Brownson: Militant Philosopher Edythe
Browne, H.
April 14, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 627 BROWNSON: MILITANT PHILOSOPHER By EDYTHE H. BROWNE ON April 17, 1926, the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Orestes A. Brownson, a mixed company will...
...In this role of spiritual soldier I introduce him to my readers...
...he charged Bancroft with arrogance in asserting his own interpretations of God...
...Brownson could not abide the pliant, acquiescent Catholic, who sips his religion and apologizes for it...
...On October 20, 1844, he was received into the Church by Bishop Fitzpatrick of Boston...
...His most important book, The American Republic, preserved this harmonious tone between the words "Catholic" and "American...
...Brownson was not an American Catholic but a Catholic American whose nationality was standardized by his religion...
...Requiem Mass was sung in Saint Anne's Church, Detroit, the first Catholic Church he had ever visited...
...Brownson was one of Christ's high-mettled soldiers...
...Religion was discussed everywhere—in post-office, stable, and timber yard...
...So it was that Brownson, the spiritual soldier, after seventy odd years of campaigning in the war of religion, became a veteran in weakening health...
...His life up to the time of his conversion was merely a sham battle...
...Humility weaned him from error but it was a humility born of conviction rather than chloroformed submission...
...His conversion quickened his fighting blood...
...During these groping years he regarded the Catholic Church as too highly spiritualized and specialized in saints...
...I dreaded . . . that which should divert my thoughts from the Deity...
...Growing tall and straight under the precise care of an old couple in Vermont, Brownson developed into the lean Protestant minister in swallow-tail coat...
...He had the challenging eye of a soldier and an arresting voice...
...Then, in the dawn of a blessed morning, this soldier, drilled for many years, slipped from his training camp...
...He still looked for God, but followed false scents...
...Now that he knew in what castle that fair lady sat enthroned he sought to vanquish her enemies that climbed like destroying vines around the castle...
...This man, who has been called "the long distance convert," was not only an iron American but a distinguished American soldier, a cadet of Christ, carving his way through the darkness, of unbelief into the light of faith and then "carrying on...
...He said: "I believe that he who can exert the most influence on our Catholic population . will exert the most influence in shaping the future destiny of the American republic...
...If a certain book bowed to the public in indecent dress he shamed the author by batting it from different angles—now as filthy in language, now as defiled in thought—until nothing was left but a torn cover...
...Because he wore Catholicity on his sleeve, as a proud soldier wears an honor stripe, he gave good example and launched the conversion of many...
...I loved night, for it seemed to shadow Him forth and give Him a local habitation...
...That ready rifle, his acute mentality, heretofore used in target practice, now hit the very centre of important issues in the real war between religion and materialism...
...Aspiring to leadership In that huge unliveried detachment of Christ's army— the Catholic laity—Brownson pressed the wrinkles out of his own uniform first before presenting himself...
...He bid foreigners at America's shore to live as good Catholics so as to become better Americans...
...But why will a Boy Scout, that pocket edition of soldiery, raise the American flag beside Brownson's bust to the stir of martial music...
...He died on Easter Monday, April 17, 1876, in Detroit, Michigan...
...As publicist and reviewer Brownson solidified American thought...
...He had just as sharp a tooth for the literary "star" as for the underling...
...Of his early communion with religion Brownson remarked: "Theology . . . engrossed my infant mind...
...As a Presbyterian he went down on his knees, prayerfully, searching for God in that church...
...and he objected to Lowell accenting morality at the wrong place in Sir Launfal...
...He reproached Hawthorne for the corrupt plot of The Scarlet Letter...
...Let us not call his death an end...
...Instead of a lodge button he wore a scapular...
...The general accepted him and the war of religion "carried on...
...Finally he splintered connections with all churches and established the Christian Union and Progress Society in Boston with the Boston Reformer as his messenger...
...Orestes warmed his hands at the religious heat that distilled vague questionings in his mind...
...He believed that every Catholic, as a living repository of truth, was bound to proclaim his distinction...
...His mind, the rifle that he learned day by day to manipulate expertly, discharged only in target practice...
...Later his body was brought to repose forever in the Brownson Memorial Chapel at Notre Dame University, Indiana...
...As a reviewer Brownson was an arbiter in the literary world of the 'sixties...
...Guns smoked...
...as militant convert to the Catholic Church he trod a warpath of his own making, fighting to discover truth, fighting to preserve truth...
...Scribes with pencils behind their ears will be there— for literary folk nodded to Brownson...
...Anxious authors watched his smile or his frown...
...William Ellery Channing, cut from Unitarian cloth, attracted Brownson to that church and in 1832 he became its pastor at Walpole, New Hampshire...
...He ran until he reached the blood-shot battlefield where the real war raged...
...He made himself a hair shirt of moral discipline for protection against poisonous philosophy...
...He loved Irish Catholics...
...Through his Quarterly Review he wielded a pen in direct, vigorous treatment of personal opinions...
...Sabres clashed...
...Strange that this sheet, which in after years was to echo the teachings of Jesus Christ, should have its early issues smirched by such a sentence as: "The priest is universally a tyrant . . . the enslaver of his brethren...
...Let us call it rather a truce, for the war of religion continues and "his soul goes marching on...
...He had fought to discover truth...
...Armies swarmed on every side...
...Why will the laurel wreath be ribboned in red, white and blue...
...The soldier rushed to where stood a general of the army of Christ...
...In 1837 he edited his own sheaf of opinions, the Boston Quarterly Review...
...Philosophers in long beards will be there—for Brownson was their pilot...
...At eight years of age he had read the Bible through...
...He soon realized that the Church did not chain reason but rather freed it from mortal moorings and wafted it to spiritual heights...
...The Catholic and Protestant clergy in sombre cloth will be there— for Brownson espoused many Christian religions for their embodying sense of spirituality, albeit he finally traced truth to her sanctuary in the Catholic Church...
...Religion spurred Brownson's mental activities...
...April 14, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 627 BROWNSON: MILITANT PHILOSOPHER By EDYTHE H. BROWNE ON April 17, 1926, the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Orestes A. Brownson, a mixed company will gather under the shadow of his bronze bust in Riverside Park...
...He lectured in New York and promoted religious discussion in the Universalist magazine, The Gospel Advocate...
...Corcoran compared Browson's rich style, clothing his massive thought, to "the mantle of gold which enwrapped the matchless Olympian Jove of Phidias...
...Until his death in 1876 he had his finger constantly on the trigger...
...Brownson's mentality was like a huge searchlight, now illuminating the dark, thorny path of controversy, now switched on himself in The Convert, and The Spirit-Rapper...
...His heart was scoured of scepticism and he no longer went about with his brow knit...
...Of his conversion Brownson has said: "The convert to the Church is the prisoner liberated from the bastile . . . the manacles fall from his hands, and the fetters from his feet...
...He continued his effort in the Universalist ministry...
...Moral courage, or rather courageous energy, was his distinguishing characteristic, for he not only dipped into the wells of religion for the star of truth at the bottom, but stirred the waters in so doing— scrutinizing accepted doctrines, exhuming error embalmed for years, rescuing himself from shackling beliefs, and performing autopsies on various religions to discover why each one had died...
...The eminent Dr...
...Brownson was that soldier, and a Catholic prelate, the general...
...In Brownson's younger days New England had curb-sermons...
...yet because he censored the weak-kneed among them he was accused of persecuting them...
Vol. 3 • April 1926 • No. 23
