
"every wise thought and every useful discovery, wherever it alified ho c ur •
Library· to dallp qu "k Th en, hen he looked bout
ote tant a.Ii e.
may come from, should be gladly and gratefully welcomed."
Catholic an r• • (J' pl ce m . h.tc b t tnrt culture of the
0
Such was Leo's survey for the modern road he wished to
for other prollUSmo
} h ht f Bel..,ium wh~re thirty-
new lea,en, le na t u rally. t oug
O • •
pave to revelation. The contempt of the calumniated learn- . 1 . to the fray at
ing of the l\fiddle Ages which had begun with the Fifteenth fi ve years befo re he had entered o v1gorou y m
Century Humanists was to give way to an enlightened study
Louvain. d 1 ped a hool of
of its true teachings. The philosophy of its greatest master T he rniv ersit-r of Louvain had eve o .' ~ d t
th ught h 1c : ht be termed oriainal but not md · pen
. h nua · · en .f
was to be restored to favor, to give unity to the teaching of
o . h . ahteenth~ntun· mp1nc1 m o
the Catholic schools and command the attention and the re- It h d reacted aam t t e e1 . . . -__ The Rector
d 8 fffl1n·t Kanti n cnbcrm no le .
spect of non-Catholic plillosophers. Thomistic philosophy France an 0- t;--i..- b_~ felt
~ lagm "ficu~, La! oret, ell . the philosopher , ung
28
9
 THE LIFE OF \.n
L .nDI L ME:n
th t rcrdntion wn best de-fond d . C!E:a_
tilC' trnc 1·1ho111ll1sm
· · of Ln. l\I c .nn-a1n0 st 1llodc -
111
·1
anti ogism of Gioberti and R
<'Jllln'
. .
and l3
lllltin
o.tto.,.
Ci;:b,,
DIVIN ' PIIILO o:ru
o mini. Th CJ oi- by .,
promptl cornlcmn d t11csefol d ., e 1Urch I th~ ho.velittle to sny to Delgiun stud nts: th D 1g iun pnb1lc,
Le , · e umarcl1c ' 10,ve scholars, sci ntists, were o.11busy nough with t h 1>n•HnL,
as o s o;ourn in .Belo-iumma l s. None th "er,
Louvain wa one of the few compl~t:~~ hnv: l'CllJindedc 1!~ss, too busy to kindle to the thou •ht of a r Lum LoSt. Thomu.t1
the world. It l1ad 1111 the u . . tho11cUniversit• 'Ill, o.nd the Middle Ages, or to th id al of pur s ·ho11nship:
nivers1ty facult • les of devoid of practical puL'pose.What did the par nts care, or
membered thnt at its meetings 1 . 1 1 ies; surely he
r . w uc 1 ie attend d re, the students either, except tho.t the boys should get o.heo.das
unc10, professors of science of h ·1 e as Pap l ro.pidly o.spossible to the great business of arn ing o.liveli-
1 , P 1 osophy f a
aw, of medicine, met and exchanged . ' o theology, of hood? They slo.vedand sacrificed for the education 0£ their
was tr t .
a s a eg1c point of t11eh. 1 t .
views. Very l
c early ·t
. . 1g 1es importance f . I
boys, not to bring them within rev.chof the high abstro.ctionfl
occupy m his campaign against modern or h1n:ito of philosophy, but of good solid Belgian francs.
sounded the .Belgian bishops as to tl1e poer~ob~·1·· In 1879 he When the Pope first rai sed the question, the university
a s .1 . SSJ l 1ty of . . authorities felt that, if the thing must be done, the best man
pecia course m Thomistic ph .1 h g1v1ng
. l osop y at Lou .
received an evasive reply O Cl . vam, and for it would be Mgr. van Wedding en, almoner of the court, o.
· n 1r1stm11sDay of 18 philosopher of erudition and some reputation. The sugges-
wrote to them again, asking them not only t f d 80 he
of Thomastic philo opl1y at L . b o oun a chair tion that he should undertake the work, however, he dis-
. ouvam, ut also to fo d missed for personal reasons, particularly his wish to prepare
elective cour e in it open to all stud t un an
C ens. a book for publication. Since the Pope di.dnot press the mat-
1 ardinal Deschamps and his brother bishops deliberated ter at the time, Cardinal Deschamps let it rest. It rested for
ong. That the request was unwelcome need b two years. Then the Pope suddenly informed the Cardinal
s . c no matter for
u~r1se; no one charged with the delicate balance f . and the Bishops that he had sent at his own expense an able
ver 1t · 1 . o a um-
. ! c~rr1c~ um can enJoy having a sudden weight thrown young Dominican bishop to begin the work he wished done
Jangling mto it from without. Already th h d . at Louvain. That roused the university to precipitate ac-
11 F Jt f Pl • ey a at Louvam
th acu y o ulo ophy and Letters, and neither they no tion. If they must have it, better some one of their own
~ tudents nor the public wanted another professorshi o; appointment than one thrust upon them. The rector of Lou-
ph1lo ophy and certainly not one devoted wholly t Th ~ vain, Pieraerts, made a quick decision- the young Ahbe
lVh tl o om1sm. Mercier, inexperienced, to be sure, but undoubtedly the b t
er wa ie money to come from for a th·
· t d? Pl · mg no one man in Belgium for the work. A telegram stopped Leo's
.n ulo ophy of any kind harmonized little h
w th the prevailing utilitarian tone of the D I . . cnou~ Dominican, who had by then got no farther than Tr nt on
. hi e g1an mmd "d1- his way north, and Desire Mercier was sent to Rome tor ort
un l' I ophy" perl1ap lea t of a.Il. 'l.'homismwouldi~decd
to and be instructed by the Holy Father. It wa in the
80
31
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL ME
gram/cs ·mcanccs of the year 188~, and the .Abbe
•llcrE:a,
tJurty-one. Wasllot DIVINE PHILOSOPHY .
• . 11y an d menta 11y the young teach
Sp1ntua Yet
h. to accept the h asty appomt-.
er Was no doubt, to cause im . an act of Provi-
tured, but of the ways of the world he knew little or "'ell Illa, enough, 11 of his own emissary as d t the
of any world, that is, but the little one of his ll~thillg; xnentand the redca t the one u able tool in his ban a
O
which hn pu .
between Braine l'Alleud, Ma1ines and Louva· Wn hwhichlay dence f h'18 eed for it. d t
of Greater New York. Even of this little World in, tt e r adills e:imct moment oh but nenergetic of gesture, Le o questione . a t
d . Slow.of his
speec . manner the gaunt young g1an
was aca em1c, pro essors and students and the , thWo-thirds
f grave, serious
length m . . ly and was so eager to serve.
almost as completely out of the main ,currents o h" erh third who srru'led so wmnmg ?"
family, and the village workmen and farmers. But , ishis urnb1 e "Do you love St. Thomas. ed the Abbe with
f y Holiness," answer
1 . t f f hi
ess1ona eqmpmen or a man o s age was ample to · Pro,
• ''Very much, our . I swer that I have
1 . t . H.1s mte
. 11ectua 1 experience was asJustify . th "I believe can an .h
t 1e appomtmen l convincmg warm . hi I can certainly answer w1t
. • y past teac ng. "
as his worldly experience was small. For a man who forarge no loved him m m .
th t I love him now an w1
d ·11do so in the future.
L
more than five years had been a bachelor of divinity h' confidence a . Rome 1\1erc1er, . upon the advice of .eo,
1
knowledge of philosophy and theology might almost justif , IS Before eavmg , ·th the masters of Thomism
1 h urs in conference w1 . d
the term prodigious. Inevitably, of course, he paid for i~ spent ong . oNaples w1t . h z· 1g iara, Liberatore, Prisco, anh
1·
d
there an m , 1 t d his program for t e
the price that is always paid for great learning, the renun- 1 At len!rth he comp e e .
Mgr. Ta .amo. o
ulum and subrmtte I o . d ·t t Leo , who approved it
ciation of a world which attaches much importance to itself,
new. curnc f , .
alterations. Aft er Mercier had left Rome, •
especially when it finds itself weighed against such things
with very ew . t' 11 on the essenha 1s
as philosophy and theology . .But to Mercier things tem- t touched charactens 1ca y .
Leo's commen od 1\1 ·er" he remarked, "he is
poral were of trivial importance; things intellectual and f th man: "I like that go erc1 , £ t
o e . f llow. a ious man, and a man o grea
spiritual were pearls of price. Small wonder, then, that at a most intelligent e ' p . h t ,,, It was not
\VI t sympathetic c arac er.
thirty he knew his Latin as well as he knew his French, that will power. 1a a 1 d Leo to take up, as he so
he quoted Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato easily in Greek, altogetdl:dert
often 1 , Plr°'o 1e '~eyn::o~h:: ~::~,.:rk-bench capable of doing
knew Huxley, Spencer, and Darwin in English, Kant,
h t he had dreamed and planned. and a
Schopenhauer, and Fichte in German, and .Balmes in Span-
w ;fo,ier left the Holy City with a great vmon had
ish. It would have been hard to trip him on a quotation 1, C Id it be really true that the Pope
from St. Tl10mas or St. Augustine. Somewhat of this learn- o-reat reso ,e. ou · f th ·r com-
e fid d t O him Desire Mercier, the execubon o e1 .
ing Leo had heard, somewhat, too, of the young Abbe's con de. ' • t·
the rehabilitation of Thom1s ic P oshil ophy? . H1s
genius for teaching, his compelling influence upon youth; mon ream,_
own Louvam mig . ht perhaps become the cradle of a great
82 33

~ .·.....
•·K
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL
ME.n.ci
neo-scholastic movement. But h · h Ea
. is eart
lum a.t the thought of leaving h · b Was sor
. . is e1oved se . e ~ DIYI XE PHILOSOPHY
vam, now because 1t was newly h • lllinarist lJii
is own Wa8 f s. t 0 11
reason less so than Ma.lines with• h ' or th tt, ff again, this time for Paris, the ill-ventilated clinic, and
• . ' 1D w ose b at "
much of his life of a time when lif a.re Walls ei-y :earby lodgings in a pension de fam'llc in the Rue Notre
1ay s
th ere one and all had turned t ehmeans • .
most
· liis 0 D arne des Champs.
h . o 1m with th . Pll:piJa H e grew a big black beard, and changed his cassock for
ent usrnsms and aspirations. H h d . e1r J'outt,
f. th L> e a in realit b 'Ill!} the highly proper though sober frock coat of the gay nine-
a er, teacwng them charity and b . Y een th .
th em to the foot of the Throne. Ha negation h . ' and lea.di
ell" ties. Who would ever have taken thi for the ascetic Abbe?
. h
dJScovert em to themselves and th t 1 e ad tried ng But instantly on his return to his room from lecture hall or
so hard t street, the student would transform himself into the priest .
11 enoeadth o
eve s. Now he would have to desert th em to higher The metamorphosis excited the attention of the agent.s of
a.new a.mid strife and dissension It em and take Up lif the S urete Publique. Who was this lightning-change artist?
B · was not eas e
ut before that he 11ad still another task to d~· . What mischief was he up to? H e frequented no suspicious
work was to be a correlation of all th t . lI1s neiv resorts; he never so much as took a glass at the corner cafe .
a was new d
an d a 11that was old and unshakable f th an true On the contrary, his habit was to stride into churches and
th , o e news .
e old philosophy. The old 1 "1 h c1ence and pray, pray for hours at a stretch, then read in libraries , or
t him p u osop y was familiar
o ' b~t he must have first-hand knowled ground study till early morning. N one of this , they decided, was
the essentials of the new science. He felt the g: of some of likely to work harm to P arisian society. They left him t o
his own devices. His t ime was short; he worked hard to
advanced study of physics, chemistr ' biolo eed of more
He summed up his d.issa t·isfi ed state Yof . dgy,. neurology. make the most of it. He worked intensively on such sub-
a friend, "Give me masters who . m1~ ID a word to jects as the part played by the r etent ive and prod uct ive
1i . can scientifically t h imagination, the peculiariti es of inst inct , the dual ph ysiolog-
g10n, and religiously teach science " T b h eac re-
ical and psychological aspects of int ern al phenom ena. He
seIf ' he must go to the t f · . o e sue a one h im- ·
mas ers o science Th mastered what he could of Charcot's t eaching in the time
cot, not only arousing local enthusiasm . ere wa~ Char-
at his command, then hurried back to the work that he was
ternational attention b h. r . hut attracting in-
not to lay down for nearly twenty-five years.
Salpetriere in Paris dyh~s c im~al demonstrations at the
an is published th · It was on July ~9, 188~, that Mercier was appointed
cases, the most advan d k eor1es on neurotic
ce wor of the t· • d' Professor of Thomistic Philosophy at Louvain. At th at time
treatment of nervous a· ime m iagnosis and
111 iseases. On his retur f R the last embers of the Gothic fires were still alive in the city,
.!Y.1.ercier did no more th t n rom ome,
an o report to hi B 1 • enough at least to tell the observer what a lovely place it
and say good-bye to his iI d . s . e g1an superiors must have been in the mid-fourteenth century, when Wen-
pup s an his f am1lybefore lie was
34, ceslas, Duke of Brabant, made his famous J oyeusc Entree
85
 THE LIFE OF CARDI
. AL l\fE}l
mto hi capital, then busy witl th Ct.ea
r -. 'l'he university was fo d 1 e looms of its
b 11O f p un cd by D k lllan DIVINE PHILOSOPHY
u ope 1\Iartin V d 1 u e John · J "'ea
founded so that thos hec a~·ed that "the D . in 14~3. :- the days of its highest popularity, the university had had
e w o will aba d n1ve:rsit <\
tu dy of the sciences and of . d n on themse}v y was as many
as six thousand students; in Mercier's years there
f th . w1s om m es t
or e1r own good and fo th ay perfect th o the it had some two thousand; more recently it has had twice that
guis11ed during the F r at of others." It en.iseives number. Of these, a very few were foreigners; by far the
. rench Revol t. . Was e t'
revn •ed again until 1834 b u ion, In 1797 lt in, larger part came from all parts of Belgium, principally
. . ' ut except f h' ' and from "believing" families, and generally from the middle
ness its light has shone hi h o_rt Is period of llot
centuries. Not lon(J' b f ~ Mand _steadily for more th da:rk, class, the petite bourg eoisie. In Louvain, as in all university
th . o e o1e erc1er took an fiv towns, there was the everlasting dissension between town and
e Ulllversity had acquired b . . up his Workthe e
gown, which flared up and died down again with small effu-
dependent legal status. T thy legislative act complete _re,
·t O e Church f R in- sion of blood and vast effusion of language. Since the sev-
vers1 y owes much f ·t o ome, th . enteenth century, when the industry of the weavers had de-
. o 1 s endowment d 1 e uni.
maintenance To th . . an arge fund f clined, the university had dwelt in the beautiful old halls of
. · e university the Ch s or
is beyond money for d . ' urc 11 owes much th t their guild, and such residence colleges as had sprung up
n1 ' urmg most of its n · h a
o y Catholic university with a full co 1 e 1t as been the about them. Laboratories and lecture rooms were badly
To Belgium its importance i·s 1 mp1ement of faculties equipped, ventilation was poor, comforts which modern uni-
1 no ess It · t d ·
~ ways been perhaps the onl B 1 .' I~ o ~y as it has versities deem requisites were non-existent. But a disinter-
international reputat· dy e g1~n umvers1ty with an ested zeal for things of the spirit had enabled its professorial
ion, an unquest bl h
resentative and best-kn . . wna y t e most rep- corps to transcend material handicaps and take a high posi-
own university f B 1 • tion in the life of the mind. The material world offered them
subsidy from the go b o e g1um. It has a
vernment, ut it is not 110 11 little. The professor's salary was nominally four thousand
and supported by th w Y controlled
e government as ar tl 1 . . . francs a year, but from it was subtracted twelve hundred for
Ghent and Liege d f h e e universities of
' an o t e three it is th 1 the lodgings and other benefits provided by the university.
the Fleinings and th W . e on Y one where
e 11
a oons mtermi 1 f 1 Mercier's salary in American terms was some five hundred
makes it a strong infI f . ng e ree y. This
uence or nat 10 1 •t . and sixty dollars to live on and to give from. Of necessity
its peculiar value to th na um Y, wh1eh gives it
L . e government and to the nation the social life of both teachers and students was on the most
ouvam was genuinely a univers· . . modest scale imaginable. A walk in the Heverlee woods dur-
time, with much of . d ity town m Mercier's
co1o1 an moveme t 1. 1.t ing l'heure de promenade, an evening pipe, good and stimu-
streets. Of its fort th d . . n n s narrow cobbled
y ousan mhab1tant lating conversation in other professors' rooms for such teach-
were not teachers d t d s, most of those who
an s u ents were small tradespeople. In ers as sought it, and for the boys a game of cards or a stroll
36 when lessons were done was nearly the extent of it. There
37
 THE LIFE OF
were meeting . of the provincial n,i!,
from the same Ilelginn r,rovinc ,
of the musical and literary ocic•ti,
as known in American uni\('r iti,,
introduction o( them in the nindi , • 1
11
resistance from the 1,tu<lent . :'\fore import J nI
than social rela ation or rccr tion th 11 °
l1e had learned to know " 11in 1,i tucl, nt d \ •ura,
. '
precious incunubulre wer copi< of. t. .\u tiu•
/J
Vitae Cognition Libd'11,111nd Sinyufor"tat </er· Or
Cicero' s Officia. TJ1ere w m n) fin cc 111111•ut q • n
stout Stagirite, AristotJ<', nd otl,"r p, ·<'iou , olu,~ 1
fo Lou vain it. elf in tl1e rlit' t d J of tht 1iri11tin
There were manu. cript writt n by 'l'J1om 1{ rnpi •udrt.
Denis le Chartreux. Mercier 11 d h ndled th Ill if th
were reliquari e .
1\-!ercicr wn thirty-one year of age in the umn r of
1882 when lie returned to Louv in, Joung cnou"h to p-
proach tlw new woi·k "ith buoy nt n rgy and hop , m turt
enough to face quar ly the oh t le to it u c :, . H
would hare to Luild hi:, tructurc from the , ry found tion ,
a11d carry e\'ery tone him elf. He mu t find tud nt for
himself. either tlteologic l tudent nor la ym n ould
flock to a cour c of tl!l'l'<.' or four J't r up rimpo f on t
work already Lefore tJ1cm. TJ1 ologi 1 tU<font co ,id r
that they had fini,;h cl tl1 ir pliiJ 011hj l tudi iu tl11: u-
naries; lay student did not d m nd th m pt for an
elementa.1-ycour c in philo ophy prt p r tor., to Hit, tu 1~
of law. He would have to find mon y for ou hi h n
body seemed to want, cour · ,, in n unpopul r uLj t to
SB
 THE LIFE OF CARD
INAL l\,p o.
wer e meetings of t he p . . .i:!.
llClEb
ro vmc 1al ·1 ...'"
from the same Belg ian p . . g ui <ls uniting th DIVINE PHILOSOPHY
1 ovmces d ose
of t h e musical and lit era ry s · t·' an there ' Vere cotnin g . at unpopular hours, for, in order not to interfere
be given . .
~s known . in Ameri can univer:::;e s, but exercise a: etings . h the established curriculum, he had to schedule his lee-
wit . .
mtroducbon of them . th . scarcely exist d sport tures for early morning hour . He would have to wnte lus
In e nin t · e , and
re sist ance from th t d e ies met with th the own text-books. He would have to perfect his own knowl-
e s u ents M • e gre
than social rela xat· . ore important t 'h atest edge of science. All these were to him the de~ils of o_rgani-
10n or rec t· o ••-1. •
he had learned t k rea ion was the lib erc1er zation of his single-handed attack on the ph1losoph1c and
• 0 now wen in his t d rary, Whi h
prec10us incunabul . s u ent days. Am c intellectual tendencies of the time; he viewed them not as
v· re were copies of St A . ong its lions in the path, but as obstacles to be surmounted. Of his
ita e Cogn itione L.b ll . ugu sbn e's D ,,
Cicero's Officia Tl
ieusandS" z. e~er
ingu aritat e Clericor1,,,,, ae equipment in the medireval side of his studies he felt well
· 1ere was many a fi - ..., and enough assured . If Thomism as taught in the seminaries
~tout Stagirite, Aristotle, and other ne c~mmentary on that
was pro ving too weak to withstand attacks on it by modern
in Louvain itself in th li prec10us volumes mad
Th e ear est days of h e think ers, t he weakness surely was not that of St. Thomas,
ere were manuscripts wr·tt b t e printing art. but of th e t eachers who did not understand their master .
Denis le Chartreux M . I ehn y Thomas a Kempis and
. erc1er ad h dl d More oft en tha n not, he felt, their teaching represented le s
were reliquaries. an e them as if they
the thou ght of St . Thomas than that of successive com-
Mercier was th·Ir t y-one years of · ment ator s, who, in resume of resumes had reduced his doc-
188~ when he returned t L . age Ill the summer of trine to a seri es of meaningless simplistic formulre. It was
o ouvam youn h
proach the new work "th b ' g enoug to ap- in the name of scientific rigor that the Pope in isted, and
wi uoyant e d
enough to face squarely th b nergy an hope, mature Mercier no less, that Thomism hould return to t. Thoma ' ,
would have to build h. t e o stacles to its success. He :Mercier soon made his voice heard out ide the clas room.
is s ructure from the ver f d .
and carry every ston h" lf y oun at10ns, In the R evue Catholique des Idees et des Faits he published
. e imse . He must fi d t d
himself. Neither th 1 . I n s u ents for a series of art icles on "Mechanical Determinism and Lib-
eo og1ca students nor la
flock to a course of th f ymen would erty." P erhaps it was to do honor to the author of these
ree or our ye •
work already b f th ars superimposed on the articl es, p erhaps to lend authority to the voice of youth that
e ore em. Theologic I t d
that they had fin• h d h . . a s u ents considered on Jul y Q6, 188Q, the univer ity authoritie conferred upon
. 1 IS e t e1r philosophical studies in the semi- Merci er th e degree of D octor 0£ l~hilo ophy and Theology.
naries; ay students did not demand th
el t em except for an On Au g u t IQ, he was mo.de Honorary Canon of Mo.line ·.
emen ary course in philoso h
0
f 1 H p y preparatory to the study The nu mbers in his courses increa ed. His course in Thom -
aw. e would have t fi d
bod o n money for courses which no- ist ic philo sophy wa prescribed for all the theological stu-
y seemed to want, cour ses in an unpopular subject to dents. The lay stud ent s bego.n to enter , at first probab ly
38 39
 THE LIFE OF ill
.i DI AL ME.nc1
11ttrncted larg ly br curio ,it. b E_n
· .) , ut then 1 Id
an d Jmpathy of the lcctur I . le by th DIVINE PHILOSOPHY
. er. n his . e ene
announced h, , principle; opening le t tgy
c Ute h was no SubJ.ect that he touched upon, however complex and
A1t110ughwe have given ou . e abst ru Se, that the youthful canon did not make simple and
_cl10Iastic'. ,1c do not hold :h:~urse th: n~me of the understandable. He thrilled his hearers by the earnestne s
either nn ,deal which TI 'e c t Thomistic phil Great and assurance of his manner, and by the logical develop-
ing mental activity We cl a~no surpass or a bar o~ophy is
tion, tl1at it i as wise as -/~ iowever, believe, upon r1er illlJit, ment of his ideas. His enthusiasm and informal manner
departure and upport T1h~s mhodest to take it as exa?1ina- broke down the customary barriers between teacher and
a_mongour adversaries . and is as been . sa1·d m
· repl a Point
t of pupil. It was a quality in him perhaps best described by the
hmes intere ting to k .f our_ friends, who beli'! o ~hose Italian term simpatico. His lectures were a brilliant di -
. d as J we mt d t eve it
m_m return to the Middle A en _o make the 11u at play of intellectual powers, while his manner of deliYery re-
n1th the thought of h] ges or to identify pl . Inan
a p I osopl1er. u 1osophy vealed the human warmth and light that ever glowed th.rough
And agam · he stressed th his logical precision. He talked in a language ever one
hi1 e principle of livina- understood; students of law, of medicine, and of the variou
p osophic study: o growth in
branches of the sciences were astoni hed to hear him peak-
Philosophic thouo-ht •
6 ing their own technical language , and formulating the mo t
~
1
~;!;~e~s the_ spirit whi:h n;;;:ei~:~P};te~t !t remains as recent scientific discoveries in the time-honored phra es of
up ma tomb in fro t f h. . is no mummy
mount guard It . n o w ich we mercl h St. Thomas. He had the o-enius to peak of t. Thoma in
· is an oro-an· hi . Y ave to
~~r:uact~ ·e, w~ich personal ek:;t ':u~!l JS :Ver_young, al- terms of modern science, and of the late t scientific innova-
or er to msure its perpetu 1 hmamtam and sus- tions in terms of the medireval cholar. This wa becau eh
a growt _1
Great teachers like all had a clear perception of the vital is ues, so that he was not
' great m
Certainly Mercier was born with t en, ~re born, not made. confused by the errors of the contemporary philo ophcrs,
soul. Re was a teache . th he gift of teaching in his but with a sure hand cleared away the ob curino- falsehood ' ,
r m e prof d
wor d' for his greatest h . oun est sense of the revealing in their naked impli ity the great Thomi tic
th . appmess lay in d 1 . truths. Through hi constant study of Aristotle and St.
e minds of his pupils, but their eve oping not only
ense, as a leader and i·n . 1 souls as well. In tl1is Thomas he retained his contact with and mastery of what
spirer 1e , were to him the living, fundamental realities. No matter
not merely while at :i-r 1· ' vas a teacher all his life
.
R 1s ability :.i.ames and Louv . ' how for he penetrated into thin-spun mctaphy i al sp cula-
am.
. as a teacher in the n .
an imparter of i tell a1rower sense of th d tions, his logical consistency prevented him from losing ight
n ectual knowled e wor '
i Le Bilan Pkito,oph. ge, was very great Th of his stattiug point, which was always human e ·pcricnc .
iqu,, du XIX Siocle. • ere
Philosophy was not to him a collection of obscure musin<rs,
40 but a systemized and rational view of reality. He therefore
41
 T HE LI FE OP C' \HTJI J\L l ,
. ,, . n1.ncn,:n
Ii lly on . I lir. 1111m•nt<'il'lili~t•ti
. \ l 1 W 1IO Jn J1
< pt ·d tlw pr1 ,l n \I «'lcomt' _ , k . Work d
. . co \\ or er 1 ti . ~oo,
11Id, of pt•r1mcntnl C'inc nn d r . n l<'tr Rpn~ • 1
, ccog,uzcd t h,lt . - 1u1
r1 1111of m taphy ic I sp ulatio n, anon l\{ .. in his own
bu, th m All. ci c1cr to ,, ulea lea fore ea int ellectu ellea et moral es d'wn.e nation
8e
Wctcd f econilent ' " - CARDI NA L ME RCIE R.
' 't e.
aa prosp,,ri

CHAPTER III
THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
N the beginning of his work at Louvain, Mercier re-

I ceived the full approval of the Pope. In 1886 he was

appointed a member of the Roman Academy of St.
Thomas Aquinas. The following year, Leo, acting motu
proprio, made him a domestic prelate, an office which gave
him the title of Monseigneur.
The feeling of his superior officers at Louvain had in it at
the outset more of pity than of sympathy. The rector,
Pieracrts, was Mercier's old friend; he had no lack of vision
or courage, and the spirit of Mercier's teaching was entirely
in conformity with that of the university. Still, the project
was one which had been thrust upon them, and the university
authorities were incredulous of its success. It was natural,
no doubt, that they should not at once put all their energy
into it. Neither did they regard it with any hostility; rather
they seem to have looked upon Mercier at first with commis-
eration, as one leading a forlorn hope.
A forlorn hope indeed it may have seemed in one or an-
other of its aspects. To oppose a medireval religious philos-
ophy to the whole impact of modern science and thought
might seem about as effective as to try to stop an express
train with a feather. Mercier, however, was ready for any
50
51
 THE LIFE OF
for lorn l10p CARDI.N.AL
in } . e o Ion(}' as t1 l\f~llc
11.' :spir it o f fl b. 1cre was h l}!;b
, . 1c w 1 II t ope 'l' ._\
r1tt n his fo· t 1 tt o Uccccd I . here THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
of h i ,. c er to the . n 1888 "'as IJ.
In stitut e. , 1\f . authorities 0 ' the P0 o lack ·es or 11nyother form of help. Probably their cordiality
org · . erc1cr t ' utli · p h nnt 'I '
. n111 za ti on to cnrr ' oo, felt th llJng the e &<J towurd the proj ect was not increased by the fact that Mer-
his cq uip mc t y on the Work h l e need fo schero cier's proposals were upheld by the Pope, who wrote to th e
. n "·a s ns e iad t 1· a l e
it beca me clear t . g~od as any one s arted. P arger bishops and administr ative officers of the uni.versi.tyto tell
n ot enou g l1 Tho his mmd that one m man could ca tobabJy them that he wished an institute established at Louvain ac-
. 1· • ere must b an and ri-y,h cording to Mercier's plan and with Mercier at its head.
c-111 i:.t in the dj e a corps f one cours llt
,·er se disci r O Well-e . e \Ver This strengthened Mercier's hands, but by no means
men of ympath p mes, particul ·J . quipped e
a d . y and energ if a1 y in th spe. smoothed his path. H e was not, however, the man to turn
n mte r loc kin a witl1 l . y o ering courses c e scfo!J.ces way from opposition. Difficulties never turned him buck;
help ' ~I\Iercier felt ~ 11s and ·th o-ord· ' 11
1 w1 each otl inati!J.g ruther they lured him on. They made him what he was, for
' 1e could ler w· h
ar d uou days of te h" overcome all diffi . I . it such they furnished the heat that tempered the steel that was in
tJ • ac mg he cu hes .A
le oroAnizatio h . ' spent night h . . fter him.
b n e wished d ours in pl
f ore the Pope P , an at length 1 .cl anning Mercier's superior officersin Belgium were the rector and
fe or's P . . ope Leo smiled upon th a1 the plan be- the council of the university, and less directly, the College of
roJect, and in ti e eager you
brief directed to h. le summer of 1892 praised h~g ~ro- Bishops. The rector is appointed by the College of Bishops.
It wa . im personally. im in a He is responsible to them for the government of the univer-
not till Mercier had th sity, in which he is aided by the council, which consists of the
that J1elaid it Lefore a sect· le Po~e's approval of his pl deans of the faculties of theology, law, philosophy, and let-
r h. iona mcetm O f h an
g e w ich was being h ld g t e Catholic c
·1
p h 1 0 opher's el
e at M ra mes. Though th
on- ters, and the presidents of certain schools within the univer-
I oquent pre sentatio f . e young sity ( now including the Inst itut Superieur de Philosophie).
P auded by many the b. h n o his scheme was ap- Mercier's old friend Pieraerts, who was rector at the time of
ince he had been :o far ~:s:pbs sdh~oktheir heads. Naturally Mercier's first connection with the university, had died, and
t T- l or ma tc as t b . . ' Mgr. Abbeloos had succeeded him. M:ercier's first relations
o .1.JCO, t icy looked upon it cold! An . o su m1t It directly
able for them to cha.Hen th y. d It was not unreason- with him were friendly enough, but it soon began to appear
t t t ge e undertakin Of . that Abbeloos's personality was what is sometimes called "dif-
U e o teach a subJ"ect f h" h g a whole msti-
or w ic there w h ell ficult"; that is, it was not easy for those whose opinions dif-
noug h or students enough t . t"f ~s ar y support
b . o J us l y a sm I . fered from his to keep on easy terms with him. M:.ercier,
J one profe ssor Th b. h g e course given
. fl . . e is ops, then felt th t M . naturally, felt himself pretty directly under the orders and
m a tmg him elf and hi k ' a crc1er was
s wor unwarrantabl Tl supervision of the Pope in beginning and carrying on his
not promi e him students t f d Y·
rans erre from the d"10cesan sem1-
1ey would
. work at Louvain. No less naturally this appeared to Abbe-
52 58
 THE LIFE OF C RDI AL l\IERcn~n
1 0 , a d(IIJ<Crous
l' divi' ion of authority, tendino- t
o o . . . . & o thee
tion of a state "1thm a tate. It was mevitable tl rec,
. of Jea
hould Jead to a feel mg . l ousy on his part. lat
f t]11s
.
• . . ' a ee}j
tlrnt tlie Pope was more mterested m Mercier's Work thng
in tlie prosperity of the univer ity as a whole. Leo' 1:> ~n
of To,cmber, 1889, lrnd founded Mercier . ,s school at8 -0r1ef
L
vain; another in 1894 established it as an integral pari°~;
the uni,ersity under tl1e name of tl1e Insti !ut Superieur de
Philosophic ou l'Ecole Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, and nallled
Mercier as its first president.
Mercier began the organization of the institute by obtain-
ing the collaboration of several professors who were teach-
ing various scientific subjects in the university. Ile soon
found, however, that his staff was composed of men of diver-
gent views, not in full agreement among themselves, and by
no means at one with him in his project. Particularly un-
fortunate in this respect was his choice of a colleague in his
own subject, philosophy. He found himself trying to work .
Painting of Mer cier as
Pr esident of the Institut, hanging in the Institut

with 11 man whose ideas did not at all harmonize with his
own, and whose classes were most unpopular with the stu-
dents. Success for the Institute would be difficult enough
under the best of circumstances, even with a united staff pull-
ing smoothly and strongly together. With such a group of
colleagues as he had, Mercier felt it was impossible, and suc-
cess at any legitimate cost he must have. There was nothing
for it but to return them all to their former duties, and re-
place them by others who could work smoothly with him. He
found such a group among his own former pupils, men whom
he had himself started on paths along which they had since
made progress toward distinction, who could, each in his own
54,
 THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
fi~ld, see the path of his own science trending toward unity
with the others. ~hese were Deploige in sociology, N ys in
cosmology, Maurice de Wulfl in the history of medireval
philosophy• Some of these still illuminate Belgian thought
and research. 2 M. Thiery, fresh from Germany, organized
a laboratory of experimental psychology, a thing of which
few universities at that time could boast.
The instructors whom Mercier thus relieved of their duties
in the Institute felt in his action the stigma of dismissal;
others sympathized with them; all these joined in sympathy
with the rector in his feeling of jealousy for what he re-
garded as Mercier's encroachment on his authority. From
them a leaven of mistrust of Mercier spread through the uni-
versity. He soon began to feel opposition as from a hostile
group organized to undermine his position. Their first active
move was an adroit one. They gave the Pope to understand
· · l f h. l the
that Mercier was neglecting the essenba o 1s Pan, .
Thomistic philosophy, and was laying his principal emphasis
h . 1·n French rather than
h t
on science, and that e was eac 1ng
in Latin as was specified in his plan and in the Pope's;~ -
1 f it The first charge was undoubtedly unfoun e .
prova o · th l of syn
N ot Leo himself had more nearly at heart e pdan ~
. hy with the mo ern wor1
thesizing the Thomistic Ph 11osop
. ly the last man t o f avor
b
than had Mercier, who was o vious £ St Thomas. As f or
O
the modern world at the expense doubt • t h at M erc1er. h ad
the econd, there
. seems to b e no . .
Philosophy at Harvard Umvers1ty
1 M aurice de Wulf wa s Professor _of If to restoring around St. Thomas
f r om 1929 to 1931. He ha s devoted hirnse and bas published a history of
th jn te ll ct u al mili eu of th Middle ~gesi importance.
tha.t pe riod whi ch ha s attain d internatio;a of foreigners who were later to
roong hi ~upil s th ere wer~ a. nun; ~~1ought, such as Gemali. of Turin
2
t
b<> roe l a d r m European ph1losoph 1 tbolic University of Fre1bourg.
0
nd Ga spard Oe scurtin, founder of the a
55
 'l'HE LU'E OF CARDINAL
. . ~fEncr~lt
Leo's pcrnw 10n to u e French so f
ar •\
necc. arr. It nrn t have been a < sce111cd t THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
. 1
c cnr to L o h·
forcicr that to use Latin exclu ivcl co as it ,, 11ll f the Council of Bishops was brought about by undue in-
Y Would b 'as t
the failure of the In titute. There . . c to guai-a 0 ;uence on Mercier's part. The result was that l\1ercicr's
. . "c1 e none t ntee
dent, at be' t; to g1Yemstruction in ti . Oo 111anyt oject was returned to him modified by the Congregation
no ung but L . s ti- pr · 1s. H 1s
" 1·1st of courses m
. th c s:1-
.
be to confine the course to few beyo d tl atin "'°lll of Studies in two essentia
n ie students d
ogy, for n~t many of the lay students or the . of theol- ences was reduced, that of courses in philosophy was m-
cn ual auditors were qualifi ed for such k mo1e or less creased, and it was prescribed that Latin only should be used
wor . Me . in all instruction in philo sophy. 3
a1way a strong advocate of the use of L t· . rc1er Was
h a Ill in sch l To a teacher of philosophy it was not profoundly disturb-
e e pre ed regret that scientists no 1 o arship.
.h onger corre , ing to have orders to teach more philosophy; a gradual in-
mt one another in Latin as had D sponded
T escartes, Leibnit crease there was part of his own plan. But to the president
e\\ion. In his work in the Institute h d . z, and
. e use It so far of the Institute it was profoundly disturbing to have orders
practicable ; his reviews and summaries f h. 1 as Was
. L . . o is ectures which tended directly to its failure. He took such measures
m atm, and his references to h. Were
1s sources. He cond as he could at the time to get the Congregation of Studies
conference and discussion classes and exami t. . ucted to alter the decision, and in the hope of success continued the
B f th na ions 1 n Latin
e ore e question of the use of Latin h d h . use of French in his classes. To the rector this looked like
status f di · a reac ed the
o sens10n or dispute, the College of B. h downright insubordination, and as such he reported it to
seen the difficulty, and had gone s f . IS ops had
Rome. The response was a sharp letter of censure from Car-
l\I . o ar 1ll sympatl1 'th
erc1er as to write a collective letter to Ro . y w1 dinal Mazella on behalf of the Holy Father. It directed the
!:::th~ be aldlo~edto use French in his t::~;!;e:2:tet~~ president of the Institute to submit to the rector, and to dis-
e eeme it necessary T 0 tl . 11 tribute copies of the Cardinal's rebuke among his colleagues.
tacit . · us t e Pope gave either
agreement or private assent N 0 t Mercier had his choice, to defy, to resign, to submit. His
of Studies. B the ti . ; so the Congregation attitude was that of prayer; "Lord, I gladly accept this
for the Instituf e mteMherciers final draft of the statutes
came o t em the humiliation if it be to Thy glory."
sidered the P 'b'l't .' Y seem never to have con-
oss1 11 y of usmg a th·
language in the ·t· ny mg but the original 3 Monsieur Collinet, who was Professor of Comparative Literature, was
expos1 ion of Th · t· h' even a more bitter enemy than Abbeloos. Though both Mercier and Col-
gave Mercier's oppo t th . om1s IC P 1losophy. This linet were so-called "democrats," Mercier's democracy was medireval in
nen s e1r opp01 ·t ·t comparison with the twentieth-century democracy of Collinet.-His de-
to Rome and wh· d um Y· They conveyed sire to harm Mercier went so far that he even procured some note-books
1spere to the Con t. of Mercier's pupils and sent them to the Congregation of Studies in Rome
the use of French · grega 1011 of Studies that to prove what fallacies the professor of Thomistic philosophy was teach-
th p in any measure was n t "th h ing.
e ope, or not a part of his I o w1 t e consent of The feeling against Mercier in Rome was increased by a certain jealousy,
p an, a nd th at even the consent tor the new ~chool of Thomistic philosophy at Louvain was rapidly eclips-
mg the Pope s own school in Rome.
66
57
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERCIEit
THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
But thi did not solve the problem ; there was st ·1i h
• • I t el 11 Again Mercier had to make atonement for his impetuous-
titutc for !umto save 1f he could from hopeless wreck -
• • 'I'her ness by public humiliation. At the first meeting of his class
was only one way, to appea 1 directly to the Pope. H e
. H d .d , a other after his return from Rome he told his students that he had
appeals had pro,·ed vam. c ec1 ed to steal away t R
o om
beforeany one could stop him. He confided only in N e received orders from the rector to lecture in Latin, and as
. . ys and obedience is a virtue which all must practice, he bowed in
hi confidenhal colleagues. A cold gave him an ex
cuse for
leaving town, osten ibly to go to Brussels to consult . submission. A gray-haired old canon, who was one of the
brother Leon, the physician. His absence howeve his boys present, told recently of the scene as he remembered it:
.. ' r, roused "A shiver went through all of us pupils-we suffered and
the susp1c1onof the rector, who called at the Instit t
. u e and sympathized with our beloved teacher, and I remember seeing
a ked to see the president. When told that Mercier h d
. a gone
to consult his brother, Abbcloos left a message of tears in the eyes of some of us." Canon Simons, who was one
. sympathy
and said he would not fail to inquire further in B russe ls. of Mercier's first seven pupils at the Seminary Leo XIII, 4 •
and who now cares for some thirty thousand souls in the
Ny~prom~~y telegraphed to Mercier to warn him of Abb~
Joos poorer quarters of Brussels, related a pathetic incident from
. s suspic10n. . Mercier decided to try to an t·IC1pa • t e the
discoveryof his ruse; he wrote at once to Abbeloos "I . this time:
Rome, and am myself astonished to be here." , am m The president of the Institute had been instructed to ap-
pear at a meeting which was to be held at Malines in order
Quick as his move had been he found that th .t
his colleagueshad reached
b . 1
th: Vatican bef h'e m1sLrust of
ore im. eo had
to settle the much-discussed question. It had been decided,
despite all that he had said, to insist upon his using Latin.
o v10us_ybeen told about his insubordination, and of his ab- The experience of subsequent years proved how well justified
senceWithoutleave from the rector L f d Mercier was in saying that its use would inevitably compro-
. . eo re use to see him mise the future of the Institute.
and directed Cardinal Mazella t 't ,
11
of 1tfercier's unautho . d . ° wri e to Abbelo os, t e11' mg Mgr. Mercier had been instructed to appear at half past
to receive him Th ;~: JO]urney,a nd of the Pope's refusal five. First he went to pray in the Cathedral, and thereupon,
. e e er a so reassured Abb 1 having time to spare, he thought of calling upon some col-
president of the Inst •t t . e oos that the league or other. But, he mused, would he not compromise
I u e was Ill all matt b
authority to the recto Of th . . ers su ordinate in him by doing so? Guided by his usual delicacy of feeling, he
I h . r e umvers1ty M h' felt afraid that this might prove the case. So he went in-
oos ad ISsueda pubr d . · eanw Ile Abbe-
. . IC con emnabon of M . , stead to the seminary where his first pupils had just returned
makmg it worse th 't erc1er s action from their vacation. It was a bleak November day, and the
th an I actually was b f 1 ,
at Mercier had gone to R y a sely declaring boys were coming back from their afternoon walk. Mercier
should not do so and th th. ome after explicit orders that he ~et ~ne of hi~ o_ldstudents, spoke to him, and made him join
bee ' a is use of Fren h . 1 . him m the fr1_g1dpa_rlor where he ~anted to hide away and
n contrary to the rector's o d c in us classes had
r ers. see no one until the time of the meetmg. The coming disaster
58 ' Opened in 1892,

59
 THE UFE OF CARDINAL MERCIER
afflictedhim. He wa Ycry nd, almo t disco . THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
alone he was m · h.1s f ut ure episcopal
· city! Whuiao-ed
o . ll:0
oothed Mcrci er's path to immediate success. Suddenly an
more touching than this great man, di cussed at could h'"
and t 111mrted, scemg · tl1a t g1ganbc
· · work of ' h. con had· ictede srlld came to him from Rome debarring him from confer-
or er
whichwas to becomethe highest Catholic intell tis lllenacea' . degrees. It seemed at the moment Leo had suddenly
• oft 11enmetcen
• tl1 century, and to w11ichhe ec ring
t10n WasUal. c?ncep,' decided to destroy all that he had so enthusiastically ordered
wholelife! What could be more moving than t1 fh!ng his built up. It did not quite destroy the In stit ute, but it very
resort was to go and efface himself in a dar k parl~: 1~ only
old pupil, an entirely powerless confidant in such a ~~side an effectually retarded it for a number of years, for Belgian
isaster ! students are no more inclined than are others to put in years
It was a dark moment, but there were qualities · h· of hard work on a course that leads to no recognizable result.
. m is char
acter to carry lum through and above it courag h - That Mercier kept any students whatever at the Institute
. . . ' e, ope, opti
nusm, faith, and the will to succeed. The element f h. - through that period is liberal testimony to his personal quali-
o is char
acter t hat made fo1· greatness was that he h d - ties of leadership.
. a enough of
these qualities to carry him above darker moment th . Another difficulty was the question of land. A Monsieur
. s an this
I n the course of time, Cardinal Mazella gave l • · Helleputte-afterwards a cabinet minister-had somehow
. . pace m the
Congregation of Studies to the enlightened and f . . managed to have the first buildings placed on a lot which was
. . a1r-mmded
Cardinal Satolli. He found occasion to make a P . l . altogether too small, and what had been started had to be
. . e1sona m-
qmry mto the state of a:ffairs at Louvain saw tl 1 t· torn down again. Helleputte modified his plans, and the re-
. , e prac 1cal
necessity underlying Mercier's contention and 1 d th constructed Institute proper remains today an attractive and
M . ' ru e at serviceable group of buildings. One of the associate prof es-
erc1er should be allowed to lecture in French h·1 h
f ,w1ete sors, Armand Thiery, in addition to his equipment in mathe-
re erences would continue to be (1'. • L . . .
o1ven m atm. This time it
w~sthe rector whoproved insubordinate. His refusal to sub matics, law, and psychology, prided himself on his attain-
m1tto Sato11i'sruling led to his d' . 1 - ments in architecture also. He had, unfortunately, in the
ceeded h. . 1sm1 ssa . Hebbelynck suc- words of his colleagues, "Une brique dans le ventre." He is
1m, a man of mild h
of indi:ffer . c aracter, peaceful to the point still busy today, forty years later, erecting and tearing down
ence m matters of academic
him was e tablish d . controversy. Under buildings in all parts of Louvain. He was a man of some
e a peace which off d f •
cier and the devel t f . ere air hope for Mer- wealth, with an income from a lucrative department store
opmen o h1s pro. t I d.
have been the tr .d . Jee · n ifference would belonging to his family. He helped Mercier liberally with
uer w1s om m the be . .
no principle involved . th h . gmnmg, for there was money, but what he planned on the spacious isosceles triangle
· m e c OlCC of 1
instruction. anguage as a means of which the institution at length obtained for its buildings
The ending of this turned out to be an architectural hodge-podge. The main
controversy, how
ever, by no means buildings of the Institute escaped his touches, but the Semi-
60
61
 'rHE LIF.E OF ARDI AL l\
fEncrEa
1< ·rr Lt on XI II 'tdTcr d. The . TIIE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
. . . m11111.ryt .
mcl hn t ll ' 1£de ' JO'ncd for ' link . airca es
. cs mstcud of f llscen..1 . said all the sources h~d go.ne dry. So ~ put the. Se.mi-
&11d tl1e pl nmng of the rooms j , J'ttl b uturc p .· ~ h0"~ to prayina. Despite tins, I had receiwd nothmg on
I c tter IIest
Thcr were erious difficultic t b · s, norians_in a of th; day when the note fell due. At two o clock
. ' oo, a out lllon the 01010 0
to ttra t gift word went out at tl b . . ey. ln O•..1 . the afternoon, a respec t a ble-l o?k"
·mg un kmown man as·ked
. 1~ ie cgmnino- 6
th l~er, 111 ne havina first made certam that I was the profe sor
gm~n o0,000 francs to t1ie found t· at Leo h ..1 1
. a ion of ti l a~ tohscet h; Sovercign Pontiff had charged with the building of
Th e p 1am w om .
fo t is thnt lie merely 0'£1.\" tl . le nstitut tl Institute. Upon entermg my study, the stranger handed
o e le cqu1val e,,
per cnt of that amount a vcarly cnt of fiv ie a sealed envelope, and then left at once, unwilling to dis-
f '
ranc' to be drawn from the Peter'
J grant, that •
p is, of '7500
e nr
~r°
se his identity. Even today I am ignorant of the name
this benefactor. who w~shedthat only ~od hould be a wit-
th B 1 s ence cont 'b
e e gian . At the time when Abb 1 ' r1 uted by ness to his liberality. His anonymous gift amounted to 30,-
't h . I e oos s opposit•
I , e1git, tl1e rector went so far as t ion Wasat 000 francs.
. . o accuse l\ferc ·
mg recen-ed the capital and wast d 't A . ier of hav- Faith to move mountains seemed quite as needful to move
Thiery ha tened to Rome, and expJ:ine~· t :h t1;;, the loyal buildings, to spirit away an old soap factory and a number
that Mercier had the yearly rec . t f o e oly Father of dwelling houses, and conjure up in their stead the rather
h. h Le 1 e1p s or the grants f
w ic o rnd signed the requisitions, thou h th '. or ambitious brick walls of the new buildings. They are Gothic
not have lingered in his me
b d mory.
L !5
eo smiled and
e act might in treatment, similar to so much of the architecture of Hol-
ere other false impressions that had b ' remem- land and the old Hanseatic cities of northern Germany. They
from Abbcloo and his fact1·on S f f een conveyed to him stand grouped pleasantly round loggia and courtyard, now
· o ar rom · · b
transactions, Mercier as a matt f . gaming y these beautified by replicas of l\Ieunier's bas-reliefs glorifying Bel-
elf A t er o course impoverished him-
.' s o every good cause with which he was connected 1 gian labor, by Pere Ephrem's statue of l\Iercier, and by the
g1ne more than he could s ar f. . ' 1e beds of roses that bloom between the gravel walks. The presi-
so did his brother the h ~ . e I om 1us own meagre funds ; dent's house and the porter's lodge flanked the entrance grille,
P ys1c1an, and so did ll
Antwerp merchants Nr h many we -to-do not far down the street from the Institute's first modest quar-
· one t e less tl k
crune to a standstill f 1 k f ' 1e wor repeatedly ters. The overhanging gabled front and the entire fa~ade
or ac o money Of h
fercier told the f 0 l1 . · one sue occasion and twin chimneys of the president's house were soon hidden
owmg story:
It is quite true-I had h. by the ivy which grows so luxuriously in the drizzle of the
requisite for success Thnot mg. That was one of the first incessant Belgian rain. On the ground floor was the official
· · ere were h
quirements in 11ddition t h d d, owever, also other re- reception room, on the wall of which at a later day admiring
l pa ed through days ol un re : of thousands of francs.
pupils hung J anssen's speaking likeness of the emaciated
tay wlien I anxiously fac:Jon)°
o money came in; I worked :n:~~e
of well remember one dark
nodt~ ~5,000 francs.
gge In vam. One would
professor with the burning eyes. In the rear of the house,
toward the courtyard and the school, were Mercier's living
6fl
63
 THE LIFE OF C RDI AL l\
. fERcrE:a
nnd 'Orkmg quarte r- . One mantelpie ce bore th . THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT
L bora icuf bonu mil s Clu-i ti J e . c 1nscrh,t·
.. ' SUr -Hzlarc .t' loll • them of the efficacy of prayer in the past, and his
d1!1g t D, u - · La bor ll n g ood soldier of J rn datoru ' te11ing
faith in it now. So they prayed specifically for the numbers
lm . , him n }10 g n-e . l. .
11m elf Joyou sly.'' TI
esus Ch11 ..
st. Go
'Ill
they wished, twenty-five new students for the first year; for
1:.~1. 1 . 1e other h d
A: em1~1 gr eetmg Wdkom
. St . Thoi nas m . glorio ad the the second, thirty-three, the number of our Saviour's years
nd g ray ble-sed the chapel from abov 1·t Us scarlet on earth; and for the third year, fifty-six. Each of the three
b ·1l ' e s altar
UJ c mgs tood when at la t Mercier l1 ad obt . · So the ears the miracle came to pass; the exact number for which
i or th em bv fait11,·
hope, and the harde t ki d
amed th
e llloney fhey prayed entered the Institute. To Mercier, this seemed
h d h d h · s n of Wo k
a pu e t em to their completion I th . r ' and the fulfilment of the word: "If this be the work of men, it will
· n e spring O f 18
t he Pop e ga \·e the Institute its charter and b f 94, come to naught, but if it be of God, you cannot overthrow
. . ' e ore c1u.·
1t wa maugurnted with formal solemnit istmas it." His own word was, "It needs courage to throw oneself
Thi y. forward; but it needs not less to hold oneself back." Courage,
. f marked the end of many difficult'ies, an d the b .
nmg o another, by no means the least H egin- energy, tenacity, carried them forward, Mercier and his de-
. . ow was the
emmary to be supplied with students? Ther h d b new voted assistants, Deploige, Nys, de Wulf, and Thiery. The
h . e a cen f poverty of their resources set them on the path to honor. In
enoug m the former narrow quarters rented f • ew
cheut Mi ionarie where all h d d. . ' l om the their new field they were obliged to write new text-books, and
. ' a mmg-room and stud for these books their names are now known wherever philos-
room m common, where the c11apelwas bare and . I y-
the service scarcely Jess so b t . s1mp e, and ophy is studied.
filled M . ' u now spac10us halJs were to be The dormitory of the Institute's ecclesiastical students had
. .. erc1er could expect but few of the graduate th l . been founded in 189~ and named the Seminaire Leon XIII. 5
ca1 students from th h. l . eo og1-
f th 1 . _e. ig 1er semmaries, and probably few In the early days when the seminary was small in numbers,
rom e aJ umvers1ties. Some h '
tious of tl1estudents in the . ' O'\\ e~er, ~f the most ambi- it was strongly united in earnestness of common purpose.
ad,·anced philosoph. I t ~~cesan semmar1es might seek the Students and teachers lived together on terms of familiar
ica rammg The C d. I intimacy. At the outset there had been no academic body as
faithful d R · ar ma and the ever
u ou eau from his See t T . . a whole. As the body grew larger other measures became
few, and the othe b. l b a ourna1 did send a
r I 10ps egan grumbli I f necessary, but the old spirit was long maintained. Mercier
A few foreigners t d . ng Y to ollow suit.
1
s ragg e m Dut th continued his personal relations with the students. Often he
In each of the two . · ere were not enough.
successive years th dined with them, and of ten when he did not, one or another
students. Mercier h d d . ere came only four new
a one his b t b . dined with him for the opportunity of special con£erence or
measures and it es Y ordmary human
h ' was not enough H 5 Mercier was president of the two distinct institutions, the Institute of
e ununoncd his littl fl k · e came to his last resort; Philosophy and the Seminaire Leon XIII. In later times, they were put
e oc ' and exhorted them all t o pray, under different heads.
64 65
 TH E LU'E OF CARDI AL l\fJ...:
ncn~a WORLD AND rl'HE SPIRIT
d ,· Dailv Jw encourage d all who would con-. TllE col for sym-
a , ice. . . . •A•C to h· nionship was not un app
t l to hin-e coffee with !um after lunch. Student ls . out for compa stur e of loneliness. Thi s sweet
ucy sand •
tr uctors studjcd, pl aycd, walked, and talk ed to 1n- reaching t n involunt ary gc d the obstacles from
thy bu a . dually r emove }
1 • J • f II
l\!ercier J ad much companions np rom a of his sta:fi b · gethe1• p0, rnent of }ns gr a of degree s and t
lf-efface ·n on the ques· wnt'
H1e
.
e pecfolly from Tluery an d D ep I01ge,
. wh o 1·
1ved with ' hi1.J.t s~ th Rome gave I • • d. sting their relations. c
his pa . 1 d with him ma JU h PY
He depended much on the 11elp he got from his talk Wi:
· w rector wor {e d s without bitterne ss, as a ap
them on , hatever l1ewas writing, and on the criticism he ha: ne k d back on those a y . c A student of those
loo e hard ships overcom •
from Deploige on the written d~aft. With them perhaps . ·t looks back on d this manuscript to Mer-
spiri
d slater wrote a o
b ut them an sen
. . h . ·t of forsan et haec o im
z·
more than with others he was genial and expansive in talk.
ay t d nit mt e spin "l
With them and with the students also he was at ease in cier, who c~mme~ e '~In reading your article," he wrote,
playful as well as serious moods, which may account for the meminisse Juvabit. . th h appi est of such are perhaps
ability attributed to him to exert authority without making ·
have rehve a d h ppy days' e t us the most pam · f ul".
h ' h s they pa ss seem o d
it felt as such. With the students he kept a true fatherly just those w ic a tho se days was pronounce
d . t f his successors on f th .
relation, trying so far as possible to replace in their hearts The ver IC o . ' t tue in the court o e m-
. t' of Mercier s s a ·d
their absent parents, making much of birthdays and f etes, at the ded1ca wn t tor Mgr. Ladeuze, sa1
.
stitute . 19Sl ' when the presen rec '
m
now and then organizing excursions, encouraging athletics,
fencing, and the newly introduced football, and going with of him, . d t
. . arts of the university stu en s
them on the yearly all-night walk to the shrine of Our Lady T hanks to Mercier' m all P h He changed the
of Montague . now live in a scientific aimt~sp ~t~~r. i~stitution. Thanks
course of the inte~nal evo u I~:O'er superimposed one upon
The old janitor, Edmond, who remembers Mercier, still
to him, our faculties 3:re no. 1 a: or anism whose real obJect
tends the standard roses that bloom the summer through in the other. '.1'he_yco-or~1~~t:~~ thus tear complete wi~nes~ to
the courtyard of the Institute. Ask him whether the great is the culhvat10n of bu . ·t What we owe to him is a
Cardinal ever joked with him, and he replies, "Yes, whenever the true notion of a umversh1Y· . method-infinitely pre-
d .d and compre ens1ve
he passed, but I did not always under stand him, for he some- ~etho
c10us to-aau ms
_w1ti~tutionof higher education.
times made philosophical jokes." Then, apo1ogetical1y, "Of
cour e, that was as it should be, here in the courtyard of the
Institute."

Hi lighter moments Mercier shared easily with his col-

league , his students, even his servants. His dark moments
he refused to share. Even in the moment of humiliation his
66 6"1
"L 8
evenements sinistres de ces deux dernieres annees ont
sec w les ames . . . le besoin d'ideal est devenu plus impe-
eo••e
• X "-CARDINAL MERCIER.
rieu •

CHAPTER I
IN THE BEGINNING

N the time of Louis XIV, when Turenne was adding

I many a rich Flemish city to the kingdom of France,

a family of the name of Mercier left the region of Cam-
brai to go north. It settled in the countryside just to the
south of Brussels, where the villages cling thriftily to the
hillsides, leaving the scattered plots of arable land in the
wet lowlands to the hard-working farmers. The natural
fertility of these patches of heavy soil the farmers keep up
by the hoarded fumier and by ceaseless cultivation, sixteen
hours a day in the long days of spring and summer. Here
it was that in 1794 a young Irish colonel, Arthur Wellesley,
stationed his regiment, the Thirty-third Moira, and here
he accomplished nothing but to march up hill and down
again after his commander, the Duke of York, whose name
is a household word for such tactics in every well-regulated
nursery. Twenty-one years later he was on the same ground
again, himself a great Duke, and in supreme command.
Here again on a June morning when the grain was in full
promise of its best, English, Dutch, Hanoverian, and Bel-
gian troops were arrayed against the last flight of the Eagle.
1
 r 1 t ti in yery well-re
" l t r h w on the same gro
t: k nd in upreme command.
u n1 1 in hen the grain was in
n Ii h ut 1, Hanoverian,and Bel-
in t th l t flight of the Eagle.
1
 "Les evenements sinistres de d
, l "' ces eu:c dernie ,
secoue es ames . . . le besoin d' 'd, l res annees ont
rieux."-CARDINAL MERCIER. i ea est devenu plus impe-

CHAPTER I
IN THE BEGINNING
the time_ of Louis XIV, when Turenne was adding

I
N
many a rich Flemish city to the kingdom of France
. a family of the name of Mercier left the region of Cam:
bra1 to go north. It settled in the countryside just to the
south of Brussels, where the villages cling thriftily to the
hillsides, leaving the seattered plots of arable land in the
wet lowlands to the hard-working farmers. The natural
fertility of these patches of heavy soil the farmers keep up
by the hoarded fumier and by ceaseless cultivation, sixteen
hours a day in the long days of spring and summer. Here
it was that in 1794 a young Irish colonel, Arthur Wellesley,
stationed his regiment, the Thirty-third Moira, and here
he accomplished nothing but to march up hill and down
again after his commander, the Duke of York, whose name
is a household word for such tactics in every well-regulated
nursery. Twenty-one years later he was on the same ground
again, himself a great Duke, and in supre~e com~and.
Here again on a June morning when the gra~n was 1n full
promise of its best, English, Dutch, Han~ver1an, and Bel-
gian troops were arrayed against the last :flight of the Eagle.
1
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERCIER IN THE BEGINNING

The Belgiansstood to the right of the line, in and · s so he wanted to go to Paris and fling the
as a genlll ' .
the town of Braine l'Alleud, which exhibits cons . a:rollllq be "' . money into the Seme. He would have to see
. . k 1 d PiclJ.o,,I au~~Y
goo I Doubtless he was made to see it; there is no recor
d
3
pretentiousbarrn,ck m m ·-co ore stucco, known . '-'S -y
111 r eason• ·
he saw aught else, httle ·
of happmess an d noth·mg of
ropriatelyto the countryside as Cluiteau du Caste {Jter . l ap,
P that . his best of fortune was his marriage with Barbe
garden is 11sbarrack-like as its walls-a central · lts
pear t success,
with a corporal's guard of pollarded lindens on tee t the daughter of the Toutlifaut farmer.
a Pa:r d Croque'
g round of uncomfortable cobbled paths. Its own a e She was an angel, as all about her knew. After her mar-
er at th
time of Waterloo and long thereafter was a well-k e . e she was known not as the wife of her husband but as
00 n~
figurein the region, for he was mayor of the town b Wn a saint in her own right, "the saintly Madame Bar be."L ong
neighborsdid not call him officially "Monsieur
" t 1 'nl F ·
z: But his after that time her saintship was proclaimed by her illus-
mest re, nor ye p a1 y ranc01s-Joseph Mercier b <>urg, trious son:
f ect.1onat e1y "le v· ieu.x mu aire."
· Master he was f' ut af, My constant desire, my profound aspiration, was ever
. o a local
mdustry, perhaps a .tannery, perhaps a brewery , th r1'f tily . to be a better man myself and to lead morally upwards all
managedto. enablehim to lay up "des rentes" wh ere the those over whom I might have some influence. I do not doubt
that this thirst for moral ascent was first instilled in me
would do him most good. He was not too thrifty t O b h y by my Mother. I am happy that a delicate allusion has
p1·table, though; his house was open and wl e os-
afforded me the opportunity to utter here the name of her
1k . , 10so came to
ta busmessor pleasure was sure to be called t d . to whom, after God, I owe the best part of myself: My
hi h f
s s are o a bottle of sound Burgundy H
on ° rink Mother, my sainted Mother! From her example, I learned
·t. . e was a solid dimly-unconsciously at first, later on consciously and
c1 izen,_on good terms with his neighbors, established
clearly, that true love consists in forgetfulness of self and
knownm the land, for the fami1 that and in devotion to others. It was in her heart, in the serene
Cambraihad by th b y came north from near
virility of her resolutions that I first read this great lesson
for two hundred yen een on the soil of Braine 1'A1Ieud
ears. of life: That man is nothing, that success and adversity
A son of the VieuxMaire, Paul-L' . are nothing, that God alone matters.
ble to his father and th f eon, was mcomprehensi-
' ere ore a puz I . Indeed there was a strain in the family of the stern, tire-
ment. We see him f. 1 z e and a disappoint-
1 om t 1e point f . less, selfless devotion that makes saints and martyrs, and
tanner as silly and . . o v1ew of the thrifty
1mprachcal He h d Madame Barbe and her illustrious son were not its only
he wantedto write. he t d. reac e out to the arts .
f ' wan e to . ' exemplars. Her brother, Adrien, ordained a cure, had gone
rom whomthe boy had h d 1 paint. The painter Navez
i . a essons, had d h' . , far and far afield, to the farthest wildernesses of America.
littl;he building has now b ma C 1m believe He had found the path of his duty in the 01·egon trail, and
square on which1't ecn turned into
I aces has b an old 111 , 1
een 11amedthe P/en s iome, and the had followed it, literally and figuratively, to its end. The
ace M11rcior
.
~
s
 THE LIFE OF CARDIN AL MEnc1Ea
Proce ses of canonization are not the same there .
but the result eems much the same. Indians and as lll Jl
t °!tie,
IN THE BEGL NING .
alike called the Cure "the Saint of Oregon," and hi 8 e tlet•s
. ·mes of illness and pam.
among the blessed m . t h e H appy H unbng
. Ground. s sea.tts. voted in tending his .fellowBlessed
men m tiMother herself h ad come
to
Madame Barbe, too, had a fair field for the e~e .. As for little Desire, if thet 11Father Oliviers what he wa.s1·
Jier saintly talents. The babies • le~~
came one after anoth down from her throne, to eld have found it . h ar d to be 1eve
become,the good cure wou t
the sum of eight. The first four were girls; the fiftherwto
Desire Felicien Frans:ois Joseph, born ~~ November, 1 ~ her h oodnessoft emPeramen,
~esire was endowedwi_tha;h::r s!e was, probably did not
baptized Desire, the son long-desired. Then came other/ 85 f hich his mother, bemg 11 that he was an
or w k d God For a '
Jeanne, Elise, Leon. As the numbers increased the incorn: flatter herself but tha~ e . ·t· d with a completely lov-
diminished. The tannery slipped away, and so did the rentes. entirely human boy, high-spm e ' inquisitive mm
. t 11·gent · d. He
1. d an 1n e 1
Two of the children died; the rest were brought up as best able persona ity' an . No other teacher could have
' .
their mother could contrive. Paul-Leon died, and the town learned much from po"\'erty. derstanding of the hardshr~
.
given him his fundamentalk un which permanen tly moulded his
lost no more than a Commissionaire-voyer2 and an unsuc-
and miseries of humble fol thy which went far to
cessful tanner-if the world missed a painter of parts, it Soul in sympat h y w1 ·th them, a ffsympa . g " he once sa1"d, " ac -
never learned the fact. Then for the family Mercier there make him what he was. "Su er1n ,
1·na more advanced
was no more living in the Chateau Castegier; it went to the . h d will place you
cepted and vanqms e ' . 1 ive ou a serenity which may
creditors. So Madame Barbe conducted her :flock to shabby . . . your career, WJl g y "f "
position m . ·t f m·t of your h e.
crowded quarters in the shadow of the village spire, whence h t exqms1 e r t
well prove t e mos F ther Oliviers who was a
Desire and his little sister Leontine, in their black alpaca Much, too, h e 1earned . . from . . a din his sympathy WI"th
. h" le m his origm, an h d
pinafores clattered daily down the hill, hand in hand over one with is peop ' d h pleasures as they a .
h . rows an sue .
the village cobbles, to the school of the Freres de Marie. their cares, t e1r sor ~ d th" for himself; his life
h· cla1me no mg
There the good Father Oliviers taught the boy the rudiments Oliviers had not mg, H" mpathy for his people
. f Spartan. 1s sy h
of Latin, and helped .Madame Barbe to teach him lessons and his are were . th f the Church. W -
d b their sympa Y or 0
believed to be even more important than those of school. .Be- was not measure y h t k d up his cassock and
th y were, e uc e
tween them, the two must have done their work thoroughly ever or whatever e , t dv1·seand comfort them.
th ddy paves o a
with the whole flock, for three of the little girls became trudged along e mu 1 f God he intoned masses
religieuses under tl1e names of Sister Margaret, Sister Si- For their souls and for£thh~g ormys:ackle church. From him,
"d h d drafts o is ra .
lesia, and Sister Madeleine, and Leon became no less de- am1 t e amp . h mile of pleasure m
D, . , learned to smile, a uman s . ls
2 Road inspector.
too, esire
things of beauty, as w en a oc h fl k of little red-cheeked gir
5
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERCIEn
came urrying through the drizzle in their whi
. ~v·1 IN THE BEGINNING
their firstcommuruon. e1s to
Desiregrewlanky and long-legged, and as h • Other influences there were which tended to soften the
. d . Is statu hard life. There were vacation days without work or les-
creased o a1so grew 1us ubes. Almost from th re in,
hehad servedFather Oliviers ns altar-boy. This e be~inning sons when Desire and Leon went for long rambling walks.
They inspected the big lion, looking across the Waterloo
hisstudiestook mo t of his time; in what was lef service and
fields toward France. They explored the lovely Foret de
whathecould,chieflywith his little pushcart , d e11verin . t h~ earned
Soignes where the pale columns of the beeches were as
eelsaboutthe village. Often his only recre a t·Ion durI. g Par, straight and regular as those of Ste. Gudule in Brussels.
day •
was tJ1ecompanionhip he had with otI1
• . er child.ng the They wandered in Monsieur le Baron's park, with its trees
they accompamed
. him and helped him on hi s roundslen ~~as of the wood rejoicing before the Lord, the "twilight bell3
doubt he nughthaveworkedinto business., no d ou bt M ·d J.'lO sounding in the distance, seeming to mourn departing day ."
Barbe and Father Oliviers discussed th . a ame They loved the sunshine when they had it, but scarcely less
chancethat he might lift himself b the po~sib!lity, the did they love the soft Belgian fog which painted the land-
f a ove e grmd
o poverty, above his father's level, bac k to th mg scape in shadows on veils of silk, and turned the sun as it
t edges
f .
granelfather. Or that of Cousm . Ed ouard wh a o his neared the horizon into a great ruby with fire in its heart.
had beena minister. Or th t f U . ' o several times Desire so often stood gazing into the distance, pointed so
. a o ncle Simeon. 'f
to seeh1ID, you had to get b fi , I you wanted often to the sweep of the lowland views, that the boys nick-
and then anotherto comet ~ ~st one watch-dog huissier named him "Panorama," the whole view. All this loveliness
the Ministryof Finance ~ s ~reau, an inner shrine of made itself a part of the mind and heart from which he
a hugebaizetable with . b' ~asy hfe, that, to sit all day at spoke fifty years later:
to a 1g mkst d
a comfortingmealand . an ' and then, to go home And the birds of the fields, who can neither sow nor reap.
hoganysofa.Thesefineg atplipe on the horsehair of the ma- -Does not our heavenly Father feed them? To the child who
purpl~ r1'bbons in their butt en emenwo.Ie red'ingotes with little grows up in the country, such sights are very familiar.
MonJieurle M . on-holes,and s'lk h When you see them in the company of your mother, your
tionale a d aire at the Pompiers' d ·11i ats just like heart grows tender and opens to confidences.
goldb~ai; Allon tthh_e really great occasr1· 1 or the Fete Na- One day Father Oliviers signalled Madame Barbe eagerly
· 1s f h ons the
havechosen b ' or t e boy h1' If y even wore to wait for him after the service. It was a real bit of news
, ut th . mse hi
~liviersmustsurel e samt in her, and the s m_ot~er might he had for her. He had been appointed Vicar of Our-Lady-
Ject of car .y have ended th . ascetic In Fath
h eerswith th e1rconf er Beyond-the-Dyle in the Cathedral City of Malines, where, as
~~hreadbare cassocke preference for t~ree~~es on the suh- she knew, the great Archbishop lived. He had thought it
and the povert ~ . ittle Desire of
ge church.
6
y stricken fl
ock of the v:;tr~~a di Zontano, che paia iZ giorno pianger, che Bi muore."-Purg.

7
 THE LIFE OF CARDI AL MERCIER
IN THE BEGINNING
all out. Desire,now twelve years old, might go with hirn to
building he was to know so well, of sand.stone, its three
enter the ollege of St. Rombaut. After that he would
gables fronting on the cattle market. Its sandstone is gray-
to the Petit St minaire, then the Grand S eminaire, and thego
green like that of the cathedral just around the corner, and
said Father Oliv:ierswith his benignant smile, then, with t~
there are shades of purple in the old glazing of its leaded
grace of God and the help of Our Lady, Desire would b
windows. Close by, in the home of the Demoiselles R ydam,
ordained a servant of Jesus Christ. To Madame Bar·b e 1t _e Father Oliviers found lodging incredibly cheap £or Desire.
seemedto open a viewto her dearest wish, but seen throu h Here he soon learned the Flemish patois of the district from
po,·erty such views are stripped of illusory colors. Whe:e which most of his schoolmates came. Always the elegant
was the money to come from to keep the boy at Malines for scholar, later, when he was master of many languages ancient
twelveyears of study? His contemporaries would be plow- and modern, he had pride and amusement in his ability to
ing fieldsof their own before that time had passed. Father speak Flemish in the accents of the street urchins. Mercier
Olfriers reminded her that large benefits may be the sum of shared the hospitality of the Demoiselles R ydam with a lad
small economies. It would not be easy; economies mu t b of his own age named Scheuremanns. They lived together
b ·1 . s e
UJ t rnto sacrifices, but it would be worth it · Perh aps an in the attic, and whenever either brought home a prize,
aunt or uncle would help, and God certainly would. Then usually a book of moral virtue, the Demoiselles would cele-
there were the bourses, and the kind teachers who knew brate by baking a tart £or dessert. The boy who shared
many ways to smooth rough paths The weight of D, . ,, these celebrations and the attic with Mercier is now a mild
·h · esire s
own w1s tu:ned the scale, if the decision had been in doubt. canon bent with age, who shuffles around the corridors of the
so one day m the autum f 1863 . ' episcopal palace, and still remembers how good was the
birthda h n o_ . ' Just before his twelfth
y, e and Father Olmers with th bl . Demoiselles' pastry, and how little difference it made which
th ill ' e essmgs of all
e v age, mounted the dili . of the two boys brought home the prize, for they received
Desire's first departure on the r::~c: for . Malines. It was equally generous portions of the festive tart.
to return as a ma f y which he was so often The old canon remembers, too, that the boys were real
n or rest and ha .
look was forward t h l ppy memories. Now his boys, and that Mercier was one of them. They were natural,
' o sc oo away from ho .
ways to boys, a new world. me, to hlIIl, as al- healthy specimens of their kind, normal in pref erring recess
r •
ew as it was to him, the Colle Of S to study. Mercier had a fine sense of fun, was fond of jokes
entered as a day p i1 . ge t. Rombaut which he an~ _pranks, radiant in good humor, and of gay and buoyant
" up IS one of the Id t f
free" schools of classical studi o e~ o the so-called spmt. We wonder how he could have sustained such esprit
though it had not long been h ~ established in Belgium, when we look at the record of the hours of toil he must have
the agitation of the school quoe::~ w_herehe found it. After gone through to balance the scrimping and saving at home,
wn it was quartered in the
8 9
 THE LIFE OF CARDI AL MERCIER

to 1earn the astonishing amount he indubitablv~ did 1ear IN THE BEGINNING

thWO f French and ancient literature, especially 'I' ~tl~. ll
piquet or billiards for a rabbit or a brace of pigeon~ as
E1·ther he had before he went to St. Rombaut, or acq Utred. ·
prize, finishing with beer and lively talk at the. estannvnet.
88 he enteredit door, the_faculty of concentration for Which
As time went on this group organized a club which became
he was afterward conspicuous. Perhaps he brought With
an important factor in the life of the region, The ~atholic
him,perhapshe learned at the school, the principle he stated Association of St. Francis Xavier. Catholic it was m more
60 clearly in the later years, that the master faculty in life senses than one; it took in without prejudice all classes of
i not the intelligence,but the will. But how could a boy of the five thousand or so who dwelt in Braine l' Alleud and there-
twelvelearn these stern lessons and remain a boy? Prob- abouts, farmers, workers in the textile mills, brickyards, and
ably by the sheer resiliency of boyhood. The instruction in starch works, employers, clergy, students, old or young,
moralprecept was catechismal: they would march together arm in arm to a hall they called
Q. What shall your watchword be? their "local" lent them rentfree by its kindly proprietor.
A.. First, Order at all times and in all places; Second, Of these days he said later to his students:
O!>ed1en:e to the mas~ers; Third, Self-respect; Fourth, One of the pleasantest recollections of my schooldays is
S~lencem the Chapel, m the classroom and in the ranks . that of the joyous vacation days spent with the workmen
Fifth, Goodbehaviorin public; and last, Christian Charit/ of Braine l' Alleud, competing with them for rabbits, and
then afterwards eating the prizes in each other's company.
Here is a load of virtue that would break an angel's ha J
B . C<. Such association was part of Mercier's identification with
ut it ~ould not oppress the human boy; he throws it off
and sprmgs back to normal or a bit beyond Merc1er
. was the classes with whom he worked, whom he was to benefit;
h . • without it he could not have been what he was or have done
.uman; a amt, perhaps, but the greater part of his saint-
Jmesswas humanity. what he did. He became a Prince of the Church, but his
Like every normal boy, he counted the d f outward rank was never so much a part of him as was the
vacation to the next. The love ays. rom one soil of the fields from which he sprang. And he learned of
heart to his moth , of books was no rival in his men from the book in which that knowledge is most plainly
er s warm embrace d th
home meals with th • te ' an e comfortable to be read. "The workingman thinks aloud," he once said;
e SIS rs and brother d
estly spread table the d I aroun the mod- "his simple language ignores artifice. No one helps you
' ay- ong rambl ·
countryside. The e days fl Id es m the familiar better to read the secrets of the soul."
a e were not alwa
meadow and stream but 0 ft . ys confined to We see shaping influences, too, in his teachers of the
Th ' en mcluded b
e boys of the neighborhood h th eer and skittles. academy at Malines. The headmaster was Father Pieraerts,
wouldwalk together to ' e e gayest among them who had probably never heard Lord Melbourne's cynical ad-
some nearby village to b 1 '
ow or play vice, "You had better try to do no good, and then you'll get
10
.11
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERCIER
.t
m 0110
crapes.'' If he had, he would doubtless haves
ereneJ IN THE BEGINNING
t . ed to teach his charges that they had better tr Y VerY
con mu
Jiard to do a great d~n.l o~ good if they hoped to go t! sional, and since the priest's profession is not only to know
but to be, the seminary seeks to train its students not only
hcm·en. Perhaps Ierc1er did not need the lesson, Lut sure}
Father Pieraerts confirmed_it in his spirit. There was -J. in what they ought to know but in what they ought to be
also. A liberal education is a necessary part of this train-
Robert, too, wl10taught !um to obey; M. La Force, who ing; quite as necessary are the manners and personal habits
faught him to work; l\f. Pieraerts who taught him to da re. becoming to the calling. The aim of the seminaire is to turn
If it wa from them he learned these lessons, he owed his out Christian gentlemen who know their work. The training
teachers much; but surely there are students to whom they extends through two schools. The preparatory or petit semi-
cannot be taught. naire keeps the student occupied for six years, and then he
It was in the autumn of 1868 that Mercier was admitted studies philosophy for two and theology for four years in
to the Petit Seminairc. If any American or British reader the grand seminairc. In the lower school are taught Chris-
finds him elf thinking of "seminary" in its genteel Victorian tian doctrine, Latin, Greek, a modern language, rhetoric,
suggestion of "three little girls from school," he will form elocution, history, geography, mathematics, natural sci-
no guess of the rigors of the seminarian's twelve-hour day ences, and the Gregorian chant. The upper school has phi-
beginning at five-thirty and including but one hour of losophy, theology, Holy Scripture, canon law and liturgy.
recreation. Seminairc is almost necessarily translated Semi- The great majority of the secular clergy study in these
nary, but it is seldom anything other than a school insti- seminaires, where the student's life is that of the pension,-'
tuted for. the_ training ~f the Catholic diocesan clergy. naire, with no contact with his lay contemporaries except
These se~naries owe their foundation to a wise decree of during vacations. Of the Belgian students, the more bril-
the Council of Trent: liant, either through means of their own or such as are found
Every for them by the Church, continue their studies at the Uni-
• diocese
t o t ram . is. bound
. to support , t o rear m. piety
. and
m ecclesm heal discipline a t . b' versity of Louvain. Their formal training finished, the
th · 11 ' cer am num er of
you s, m a co ege chosen by the bisho f th . young priests are assigned either to parish duty or to a
The institutions are to receive boys at 1~:st~r I e purpose.
teaching office in one of the many educational institutions
age, who can read and write passabl d we ve years ~f
good disposition, give hope that th y,. an who by their maintained by the Church. In Belgium, the upper and
service of the Church. Children of
ferred.
~h will persevere in the
e poor are to be pre-
lower seminaries differ in that the upper are public estab-
lishments, civic bodies, the administration of which is subject
~o this original idea the Continental seminar· h to the control of the Depu,tation Permanente as well as that
Mth remarkable fidelity. Th . . ies ave held of the central government, though their teaching proper is
c1r traming is direct! f
Y pro es- absolutely under ecclesiastical direction. The lower semi-
rn
13
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERCIER
naries. on the other hand, are private establishm
. en~ad.
istered by the bishops, who owe no accounting of th . nJ.in.-
e1r st
ardship to any but t 11e Congregation of Studies in ll ew_
which is very cognizant of the status of each and 0
llle,
every 0
of the seminaries.
The curriculum of the College of St. Rombaut
over1aps
that of the lower seminary to such an extent that M .
erc1er
and tl10seof his classmates who entered with him had to
com-
plete only two years of philosophy and four of theolog .
. . Wh l\ . yin
the two semmanes. en 1erc1er entered the Petit Semi-
naire at l\falines, it had some fifty students in the old build-
ings, which stood on the foundation walls of the old castle of
the Lalaings. There was a new building under construction
which had just then brought misfortune. The headmaster,
the Canon de Beeser, had gone up the scaffolding to inspect
IN THE BEGINNING
Mercier's program here was as crowded with work as is
tha t o f th e American student with "activities," but .
a most
.1mport ant element of it was that which the American seldom .
lle
1 earns- med itation · His first week in the seminary was given
to retrea t , devoted mainly to meditation in his cell, . broken
only by frequent conferences with his spiritual director, _by
· ·t·lil g the Blessed Sacrament, and reciting the Officedaily.
VlSl
He learned to begin his day with a half-hour's quiet contem-
plation, a habit which was to stand him in ~uch good stead
later in life, and which he was time and agarn to urge upon
his clergy. To him Cella continuata dulcescit;" there, _and
there only he found the peace which passeth understanding;
there he learned by experience that the best advice he could
ive his priests was that of the psalmist: "Commune with
g
your own heart in your own chamber, an db e st"ll 1 ."
5

the work, and had fallen to his death, and Mercier's head-
master, Father du Rousseau, had just succeeded him. The
old buildings were of mellow crumbling brick and sandstone
in the fai;ade of the time of Henry IV, the inner walls in-
closing court after court bordered with scarlet o-eranium and
thick-grown holly where successive academic ;nerations
boys run and shout, play handball and leapfrog. Among
them move slowly the black-robed priests in conversational
pair, seemingly unconscious of the noisy life about them, ac-
tua~Iy alert to any infraction of the discipline of the hour.
So it looked when Mercier was a student, and so it looked
fifty years later when the tall cardinal coming upon it by
chance would stoop through the opened panels of the big
gate to forget for a moment the sorrows of the t .
g Ump e of the past. presen m a
14,
After the first week of retreat, laboremus was the watch-
word, and that was nothing new to Mercier, either then or at
any other time of his life. The day began at five or five-thirty
and went on with meditation, mass with communion, break-
fast at seven-thirty, four hours of class and study in the
of forenoon, four hours more in the afternoon, broken by an
hour's walk or other recreation, and more study after supper.
Then, when he had visited the Blessed Sacrament, recited the
rosary and completed spiritual reading and prayers, he
might stretch himself on his hard narrow bed with nine hours
work and three of exercises of piety to his credit. On one day
a week this rigid program was relaxed enough to allow
the students a little more time for a favorite study, _a lit-
tle more exercise, or a visit to some neighboring institution
4 "Thy cell, if thou continuue it, groweth sweet." 5 Psalm iv, 4.
15
 THE LIFE OF
. . CARDINAL
hich nu ht ofr e ti 1'1.:e:ac1
u h " r the nu 1~m a foretaste of th . ::ell
p1ccs und l. e1r f t
. Yent n beg an 11is tud er ~ Uch Mercier u Ute se1y
IN THE BEGINNING
m a tli a t his 6r t . y of philosophy I ' at the lee,
di t. Ii d acquaintance witI1 it I f . . t is not ageof the big lanky fellow,who was joyous even in the lugubrious
J c . The outlines of s . e this lllind sutPris-
Petit Seminaire.
then vie ed in Frnnce and n PI e~ulative thought dazeda11d It seems incredible that he or any one could have been so.
] · .oe gium w b as the
appmg of the multiple s t ere lurred b y Were If it were merely a school for boys, it would have been in-
of the time in their attemy~ ems devised by the p[/he over, credibly stupid of the wise old Church to herd her fifty boys
the past. f ercier' m. d Pl.ksto make a co111pletebi_osophers together and drill their minds and their spirits with so little
. h. lll ' 1 e that f ieak "'th heed to the flesh. But such was to be their future life, and
ln P Jlo opJ1y, sought clear- . o most earnest be . i
coherent •st .. cut 1deas, order! ginners if a candidate could not endure, it were well to find it out
J em with an unshakabl . y exposition
a~ve all an intelligible relationship \!;~;t
w ch had found illumination and
of ~e~arture, a~;
~ e. 1I1s intelligence,
before it was too late. Mercier had been trained in worldly
poverty and spiritual wealth till he knew no other way of life.
The few still alive who knewhim in the days of his adolescence
realms of learning as it had ex 1 d ;r erly paths in such all agree that the sensuous repelled him. Loose talk and
~roping in a fog, oppressed ;;t~r::ea e:e found itself baffled, manners, even among the rough-and-tumble farm hands and
hon. Only one light shone clear! f ~1ne_ss a~d dissatisfac- factory workers among whom he spent his vacations, seemed
maze, Father Tongiorgi' I t. y . or him m tlus bewildering to pain him to such an extent that none of his careless com-
h f s ns itutiones Phil h. panions who indulged in them once in his presence ever re-
e ound what vainly he sou ht . 1 osop icae. In it
. . of ph - 1n ectures and Oth peated the experiment. And it was not that he lacked virility
an expo 1bon 1 hg er rea d'mg
• 1 osop y clear enou h t . . ' or passion. Time and again when he was deeply stirred by
bona.I and coherent sp· ·t 1· . g o give him a ra-
1r1 ua isbc system d injustice or wrong, those who observed him saw from his
current positivism. an an answer to tight-drawn lips what self-control he was exercising. Had
The lectures were suspended fro . . he not possessed the passion he did, much of his best work
nary to allow the st d t . m bme to bme at the semi- would have lacked the fire that made it successful and su-
u en s to polish th · · I
in controversi I . eir mte 1ectua1 weapons preme.
a exercises. Thes h .
the "Academy 0 f L't e were t e public debates of In October, 1870, Mercier entered the Grand Seminaire.
1 erature and M · ,, • .
mo t ably and · th be . usic m which he who Here no more than in the lower school was there for him the
' m e st Latm def d d h · h .
claimed victor. All th .' en e 1s t es1s was pro- slightest political preparation for the great European scenes
indeed was th e proccedmgs were conducted in Latin, in which he was to play so great a part. The fact that Eu-
' ' e greater part of tl ·
nary. Three time d'd M . . le curricu 1um of the semi- rope was being reshaped did not seem to signify much in the
s 1 erc1er wzn in th d' . cold bare corridors and cramped halls of the Malincs theo-
the delight of even his ese 1scuss10ns, to
opponents, for all had learned to love logical students. For Victoria the calming tonic of Beacons-
16
17
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL
ME1tc1E
field' :ifottery lllld been replaced by l\f G ll.
. an d ag1·tllt·mg re f orms. Darwi r. lad ston e ' s dist
mg IN THE BEGINNING
n was at w0 te88
D c, tit of ,Van. Huxley was bein()' d rk on 'l' - • ·1ated the substance of the Gospels, learned the Epistles
'fi l o rawn away f he ass1m 1 ~
ti c re earc 1 to public duty, feeling th t torn sc· of St. Paul by heart, acquired a sound knowledge of the
. . . . a the obli . lell,
citizenship were more imperious th th gatiolls Church Father s, and an enthusiasm for Montalembert. Yet
. an ose of a of
philo ophy. Herbert Spencer had de I d teachet f in the best sense he was nearer to life itself than Zola-Zola
care that . o
the really vital and constant element th lll religioll discovered life; Mercier knew it all the time. His talent for
was e sens life and his love of the beauty of nature were so strongly
tery, and that both science and religion m t e of mys,
. " h us come t planted and grown before he began his academic training
mze as t e most certain of all facts t1 t th o recog.
th . 1a e pow that books served not to make him one-sided, but merely to
e unn ·erse manifests to us is utterl . er Which
f t f h Y mscrutable " 'l' round him out. He might go as far as he liked in theologi-
u ure o t e Irish church was hanging i th b · he cal and philosophical abstractions, but he could not lose con-
h d f d n e a 1ance lb
a oun Scandinavian bigotry and . . · sen tact with life, for he carried it with him. Nor could logic
both ridiculous and hopeless and s 1 ~alirow-mmdedness
. ' 0 P am Y told his and philosophy destroy his faith, for he soon learned that
trymen. Kmg Leopold II was d' .d. h' . coun- faith is the beginning and the end of logic, that the accept-
. ivi mg is time bet
colomal expansion abroad and the bl d. h ween ance of the axiom with which logic begins is an act of faith,
]\f L an is ments of CI, d
i:rode at home. The Iron Chancellor's d h d eo e as is also the acceptance of the unkno wn where logic ends.
t . hi . ream a com
rue' s policy had triumphed; the German E . h e His intellectual insight went always hand in hand with a
been procl · d N mp1re ad rare and profound imaginative sympathy. Study was ap-
rume . apoleon minor was w . h.
taches at Chislehurst, while France was . axthmgd JS mous- prenticeship for action. His deepest lessons were learned in
. · · th m e ust. Zola the cell of the soul, "where silence makes you hear the voice
~as gJVJng e world-which swallowed ha d h. £!
of sordid er. . r - JS urst doses of God ." He observed the silences, and none doubted that
une and realism to counteract th
romances on which, it seemed to h. . e spun-sugar he heard the voice. His punctuality, industry, devotion at
unhealthily fat Th f im,_it had been growing all services were like the examples of early piety in the
· e 1ger was snarlmg i th t
Montmartre . th C n e s reets of lives of saints, and no doubt his associates would have scorned
' e ommune was spatterin th
Paris with the bl00 d h'1 h g e pavements of him as a prig had not his humor, sincerity, simplicity, and
w c was to the · .
sche though t'H d m no new tint. N1etz- sympathy won all hearts. It was not solely his academic
' s l an un ergraduate h d b
a professor hip extraordinar f ' . a een appointed to merits that won him the approval of his superiors. He was
1
And Desire Mercier w b ! o . c ass1cal philology at Basel. marked for promotion. The president of the seminary, the
the Grand Seminaire a:sM:i::~ng the study of theology in Coadjutor Bishop Anthones, gave him first the tonsure, and
shortly thereafter the minor orders. He was entrusted first
WhileZola was writing Lea Rougon,-111
iu. acquart, Mercier with various small offices in the Grand Seminaire, and assisted
18 19
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERCIER
the archbishop, Cardinal Deschamps, at Pontifical servie
Finally he was made a sub-deacon, and it s_ohappened th~~
• t t this time Canon du Rousseau, needmg a tem
JUS a ' . Porar
t ~' her called him in that officeto the Petit Shninaire u~ Y
whocould teach, inspire, and c~nvert the boys. From J anu-
ary to October of 1878, Mercier served there as instruct
or.
He receivedhigher orders before he left the Grand Seminaire
but had not been raised to the priesthood.
It was to finish his preparation for ordination, and to pre-
pare for even higher duties, that he was sent in the autumn
of 1873 to the University of Louvain. Adrian of Utrecht
had taught at Louvain, and had among his pupils Charles of
Hapsburg. Later, Adrian became Pope, and Charles be-
came Emperor. Adrian had a much shorter rule than his
pupil, scarcely more than a year and a half. To his old uni-
versity he bequeathed the house in which he had taught,
which, by the addition later of other buildings on the prop-
erty, became in time the College of Pope Adrian the Sixth.
In the time of Napoleon it became a succursal,e of the In-
val,ides,and was occupied by wounded soldiers of the Imperial
armies. Now tourists gaze at it respectfully as the building
where Cardinal Mercier lived and taught for four years.
Mercier's reputation had preceded him, for the affiliation
was, naturally, close between Louvain and Malines. The
great majority of the students either lived in the free rooms
furnished ~hem by the university in various places through-
out Louvam, or came into town from their horn f th .
d , es, or e1r
~y s _work. When Mercier arrived, there were only two dor-
mitories, the "Pope's College " wh 1· d
' ere Ive some of the lay
students, and the "College of the Holy Ghost " hi h M . St. Thomas he believed he had found the fundamental
, w c erc1er
20
I THE BEGI
d As the young student of theology matured he was
entere . the position of "sous-regent
, . tl 1e "C olli:gc
,, m ' du
0 ffered , d · " ·
" This po t corresponded to that of an a v1s01· m
Pape. . .. . • :kt
American umvers1ties. It became lu delicate tas o
:: as the spiritual guide of students intending to enter the
various professions.
The following spring, in a mood of high spiritual exalta-
'
tion, the young Abbe went to Bru sels, and on \pril 4 1874,
the Papal Nuncio, Mgr. Cattani, a i ted by the future Car-
dinal y anutelli, ordained Mercier as a prie t. As soon a
possible he went to Braine l' Alleud, and on Ea ter Sunday
he celebrated Mass for the first time in the little church
where he had learned his catechism, where as altar boy he ~,ad
swung the censer. Father Olivier had come from Mahnes
for the occasion. His mother could not go to see her dear
hope fulfilled; she had suffered a troke of paraly is; nothing
short of that would have prevented her. But we may be ure
the others were all there, the sisters who had come with Father
Oliviers, the intimates of Mercier's childhood, those who had
been the village boys and girls, now grown and wearing their
best clothes. "Ad Deum, qui letificat juventutem," he wrote
in his diary ; to God, who had blessed his youth, he dedicated
his life.
His studies he dedicated to St. Thomas Aquinas. He was
seeking anew what he at first seemed to find in Tongiorgi,
unshakable ground under his feet and a system that would
arm him for a successful attack on the forces of the time that
were arrayed against his beliefs, materialism, positivism,
pragmatism, Bergsonian mysticism. In the philosophy _of
prm-
21
 THE LIF E OF CARDI NA L MERCI:F ~n,
the archbishop, Cardinal Deschamps, at Pontifi ca l ser . I N THE BEGINNING
Finally he was made a sub-deacon, and it so hap "1ces.
. . . Pened th entered. As the young student of theology matU1·ed he was
J.ust at tlus time, Canon du Rousseau, needmg a t empor at offered the position of "sous-r egent" in the "Coll eg e du
teaclm·, called him in that office to the Petit S emina ·. ary
Z?e as o Pape." This post corresponded to that of an "advi sor" in
whocould teach, inspire, and convert the boys. From J ne our American universities. It became his delicate task to
ary to October of 1873, Mercier served th ere as inst anu- act as the spiritual guide of students intending to enter the
ructor
He receivedhigher orders before he left the Grand S emi . · various professions.
. d . naire
but had not been rai se to t 11e priesthood. , T he following spring, in a mood of high spiritual exalta-
It was to finish his prep aration for ordination and t 0 tion, the young Abbe went to Brussels, and on April 4, 1874,
• • ' pre-
pare for even higher duties, that he was sent in the autu th e P apa l Nuncio, Mgr. Cattani, assisted by the future Car-
of 1873 to the University of Louvain. Adrian of Dt mhn dinal Vanutelli, ordained Mercier as a priest. As soon as
rec t
had taught at Louvain, and had among his pupils Charles of possible he went to Braine l'Alleud, and on Easter Sunday
Hap sburg. Later, Adrian became Pop e, and Charle s be- he celebrat ed Mass for the first time in the little church
cam~ Emperor. Adrian had a much shorter rule than his where he had learned his catechism, where as altar boy he had
pup'.!, scarcely more than a year and a half. To his old uni- swung the censer . F ather Oliviers had come from Malines
versity he bequeathed the house in which he had t ht for the occasion. H is mother could not go to see her dear
hi .. aug , hope fulfilled; she had suffered a stroke of paralysis; nothing
w ch, by the addit10n later of other buildings on the prop-
short of that would have prevented her. But we may be sure
erty, be~amein time the College of Pope Adri an the Sixth.
the others were all t her e, the sisters who had come with Father
In _thebme of Napoleon it became a succursale of the In-
Oliviers, the inti mates of Mercier's childhood, those who had
vali~es, and was occupied by wounded soldiers of the Imperial
armies. Now tour· t t. been the village boys an d girls, now grown and wearing their
. is s gaze a it respectfully as the building
where Cardmal Mercier lived and taught f f best clothes. "A d D eum, qui letificat juventutem," he wrote
M · , or our years. in his diary ; to God, who had blessed his youth, he dedicate d
ercier s reputation had preceded him for th ffil' t·
was natu 11 1 , e a ia 10n his life.
' ra y, c ose between Louvain and M 1· Th
gr t · · a mes. e His studies he dedicat ed t o St . T homas Aqu inas. H e was
ea maJor1ty of the students either lived i th f
furnished them b th . . . n e ree rooms seeking anew what he at first seemed to find in To ngi org i,
Y e university in v · l
out Louvain . arious P aces through- unshakable ground und er his feet and a system that would
' or came mto town from th . h
day's work. Wh M . . eir 0 mes, for their arm him for a successful attack on the forces of the time tha t
en erc1er arrived ther
mitories, the "Pope's C II " h' _ewere only two dor- were a rrayed aga inst his beliefs, materialism, positivism ,
o ege, w ere lived
students, and the "Coll f h some of the lay pragmatism, Berg sonian mystici sm. In the philo sophy of
ege o t e Holy Ghost" wh' h M .
' 1c erc1er St. Thomas he believed he had found the fundamental prin-
20
i1
 THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MERcrEn
• f an epistemoloay a.nd metaphysics capable f
c1p1r o o .tef IN THE BEGINNING
. ,jti,'ism Long before external events had tit,
mg po . . . . . . Conti-iv Mercier's success with his pupils we may gain from one and
t
O gu
jde his interests m tl1at direction, his faith in th ea
C Solllld another of his expressions of practical advice to them and to
e· of tJiat pl1ilosophy was already firm. But he e.:x: -
n
trus beliefmost clearly in later years:
~~ others.
Don't be superficial. Try to think logically and classify
I am com'lllced that he who has the courage to purs h· . your head in an orderly manner what you know you can
in
philo ophy to tl1e end and to its logical conclusionsue .18 retain.
aITTee
0 lrith me t]111,tin the analysis of the very foundati;n""'ill
speculative c1ence
• an d ethi ca I p h"l
I osop hy, no other man shof
Youth has always been the age, not only of initiative, but
f udacity, surrounded by an atmosphere not only favor-
ever thought or written with the powers of St. Thom as ~bl: to enthusiasm, but at times to digressions. At twenty,
.
Aqmnas. as
· ginative dreams and youthful ardor have not as yet met
~~a shock of reality. The will suspects neither internal nor
This conviction was perhaps the best fruit of his studies. The ex~ernal obstacles,
.. but is impatient for success, which is al-
staunchness of it kept his courage high, and gave freshness ways slow in arnvmg.
and energy to his presentation of his system of the other sci- So few men have the courage to question themselve~ in
ences co-ordinated under the leadership of philosophy, which d r to ascertain what they are really capable of becommg,
:~de so few then have the will to become it.
won the sympathy and adherence of his pupils and inspired
them with enthusiasm for their work. His own progress was Don't look back in the hope of gaining complaisant self-
respect from the road you have traversed. March on! Pro-
measured step by step with theirs. In July, 1877, he became ceed!
Licencie en Theologie, and defended his examination thesis
with such brilliancy that his old friend in Malines, Canon du It is easy to read in these expressions phrases that have come
into fashion-and perhaps out again-since his time, "the
Rousseau, once mere requested his services, recommending
will to succeed," "the habit of success." But he did not try
him to Cardinal Deschamps for a vacant position in the Fac-
to erect them into an educational system that will work re-
ult~ of PhiJ~sophy at the Seminary. Thus at the age of twen-
ardless of who works it. The principle is as old as life, but
ty-six Mercier once more returned to his familiar haunts in
!one can make it work save he who discovers it for himself.
the cat~edral t~wn, looking forward to a long career in his
Mercier was one of these, and for five years at Malines it
congenial pursuits there. Once more promotion came quickly.
turned his students into his disciples.
Ca_nondu Rousseau was promoted to the Bishopric of Tour-
nai, and Mercier to his former master's prof hi d
. .
th e spmtual essors p an
care of his students.
Some understanding of the elements which contributed to
fl~
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 DIVINE PHILOSOPHY
them as never before, for he had the whole of Chrisen
· t d om on
his shoulders.
And Christendom, as he viewed it , was suffering· f rum a
mind diseased to which he felt it his duty to minister. The
rising tide of science was depriving traditional teaching of
the very ground under its feet; there seemed scarce a rock
left to cling to. Philosophic thought was to Leo a Babel of
confusion, the realm of learning mere anarchy: philosophic
processes were nothing but questioning, speculation, and
doubt. Philosophy had lost its old authority to marshal all
human thought in orderly ranks under its banner, a compact
little group that the Church could keep well in hand. Sci-
ence was scattering it in alarming disorder. Disturbing
numbers were straggling after Kant and other harmful Ger-
mans. Cardinal Newman, no less than Leo himself, was con-
vinced that he was living in an age of general and widespread
unbelief, and to many another the Church seemed already
defeated in fields of thought which it had scarcely felt itself
called upon to defend. Moreover, at this time when need was
greatest, strength was least to command. As a scholar Leo
was offended by the low state of learning among his clergy,
and as a reformer he was saddened by their low spiritual
tone.
To find a remedy for all this, Leo looked, natura:ly enough,
backward down the centuries toward the period of the
th Middle Ages. Then truth
Church's greatest strengt h , e .
e Church in a clear united current.
}1a d flowed f or th f ro m th . . .
. . h d it become muddied and divided?
How m the ages since a .
. d 'f the unchanging Church had it then,
T r uth is eterna,1 an i
there it still must be. If in the Middle Ages the truths, first
,o