The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1899-11-25

thor naturally concludes that refer.
ences to Catholic ritual and customs arr
extremely significant. Shakespeare
never used the ribaIdry of the day re-
sarding priests and nuns and friars;
ana moreover, in recasting antf-Catho-
nc pays. such as King john" he
carefully expunged adverse remarks
ABOUT religious orders.
0nakespeares view of nature is es-
seHtldlly Catholic and opposed to the
ffotestant view of Reformation times.
riotestants believed that nature was
uiscoraant; that sin had ruined the en-
'ite man; that in saint and sinner there
were no outward distinctions, for sin
nao MADE an intimate, profound, in
sGrutanle and irreparable corruption of
Tue ehtlre nature, andsof all the powers.
especially OF the superior and principal
powers OF the SOUL This corruDtness
OIL the sinner extended to all his works.
his corruption is Subjective and in
trinsic; his Justification is objective
ana eXtrlnsic." Since this is so, an
other consideration arises. There is no
use OF sacrifice on the part of man.
Sac1flce IS an intimate part of Shake
speare's love, and hence is not Protest
aht-Dut more of that later. Shake
speare views nature as harmonious and
beautiful and orderly. He is e-ninently
a nature poet; nature to him is not
accursed; it is the mirror which reflects
all human interests-joys. sorrows,
vices, virtues, Nature furnishes great
moral lessons to him.
In his treatment of love Shakespeare
distinguishes closely between pagan
love, which is dominated by the senses.
and Christian love, which exalts the
spiritual part. The object of such love
is not the human body in itself, but
beauty Of character and soul shining
through the body. Since the object
of true love with him is the eternal
truth goodness and beauty and is only
TO be Won by the announcement, of all
else for its sake, love and religion with
become identified and re-
l1g1on like love bears an essentially sac
rlficial character. In what re- |
ligion, then, is the idea of sacrifice |
Not in the Professionalism of
the sixteenth century, for it. expressly |
declares that not in works. but in faith, |
is man justified. Growing out of this !
IS the theory of salvation by election
alone, and the correlative idea of the
worthlessness of works, which excludes
utterly the sacrificial idea.
Professionalism. so material and mega
ave in its tendencies, was untitled to
give birth to a great poet. It forbade
mystery, and hence it is that when
ouching the mysterious, Puritanism's
poet, Milton, fails. His heaven
S dull, fiat and prosaic God justifies
himself, all the secrets of heaven must
De laid bare and explained according
o human doctrines NJ Tame declares
hat Adam and Eve talk just like two
when. at dinner with the
nigel. What dialogues! Dissertations
appel by politeness, mutual sermons
oncluded by bows. What bows. Phil
sophical compliments and moral
miles. This Adam entered
via England Now Dante
; just as precise and detailed in his
counts of the doing of supernatural
eings as Milton, but his poetic descrip- '
ions are truly poetic and grand. This ]
) because he deals in mysteries, and
.aves mysterious the ways of God to {
ian. 1T is because he works on the {
mes of dogma and mystery, the idea {
f tba c11Dor,,o +,,ra1 fvad for hin, nv 4
is faith. The Puritan poet, on the t
Their hand. had to draw exclusively on r
is own human and utterly inadequate +
and thus. instead of SUBJ /
me, he becomes grotesque. Milton /
rings DOWN heaven to earth and makes f
)iritual things terrestrial Dante l
'ansports earth to heaven and shows +
i transformed in the light of Gods +
lger or of his love- Professionalism.
trying to explain everything, crushed =
lie imaginations of men and could not :
'oduce a pre-eminently great poet :
Another point which Mr. Simpson !
was Shakespeare's adher- p
ice to scholastic doctrines. The Ref n
nation was, if anything, an attack =
| lHc SCuOllSlS. hutII VI TIE n
aching of Shakespeare is Thomist, i. 7
his doctrine of the genesis of
lowledge and its. strictly objective n
aracter; the power Of reflection as
stinctive of rational creatures; the
rmation of habits intellectual and
oral; and his whole view of the op- W
alton of the imaginative faculty. He ir
so insists upon the individual and +,
subsistence of each human h,
ing, and the law of subsistence flow n,
: therefrom-ail of which is in oppo- Ia
ion to the pantheistic idea He &c
aches the eternal consequences of Ia
lyle acts and reprobates suicide. He n,
also casuist. and in that one thing II
me is dramatically opposed to Pro- &C
slant notions. =,
,1r- Bowden's volume also goes at or
9Th into external evidences of -
akespsare's Catholicity, such as 10
lrch ana court records in Warwick y,
re, evidence from contemporary he
tiers, both of a negative ard positive -,
he also discusses the objec- ~,
ms found by Professionals to argu- oil
nts that make Shakespeare appear a lii
tholic at
Pl