St. Sulpice never went so far as they did in
trampling recognised rules under foot.
It cannot be denied that mingled with all this there was a certain
amount of antipathy against talent, and of resentment at interference
with the routine of the schoolmen disturbed in their old-fashioned
doctrines by troublesome innovators. But there was at the same time
a good deal of practical tact in the rules followed by these prudent
directors. They saw the danger of being more royalist than the king,
and they knew how easy was the transition from one extreme to the
other. Men less exempt than they were, from anything like vanity,
would have exulted when Lamennais, the master of these brilliant
paradoxes, who had represented them as being guilty of heresy and
lukewarmness for the Holy See, himself became a heretic, and accused
the Church of Rome of being the tomb of human souls and the mother of
error. Age must not attempt to ape the ways of youth under penalty of
being treated with disrespect.
It is on account of this frankness that St. Sulpice represents all
that is most upright in religion. No attenuation of the dogmas of
Scripture was allowed at St. Sulpice; the fathers, the councils, and
the doctors were looked upon as the sources of Christianity. Proof
of the divinity of Christ was not sought in Mohammed or the battle of
Marengo. These theological buffooneries, which by force of impudence
and eloquence extorted admiration in Notre-Dame, had no such effect
upon these serious-minded Christians.
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